LGBTQ+ Representation on TV and the Importance of it to Young Adults

Daniela Kangnissoukpe

Dissertation submitted as part requirement for the Masters of Arts in Film Studies

at University of Kent

August 2018

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 LGBTQ+ Representation on TV and the Importance of it to Young Adults

Daniela Kangnissoukpe

Dissertation submitted as part requirement for the Master of Arts in Film Studies at

University of Kent

August 2018

Word count: 15106

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Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation is to analyse how LGBTQ+ people are

represented in TV shows. The dissertation will be drawing from the occurrences that

happened following a character death in the tv show The 100. Following the airing of the

episode featuring the death there was a considerable outrage, which snowballed into the

tv industry, sparking various practices in tv and elsewhere to change. This event had a

sizeable impact on my choice of this particular topic. There have been hundreds of

LGBTQ+ character deaths in tv, and when that amount is proportioned to the amount of

dead heterosexual characters the ratio is imbalanced. Non-heterosexuals make up around

less than 5% (2016) of character on tv, and most of them die or do not get a happy

ending. Tv shows frequently fall for the same tropes, even if the shows are hailed to be

‘ground-breaking’ and ‘different’ in their representation. Often the gay character will either

die or live a miserable life alone. The tropes are enhanced by accompanying plot devices;

for example, the death happens after sex, which can be read as a punishment for

intimacy. There is a right way to kill a LGBTQ+ character, but if the death or misery is

directly linked to their sexuality it becomes problematic. I would like to explore these

tropes, how prevalent they actually are, possible reasons why this happens. I will talk

about how there is a wrong way of handling the topic in tv and why the same mistakes

seem to happen again and again. I will touch on how the treatment of LGBTQ+ people in

tv has a very damaging effect on the perception of gay people, and especially how young

adult fans, who belong to the LGBTQ+, perceive themselves. I will concentrate on

lesbians and bisexual women, as they have been the most likely to be killed off recently,

but the issue also applies to gay men and especially transgender people.
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Table of Contents

Introduction………………………………………………………………………..5

Literature…………………………………………………………………………...11

The problems of representation in TV shows……………………………….19

Queerbaiting……………………………………………………………………….26

Young people and why ‘gay’ fandoms matter……………………………….32

Representation of trans people…………………………………………………39

Good representation on TV and why it matters…………………………......43

Reference List……………………………………………………………………...47

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………54

Appendix: Tumblr survey demographics………………………………………56

Appendix II: Survey answers used in text……………………………………..57

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Introduction

In The 100 (2014-), a post-apocalyptic dystopian television show, where a group

of 100 children, the descendants of those who survived on earth’s ageing space station,

are sent back to the surface to find if it is livable again. They discover tribes of other

survivors living on the planet. One of their leaders is Lexa, of the tree tribe. Lexa and

Clarke, the leader of the children, are initially hostile towards each other, but soon

circumstances force them to form an alliance, in order to fight off a common enemy

together. It seems there is nothing more to it than this political acquaintance, but slowly a

more personal kind of relationship starts to emerge. At first it is platonic, but soon they

share a kiss and other feelings start growing. Their relationship goes through similar

stages that can be seen in many on-screen relationships; they have ‘drama’ and a

heartbreaking split that is later rekindled. After a major disagreement and several volatile

moments between the two larger groups, during which Lexa’s people killed off many of

Clarke’s, the two must meet again. Lexa, very unlike her strong, powerful nature, bows

down to Clarke, swearing fealty, and vowing to “treat your needs as my own and your

people as my people.” Previously, she had bowed to no one, because she is the leader,

but she bows to Clarke to show that she is important, and her love is real (even though

previously she swore love is weakness). The relationship starts to mend, and they grow

close again. The pinnacle of this exchange is reached as the two girls kiss again. The

scene is full of emotion and very intimate and leads them into bed. It seems like finally the

two of them can live happily together, but not everyone likes their relationship and sees it

as a threat. Lexa’s mentor tries to shoot Clarke, but the bullet accidentally hits Lexa, and

she dies.

What made this relationship special is that it, despite it being a queer relationship

between two girls, they were treated the same way as any heterosexual relationship on

TV; their romantic interaction itself was the focal plot point, not the queerness of it.

However, their relationship suffered the same ending as most same-sex relationships

have on TV, a tragic one. The queerness was not focal, but it was important. Since it has

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been so rare for a non-heterosexual couple to get the same treatment as all the ‘normal’

couples on TV, for it to be ripped away immediately, just as the couple was allowed to fully

embrace their love, makes the death feels additionally tragic. The relationship was hyped

by the TV channel, the creators and writers; and that gave hope that it would be a

revolutionary relationship that the viewer would not usually see. The creator of the show,

Jason Rothenberg (2016) wrote on twitter that “Lexa knows that without Clarke, she

would’ve been unceremoniously killed and replaced.” And a writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach

(2016) tweeted “if you are looking for a series that isn't merely awesome but also has a

truly progressive approach to LGBTQ relationships, try #the100!” Twitter flooded with

these kinds of tweets to make sure that the audience realise that the relationship is

important and real. The show did not play into the tropes of tragic and sad same-sex

stories that many other shows used. On the day when the episode aired where they killed

off the character, Rothenberg (2016) tweeted that “If u can only watch 1 episode live this

season, this is it!” Fans were excited to see if that would be the episode where the

relationship would grow to the next level. The episode seemed to deliver all the hopes and

dreams that the fans had voiced throughout the characters relationship, but the writers

made a fatal error: Lexa being shot at the end of the episode by the stray bullet. Overall it

was not surprising, but disappointing, as death is a common trope that is used in gay, and

especially lesbian, relationships in TV.

The 100 is just a recent example of the treatment of same-sex relationships on

TV. I use it as an example because it caused a considerably large uproar from the fans

and especially the LGBTQ+ community who watched the show. Representation of

LGBTQ+ people on TV shows has been an ongoing topic for years now, and the death

and mistreatment of LGBTQ+ characters have, unfortunately, become the norm in media

representation. What usually happens is that, following sex or deep romance, a character

will die, or something tragic will happen to them. This phenomenon is referred to as the

“Bury Your Gays” -trope; Which is explained on the TV Tropes (nd) website as often gay

characters just aren't allowed happy endings. Even if they do end up having some kind of

relationship, at least one half of the couple must die at the end, TV Tropes (nd) continues
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explaining that “the problem isn't merely that gay characters are killed off: the problem is

the tendency that gay characters are killed off in a story full of mostly straight characters,

or when the characters are killed off because they are gay.” In addition to ‘Bury Your

Gays’, there is a trope called ‘Dead Lesbian Syndrome’, referring to all the lesbian

characters that have been killed on TV – it is very common that lesbians and bisexual

women are killed off. Riese (2016) made a list of all the lesbian and bisexual women killed

on TV in Autostraddle, which is an online magazine aimed at queer women, where they

have listed 198 deaths, some added after 2016. Some of the deaths have been justified

but most of them have not and it might seem like the number is low compared to straight

characters that have died but Hogan (2016) has counted in Autostraddle how many

lesbians or bisexual women have been on TV and between 1976 and 2016 it was 383

which means half of them has died. The president of GLAAD (formerly known as the Gay

and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) Sarah Kate Ellis wrote in their 2017 yearly

report that:

25 lesbian and bisexual female-identifying characters have died on scripted

broadcast and cable television and streaming series since the beginning of 2016.

Most of these deaths served no other purpose than to further the narrative of a

more central (and often straight, cisgender) character.

GLAAD (2017: p.3)

People belonging to these communities do not feel like there is enough representation,

and mainly heterosexual people, feel that there is enough, or in some cases even too

much and that it should not be included in every show. Delcid (2018) says that quite often

the defense is that showing gay people on TV and films will affect the children and even

teens and make them gay. Sizer (2017) writes that it is because forcing the ‘gay agenda’

to straight people, quoting someone from twitter who said that “in no way am I

homophobic, but I really think y’all are trying to force this LGBT shit in everybody lifestyle”

which is a common comment about LGBTQ+ topics and characters. According to a study

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that has been completed by Doan, Loehr and Miller (2014) straight people are still rather

uncomfortable with public displays of love between LGBTQ+ people, which would explain

why it is an ongoing battle of not wanting to see them on TV. I believe it is worthwhile to

examine what kind of representation there is; how LGBTQ+ people are portrayed, how

many characters there are, and whether representation itself is enough, or are there

standards that need to be met before it can be deemed good representation. Petrich and

Fejes (1993: p.396) explain that in contrast to most marginalised groups, like women and

minorities, LGBTQ+ youth and young adults have little or no help in understanding or

defining themselves as LGBTQ+, which means that media representation is crucial to

these groups.

