final draft
How has the representation of LGBT+
through tropes developed within the past decade?
“Representation is so important to LGBT+
people…” (Ellis,
2018) the representation of the LGBT+
community has come through tropes, which can be good, but it can also be bad,
which is going to be talked about within the essay, LGBT+ tropes such like;
bury your gays, queerbaiting, armoured closet gay, X-rated
queerness and rape and switch. Which
theses tropes are commonly used within tv and film, tropes is a certain
theme or cliché, that film makers put into their films or tv programs to push
it to a certain audience, but it is sometimes not a good representation,
especially with the example tropes already giving.
“Bury your gays” (TV Tropes, 2020) this is one of the most devastating tropes that is
going to be mentioned because it is such bad representation for the LGBT+
community because it doesn’t give the LGBT+ character a happy ending and it
kills them without an explanation, “This trope is the presentation of deaths
of LGBT characters” (TV
Tropes, 2020) because this leads
to “where LGBT characters are killed off disproportionately often and/or
without justification.,” (TV Tropes, 2020) which in the year 2016 it became a massive issue within the
LGBT+ community because of Lexa from The 100 (figure 1) which started a massive
campaign because she was such an impactful character and she was killed because
of a stray bullet which was aimed at the one she had a romantic scene prior to
the shooting, which is a big thing with the bury your gays trope, which is
another example Tarra from buffy the vampire slayer, she was also shot with a
stray bullet which was in front of her partner willow, which then caused her to
go dark and these two deaths are one of the worst deaths within the LGBT+
community today and with so many more behind them making this trope one of the
worst ones representing LGBT+ community, however I could name so many more that
falls under this category such like Sarah from van helsing, root from person of
interest, delphine from orphan black.
Which this trope isn’t the best representation and neither
is this next one because it causes harm to those who are gay “armoured closet gay” (Ellis, 2020) this is another bad representation for the LGBT+ community
because this trope is designated to show the negative side of being gay because
this in particular trope shows a gay character being picked on by another gay
character, because usually we see gay men characters as feminine but with this
trope the gay characters come of as aggressive, tough and macho to hide who
they really are, so they take it out on the ones who are out and feminine, a
great example is David Karofsky and Kurt Hummel {from glee}, which Kurt is out
and proud to be gay but because Karofsky is an armoured closet gay he lashes
out at Kurt by bullying him to the point where he leaves school and then they
eventually have a moment where Kurt realises Karofsky is gay and then straight
after this Karofsky is back to his own ways until someone else finds out he is
gay to which he leaves the school with also help from Kurt, this is one of the
saddest armoured closet gay trope scenario because in the end Karofsky tries to
kill himself because of his new school finding out and bullying him to the
limit. There is also another great example which Ian and Mickey Milkovich which
in this situation the armoured closet gay is Mickey, he shows of being macho
and aggressive but hiding his relationship with Ian, to up hold his image of a
thug, but when a character walks in on them having sex he losses it and ends up beating a cop and getting sent to
jail which, “he’d rather do more time
in jail than come out of the closet.” (Armoured Closet
Gay - TV Tropes, 2020), even though it is commonly known with
gay men they have been female characters that have been titled this such like
Naomi from skins, and Cheryl blossom from Riverdale to which they both try and
push away the one person who is either openly gay or still in the closet but is
less violent, and they also try to convince every one that they are straight
but with the other characters having their input they seem to break their walls
down really easily for example Toni with Cheryl they have a few bad points but
soon as Cheryl is having a bad point she broke her walls down because Toni was
there to help her through and she was the first person that Cheryl came out to
after watching the LGBT+ film love Simon, but also one other that is big in
this category from the female prospective is Santana Lopez from Glee, yet she
is the top girl, cheerleader, and acts like a bitch all the time, is purely
because she is hiding the fact she is gay and fins it easier to be with anyone
other then the one she wants to be with because she feels its easier to be
classed as “…the school slut rather
than the school dyke.” (Armoured Closet Gay - TV Tropes, 2020).
