Glad you enjoyed the reading recs. 🙂
I’ve too many ideas on the dead lesbian topic, so much of the fascination with it goes back decades, to 50s pulp fiction, to lesbian vampire stories and later films (probably the most responsible for romanticising the image).
In the past, the dead lesbians were villainous, predatory beings who ‘got what they deserved.’ In more recent media. starting in the 90s (when we saw the first major ‘coming out’ of well-known lesbians and gays), the imagery shifted from ‘villainous’ to ‘tragic’ characterisations, such as the lesbian founders of the fictional town of Cicely in an episode of Northern Exposure, or the heroic but ultimately tragic downfall of Xena, to the lovable and gentle Tara, victim of a stray bullet that helped push her girlfriend, the problematic anti-hero, Willow into broken villain territory.
Films like High Art with Ally Sheedy as a drug addicted photographer on a downward spiral and Lost and Delirious helped reinforce the tragic lesbian image: the troubled, lovelorn and usually misunderstood loner who cannot be with the one they love (or finds their love unrequited – another common thread).
We can make connections in real life: lesbians so often seen as something undesirable, preying on young girls, undeserving of love, on the receiving end of public violence. It’s as if media makers cannot see past this view, cannot think there are other ways to present lesbian lives.
Dramas like Chasing Amy frustrated lesbians and bisexuals with the characterisation of the allegedly lesbian (yet straight-presenting) cartoonist/writer who fell in love with a man (another common trope: the lesbian who just needs the love of a good man to see the error of her ways) and found herself ostracised by her friends and mocked by her boyfriend’s best friend (who doesn’t believe in ‘man-friendly lesbians’ there are only ‘man-hating dykes.’).
Again, we see the problematic view of straight versus our own, personal narratives that would offer a completely different take.
It’s hard to look at the romanticising of tragic lesbians without recognising that there is an element of the classic romanticising of tragic male heroes built-in. As if lesbians become a stand-in for the classic male hero who pines for a love that cannot be had and, possibly, dies in the end. There are many examples of male characters written in a similar fashion (it’s practically the history of all literature/film-making) and it speaks loudly that so many filmmakers/show runners who create a lesbian character/pairing, are straight (white) males. Instead of writing a lesbian as a lesbian, they write her as a the tragic male hero archetype.
It’s a powerful image, it is prevalent and systemic throughout all media and it is difficult to shake. We have women who write this trope. We have women writers who compose stories like Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey that romanticise abuse. Is it no coincidence that these type of stories get made into films while more direct lesbian narratives in fiction, like Malinda Lo’s Ash or Emma Donoghue’s Stir Fry do not? With the possible exception of Sarah Waters, lesbian writers do not typically see their lesbian-themed works on screen.
There is another, more uncomfortable angle of this problem (that would likely involve my doctoral thesis) that looks more broadly at women with mental illness and how they are perceived in society. Women who suffer from mental health disorders are rarely portrayed in the same light men suffering from similar issues or, say, PTSD are: how many films have been made about soldiers returning from war, behaving in violent, abusive or otherwise disturbing fashions are treated (and often rightly) with sensitivity and heroism, while women with similar issues are either non-existent or ignored.
Case in point: Willow, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
had been a somewhat insecure but brilliant and magical student who became Buffy’s ‘big gun’ when up against the hell god, Glory. She is on her way to hero-dom. Almost immediately thereafter she suffers from ‘magic addiction’ that leads her to mind-rape her girlfriend Tara, abuse her friends and, eventually, to murder. When Tara is killed, she goes on a murderous rampage that is only resolved when her (male) friend, Xander, is able to talk her out of it. She is later handed over to another male father-figure, Giles, who treats her gently, but with the kind of paternalistic heroism that deflates her considered prowess (and potential) into problematic territory where Willow becomes afraid to use her magic at all and once again becomes an insecure sidekick (albeit one with almost godlike powers).
Characters like Willow can drive home the point that no matter what do, what we are capable of, as women (and as lesbian/bisexuals), will always be secondary to our problematic emotional states that lead us down troublesome roads where a good man would really come in handy.
If there is to be a hero, someone must be rescued and, for the male-centric paradigm of our culture, that someone is preferred to be a female.
It goes hand-in-hand with my belief that a major reason we don’t see many female superhero action figures is that there is a perception that boys will not play with them. The reason we see girls dressed as male action heroes (for fun or Halloween) while boys are never seen dressed as female action heroes: women are not perceived as worthy as men for any significant social standing, least of all as cool heroes (that this perception revolves around so many young men and boys is also troubling).
For many years the programme Doctor Who teased the possibility of a female Doctor. This notion was vociferously put down by fans (largely male, but women too) and, I feel, an aspect of this is the same as written above: boys will not follow women and will not wear a woman hero’s costume, even for fun. The boys will dress up as boys and play with boy action figures, but they will not show the same respect for female figures. As marketing toward males is considered the strongest demographic, once again, women are belittled just for being women.
I know I’m writing this rather simplistically, but I feel much of this information is so broad anyway and so many citations are available almost anywhere. There are some common truths in our society: women CEOs are rare, women directors are not hired, lesbians are perceived through a male filter equating them with tragic and even mentally ill figures.
It makes programmes like The 100 so much more disappointing when, after achieving the astonishing feat of creating story lines for complex women as leaders and heroes, they begin to fall into the trap of ‘redistributing the wealth’ so that the (background) male characters may take centre stage and reaffirm their own complex hero status, usually at the expense of a female character’s development (see the troublesome nature of Clarke and Bellamy’s relationship).
We exist to be sidelined, the story seems to be and while I acknowledge that the world has made some extraordinary strides in its (evolutionary) understanding of women, on the small screen as well as globally, in real life, the formulae for success seems to point to male-centric demagoguery. Is there a more potent or disturbing example of this than, say, Donald Trump’s presidential campaign? We seem to have reached peak toxic maleness at this point.
We have made progress, though. Social media has helped open the hearts and minds of so many who would remain ignorant of the reality of female Muslims or the disabled or of transgender concerns. It doesn’t prevent backlash, of course. Trump would have Muslims banned. The disabled are so rarely seen in film or television (and when they are, they are usually portrayed by non-disabled actors). POCs are still singled out for murder by public authorities. LGBTQs are still seeking positive representation.
It is, therefore, heartening when audiences come together to complain about issues like queer baiting and lack of representation. It is heartening to see social media campaigns that call out the tokenism that is still rampant in our lives. We deserve better and we know it. We’re not settling for standard-issue formulaic drama that still promotes the hetero normative as positive while anything different is subject to trope-ish cliches. We are, rightly, demanding that the media world diversify and write better stories, not just the ones that highlight one portion of society as normal while everyone else becomes a controversial bystander.
I didn’t mean to rattle on, and hope some of this makes some kind of sense. Thanks for writing!
The Doctor Is Out 