My argument is that even though there is some representation, it is not good

enough, especially when it can easily be deemed problematic. As Lucas and Riley (2006:

p.21) write, “media has tremendous power to affect the ways people think and behave”, so

representation matters a great deal, both in how LGBTQ+ people regard themselves, and

how people perceive LGBTQ+ people. I have chosen to look at American TV shows

because they are the most mainstream in the western world and are consumed the most

internationally; which means they play a large role in what kind of representation is

existent. In addition to examining the representation, my goal is to establish how

representation matters to young adults, who consume popular culture. Lucas and Riley

(2006: p.22) citing Gross (1991) say that individuals usually ‘come out’ around

adolescence, and that because there might be a lack of first-hand contact with others who

are LGBTQ+, youths who are beginning to formulate their identity as gay, lesbian,

bisexual or other are “more likely than other individuals, including other minorities, to turn

to the mass media for information about how they should present themselves.” I aim to

gain an understanding of people who have gone past adolescence, who have already had

the experience of trying to find that representation as teens and have acquired an

understanding of what might be good representation, or what works for them on TV.

Young adults are the biggest group of people who seek good representation, in order to

understand themselves and the world. So, for LGBTQ+ young adults it is important to see
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themselves represented in a good light in order for them to understand that their feelings

and thoughts, if non-heterosexual, are okay and valid. In this examination I have focused

on young adults between 18 and 25 years old, conducting an informal survey on

Tumblr.com. I put out a general question of whether anyone would be interested in

answering a few questions regarding my dissertation topic, and I received replies from

many people who wanted to participate. I chose participants by their age; all of the people

who answered were part of the LGBTQ+ community. Most of the answers came from

people identifying either lesbian or transgender. I asked how LGBTQ+ representation on

TV has affected the responder, if it has been negative or positive for their mental health

for example, and if there are any specific shows that made the responder feel particularly

good or particularly bad in any way. In an additional question I asked what the responders’

opinion was about ‘queerbaiting’, that Brennan (2016: p.1) describes as “…a tactic

whereby media producers suggest homoerotic subtext between characters in popular

television that is never intended to be actualised on screen.”

There were about 50 answers, with some overlapping themes between the responders

which I will be referring to alongside my other findings.

At first, I will be exploring already existing literary on queer theory, and that which

has been written about TV shows and representation previously. I will be using these in

my own analysis to figure out what kind of problems there are in representation in TV

shows and why it is important to research this subject. I will be discussing specific

problems in representation, such as how something that might be deemed positive might

actually be damaging. It must be noted that there has been much progress over the years;

the problems of depictions of LGBTQ+ people start from the beginning of film and TV,

when The Production Code had a massive impact on what was allowed to show on

screen. I will talk about where the new attitudes started, looking at LGBTQ+ characters

before 2010 going back to the 90’s, and how those characters were not necessarily

positive influences but had a positive impact on what kind of snowball started rolling

towards having more representation. I will draw from earlier shows and talk about the

differences between them and contemporary examples. After this I will try to explain
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queerbaiting, what it means, how it is used by TV shows for their gain as a marketing ploy,

and how it is trying to indicate representation without actually giving it. Then I continue to

talk about ‘gay’ fandoms and young adults; how all of this affects them and their wellbeing

as well as the importance of representation in figuring themselves out. The internet has

offered a safe place for unrestricted LGBTQ+ interaction, which mostly revolve around

discussions about TV shows and characters from those shows. I will also make notice of

how transgender people are portrayed and what kind of impact that has, because it is

somewhat different from the other representation and has a more crucial impact on how

transgender people are treated in real life. One show I will focus on with some importance

is The 100. It had a noticeable impact on what representation has been post-2016, but it

also revealed what kind of tactics TV creators use to get as many demographics of

viewers as possible. I will conclude by writing about the most positive, ground-breaking

kind of representations that have been rising in the past two years. Why it is significantly

different from previous representation and why it is important and can impact lives and

views on LGBTQ+ people positively.

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Literature review

In my research for earlier studies on LGBTQ+ representation and queer theory, I

have put a lot of my focus on Richard Dyer, and what he has written about the topic. He

has an extensive bibliography on studying minorities, and especially homosexuality, on

both the big and small screens, and his research has proved vital for my own research of

the topic. Dyers book, Matter of Images (1993), which is a collection of his essays,

revealed itself to be the one of the most pivotal book out of these four that I have

researched. He starts the book by talking about what representation is, and what are the

particular instances with the cultural representation of social groupings. It is an:

‘images of’ analysis of the kind that has burgeoned in the past twenty years,

starting with work on women and black people, spreading to other marginalised

or oppressed groups, such as ethnic minorities, lesbians and gay men, the

disabled and the aged, and now beginning, with studies on men, to encompass

dominant or majority groups.

Dyer (1993: p.1)

Which he states had a completely political motive to write. Dyer in many of his

books draws attention to representation and stereotyping of minorities, he writes on the

same page that “the representation of women and other oppressed groups was, and by

and large still is, a relentless parade of insults.” He mostly concentrates on homosexuals

more male than female in his essays, how their portrayals are treated in cultural

representation, and how that affects the way they are treated in life; “poverty, harassment,

self-hate and discrimination [..] are shored up and instituted by representation.” (Dyer

1993: p.1)

Dyer (1993: p.2) also makes a point of how “representations are presentations,

always and necessarily entailing the use of the codes and conventions of the available

cultural forms of presentation” continuing about how these forms are restricting, and how

they shape “what can be said by and/or about any aspect of reality in a given place in a

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given society at a given time”. Dyer notes that even though this seems like a limitation, it

is also the thing that gives the possibility to say anything at all. The forms set in the

cultures set the terms of limitation and possibility for how particular things can be

represented and presented. We must understand how possibilities are affected by

limitations, so we can understand why things get represented and presented the way they

do. About designations of groups, Dyer says:

Negative designations of a group have negative consequences for the lives of

members of that grouping, and identifying with that grouping, however much it

doesn’t ‘get’ all of what one is personally or all of what everyone in that

grouping is, none the less enables one to try to change the circumstances of

that socially constructed grouping.

Dyer (1993: p.3)

What Dyer is trying say with this theory is that problematic, generalising representation of

a particular grouping, a community, can affect the lives of members, no matter what these

individuals in the group are or how they present themselves. The consequences for

individual people from problematic presentation are real and very prominent. Dyer (1993:

p.3) explains how reality is more extensive and complicated than any system of

representation can possibly comprehend; it can never get reality which is why human

history has produced so many different and changing ways of trying to get it. He is really

delving deep into representation and continues saying that the complex, shifting business

of re-presenting, reworking, recombining representations is in tension with the reality to

which representations refer and which they affect. There is no such thing as unmediated

access to reality. But because one can see reality only through representation, it does not

follow that one does not see reality at all.

Richard Dyer has a chapter on stereotypes in the same book and he describes

well what I also talk about in depth in my own research and looking at stereotypes is a

crucial part of it. He explains what stereotypes are, how they manifest, and how. He uses

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Walter Lippman’s more sociological notion of what stereotypes are but also refers to

several other key figures’ texts throughout his chapter. He wants to introduce Lippman’s

aesthetic into any consideration of media representations. Dyer (1993: p.11) cites

Lippman’s work already in the beginning and states how we can understand stereotypes

by applying Lippman’s ideas into it; stereotypes as (I) an ordering process, (II) a ‘short

cut’, (III) referring to ‘the world’, and (IV) expressing ‘our’ values and beliefs. Lippman’s

research is based around alcoholism, but Dyer relates it to the stereotyping of gays and

lesbians mainly. Dyer (1993: p.11) writes that the word stereotype “is today almost always

a term of abuse” which stems from how minorities are portrayed stereotypically in mass

media and in everyday speech. In my research I encountered many ways LGBTQ+

people are still portrayed very stereotypically. Even after years and years the same

stereotypes hold place even though there is an even more strong will to get those

representations changed to a more novelistic type – as Dyer (1993: p.12) says about a

character who is defined by a multiplicity of traits that are not immediately revealed and

create more layers to a character. This is the opposite side of a stereotypic character. The

book is clear and easily accessible which makes it understandable and the information is

packed to a tight set of essays. He does cover a wide range of issues which might make it

lack some depth, but the book is very useful for learning about politics of representation.

The next book I have used in my research is also by Richard Dyer. It is called

Now you see it (2003) and he has written the new edition of it with Rachel Pidduck. The

book brings light to different films in their lesbian/gay contexts. They bring attention to the

fact that most of the representation are made by men which indicate a lack of knowledge

on female subjects and sexualities. They write (2003: p.2) that there is “next to no

representation of non-white, non-Northern/Western people”, this unfortunately is still

something to improve in. He does draw in the fact that he is about to write as a man about

lesbians and their experiences. The book brings light to the fact that:

It matters that lesbians and gay men speak for themselves (in this case in the

medium of film) that homosexuality is openly and directly represented, and that

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 lesbians and gay men have films that speak both on their behalf and also to

them, recognising them as an audience.