Not only is this bad representation but also the trope
“X-Rated queerness” which is where films that include an LGBT+
storyline are mostly X-Rated because it is queer, and that can simply be
because they are holding hands to even hugging or kissing. Which films without
LGBT+ storylines that may include hand holding or kissing aren't necessarily given
an X-rating because it shows a heterosexual relationship, and which
this infuriates so many LGBT+ people because it isn’t fair that
just because the characters are gay they shouldn’t be giving an X-Rating just
for kissing or holding hands, films are more known to go with this trope for
example the 2013 film G.B.F was given a r rating in the us because it was a gay
film, which in this film there is no nudity or talking about sex, but all that
happens is two men kissing or holding hands nothing too drastic of actually
having sex or talking about it which the director said “I always thought of G.B.F. as a PG-13 movie, we were given
an R ‘For Sexual References’ while not having a single F-bomb, hint of nudity
or violence in the film. Perhaps the ratings box should more accurately read
‘For Homosexual References’ or ‘Too Many Scenes of Gay Teens Kissing. (Busis, 2020).
Theses next few tropes are a few of the nicer ones because
they are not about death or queerbaiting or giving any harm to a queer
character, the LGBT+ fanbase, this trope is sometimes intentional and
sometimes unintentional, this is made by the creators to either gain the LGBT+
community as the audience either the programme or film having an LGBT+
character or not, to which some tv shows have especially created a character to
appeal to the audience to try and keep them which is sometimes a massive
successes for example in once upon a time, there is no LGBT+ characters until
season three because they have gathered a huge LGBT+ fan base because it is a
female impowered tv show but because they gave the majority of the show
heterosexual relationships, they didn’t want to lose the majority of the
audience so they added a LGBT+ character but it didn’t last long and it again
didn’t go down well with the LGBT+ fan base so they added another LGBT+
storyline instead of rushing it like they did with the first one, and they even
listen to the audience because if there isn’t a LGBT+ character they make one
and they also give the relationship that the character deserves, but also they
go off by staying away from certain tropes such like the writes of Wynonna Earp
had said that they want to stay away from the “bury your gays” trope, which
they did so well, because after the death of lexa the LGBT+ community went
against the writes of that show so, the creators of Wynonna Earp gave the LGBT+
community what they wanted they had Nicole get shot after her girlfriend come
out to her sister by saying she loves her to which the audience is put on the
edge of their seats to which they find out that she was wearing a bullet proof
vest and that she was going to be fine and then they do it again but still
keeping them on their toes she is once again saved to which Emily Andras had
said "All I see right now on social
media is kids who are seeing themselves on television getting killed," (Dibdin, 2020) which she also said “If you live in a small town where you're already struggling
to come out, or see yourself represented, that can do a lot of damage.” (Dibdin, 2020) to which this shows that she is against
bad representation and she is here to create great LGBT+ representation which
she is currently doing in her tv show Wynonna Earp she also believes that in
the future there is going to be a time in the media that there is a number of
gay heroes that they are gay villains which Andras says , “I hope we get to the point where we have enough [gay]
heroes, that we can also have amazing gay villain” (Dibdin, 2020) which she shows that she wants great
representation for the LGBT+ community because she knows there isn’t much today
which is all pretty bad.
To conclude this essay, there is much more tropes to go with
the lgbt community which is bad representation, such like rape and switch or
you can’t play yourself, however there is some good ones such like the LGBT+
fanbase or the otp (which is common with the lgbt community) but there seems to
be way more bad representation then there is good however there is today more
tv programmes with lgbt storylines or even them taking the leading role such
like DC’s batwoman having the main character a lesbian and also having the l
word come back 10 years after it first come out for the new generation of the
lgbt community which has great and was great representation for its time and
neighbours had its first lesbian kiss on live tv which was phenomenal for its
programme, and yes there is many films that have representation such like the
perfection on Netflix and birds of prey and also love Simon which is great for
the teenage generation to which they get to see themselves having a
relationships and being understood which going back to my opening quote is why
representation is so important to them because they may have it but having good
representation is a whole new level to come across because there is so much but
it is mostly bad representation.
Dibdin, E., 2020. TV Writers Need to Stop Killing Off Their Gay
Characters. [online] Marie Claire. Available at:
<https://www.marieclaire.com/culture/news/a28685/gay-lesbian-character-deaths-tv/>
[Accessed 2 April 2020].
