Tag Archives: the 100

Why Queer Character Deaths Always Matter

It might not seem like the death of any character is more monumental than any other. In fact, up until pretty recently, I thought that was the case, too. But after I noticed that all of my favorite queer characters were being killed off in the most dramatic way possible.

It’s always either AIDs, bullying/murder, or… You know… The arrow through the back of the head.

No spoilers here, but… That one actually caught me off-guard. I’m pretty sure I actually jumped because it was completely out of left field (literally and figuratively). I read up and found that it was essentially just a variation of the source material, and I was satisfied for a minute.

Which is probably what the producers were going for.

It seems like a minor difference to switch up a character who’s going to be killed off, but circumstantially, swapping a straight character’s death for a queer character’s death is adding yet another name to a long list of statistically doomed characters.

When we’re fighting as hard as we are for adequate representation, killing off the characters that embody everything we’re looking for in our queer characters: The strong, relatable ones that have more going for them than just sex and short skirts. (Not that there’s anything wrong with those characters, either, but statistically they’ll probably be killed off, too.)

Do we just feel like more gay characters die, because there aren’t as many of them?

That’s what I thought at first – after all, with only a handful of lesbians on the line-up until OITNB comes back, each one is automatically a larger portion – one out of five feels like more than five out of a hundred.

But Autostraddle did the math on this one, and it’s actually a little deeper than that.

According to them, there have been 147 lesbian and bisexual female characters who died on TV. And these are becoming more and more frequently as we have more queer female characters on television.

This is to be expected, especially when you factor in shows like The L Word where 99% of the cast plays queer female characters, or shows like American Horror Story and Scream Queens where every episode you’re basically betting on who’s going to die today.

But if those numbers still sound pretty high, they are.

According to a different list from Autostraddle, the number of queer female characters who ended up with happy endings: 29. Many of these were couples, which counts as “two characters” but only one happy ending – and, all in all, only 15 shows had happy endings for their lesbian and bisexual characters.

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A quick flip through both lists is a bit devastating, honestly. We’re definitely not saying that queer characters need to be invincible – but they shouldn’t be killed off just for a plot twist. Let their deaths have meaning.

Let us mourn their deaths, instead of just getting angry with the writers!

15 Times Tumblr Nailed Televisions Rampant Killing Of Lesbians

Three prominent lesbian characters have been killed on three beloved TV shows over the past month, and we’re upset.

So are these Tumblr fans, but they have some some seriously creative ways to respond.

Take notes, class is in session:

1. Be prepared

http://mindyquinzel.tumblr.com/post/141414422012

2. Save them now

https://www.tumblr.com/maggiegrheene/141419665267

3. Reality sucks

https://www.tumblr.com/knockfivetimes/141003996956/straight-person-i-like-to-watch-tv-shows-to-get

4. Shhhh, she’s not really gay

http://aerials-creampuff.tumblr.com/post/140914872743

5. Straight vs. gay

https://www.tumblr.com/debnamdaddy/141405946173/straight-character-gets-hit-by-car-falls-of-a

6. Top tips

http://pasteljongins.tumblr.com/post/141404780192/how-to-survive-as-a-television-character

7. Plot twist

http://aerials-creampuff.tumblr.com/post/140890051518

8. We’d be rich too

http://fearthelesbians.tumblr.com/post/141405689610

9. Predictable

http://pasteljongins.tumblr.com/post/141404970807

10. New anthem

https://www.tumblr.com/alyciaswink/141407945558/another-one-bites-the-dust

11. Will they ever listen

http://netflixdesign.tumblr.com/post/141404742676

12. Men’s man pain

http://ankleboner.tumblr.com/post/141414276411

13. Writers block

http://daddygriffin.tumblr.com/post/141452185993

14. Queerbiat

https://www.tumblr.com/ithelpstodream/141446673452

15. Walk away from the shows

https://www.tumblr.com/hellurrritsme/141448969239/opens-tumblr-dot-com-sees-that-jroth-is-being-a

The good news is that there are still several lesbian, bi, or fluid female characters on TV: Annalise on How to Get Away with Murder, Tara on The Walking Dead, and Nora and Mary Louise on The Vampire Diaries, to name a few.

TV Shows Are Still Killing Lesbians Off

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Merely weeks ago on the CW sci-fi drama The 100, Lexa (played by Fear the Walking Dead star Alycia Debnam-Carey) died shortly after consummating her relationship with series lead Clarke (Eliza Taylor).

This event sparked massive outcry from the The 100 fandom who accused the show’s writers of falling back in a well-established trope known as “Dead Lesbian Syndrome.”

Now TV land is at it again, and sadly in the latest episode of  The Walking Dead has killed off one of their two lesbian characters, Alexandria’s doctor Denise (played by Merritt Wever), who died from a nasty arrow through the eye (mid-sentence, no less) fired by returning villain Dwight (Austin Amelio).

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Sadly, this is third lesbian character to die across three different TV shows – The 100 and Jane the Virgin being the other shows – in as many months.