Dyer and Pidduck (2003: p.6)

The book does recognise pretty vastly what are the problems in representations,

especially with people of colour that are not heterosexual. They (2003: p.204) talk about

politics, and how the society as a whole is not actually represented if there is not

gay/lesbian characters on the screen. They write that the society has to be grasped by its

totality, oppression should never be seen as an expression of the whole way the society is

structured, and they continue by saying that film is a political tool and a vehicle of power

and can be used as a tool to change things towards good or bad. It is added (2003: p.293)

that the mainstream cultures capacity to reach across different context and broader

audiences is something that should be used as an advantage to show more LGBTQ+

characters. The book talks very in depth about films and directors, but as in its entirety it

does not necessarily bringing any new theory to the debate, but it gives several examples

of different ways that the LGBTQ+ community has tried to fight the mainstream media to

get representation. There is a deep analysis of types and traditions and sexual subculture

of the films. The book has been divided to two parts. The first part is films before the

1980’s and is the part that Dyer himself has written, the second part of the book is film

after the 80’s and it has been written by Pidduck. The book only concentrates on the

underground and sub-culture scene of LGBTQ+ representational films, but it was an

important part of creating the identity of the movement for better representation. Richard

Dyer has been doing research on the topic for several years and was amongst the first

people to have been writing about representation.

Another academic, Patricia White, focuses her attention on Hollywood films of the

classic era. She looks how the films have constructed lesbian desire, as well as the

conditions of representability, in her book Uninvited: classical Hollywood cinema and

lesbian representability (1999). In her own words (1999: p.xii) the book “traces elusive

representations of lesbian desire and difference in films of Production Code

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Administration-era Hollywood.” She continues by making a note of the importance of

researching past behaviour, which can offer possibilities on how lesbians view media in

the present. She analyses the way in which stars, costuming, reception, source material,

and how composition and aspects of performance more generally may indicate traces of a

lesbian presence that the narratives seem to exclude. Patricia White gives a very good

account of the Production Code and how it affected the representation of lesbians in

Hollywood film over the history of it in her book. The book concentrates on lesbians

because there is a specific way in which women were targeted as an audience, but also

how Production Code did not necessarily include lesbians in its forbidden “sex

perversion”, and thus rendering lesbianism invisible, and something to find between the

lines. She draws from feminist and queer theories in her work, as well as cultural studies

of classical cinema. White (1999: p.xviii) explores the “discursive results of censorship and

how the representational paradigm of lesbian contagion can be read into the Code-era

Hollywood films when gender inversion was not representable.” Her research gives a very

understandable account of what was the goal of the Code in relation to sexual minorities,

not just lesbians, even though that is her main subject. White (1999: p.xvii) explains that

“the prohibitions managed by the production code administration could not eliminate all

lesbian ‘interference’”. The book also explains how to look for subtext and why to look for

subtext, because many times the homosexual tendencies were hid by the creator of the

films. She does use Freud and Foucault in her research; she (1999: p.1) expands from

their notion of what is actively prohibited can nevertheless be inferred from its discursive

effects. White writes about films but gives an understanding that reaches the television

productions too. She argues (1999: pp.1-2) that the Code’s prohibition of subjects

generated visual and narrative codes that contribute to what is recognised as a lesbian

identity today, as did the cinema as an institution itself. The book is very insightful on what

it is about it; has not forced psychoanalysis into her research, it fits the exploration, and is

vital because she draws many of her examples from feminist and queer theory, which are

very much linked to psychoanalysis.

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 The Celluloid Closet (1987) is a book by Vito Russo (1987: p.xi) he himself

describes his book as an “exploration of gay characters in American film”. Russo (1987:

p.4-5) writes about how Homosexuality has always been seen in terms of what is and

what is not masculine, and how gayness has always been rooted in sexism. He very much

goes through how men, if not masculine enough, can be seen as ‘sissies’, and from that

as homosexuals; and that lesbianism has always vanished behind the male vision of sex

in general, as has female sexuality too. Russo goes through the years of invisibility, when

the Motion Picture Production Code forbid all the depictions of homosexuality on screen,

and that for the better part of the time before the book was released LGBTQ+ had been

hidden from the screen. He talks about the same things as Richard Dyer and Patricia

White which indicates that he has had some influence on their work, though it must be

said that even though The Celluloid Closet is seen as one of the first important works in

gay representation, Richard Dyer’s Gays and Film came out in 1977, talking about the

same things as Russo discusses in his book. Russo draws attention to the fact that in

USA the idea of masculinity and what is ‘manly’ was very different to Europe. He (1987:

pp.16-17) writes that “American men are portrayed as much more valuable and certainly

more virile than the dandies of Europe who are weak and helpless” because Europeans

were seen as more feminine, so the issue in USA more than in Europe was the

connection between feminine behaviour and inferiority. European cinema was much more

attuned towards depicting gay men or lesbians on the screen. He also goes through how

homosexuality was allowed to be depicted in films, and how after this there was still

problems of accepting it as part of something that belonged to the screen; that it lead to

more harmful portrayals in the 1970’s. Russo (1987: pp.184-185) writes that in spite of the

dramatic and increasingly vocal visibility of gays, because of the gay rights movement, did

not affect how Hollywood portrayed them as stereotypes, but that the representation did

increase because it was a new market for Hollywood to get revenue. Russo is generally

writing about how the existence of LGBTQ+ people was ignored or then portrayed as sad,

uninterested or possibly psychotic. Negative stereotypes were created by media not just

reinforced by them. The book is very politically charged, but the documentary about the
16
book made in 1996 is more enjoyable and less attacking, which does not mean it is better;

but most likely is easier for people to get a grasp of what Russo wanted to get across. It

also addresses the fact that portrayals of LGBTQ+ people have become better. “We have

cooperated for a very long time in the maintenance of our own invisibility. And now the

party is over” (Russo, 1987; p.xii).

These earlier works have put a priority to the representation of minorities and

how they perceive themselves and how they are perceived in television, film and real life.

Because of the nature of the research I have done it was important to find something that

speaks about the things that I will write about. It seemed obvious to use Richard Dyer

because he has written so extensively about sexualities and their representation and how

that representation affects real life people. His books here do not concentrate only on

sexuality but also on race and other aspects than just representation. He has given all the

tools to understand the topic further. Patricia White’s text had a thorough research about

how fans (in this case women) read text and how the Production Code affected that.

Some of her words can also be applied to other parts of the LGBTQ+ community’s

relationship to media, be it films or television, and has explained the importance of subtext

and its meaning. She does say that some subtext is not in the imagination but

purposefully there and is meant to be read as a portrayal of LGBTQ+ people. Her account

has helped in the way I have understood how fans interpret things they see, be it subtext

or main text. Her text also implicated that even when the Production Code had been

abolished some things were, and still are, very much a taboo, or there is at least

reluctance to show same sex relationships on screen. Those subtext storylines, that

sometimes can be read as queerbaiting, sometimes exist to draw in audience of certain

kind which then can be mistakenly interpreted as representation when in fact it might not

be. Understanding the earlier history of LGBTQ+ representation is important and explains

many things in how representation works nowadays. The Celluloid Closet is an iconic

piece of work from Vito Russo, it is at the core of exploration on gay characters on film.

His work also has more variety on telling how the censorship of the Hollywood Production

Code affected the depiction of LGBTQ+ characters, because it does not limit itself only to
17
one sexuality like White’s book does. Vito Russo co-founded GLAAD which I have used

as an important source in the research. Dyers books and The Celluloid Closet are a mix of

understanding different sexualities and their depiction and representation on the screen,

big and small. White instead concentrates on lesbians, only sometimes referencing to

other sexualities or groups of people, and so researching all these has given me a quite

broad idea of the whole spectrum of representation in real life and on screen. The content

of the books that mainly talk about film can easily be related to television too, because it

works similarly, though perhaps more progressive in its nature. Only in recent years there

have been an uproar for better representation and getting rid of harmful stereotypes.

Doing research on earlier LGBTQ+ representation gives an understanding that things

actually are better now, but because of the amount of representation it should not always

end up being harmful and very stereotypical as the depictions were decades ago.

