Television has a troublesome habit: gifting us with great lesbian representation, complex and relatable fictional queer women, only to almost tauntingly kill them off in a horrendously predictable and mundane way. The lesbian characters are treated as expendable. Useful for the kick they give to the audience when their arc ends after hours of complex character development. For queer viewers, it’s incredibly disappointing. Especially as comparatively, these fictional women have depth and relatability you can’t extract from the hyperbolically idealistic tropes of women we’re given in shows designed solely for the male gaze. These queer women possess individuality and have elaborate character development, so it’s natural for audiences to become attached. Yet their narratives are severed almost instantly after they’re shown. Why is it now normalised for show writers to give the best queer characters such a short life span? It’s not just illogical, it’s insulting. Are we supposed to believe that being lesbian inherently comes with a short life span in fiction?
Shows love to indulge the audience in the most endearing queer love story, which brings both characters absolute happiness after their troubled fictional lives. So naturally, after all that, they just have to die in a horrific murder sequence. It seems like being lesbian and watching television nowadays is to watch yourself get killed every episode. Personally, the emotional turmoil of praying that your favourite queer character doesn’t die isn’t quite enough to be classed as representation in my eyes. Heightened by the decreased representation, it’s simply depressing to not be able to watch queer people thrive in a show if they all just die.
It’s moderately depressing to think about the reasons for this; however, it’s mainly attributed to the lethal combination of misogyny and lesbophobia, many argue. Sadly, if you’re fictional, being both queer and a woman is the nail in the coffin, and doubly bad if you’re a character in a specifically lesbian show. Each cancellation acts as another blow to the fragile category of queer media. Coupled with the frightening rise in conservative media dominating almost every platform, it seems like queer romance stories have been diminished to a marketing tool, rather than a source of true representation. Seemingly, these shows are ‘valiantly’ displayed during Pride month, but are axed the second they no longer have the rainbow capitalism marketing appeal, a very disappointing trope many companies are adopting.
It’s exactly for this reason that we should be showcasing queer love and its successes. We need to see women thriving independently of men, but not independently of happiness. It’s frustrating that shows that centre lesbian romances rarely survive, often being axed for not catering to heteronormative standards. Ironically, that’s the point, but it doesn’t seem to matter. The media nowadays is more concerned with popularity and marketability than with exploring important storylines.
Let’s stop reducing queer stories to cynical marketing tools and let the lesbian characters live long enough to explore the futures they deserve, not just the tragedy they’re fated to have. This tragic lesbian death trope isn’t just overdone; it’s rather harmful. What kind of message are we portraying if all queer women are doomed to die and their relationships are cursed in fiction? It’s incredibly reductive and uninspired: only reflecting the broader cultural failure to acknowledge queer women as beyond their narrative of suffering.
There can be love beyond tragedy, and I think it’s time for some investment so we can explore that.