Busis, H., 2020. 'G.B.F.' Director Blames 'R' Rating on MPAA's
Gay Double-Standard. [online] EW.com. Available at:
<https://ew.com/article/2013/12/20/gbf-mpaa-r-rating-gay/> [Accessed 2
April 2020].
Vinke, E. (2020). Why
Queerbaiting in Films and On TV Really Needs to Stop. [online] Her Campus. Available at: https://www.hercampus.com/school/aberdeen/why-queerbaiting-films-and-tv-really-needs-stop [Accessed 21 Sep. 2018].
Ellis, R., 2018. Gays
React to Queerbaiting
Feat. Calum Mcswiggan. [video] Available at: <https://youtu.be/BriGs6CLWB8>
[Accessed 8 November 2018].
TV Tropes. 2020. Armoured Closet Gay - TV Tropes. [online]
Available at: <https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArmouredClosetGay>
[Accessed 1 April 2020].
Gallagher, B., 2020. Ewan McGregor and Chris Messina tease that their
Birds of Prey villains Black Mask and Victor Zsasz are 'probably gay'. the
daily mirror, [online] Available at:
<https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-7936363/Ewan-McGregor-Chris-Messina-tease-Birds-Prey-villains-probably-gay.html>
[Accessed 2 April 2020].
(figure 1) Ogles, J. (2020). 18 Unforgivable Deaths of LGBT TV Characters. [online] Advocate.com. Available at:
https://www.advocate.com/television/2016/7/12/18-unforgivable-deaths-lgbt-tv-
How has the representation of LGBT+
through tropes developed within the past decade?
“Representation is so important to LGBT+
people…” (Ellis,
2018) the representation of the LGBT+
community has come through tropes, which can be good, but it can also be bad,
which is going to be talked about within the essay, LGBT+ tropes such like;
bury your gays, queerbaiting, armoured closet gay, X-rated
queerness and rape and switch. Which
theses tropes are commonly used within tv and film, tropes is a certain
theme or cliché, that film makers put into their films or tv programs to push
it to a certain audience, but it is sometimes not a good representation,
especially with the example tropes already giving.
“Bury your gays” (TV Tropes, 2020) this is one of the most devastating tropes that is
going to be mentioned because it is such bad representation for the LGBT+
community because it doesn’t give the LGBT+ character a happy ending and it
kills them without an explanation, “This trope is the presentation of deaths
of LGBT characters” (TV
Tropes, 2020) because this leads
to “where LGBT characters are killed off disproportionately often and/or
without justification.,” (TV Tropes, 2020) which in the year 2016 it became a massive issue within the
LGBT+ community because of Lexa from The 100 (figure 1) which started a massive
campaign because she was such an impactful character and she was killed because
of a stray bullet which was aimed at the one she had a romantic scene prior to
the shooting, which is a big thing with the bury your gays trope, which is
another example Tarra from buffy the vampire slayer, she was also shot with a
stray bullet which was in front of her partner willow, which then caused her to
go dark and these two deaths are one of the worst deaths within the LGBT+
community today and with so many more behind them making this trope one of the
worst ones representing LGBT+ community, however I could name so many more that
falls under this category such like Sarah from van helsing, root from person of
interest, delphine from orphan black.