LGBTQ+ characters have always been there, but representation has multiplied a lot in the

last couple of decades. Still in some cases the quality of the characters has not been

made better despite the increase. It has only happened in recent years when there has

been a will to provide better content that does not end in tragedy or where the characters

do not live in misery. Being LGBTQ+ is more acceptable to society and media creators,

especially on TV, and there is more will to include a bigger variety of characters than just

the one token gay, because the reception from the audience is not as volatile, it is

becoming normal like it should. These books I have researched go through the history of

LGBTQ+ in films and the politics behind them, and it must be noted they have paved a

way for the new era of starting to reach the goal of equality on screen. The will has been

there, but in this age of equality it is vocalised better, and there are better examples of

variety of characters that meet the criteria that has been set.

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The problems of representation in TV shows

“Sex perversion or any inference to it is forbidden,” stated the Motion Picture

Production Code, which by studio consensus governed Hollywood film production from

1930 through 1968 (White, 1999: p.1). Homosexuality was not to be shown on films, and

even any connotations to homosexuality was forbidden by the Code. The Production

Code took every film considered for U.S. and international release to close scrutiny. It had

a big impact on why the representation was lacking, but also on how Hollywood still

behaves towards LGBTQ+ topics. It is easier to find representation in independent films

and TV shows than mainstream productions, because they have to appeal to different

demographics. Since The Production Code was inflicted the main representation in film

and television has been the white heterosexual character, who aspires to achieve the

‘American dream’, where, in Russo’s words (1987: p.62), the gays and lesbians have

never had a place in. Russo also writes about the Production Code, and he says (1987:

p.26) that because in 1915 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that films were not covered by

the first amendment guarantee of free speech, it was easy to censorship films. Most of the

time being LGBTQ+ has been invisible on films and TV since the enlistment of the Code.

The atmosphere was more relaxed before the Code but during it and even after it,

representation has been something that is hard to find, or it is a depiction of stereotypes

and harmful tropes. Dyer and Pidduck (2003: p.1) explain, “there have been hundreds of

films with homosexual characters in them and hundreds of lesbians and gay men have

worked before and behind the film camera, but there have been very few films made by

lesbians and gay men with lesbian and gay subject-matter.” There was an emergence of

underground queer cinema because material for representation had to be made by the

LGBTQ+ people themselves, because the portrayals were not necessarily in mainstream

media. In their book they have said (2003: p.266) that now we are in the day of

‘hypervisibility’, which means that we are now at a point where it is becoming a permanent

19
part of mainstream culture, the problem might not be the lack of representation but the

substance of it. They continue by saying that:

There is a shift where the underground or independent films started to wear out

and the community wanted to be included in mainstream media, many lesbian

viewers have long craved the retelling of familiar stories to accommodate

lesbian desire, courtship and sexuality.

Dyer and Pidduck (2003: pp.284-286)

This applies to other sexualities too and as Dyer and Pidduck (2003: p.287) say after all,

aren't queer audiences entitled to the very same mediocrity that straight people have always

enjoyed? Which takes me to the representation on the era of ‘hypervisibilty.’

There have been a lot of LGBTQ+ characters on TV before, but some of the best

remembered are from the time between the 90’s and 2010. Shows like Xena: The Warrior

Princess (1995-2001) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) and The L Word (2004-

2009) had a big lesbian fan following. Queer as Folk UK (1999-2000), Queer as Folk US

(2000-2005) and Will & Grace (1998-2006, 2017-) were very much in favour with gay

men. All these shows had some problematic portrayals of LGBTQ+ characters, but at that

time it was something big to have such a huge representation on display. It must be said

that in Xena the relationship was not in fact ever made romantic, but the fandom saw

Xena and Gabrielle as a romantic couple and hold the show in cult status. The writers left

the relationship deliberately ambiguous and the level of their meaning to each other is in

subtext. Buffy the Vampire Slayer had a sexually ambiguous character, Willow, in a

relationship with another woman, Tara, but that relationship ended up with a stray bullet

that killed Tara and turned Willow evil. It was a very natural evolution for the character to

fall in love with a woman, but in the end the show played all the tropes that we have come

to know more of after several years. The stray bullet is a common cause of lesbian

women dying on TV, but then having a character belonging to the LGBTQ+ community in

a drama/fantasy show was a pioneering moment for Joss Whedon, the creator of the

20
show. The L Word on the other hand was specifically made to depict the lives of lesbian

and bisexual women, it also included other sexual minorities. And in McFadden’s (2014:

p.1) words The L Word was “Showtime’s most popular show for its first three seasons” so

it was not only popular with the LGBTQ+ communities, but also reached a larger,

mainstream viewership. McFadden (2014: p.43) also explains that “the show uses a

variety of reflexive devices to teach viewers to be much more critical spectators of mass-

media representations of lesbians.” It serves the writers political concern with exposing

the history of misrepresentations of lesbians, and was a completely new way of showing

representation, but it was not without problematic portrayals of those women. Many times,

bisexuality was shown as a phase or something that was not good compared to being a

lesbian, and also the morals of the characters were very low. One problem was that, even

thought they were all women, the show had the classical masculine-feminine binary, and

the more masculine characters did get away with things (as is usual for ‘male’ characters),

and then the more feminine characters were treated as women are usually treated on TV.

McFadden (2014: p.2) Stuart Hall (1992) has argued that if popular culture is a central site

for the struggle to establish cultural meanings, then The L Word is important because it

has had an enormous impact on the conversation about what it means to be a lesbian,

and on questions of lesbian visibility and representation in a highly mediated and

heteronormative world. As for gay men, what seemed to have a good representation were

the both versions of Queer as Folk, they were very popular and were one of the first

shows to have a majority of the characters be gay. What has received more critical

examination as a show is the USA version and not the UK original. These shows were

slightly different from the lesbian centred The L Word because the political goals were not

the same. The USA version did have more female characters in it. Evans (2007: p.4) tells

that Queer as Folk is the first one-hour drama in Showtime, specifically featuring young

adult gays and lesbians. “The show centres on the professional and personal lives of five

gay men (one a gay teenager) and two lesbians who are raising a child.” The characters

in them did fall heavily to the tropes that have persisted throughout time and was many

times overtly sexual. Evans (2007: p.9) writes also that it was the show that featured the
21
highest number of gay characters. It had gay men actively participating in promiscuous

sex, heavy drugs and constant nightlife. Of course, this is not untypical behaviour, and the

show is not supposed to portray every type of a LGBTQ+ character, but this fell to the

most used type of a gay man. Will & Grace had the same problem with their gay men, but

also Will & Grace is a sitcom which is a very constrained genre. It plays to stereotypes;

Will seems like a straight man and is rarely seen dating or within a same-sex relationship,

he mostly hangs out with his best friend Grace. Then there is Jack, Will’s over the top,

effeminate and flamboyant best friend who is the comic relief of the show, because he is

the stereotype. Will & Grace has been rebooted in 2017 and they write the show very

differently now. It is still funny and very much the same, but it has become political and not

just a show about an ‘asexual’ gay man and his stereotypical gay friend. Tony Kushner’s

TV miniseries Angels in America (2003) introduces a community of LGBTQ people,

specifically gay men, and situates their stories within the everyday. In addition to this, the

show brings to the forefront the AIDS crisis that plagued the 1980’s which is a major part

of LGBTQ history. As Chris Parkes (2017) explains in his article “Angels in America is

more relevant than ever: minorities are never safe” for The Guardian, Angels in America

“recalls a darker time for LGBT people – gay men in particular – that reminds us of the

progress we’ve made since the 1980s”. However, the story remonstrates with us for

feeling complacency about how the LGBTQ+ rights are in the western world now. Parkes

adds that, “contrary to popular belief, the history of public attitudes toward LGBT people is

not a heartwarming tale of progress”. Angels in America as a series is an important

reminder of the issues of the past as well as the ongoing struggles of the LGBTQ+

community. The show challenges heteronormativity by foregrounding and sharing varied

stories of gay men and their lives, and through this, brings power to and through the

LGBTQ community. The L Word, Queer as Folk had also varying portrayals of LGBTQ+

people in them, and they were more multifaceted than just usual stereotypes of the

community similarly to Angels in America. Richard Dyer (1993: p.14) cites Orrin E. Klapp

(1962) and his distinction between stereotypes and social types in his book Heroes,

Villains and Fools; Klapp defines social types as representations of those who ‘belong’ to
22
society. “They are the kinds of people that one expects, and is led to expect, to find in

one’s society, whereas stereotypes are those who do not belong, who are outside of one’s

society.” So, Queer as Folk and The L Word really made representation the number one

matter and tried to normalise LGBTQ+ and make them belong to society. Most shows do

fall into stereotypes or tropes, and Dyer has explained how stereotypes get created:

The character is constructed through the use of a few immediately recognizable

and defining traits, which do not change or ‘develop’ through the course of the

narrative and which point to general, recurrent features of the human world.

Dyer (1993: p.13)

As mentioned before, the opposite of the stereotype is a novelistic character who is:

Defined by a multiplicity of traits that are only gradually revealed to us through

the course of the narrative, a narrative which is hinged on the growth or

development of the character and is thus centered upon the latter in her or his

unique individuality.