Fans expressed their frustration via social.

https://twitter.com/shaunagrv/status/712015446241910784

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Wever herself addressed potential backlash telling The Daily Beast:

I understand if viewers watching the show really identify with the character or like seeing themselves or some part of the world that they know is real and true and valid and prevalent represented.

And then to have that taken away, I definitely see how that would be disappointing in the broader scheme of things. I’m not sure that that’s what was going on here but I understand the sentiment very well and I am familiar with the [trope of] black characters or gay characters getting killed off because [they’re considered] less human or less real or less important and people aren’t gonna care as much. From my end, it didn’t feel like that’s what was happening though. But I certainly understand the concern in the wider culture.

But adding fuel to the fire is how the death scene plays out exactly as it does in the show’s graphic novel counterpart – the difference being the comic kills off male character Abraham (played in the series by Michael Cudlitz), not Denise.

It’s also being argued that this trope – also known as “Dead Lesbian Syndrome” – is heightened by the way in which Carl Grimes (Chandler Riggs) managed to survive a bullet to the eye in episode nine while the arrow to Denise’s eye kills her instantly.

Denise’s death now leaves her partner, Tara as the show’s sole surviving lesbian.

The show features a gay couple, Aaron (Ross Marquand) and Eric (Jordan Woods-Robinson) and while they still remain alive in the series, their relationship has never really factored into the overarching plot.

So there we have it another show, another dead Lesbian.

 

 

Fans Of ‘The 100’ Launch Successful Fundraiser After Core Character Killed Off

Warning: This article contains major spoilers for Season 3 of The 100.

A death on The 100 prompted a huge backlash against the show, but this anger has sparked a social media campaign and a fundraiser for The Trevor Project.

Lexa, played by Australian actress Alycia Debnam-Carey, was a fan favourite on the show set in a post-apocalyptic world. Her relationship with Clarke, played by Eliza Taylor, starts as a rivalry between two clans but eventually becomes romantic causing the fandom to create the ship name Clexa.

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In last week’s episode, Lexa was killed off after being hit by a stray bullet in front of her on-screen partner, Clarke. This happens mere minutes after Clarke and Lexa had sex for the first time, a culmination in several episodes of teasing their relationship.

The death caused the birth of a social media campaign with the hashtag #LGBTFansDeserveBetter trending on Twitter with more than 250,000 posts.

A more tangible effort was also made in a fundraiser for The Trevor Project, which has raised more than $43,000 of its $45,000 goal with over 1600+ donating.

The fundraiser reads;

The passion behind this collective disbelief and the sheer callousness of those involved in selectively elevating the Queer representation of its character(s) only to backtrack in the most disingenuous of manners, has left many with a feeling of emptiness and betrayal. This is not something ‘sorry’ can fix,”

There is not much we can do in the way of changing what’s already been written. What we can do however, is unite to help those who are hurting and despondent through this. We now have the means to reach a large audience, individuals who need to be heard, who need to be understood and who ask for our help,”

The 100 creator Jason Rothenberg responded to the outrage by saying he loved Lexa’s character, but she had to be written off the show.

Talking to IGN, Rothenberg explained

I adore [Lexa], I think she’s amazing, I miss her more than anybody else. I only had the use of her as an actor for seven episodes, six really. There was a date for certain at which we were going to lose her and after that it would be very difficult to arrange to see her again and that definitely played a big role in my decision to have the story go in that direction.”

Rothenberg continued that Carey’s starring role on AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead possibly affected his decision.

Were she not on another show, would I have not had this story play out? It’s hard for me to say yes or no … this is a world where, we’ve done it before, no one is safe … there are no happy endings in the sense of easy way outs.”

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Another TV Show, Another Lesbian Character Death

Warning: This article contains major spoilers for Season 3 of The 100.

Last Thursday, a major character death sent shock waves throughout the fandom for the popular CW sci-fi series The 100.

Loyal legion of fans of The 100 erupted with outrage when Lexa, Commander of the twelve clans, was killed off in a thoroughly rushed, ruthless fashion.

But while The 100 has long been known for its brutal, no-one-is-safe approach to killing off main cast members, this character’s death hit especially hard – not just for members of the fandom, but for all of us queer women too.

The 100 is a unique show, in many ways. It’s not just another teen drama, its political themes, gripping plot, complex female characters, and deep study of a post-apocalyptic survivalist future have earned it major critical acclaim and an intense fan following.

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And last season, fans were thrilled when the main character, Clarke, began to develop feelings for another young woman named Lexa.

The show was heavily praised for its representation of bisexual characters on television.

It presented this same sex relationship between two women – who are powerhouses in their own right – wonderfully, and the coupling added a complexity, depth, and importance to the plot of story.

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And this is why so many of us are shocked and dismayed when – in this milestone episode -the writers decide to tear down the foundation they’ve built and discard this romance altogether with one pull of a trigger.