Which this trope isn’t the best representation and neither
is this next one because it causes harm to those who are gay “armoured closet gay” (Ellis, 2020) this is another bad representation for the LGBT+ community
because this trope is designated to show the negative side of being gay because
this in particular trope shows a gay character being picked on by another gay
character, because usually we see gay men characters as feminine but with this
trope the gay characters come of as aggressive, tough and macho to hide who
they really are, so they take it out on the ones who are out and feminine, a
great example is David Karofsky and Kurt Hummel {from glee}, which Kurt is out
and proud to be gay but because Karofsky is an armoured closet gay he lashes
out at Kurt by bullying him to the point where he leaves school and then they
eventually have a moment where Kurt realises Karofsky is gay and then straight
after this Karofsky is back to his own ways until someone else finds out he is
gay to which he leaves the school with also help from Kurt, this is one of the
saddest armoured closet gay trope scenario because in the end Karofsky tries to
kill himself because of his new school finding out and bullying him to the
limit. There is also another great example which Ian and Mickey Milkovich which
in this situation the armoured closet gay is Mickey, he shows of being macho
and aggressive but hiding his relationship with Ian, to up hold his image of a
thug, but when a character walks in on them having sex he losses it and ends up beating a cop and getting sent to
jail which, “he’d rather do more time
in jail than come out of the closet.” (Armoured Closet
Gay - TV Tropes, 2020), even though it is commonly known with
gay men they have been female characters that have been titled this such like
Naomi from skins, and Cheryl blossom from Riverdale to which they both try and
push away the one person who is either openly gay or still in the closet but is
less violent, and they also try to convince every one that they are straight
but with the other characters having their input they seem to break their walls
down really easily for example Toni with Cheryl they have a few bad points but
soon as Cheryl is having a bad point she broke her walls down because Toni was
there to help her through and she was the first person that Cheryl came out to
after watching the LGBT+ film love Simon, but also one other that is big in
this category from the female prospective is Santana Lopez from Glee, yet she
is the top girl, cheerleader, and acts like a bitch all the time, is purely
because she is hiding the fact she is gay and fins it easier to be with anyone
other then the one she wants to be with because she feels its easier to be
classed as “…the school slut rather
than the school dyke.” (Armoured Closet Gay - TV Tropes, 2020).
Even though the first two tropes that has been mentioned
this next one has a big effect on the LGBT+ community especially to those who
are fans of the tv shows to which this happens to, Queer baiting is created to
get a certain audience to watch the programme want because there isn’t much of
representation for the LGBT+ community within the programme so they make something
up to real them in such like a fake kiss in the trailer or the director or
actors saying that these two certain characters kiss and when they go to watch
the episode it doesn’t happen, so when this happens its hard hitting just like
“Bury your gays” because it is giving them hope or leading them on to something
that won’t happen, even though there is a few of this happening in tv
shows now such like betty and veronica from Riverdale, eve and villanelle from
killing eve and Kara Danvers and Lena Luthor from Supergirl, and stiles and Derek
from teen wolf it is also really common in films, such like “Valkyrie in Thor: Ragnarok” (Vinke, 2020) Albus Dumbledore “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald” (Vinke, 2020) lately people are saying that queer baiting has evolved into
being promised something from directors or even the cast and not actually
getting what they said was going to happen, such like, Ewan McGregor and Chris Messina tease that their Birds of
Prey villains Black Mask and Victor Zsasz are 'probably gay’ (Gallagher, 2020) ,which equals to queerbaiting, which isn't a great
way of representing the LGBT+ community because it gives them false hope for
representation.
Not only is this bad representation but also the trope
“X-Rated queerness” which is where films that include an LGBT+
storyline are mostly X-Rated because it is queer, and that can simply be
because they are holding hands to even hugging or kissing. Which films without
LGBT+ storylines that may include hand holding or kissing aren't necessarily given
an X-rating because it shows a heterosexual relationship, and which
this infuriates so many LGBT+ people because it isn’t fair that
just because the characters are gay they shouldn’t be giving an X-Rating just
for kissing or holding hands, films are more known to go with this trope for
example the 2013 film G.B.F was given a r rating in the us because it was a gay
film, which in this film there is no nudity or talking about sex, but all that
happens is two men kissing or holding hands nothing too drastic of actually
having sex or talking about it which the director said “I always thought of G.B.F. as a PG-13 movie, we were given
an R ‘For Sexual References’ while not having a single F-bomb, hint of nudity
or violence in the film. Perhaps the ratings box should more accurately read
‘For Homosexual References’ or ‘Too Many Scenes of Gay Teens Kissing. (Busis, 2020).