Dyer (1993: p.13)

One show that had probably the most impact for LGBTQ+ people was Ellen (1994-1998),

and specifically the coming out episodes called The Puppy episode I&II. It was an

enormous success, getting high ratings, and became a cultural phenomenon. However, its

popularity and immediate impact was curtailed due to the fact that the show was cancelled

quite fast after these episodes, because it was considered too gay, and Ellen DeGeneres

was shunned from media and Hollywood. The reaction to her coming out truly revealed

why it was important to bring attention to LGBTQ+ community and culture, because it was

still seen as something that was not supposed to be talked about. Ellen DeGeneres

herself (2017) in her 20th anniversary celebration of the episode video says that it was a

very controversial move to come out on national television because no one knew what

23
kind of repercussions it might have, but it that it needed to be done to show that it is okay

to be gay. She (2017) continues by saying that she lost everything and had to start all

over after the reveal. Of course, she then started her own talk show and is now very

successful, but it reveals that even at the end of the 1990’s it was a subject that was not

necessarily well received, and it was still controversial. There are more aspirations

towards the goal of novelistic characters every year, and there are good examples of them

throughout the years, mainly after beginning of the 2010’s. Patricia White (1999: p.xxii)

writes that many times “asexual” characters are as close as Hollywood gets in the

classical film era – in this context asexual means a character not able to present their

sexuality because it was forbidden. Her explanation did hold true for a long time, to get

representation that was explicitly gay in mainstream media the LGBTQ+ community had

to take what was given, because of deprived representation, these shows I have

mentioned were something to be celebrated, because it had been rare to see themselves

represented in television; but these shows were somewhat problematic too. Of course,

year after year the quantity and quality of representation gets better, and always in

criticism it is good to look back and see how much progress has been made, but it is

always a goal to aspire for better.

There were several TV shows in the contemporary period that had representation

of LGBTQ+ people before The 100, for example Modern Family (2009-), Orange is the

New Black (2013-) or Glee (2009-2015). For some reason however, The 100 really

affected the community in a way that had not happened before, especially lesbians and

bisexual women (even though the show also has other gay characters). After they killed

the character, the online outrage was immense and the creator of the show, Jason

Rothenberg, did write an open letter titled "The Life and Death of Lexa" three weeks after

the episode aired, about how they handled things poorly, acknowledging that Lexa’s death

immediately after a love scene has angered and saddened people.

The thinking behind having the ultimate tragedy follow the ultimate joy was to

heighten the drama and underscore the universal fragility of life. But the end
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 result became something else entirely — the perpetuation of the disturbing “Bury

Your Gays” trope. Our aggressive promotion of the episode, and of this

relationship, only fueled a feeling of betrayal. […] Despite my reasons, I still

write and produce television for the real world where negative and hurtful tropes

exist. And I am very sorry for not recognizing this as fully as I should have.

Knowing everything I know now; Lexa’s death would have played out differently.

Rothenberg (2016)

He also admitted that he did not think about what kind of impact the actions in the show will

have on LGBTQ+ youth, who already face discrimination and who often suffer from

depression and commit suicide at higher rate than their straight peers. This apology was

not taken for granted, because the fans were thinking that they had been baited with the

whole relationship, and especially with the episode in question. Richard Dyer (1993: p.1)

says that “how social groups are treated in cultural representation is part and parcel of how

they are treated in life, that poverty, harassment, self-hate and discrimination are shored up

and instituted by representation.” This explains why representation is important to LGBTQ+

people and why it is important to ask for more and better depictions in media.

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Queerbaiting

Brennan (2016: p.1), as stated in the introduction, defines ‘queerbaiting’ as a fan-

conceived term that describes a tactic where “media producers suggest homoerotic

subtext between characters in popular television that is never intended to be actualised on

screen.” It has negative connotations and is not looked upon well, especially by the

LGBTQ+ community and allies. Queerbating is often masked as representation when in

reality it is not; it is mainly used as a marketing ploy in an attempt to gain more viewers for

the TV shows practicing queerbating. Many suggest that it should not always be seen as

harmful and problematic, as does Brennan (2016: p.2), when he writes that “rather than

being conceptualised in terms of the ‘representational harm’ caused by queerbaiting

tactics, we should instead consider the queer readings made possible by homosexual

subtext.” However, between LGBTQ+ fans it is mostly seen as something that is hurtful

and offensive but also harmful. Queerbaiting not only deprives the LGBTQ+ community

from the representation they keep wishing for (in vain), in the hopes of having role models

to look up to and see themselves in, but it also enforces things such as stereotypes. It is

not clear when the word ‘queerbating’ was used for the first time, but the concept itself

features heavily in the TV show Supernatural (2005-). Supernatural is a TV show about

two brothers who hunt and fight demons and other supernatural forces. Upon viewing,

there is clearly a lot of subtext between the main character Dean Winchester and a friend

of the brothers, a male angel called Castiel. The story arch for Castiel was supposed to be

only three episodes long, but as the creator and then show-runner Eric Kripke (2008) says

in a commentary track for season 4 episode 3, the actor, Misha Collins, was so

phenomenal and had such a great chemistry with the cast, he was promoted to a series

regular. By this great chemistry Kripke mostly meant Jensen Ackles, who plays the role of

Dean Winchester. The characters of Dean and Castiel have great understanding of the

chemistry between the characters, but also how the story plays out; Castiel saves Dean

from Hell as their first meeting. He gives up his status as an angel to help Dean save the

world and dies in the process and is resurrected after that. The show will start its 14th

26
season soon and Castiel and Dean have experienced a wide range of moments together;

death, betrayal, coming back together. In addition to all these grand scenes that play a

great part in the overarching story arc, Dean even says to Castiel in season 7 episode 23,

“I’d rather have you, cursed or not”, almost as if he is confessing his unconditional love to

Castiel. The relationship follows the common tropes of they will/they will not dynamic

which is used for a lot for straight couples on TV shows too, the difference however is that

these straight relationships are usually explicitly acknowledged and confirmed romantic, or

have the characters end up together. What makes the queerbait apparent is the fact that

the creators and actors in the show have hinted a romantic relationship and even

advertise the show in a manner as if the relationship could happen. Misha Collins (2012),

who was interviewed by Maureen Ryan to The Huffington Post, said:

The scripts that I’ve seen so far have been dealing very much with that

relationship between Dean and Castiel. Whether that’s going to be the most

significant or a very significant thread throughout the season, I’m not sure, but

my speculation is that yes, it will be fairly important.

Collins (2012)

In another interview with Laura Prudom also to The Huffington Post, Collins (2013) says

that “show-runner Jeremy Carver gave a note to us — I guess it was a note to Cas, to me

— that I was “acting like a jilted lover” with Dean, so there you go.” This can be read as a

clear sign of deliberate queerbating from Carver’s part; writing the script and advising his

actors to play out their parts like “lovers” is no accident.

Rizzoli & Isles (2010-2016) can be considered equivalent to Supernatural when it

comes to queerbaiting, only with the main characters being female. Natasia Langfelder

(2016) describes the show in her article “Let’s End Queerbating in 2016” by saying,

“Rizzoli & Isles is generally held up as the most egregious example of lesbian

queerbaiting in modern television.” Rizzoli & Isles is a detective show concentrating on

best friends Jane Rizzoli and Dr. Maura Isles examining murder cases together, the first of

27
the women being a detective and the latter a medical examiner. Rizzoli & Isles played a

lot with the main characters’ relationship, giving the viewers of the show glimpses of what

could be, but never took the (seemingly more than) friendship all the way. Part of the

criticism of the show has been about some of the creators and the actors of the show

admitting to the queerbating, for example Angie Harmon (2013), who plays Jane Rizzoli in

the show, said in an interview for TV Guide (ironically titled “Girlfriends Forever”),

“Sometimes we'll do a take for that demo … I’ll brush by [Maura's] blouse or maybe linger

for a moment. As long as we're not being accused of being homophobic, which is not in

any way true and completely infuriating, I'm OK with it.” For Rizzoli & Isles fans what

Harmon described was very familiar throughout the running of the show. Moments like

them embracing each other in series two, episode three (2011), giving each other clear

physical, flirtatious signals and telling the third character in the scene (a man, Maura, is

trying to drive away, but in the end of the scene flirts with anyway), “Jane and I are… best

friends. Like, more than BFF’s, we’re… LLBFF’s. [Exactly.] We are… Life Long… Best

Friends… Forever. Get it?” and the scene is ended with a wink. This is only one example

of hundreds if not thousands on the show. It must be admitted that Rizzoli & Isles

succeeded relatively well in one thing, which was a good portrayal of female friendships.