The backlash over Lexa’s death is not just about the fact that The 100 killed off Lexa, but the manner of her dying. The stray bullet that killed her is eerily similar to the stray bullet that killed Buffy, the Vampire Slayer‘s Tara, famously ending one of the few recurring lesbian relationships on TV in a maelstrom of tragedy and fandom backlash.

In the annals of cinema and queer history “the dead lesbian” trope can be found it in notable film, theatre, and literature dealing with queer characters, from tragic lesbian ground breaker The Children’s Hour to many of the most famous and influential lesbian novels.

There’s an entire Tumblr devoted to chronicling the dead lesbian trope on television, which stretches back decades.

In an episode of The 100 podcast The Dropship, the episode’s writer, Javier Grillo-Marxuach, explained that the creative team had to write the character of Lexa out of the show because her actor, Alycia Debnam-Carey, had become a lead on Fear the Walking Dead:

We considered a lot of different options, including the possibility that killing her would make a political statement that we were not comfortable with.

But ultimately when you’re talking about this world and the stakes we’re dealing with, we genuinely came to the perspective in the writers’ room that this death would be the best way for us to, not only write the character out of the show, but protect ourselves against the possibility that we might never see the actor again ….

And honestly I think that in terms of the epic quality of the show … we honestly look at the story as an epic tale of shocking fate and destiny. And, you know, kings tend to not retire from being kings.”

Grillo-Marxuach acknowledged that fans would be “very unhappy” with Lexa’s death, but argued that the show’s narrative is “the struggle for love and humanity in an atavistic world that only understands conflict” and thus dictated the mode of the actor’s departure.

I can’t control or dictate how people are going to react to a character death on the show, and obviously there’s a huge spectrum of, outside the narrative bubble of the show in terms of the LGBT representation and all that, that has to be addressed.

The hope that these characters are going to find happiness and joy halfway through the series is a very poignant one, but is in no way borne out by any of the events of the show.”

So, the argument in favour of killing off Lexa is that there should be room on television for a multiplicity of portrayals of queer characters, including characters who endure tragedy.

This season, perhaps in anticipation of killing the Clarke/Lexa ship, The 100 did introduce another queer relationship in the form of the character Miller and an off-screen boyfriend, as well as another potential love interest for Clarke in the form of Niylah, a female character she’s already hooked up with once.

But as always, the pattern of Hollywood killing off lesbians and ending happy lesbian relationships is still here. Perhaps the most heartbreaking responses to Lexa’s death also underscore just how rarely happy queer female relationships appear on our screens.

Clarke and Lexa From ‘The 100’ Are Our New Favourite TV Couple

CW’s The 100 answers the hypothetical question of what would humanity do if we were wiped out by a nuclear war. The answer, naturally, is that we’d be forced to live in space on a ship called the Ark and wait until Earth finally became stable’.

Just 97 years into the journey and ‘Council’ has sent a group of 100 young criminals (who’ve been arrested for things as serious as murder or as harsh as being the second born child in your family) down to Earth to see if it’s stable, as oxygen on the ship is running out.

They’ll hit the ground, set up shop and see if it’s safe for everybody else to come down. At least, that’s the plan for smart female lead Clarke Griffin and her rag tag bunch of ‘sky people’.

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Things don’t go so well though as they’re forced to deal with the menacing Grounders (survivors of the nuclear war who feel that Clarke and co. are trespassing), Reapers (enemies of the Grounders) and the mysterious Mountain Men who are a different, dangerous force altogether.

There’s also acid dust, mutated animals and the risk of radiation. Yet amongst all this they still find time for love.

The show is racially diverse, stars a female lead and each of its characters are well written, and multidimensional (after all, they are loveable criminals), but it has been overwhelmingly heterosexual.

In the first season alone there are about five different male/female hookups or potential love lines which will probably put you to sleep.

Stick with The 100 though as after over a dozen episodes of Clarke’s men-only love life (season one has just 13 episodes), she finds love with Commander Lexa who is the leader of the Grounders, establishing themselves as one of the few lead queer romances that we see on TV.

Their kiss in the show’s most recent episode was beautiful and treated with the utmost respect – just like all of the other heterosexual love pairings we’d seen on the show. And it’s significant not just for queer fans who’ve been crossing their fingers for canon ‘Clexa’ for a while, but because Clarke is now one of the few queer female lead characters on TV.

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The only other example of a queer female lead (who isn’t just part of an ensemble where everybody is ‘sort of’ the main character e.g Pretty Little Liars) is Lost Girl, but that shows ends soon and so Clarke comes at a time where queer women need representation the most.

It’s also incredibly promising that The 100’s producer Jason Rothenberg wrote on Twitter that “In #The100, they don’t label themselves. If Clarke’s attracted to someone, gender isn’t a factor. Some things improve post-apocalypse. Clarke is a bisexual character. Remember that in this society, no one’s worried about it. They’re worried about spears to the chest.”

So the budding Clexa romance has support from the people who make it and massive support from the fans and we can’t wait to see where The 100 takes their romance next.

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