Theses next few tropes are a few of the nicer ones because
they are not about death or queerbaiting or giving any harm to a queer
character, the LGBT+ fanbase, this trope is sometimes intentional and
sometimes unintentional, this is made by the creators to either gain the LGBT+
community as the audience either the programme or film having an LGBT+
character or not, to which some tv shows have especially created a character to
appeal to the audience to try and keep them which is sometimes a massive
successes for example in once upon a time, there is no LGBT+ characters until
season three because they have gathered a huge LGBT+ fan base because it is a
female impowered tv show but because they gave the majority of the show
heterosexual relationships, they didn’t want to lose the majority of the
audience so they added a LGBT+ character but it didn’t last long and it again
didn’t go down well with the LGBT+ fan base so they added another LGBT+
storyline instead of rushing it like they did with the first one, and they even
listen to the audience because if there isn’t a LGBT+ character they make one
and they also give the relationship that the character deserves, but also they
go off by staying away from certain tropes such like the writes of Wynonna Earp
had said that they want to stay away from the “bury your gays” trope, which
they did so well, because after the death of lexa the LGBT+ community went
against the writes of that show so, the creators of Wynonna Earp gave the LGBT+
community what they wanted they had Nicole get shot after her girlfriend come
out to her sister by saying she loves her to which the audience is put on the
edge of their seats to which they find out that she was wearing a bullet proof
vest and that she was going to be fine and then they do it again but still
keeping them on their toes she is once again saved to which Emily Andras had
said "All I see right now on social
media is kids who are seeing themselves on television getting killed," (Dibdin, 2020) which she also said “If you live in a small town where you're already struggling
to come out, or see yourself represented, that can do a lot of damage.” (Dibdin, 2020) to which this shows that she is against
bad representation and she is here to create great LGBT+ representation which
she is currently doing in her tv show Wynonna Earp she also believes that in
the future there is going to be a time in the media that there is a number of
gay heroes that they are gay villains which Andras says , “I hope we get to the point where we have enough [gay]
heroes, that we can also have amazing gay villain” (Dibdin, 2020) which she shows that she wants great
representation for the LGBT+ community because she knows there isn’t much today
which is all pretty bad.
To conclude this essay, there is much more tropes to go with
the lgbt community which is bad representation, such like rape and switch or
you can’t play yourself, however there is some good ones such like the LGBT+
fanbase or the otp (which is common with the lgbt community) but there seems to
be way more bad representation then there is good however there is today more
tv programmes with lgbt storylines or even them taking the leading role such
like DC’s batwoman having the main character a lesbian and also having the l
word come back 10 years after it first come out for the new generation of the
lgbt community which has great and was great representation for its time and
neighbours had its first lesbian kiss on live tv which was phenomenal for its
programme, and yes there is many films that have representation such like the
perfection on Netflix and birds of prey and also love Simon which is great for
the teenage generation to which they get to see themselves having a
relationships and being understood which going back to my opening quote is why
representation is so important to them because they may have it but having good
representation is a whole new level to come across because there is so much but
it is mostly bad representation.
Bibliography
Dibdin, E., 2020. TV Writers Need to Stop Killing Off Their Gay
Characters. [online] Marie Claire. Available at:
<https://www.marieclaire.com/culture/news/a28685/gay-lesbian-character-deaths-tv/>
[Accessed 2 April 2020].
Busis, H., 2020. 'G.B.F.' Director Blames 'R' Rating on MPAA's
Gay Double-Standard. [online] EW.com. Available at:
<https://ew.com/article/2013/12/20/gbf-mpaa-r-rating-gay/> [Accessed 2
April 2020].
Vinke, E. (2020). Why
Queerbaiting in Films and On TV Really Needs to Stop. [online] Her Campus. Available at: https://www.hercampus.com/school/aberdeen/why-queerbaiting-films-and-tv-really-needs-stop [Accessed 21 Sep. 2018].
Ellis, R., 2018. Gays
React to Queerbaiting
Feat. Calum Mcswiggan. [video] Available at: <https://youtu.be/BriGs6CLWB8>
[Accessed 8 November 2018].
TV Tropes. 2020. Armoured Closet Gay - TV Tropes. [online]
Available at: <https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArmouredClosetGay>
[Accessed 1 April 2020].
Gallagher, B., 2020. Ewan McGregor and Chris Messina tease that their
Birds of Prey villains Black Mask and Victor Zsasz are 'probably gay'. the
daily mirror, [online] Available at:
<https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-7936363/Ewan-McGregor-Chris-Messina-tease-Birds-Prey-villains-probably-gay.html>
[Accessed 2 April 2020].
(figure 1) Ogles, J. (2020). 18 Unforgivable Deaths of LGBT TV Characters. [online] Advocate.com. Available at:
https://www.advocate.com/television/2016/7/12/18-unforgivable-deaths-lgbt-tv-
characters#slide-1 [Accessed 6 Mar. 2020].
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