Unfortunately, that fact does often end up shadowed a lot by the queerbating criticism.

Writers and TV networks try to draw attention of the LGBTQ+ audience with

hints, jokes, gestures and symbolism that indicate the possibility of a same-sex

relationship and then when asked about it, deny that there is anything to be seen and shut

down the possibility of it. This has happened several times with both of the above-

mentioned shows, but also many others where the fans have seen a possibility of a

flourishing relationship between two characters of the same sex. Meyer (2013: p.483, 490)

argues that those who see queerly view themselves as more enlightened than regular

viewers, which makes them vigilant about the tactics that the entertainment industry might

be using on them in regards to recognizing queerbaiting and not falling for it so the

industry cannot capitalise on their resistance, with television producers and even actors

both acknowledging queer readings, while also labelling such readings as a ‘“crazy”
28
interpretation’ as if indicating that wanting validity and more than subtext is somehow

wrong when the askers are LGBTQ+ identifying people. Sasha Alexander (2013) who

plays Dr. Maura Isles in Rizzoli & Isles said in the before mentioned TV Guide interview

when asked about the ‘gayness’ of the show, "There's nothing gay about them," she says.

"What's gay? That Jane has a raspy voice?” after which Angie Harmon went on to admit

what she did about gestures they do with the characters to play to the LGBTQ+

demographic. This kind of response that Alexander and Harmon both had is typical when

it comes to queerbaiting enquires; the kind of nonchalance combined with even

confessions of queer baiting happening.

Queerbaiting is not a new way of marketing TV or film. Patricia White (1999: p.2)

explains that “Hollywood’s conscious, varied, and inventive attempts to represent and

appeal to female subjectivity and desire, particularly through the production of ‘women’s

pictures’.” Which was not queerbaiting necessarily as it is now but as a recognition that

women have an appeal to other women on screen and that can be exploited and used as

a way to make profit and keep women as consumers “sexualized spectacles, and

domestic subjects within a patriarchal, white-dominant, culturally imperialist nation” (White

1999: p.3). The entertainment offered women the chance to stretch the boundaries

between heterosexual and homoerotic desires that the deviant feminities in the films

offered to them. This is how it often works nowadays too and in this case is targeted

towards LGBTQ+ audiences as a queerbaiting tactic, keeping the audience and

continuing to profit from them. Kohnen (2008: 210) examines ‘a viewing culture that fans

describe as “HoYay!”’ Kohnen traces the term’s origin to 2001 and the website Television

Without Pity, and defines it as ‘the strong, or as most fans put it, undeniable, homoerotic

aspect of the relationship’ between central male characters in certain texts.” HoYay! is

supposed to be the positive version of queerbaiting where it is to be celebrated that the

TV creators have the courage to put homoerotic subtext in their shows and not make it

strictly heterosexual.

Quite often when there is talk about queerbaiting or in general people wishing for

LGBTQ+ representation the argument against it is that “it is a family show”, which
29
demonises and indicates that same-sex relationships and characters identifying as

LGBTQ+ are not valid and children should not be influenced by such ‘abnormalities’,

prioritising straight viewers. Brennan (2016: p.3) cites Sheehan (2015) who aligns

queerbaiting with ‘the invalidation of queer identities’ and argues that ‘even if writers have

good intentions, queer-baiting is harmful to members of the queer community’. Patricia

White (1999: p.3) cites Dyer (1992) who explains that “formulating a position common to

many cultural critics, mass culture must address real wishes and desires, real

contradictions, even if the solutions it offers are individualised or ineffable or commercial –

this is the utopian dimension.” This is what the LGBTQ+ community really wishes for from

representation and treatment in TV and other media. Queerbaiting teases them with the

possibility of this happening, but with many of the shows the truth is that it will never

happen. This can also be related to the show The 100, because even when the show did

actually have that representation, since they revealed the relationship between the two

female characters, they have targeted the LGBTQ+ audience to get the show as many

viewers as they can. In addition to this, the staff of the show engaged specifically and

particularly with the LGBTQ+ audience in their marketing of the specific episode Lexa’s

death happens in. German and Comparative Literature professor Elizabeth Bridges (2016)

wrote in her blog saying, “this has really been the worst case of a show exploiting its

audience I've ever seen.” The show made a point to use internet forums and social media

platforms popular with the LGBTQ+ community, especially the youth, like Twitter and

Tumblr, in order to garner the trust and attention of the community. This was done in order

to gain The 100 a place as a show with positive LGBTQ+ representation. Queerbaiting

does not necessarily have to be harmful but what often happens is it becomes that when

the representation is denied, and subsequently this may affect the audience from the

affected communities, in this case the LGBTQ+ community, in negative way. As Dyer

says (1993: p.3) representations have real consequences for real people, not just in the

way they are treated but in terms of the way representation delimits and enables what

people can be in any given society.

30
31
Young adults and why ‘gay’ fandoms matter

Fandoms are not set as something specific, and they can be performed in many

different ways. Booth (2017: p.231) citing Megan Condis in his book Digital fandoms 2.0,

states that “fandom is a multi-vocal term, a prism of identities and practices.” Fandoms are

created by fans who spends time and their energy on a media text by thinking about it and

interacting with it. They create fanfiction, fan blogs, fan wiki pages for TV shows and fan

videos about their favourite scene or favourite couple in a specific show. In previous years

being a loyal fan of something was seen as something weird, as Booth (2017: p.20)

describes, the words used about fans; vulgar, miserable wretch’s and cannot distinguish

the line between fantasy and reality; but nowadays fandoms have become mainstream,

mainly because of the fandom culture on the internet which is mainly focused on

Tumblr.com, a website owned by Oath Inc. Tumblr is a blogging site that uses images,

animated videos and GIFs, but unlike twitter (a similar platform) there is no character limit.

Paul Booth has written extensively about Tumblr as a space for fandoms and he says

that:

Tumblr appears to be the most attuned to fannishness, and in some wats

reflects the visibility of fandom – it is populated by fans and non-fans, but it

gives most of the content posted the feeling of fannishness, Tumblr has

revolutionised fandom; fans on Tumblr feel they were more ‘themselves’ on

Tumblr than other social media sites.

Booth (2017: p.4)

What is a common thing to come across in Tumblr is ‘shipping’. Shipping is the act of

imagining two or more people in a relation‘ship’ – the phrase derives from the word

relationship. It is not specific to same-sex relationships, but in this case that is the focus of

this research, as ‘shipping’ of possible same-sex couples generates a lot of discussion

and discourse on Tumblr. Shipping is something that evokes a lot of emotions and can

create fandoms that are separate branches from the main fandom for a specific TV show.

32
Fanfiction enables the viewers to bring their dream couple to fruition, one good example of

shipping and creating content is 50 Shades of Gray (2015), which began as fanfiction of

the film Twilight (2008), which eventually became so popular that it was made into a book

and film series in its own right. There are lot of ‘ships’ that are only wishful thinking and

exist only on the internet; they are not part of the narrative canon, even though the

characters most likely originate from the same TV shows (or films). Queerbaiting must not

be confused with the hopeful thinking for a relationship between characters. Sometimes

queerbaiting creates ships that become very popular, as in the shows mentioned in the

previous chapter. For the purpose of understanding the importance of representation I did

an informal survey on Tumblr, because most of the fandoms reside there and people are

willing to share their experiences. I specifically targeted young adults with my survey

because they are old enough to recognise what tactics are used by television, but also

can appreciate things that necessarily have no malice in them. The focus age group is still

also emotionally invested in TV shows and ships that they are passionate about, but they

can be rational in their thinking. Evans (2007: p.12) cites Mayer (2003) who has said that

representation helps minority adolescents becoming functioning members of society as

well as finding others who share their common experiences which is crucial to young

people. Young adults have already gone past adolescence, so they were able to answer

in the survey how the representation or lack of it has affected them either positively or

negatively and what they think about queerbaiting. I also asked what were the TV shows

that specifically had some kind of impact on them, good or bad. The age consensus was

adults between 18 and 25, and there were 51 responders, most of them were either

lesbians or bisexual women, but some preferred the term queer. Only one trans woman

and no men answered the survey. Many answered freely, not necessarily confining

themselves to the specific questions that were asked.

I found that the common themes in the survey answers were that the LGBTQ+

representation has helped many of the respondents to discover their own sexuality and

many did not have any idea of their sexuality until they saw LGBTQ+ characters on TV.

Many thought they just did not have interest in romance until they saw LGBTQ+
33
representation and homosexual love stories, and such did not touch many at all and they

felt they couldn’t get enough out of them, emotionally or learning wise.

