If you identify as being anything other than straight, you know that living life under the rainbow flag can be difficult. From canceling your gym membership because it’s become a depressing graveyard of Grindr hookups, to strangers revealing that between their legs dangles the Excalibur of schlongs, primed to magically turn any lesbian back into a peen-loving heterosexual, life comes with its own unique set of downsides. Oh, and then there’s the whole being verbally or physically assaulted and occasionally fearing for your life thing.
All this being said though, at least us real-life LGBTQ’ers aren’t (for the most part) currently living out our lives on-screen. Ever since members of the LGBTQ community have been represented on television and in the movies, there’s been an alarming habit for having them killed off, a trope infamously known as ‘Bury Your Gays.’ Likewise, hopes of happiness, of discovering inner peace and of forming lasting romantic relationships are also, hopelessly doomed.
This is why Black Mirror’s fourth Episode, ‘San Junipero’ is so important. Taking this narrative stereotype and essentially turning it on its head, Charlie Brooker has given the LGBTQ community and their supporters alike a rare and special gift which emphatically proclaims from the highest rooftops that love is love regardless of orientation, age, time and space.
By Elle McFarlane – Full Story at Movie Pilot