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bury your gays

New Filmmakers Move Beyond “Bury Your Gays” Trope in Horror

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Queer for Fear 2

Draped in a floor-length white gown, sporting a precisely stitched jawline and blowout hairdo with that now-famous ripple of white, the Bride of Frankenstein catches her first breath of life, her eyes darting around the laboratory. The Monster descends a staircase, hand outstretched. “Friend?” he beckons. She shrieks in terror, turning away. The subtext: “Oh no, I know this man is not for me!” The Monster’s bride is “one of the most explicit queer-coded characters to exist,” says producer-director Bryan Fuller, whose four-part docuseries Queer for Fear premiered this month on Shudder. The premise of a woman rejecting what society … Read more

TV: Batwoman to Avoid “Bury Your Gays” Trope

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Batwoman - Ruby Rose

Batwoman showrunner Caroline Dries has said that they will not ill off Ruby Rose’s Kate Kane character because they are aware of the Bury Your Gays trope. “Bury Your Gays” refers to the trope in fictional stories where LGBT+ characters die or meet an unhappy ending. When Ruby Rose announced that she would not be returning for the second season of the CW series, there was some speculation that they would kill her character off – but the writers veered away from such a move to avoid falling into the much-maligned trope. “As a lesbian who’s been working as a writer for … Read more

Doctor Who Takes “Bury Your Gays” to a Whole New Level

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Doctor Who Bury Your Gays

Doctor Who may have set a TV record with the fastest “Bury Your Gays” moment ever. Fans of the hit BBC sci-fi show were thrilled when a new gay character was introduced in its New Year’s Day special “Resolution.” But the excitement didn’t last long. Because less than half a minute later, the character had his lifeless body dragged down an empty hallway. Actor Connor Calland made his TV debut playing a gay security guard named Richard. In his <30 seconds of screen time, he challenges Dalek-controlled character Lin, played by actress Charlotte Ritchie, as she attempts to break into a … Read more

ANNOUNCEMENT/GIVEAWAY: The Witch Stone, by Jasmine Hong

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The Witch Stone

QSFer Jasmine Hong has a new MM Fantasy book out: One of the unfortunate truths in life is that if someone dumps a war on your doorstep in the small hours of the morning, well, you’re kind of stuck with it. Especially if that war comes in the form of a mostly naked man and he just happens to be one of the most powerful beings in the city. And your ex. Another unfortunate truth: No matter how poorly things ended, you’re going to wind up scraping him up off the cement and dragging him in off your doorstep. And, … Read more

Queer Female Characters We Lost in 2016

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Clarke Lexa

Lesbians and bisexual women live dangerous lives – especially if they’re on TV. Producers and writers are famously keen to kill off lesbian characters, meaning their romances rarely meet a happy end. So much so it’s turned into an actual, recurring TV trope. This year has been no exception and, in true 2016 style, has brought us some of the most dramatic, but also often useless, deaths of our favorite lesbian characters. Sadly, there are too many to count, but here are 28 (fictional) women we lost this year: 1 Poussey Washington – Orange is the New Black Cause of … Read more

Burying Your Queer Women

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TV

A record number of gay characters are featured on broadcast series, but small-screen shows overall can be deadly for the female ones, according to a study released Thursday. More than 25 lesbian and bisexual female characters died on scripted broadcast, cable and streaming series this year, the media advocacy group GLAAD found in its report on small-screen diversity. While TV remains far ahead of film in gay representations, the medium “failed queer women this year” by continuing the “harmful ‘bury your gays’ trope,” the report said. The violent deaths included characters Poussey Washington (played by Samira Wiley on “Orange is … Read more

“Black Mirror” Buries “Bury Your Guys”

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black-mirror-san-junipero

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) … Read more

Dispatches from Hogwarts G.S.A.: When is queer tragedy cliché?

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Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian

We were recently drawn into pondering this question while reading Kai Ashante Wilson’s The Sorcerer of Wildeeps and looking at the book’s Goodreads reviews. One review stood out because it gushed about the book, but the reader said the tragic ending kept her from giving it five stars because (paraphrased) hasn’t gay tragedy been done enough already? Spoilers: One interpretation is that the main character Demane’s love interest dies at the end, though our take was the story left a sliver of hope he could have survived. Reviews of course are subjective, every reader is entitled to her opinion, and … Read more