LGBTQ+ representation has been a tool like no other in helping many people’s families

accept their sexuality and identity, many say before it their family members had been non-

accepting and that without it they would not have received the understanding they have

now. Many responders did come from religious backgrounds and especially for those the

representation has helped them find themselves, since they even more than some others

struggled finding real life examples of homosexuality. It has been crucial to see

representation because it was the only way to imagine a “normal” future for themselves,

and a future in general, when they do not have any examples to learn from around them in

real life television gives them couples and people to relate to; they feel like they have

“someone on their side” when there is no real life support, but also learned to let go of

internalised homophobia that they projected onto themselves. LGBTQ representation in

general give a lot of courage and strength to many, and helped to ease up the attitude in

general, because LGBTQ+ representation can help heterosexual, homophobic or

prejudiced viewers to relate to homosexual characters and understand the community

more. Not everything was positive of course, there was a lot of answers about the “Bury

Your Gays” -trope and how it has been devastating and emotionally draining as well as

invalidating for many of their identities. Some say LGBTQ+ representation can be very

one-sided and caricatured, and that stereotyping of queer characters is annoying —

especially hyper sexualising bisexual characters and making them out to be cheaters.

Some said that they have a love/hate relationship with the treatment of LGBTQ+

characters on television, they felt that the baiting also represents the real struggles

LGBTQ+ couples have, that make them seem “the same” as heterosexual relationships.

In relation to queerbaiting the answers were very unanimous; the responders said that

queerbaiting is hurtful, saddening, frustrating, personally offending and has affected one’s

own identity and how they feel about it, some even added to feeling being used by TV

creators. In relation to the previous chapter there were respondents who had specifically

mentioned Rizzoli & Isles; One of the people who took part of the survey (number 16,
34
2018) wrote about the show (after first saying it had “the perfect formula” and was “all she

wanted from a cop show with two female leads):

But all those good things came to an end as the story choices for the two

characters, Jane and Maura turned to the dark hetero side. Jane and Maura

were tossed so many beards it was frustrating and made me not finish the

show. And despite those beards and faking a relationship to toward one of the

beards away, they still ended up single? And were going to Paris together

alone? And what made things sort of worse in the middle of the series the show

runner was replaced with a well-known LGBT woman in tv media as far as

directing and producing goes, Jan Nash. She and the actress who played Jane

and Maura knew its core main fanbase were LGBT and yet they weren't bold

enough to explore their characters in a different light which was immensely

frustrating and disappointing.

For clarification, a beard means a person who is a helping another person that is trying to

conceal their true sexual orientation. A beard normally acts the part of a partner of the

opposite sex to help the other person hold the appearance of, most often, a heterosexual

relationship to make their fake sexuality more believable. Another person who took part of

the survey (number 7, 2018) said something that really indicates how strong of a power

LGBTQ+ representation in media holds:

When I was 12 the first season of Rizzoli & Isles aired. While the characters are

canonically straight I couldn’t help but noticing chemistry between them. One of

the first lines was “Are we having a sleepover, or is this your way of telling me

you’re attracted to me?” and I was like … girls can be attracted to girls too?? It

was one innocent, funny line but it got me thinking. I spent a great deal

researching and educating myself about different sexualities and I learned that I

was lesbian.

35
There was also a lot of talk about The 100 and the ship Clexa, which a mash-up of the

names Lexa and Clarke who form the relationship, and one of the responders (number 51,

2018) said that:

Clexa, the beautiful powerful wlw couple in a successful show, a couple who

could have been so much, got their five minutes of closeness and love and after

repeating that “love isn't weakness” and their first time having sex Lexa got

ripped out of life. […] Bad representation in this case (and that is the strongest

example and maybe the only but certainly the first time of truly good things

coming out of despair) has made many good things happen but on the other

side it hurt people deeply, it hurt even more than a "regular" death of a beloved

character because Lexa was important.

WLW is an abbreviation of the word women-loving women. A lot of the older young adults

struggled finding representation when they were younger, and many make note that it has

really changed in the recent years, and there is more and more representation to look for

and up to in TV shows, films and media in general. There are not that many years in

between the youngest and oldest from the survey and yet there has been a change

between this short span. Many agree that how LGBTQ+ people are represented in the

media still has a long way to go, since there is still a lot of erasure and other problematic

things going on.

It can be noticed from how there were not that many answers that deviated from

a general consensus of opinion, as Booth puts it (2017: p.239) citing Alexander Cho, that

“shared social experiences create a shared sense of purpose and understanding that

unite fandom users and allow them to relate to one another. Which is true especially in the

case of young adults that belong to a minority and Tumblr serves as a great place on the

internet to find those people that has the same interests and who share the same target of

admiration. As a playground for media communities Tumblr was very much able to gather

people together and from all these bad representations became two movements, LGBT

36
Fans Deserve Better and We Deserve Better; both of these got created after The 100

killed Lexa. People had had enough and thus the frustrations of not getting what they

wanted the fans of many LGBTQ+ relationships took matters into their own hands. The

fans of Lexa and Clarke and people who had been disappointed enough times started a

fundraising for The Trevor Project, which is a suicide prevention organization for LGBTQ+

people. The Trevor Project (2016) website tells that with over 4100 donations movement

has raised over $155,000, “showing that there is power in bringing our collective voices

together.” They have also included the LGBT Fans Deserve Better statement about the

reasons behind the fundraiser in their breakdown of events:

We want to thank all of the amazing individuals who have responded to the

LGBT Fans initiatives. With our latest project, we’ve managed to promote the

Pledge for better representation on television, as well as push our total

amassed funds for Trevor, past the $155,000 mark. We feel that the Trevor

Project is in a unique position to understand the impact of how LGBTQ people

are represented in the media, due to their daily interaction with LGBTQ youth,

many of whom are struggling with loss and who are looking for connections and

role models, and as such believe that this is a good match. We hope new and

old supporters alike will continue to join us in the fight for better LGBTQIA

characters and storylines in the media, as well as our projects to raise funds for

Trevor and suicide prevention.

LGBT Fans Deserve Better (2016)

The community affected also was able to create a fan convention aimed at women who

love women called Clexacon, the name is derived from the ship name of Lexa and Clarke

explained previously. It has become a big event and has now expanded from USA to

Britain too. It can be seen that the death in The 100 was a point where the fans had had

enough in general about LGBTQ+ representation, the death of Lexa was just an even that

was the last straw for many. But these kind of demonstrations against bad representation

have had an impact on TV shows, there are several shows currently on TV that have
37
positive representation and characters that are happy in their life and whose storylines do

not involve around their sexuality. I will tell some of those in the final chapter.

38
Representation of trans people

The Human Rights Campaign (2018) states that the murder rate of trans women,

especially women of colour, increases every year, in 2016 the number was 26 and 2017 it

was 28 from the whole year. There have already been 16 deaths from January to July

2018, in the USA, which is a lot when considering how few trans people there are

compared to cisgender people (cisgender is a person whose gender matches the sex

assigned to them at birth). Most of the time trans people get bullied, assaulted and

murdered specifically for being trans It is not unusual to read comment sections in social

media about transgender issues and encounter negative commentary – the understanding

for the situation is minimal; there are very particular difficulties and problems that people

that are trans face. Media plays a big part in how people view others who are different to

them, and representation on TV and in films is crucial in these kinds of situations. The

problems will not go away immediately with good representation, but entertainment is a

window to society and can change views gradually. Gillig et al. (2017: p.3) citing Green

and Brock (2000), state that “stories can affect the real-world beliefs of individuals by

transporting them into a narrative world in which their attention and cognitive resources

are engrossed in the story.” Transgender people are the most overlooked group of the

LGBTQ+ community and are treated the worst in TV. The main problem at the moment

with their representation is that the studios tend to lean towards casting cisgender people

to play trans characters; effectively preferring the actors to cross-dress as a different

gender. There would not be such a big problem (but still an issue) if the cis actor would

play the gender that they already are. Many times, the depiction also falls into the classic

tropes. TV tropes (nd) lists transgender tropes as sympathetic but built around jokes about

the character "really" being “another gender”. Shows include bigoted and inaccurate

"trans panic" jokes portraying trans people as deceptive cross-dressers with malicious or

perverted intentions. One other common trope they list is heavily masculine-bodied people

wearing unflattering budget dresses and wigs.

