Trope Series #8

Bury Your Gays

Last week's post was about death, this week's is about death and next week's is about Christmas.


So many spoilers, so little time. I can't even be bothered to check what the shows are in the links, the dates of the deaths range from 1976 to 2016.
Bury Your Gays: 109 Dead Gay and Bisexual Male TV Characters, And How They Died (Queerty)
All 166 Dead Lesbian and Bisexual Characters On TV, And How They Died (Autostraddle)

Spoilers: The 100, Cucumber

This blew up a while ago because of The 100 (that show loads of people are sick of because it kinda racist and people think that Clarke was the best bisexual or some bullshit, but excuse me it is Ananlise Keating) killing off Lexa, who was gay and sort of in a relationship with Clarke. Obviously, people have been pissed for a while because we can't have nice things, such as good LGBTQ+ representation and then said representation is killed off in often quite brutal ways. It's unnecessary.

The main problem I have with this trope is that LGBTQ+ characters are rare as it is and then they get killed off quite often. I know technically the average based on the numbers above is about 3-5 gay/lesbian/bi characters being killed off a year, but how many are there in a year? Especially well written ones who actually add to the plot?

I can let a series off for this trope if they have a larger amount of LGBTQ+ representation. It's just seen as character death then, not gay character death etc because they aren't minority in that sense.

For example, Lance Sullivan from the Cucumber/Banana/Tofu thing created by Russell T Davies, the guy who brought back Doctor Who in 2005. 95% legit guess of characters were either gay or bisexual, so his death doesn't really apply like other characters to the trope, but he was still one of the only non-white characters in the show, seriously there was like two black dudes and a black women (regulars) and everyone else was white but whatever so that goes into a completely different trope.
It's still not great, especially considering he had his skull bashed in with a gold club by a guy when they were sort of hooking up who then used the gay panic defence in court I think. Which made it a pivotal plot point in the series and not a cheap death. Which is essentially a step up.

What do you think of this trope? Do you know any characters who apply to the trope? Comment below.

Last Trope Post

Next Trope Post