39
 Most of the time the trans content is created by a cisgender people, who have no

personal experience of what it is like to be transgender. One exception to this is Jill

Soloway whose show Transparent (2014- ) is a positive addition to trans content, being a

ground-breaking depiction of what being trans might mean. Jill Soloway identifies as

gender nonconforming, which falls under the umbrella of trans identities, and the show is

loosely based on their own family experiences However, cisgender content creators, as

thoughtful as they might be, can fall into the damaging tropes; dressing a cis woman as a

trans man or vice versa gives a notion that trans people just play dress up. Trans women

are women and trans men are men but using actors from opposite gender identities adds

to the view that they are not real men or women. When this fundamental

misunderstanding is present as early as casting, the likeness of telling a story that reflects

the truth of the trans experience are non-existent. These harmful depictions of

transgender people as not truly the gender they are in identity and representation plays

into the fact that trans people are victims of crime and murder so often. People, usually

men, because of the notion that trans women are just men playing dress up, often have

‘trans panic’ upon meeting trans people, which results in violence that can have grave

consequences. The LGBT Bar Association has explained trans panic as such:

The gay and trans “panic” defence is a legal strategy which asks a jury to find

that a victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity is to blame for the

defendant’s violent reaction, including murder […] the perpetrator claims that

their victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity not only explain – but excuse

– their loss of self-control and subsequent assault.

The LBGT Bar Association (2018)

Many of the depictions of trans people serve as a ‘pity porn’, with themes of isolation and

victimhood, which only serves to tell certain kind of stories from the trans community.

40
 TV is doing better in trans representation than film is; there is more actual trans

people playing characters, and more and more trans actors are getting cast. Good

examples of these cases are, Orange is the New Black, which has been mentioned

before; Sense8 (2015-2018), and The OA (2016-) which all can be seen on Netflix. Both

shows have received good reviews in regard to their portrayal of trans women, treating

them as just women, without their trans identity becoming the core storyline. Sense8 is a

notable example because it was created by the Wachowski sisters, who are both trans,

and have thus lived the experience that is written in the story. Many of the trans stories

that are created by trans voices are on the internet as web series in streaming services or

on YouTube and similar platforms. The TV channels that have included multiple of gay,

lesbian or bisexual characters are refraining from telling trans stories. There are, of

course, exceptions and short trans storylines, but these might only have a story arch in

one episode. These are also very important and must have a good representation

because even the little stories matter. Chuba (2018) interviewed Nick Adams, GLAAD’s

Director of Transgender Media & Representation for Variety and he said that “in the past

few years, Hollywood has made an effort to create and cast transgender characters in a

more authentic way, however, we have a long way to go before the full diversity of the

trans community is portrayed in film and TV.” The statistics on television for the depictions

of transgender people have been on the rise from 2014. In the 2014-2015 television

season, according to GLAAD (2015), there was only one regular or recurring transgender

character in a cable television show – The Fosters (2013-2018) airing on ABC Family

(which has since changed its name to Freeform), and in the previous television season

there was only one regular trans character in broadcast television – in FOX’s show Glee.

In GLAAD’s (2018) ‘17- ‘18 collection of representation, there are four (5%) regular or

recurring trans characters in broadcast TV and seven (4%) in cable TV, out of all LGBTQ+

characters. This is an all-time high, and yet very low compared to the amount of other

characters. A very recent show created by Ryan Murphy called Pose (2018-) is being

hailed as one of the most groundbreaking television shows in transgender matters. It

revolves around the queer culture of the 80’s where LGBTQ+ people would gather
41
together in galas and dance competitions, which are referred as the ballroom culture. It

tells a story about two different rival families, the Extravaganza family and the Abundance

family. These families are self-made from homeless trans and gay people. Bernstein

(2018) writes in The Guardian that “Pose is the latest, and most prominent, spout of

mainstream attention for ballroom, which has flourished as a subculture for queer youth of

colour in New York for decades” the show also made history with the largest ever

transgender cast for a scripted show. This is a step in the right direction that could lead

into a new age of positive and diverse trans representation.

By creating more transgender characters, the more diverse the representation

will be and thus creates more understanding of the community and differences in it. They

will build tolerance and educate people on the matter, but the most important thing that

the representation, as in other LGBTQ+ content, does is give something relatable for

transgender people, and especially youth. Casting trans actors both validates the actors

as well as the characters and, mediately, validates the existence of trans people and

provides awareness and respect It will show that being trans is okay and not something to

be ashamed of.

42
Good representation on TV and why it matters

The 100, for all that it was, did do something new and exciting and it should be

seen as such. How they ended the relationship was not admirable, but that did not change

the fact that the main character is a bisexual woman and continues to have relationships

with women in the show. The 100 has not fallen to the trope of pairing the main girl and a

boy together, even after 5 seasons, which is refreshing in itself. In the book The B Word,

Maria San Filippo writes that:

In seeking to account for bisexual (in) visibility, I have suggested that it

is not the quantity or even the quality of bisexual images that are lacking

but rather that it is our perception of bisexuality – challenged by the

temporal and behavioral components allegedly required to “prove”

bisexual imagery, itself further complicated by our culture’s ideological,

institutionalized privileging of monosexuality and monogamy – that

requires refinement.

San Filippo (2013: p.244)

This is why The 100 as a show stays somewhat relevant; because they have their

bisexual lead. There are more shows that are starting to include explicitly bisexual

characters – they are mainly comedies, the likes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2013-) and Jane

the Virgin (2014-). There are not that many serious shows that have done anything

similar, portrayed bisexual women in non-stereotypical roles, as regular people. For a good

reason, these two shows have been praised for their inclusivity and understanding of

LGBTQ+ matters many time, and they are a big reason why the TV landscape has

changed to a more positive one when it comes to especially bisexual representation.

Espinoza (2018) commented about Brooklyn Nine-Nine, saying it is a refreshing break to

see representation that does not overly sensationalise or exploit the LGBTQ+ community,

or erase bisexual people from the conversation. Jane the Virgin includes multiple people

43
that are not heterosexual and Valerie Anne (2018) said that on most other shows, upon

hearing the audience reading a character queer and specifically reading the relationship

with that character with another one queer, they would have cut back on the screen time

they had together, stopped letting them share a frame. “Or they would have given them

both male love interests and stopped developing their characters outside those

relationships.” Both shows have several characters that belong to minorities represented,

not just sexual ones but race ones too. One groundbreaking show that has had a

tremendous impact and good bisexual representation is Legend of Korra, which aired on

Nickelodeon between 2012-2014. The show only had the bisexual relationship start in the

last scene of the show, but a series of comics that continued after the show ended

includes the adventures of the main (bi) couple. Having LGBTQ+ representation in

children’s animated shows has been shied away from previously, because of the mindset

that children should not be influenced by LGBTQ+ characters, when shows that include

sexual minorities are normalising these kind of relationships. Another great example is

Steven Universe (2013) which airs on Cartoon Network. The show is about the lives of

three aliens (or ‘gems’) that live on earth, and Steven, who is a half-gem. One of the gems

is a ‘fusion’, a formation of two separate gems that have formed a relationship so strong

that they have fused into one single entity. It is explicitly shown that these two gems are

female presenting, love each other, and are in a gem-version of a romantic relationship –

they even got married in the show. The Gems are genderless, but present as female

physically. The show plays a lot with gender and allusions to sexuality, and in San Diego

Comic Con interview Rebecca Sugar (2016), the creator of the show, said that “it’s very

important to me that we speak to kids about consent. That we speak to kids about identity.

I want to feel like I exist, and I want everyone else who wants to feel that way to feel that

way too.” Describing how the show has influences about her own bisexuality and being

non-binary. It is also been heavily implied that one of the gems had unrequited feelings for

Steven’s mother who was also a gem, and that they shared some form of relationship.

Spencer (2017) addresses that cartoons and anime has a problem of censorship and a

harder time depicting LGBTQ+ characters, even though there has been quite a few
44
queercoded villains in cartoons. She continues by saying that “show cancellation

constantly prevent writers from creating character development”, which applies for

cartoons as other TV shows. But these two shows even though having faced some

difficulties, are giving way to more willingness to also include LGBTQ+ characters in other

cartoons.

One show that is doing some good things when it comes to LGBTQ+

representation is Supergirl (2015-present), which has had a lesbian character for a couple

of seasons now, and it was recently revealed that they will include the first transgender

superhero in their roster. These news was met with great reception in the media and on

the internet. The likes of BBC News (2018) and The New York times (2018) had headlines

saying that the first transgender superhero is coming to Supergirl, which was due time.

There are two TV show creators that have continuously included LGBTQ+ people in their

stories and given them story arches that do not revolve around their sexuality, these are

Ryan Murphy and Shonda Rhimes. Ryan Murphy has always included many different

LGBTQ+ characters in his productions, and thus has been a trailblazer in normalising

queer people in the media. In his shows Glee, which has been mentioned earlier, and

American Horror Story (2011-present) he has explored the wide variety quite thoroughly,

although at this moment his new show Pose is groundbreaking and telling stories of trans

people that has not possibly be seen before in the mainstream media. Shonda Rhimes

has also included a wide range of LGBTQ+ characters in her shows that she has created

and to the shows that are part of her production company known as ShondaLand. Only

recently she had two transgender people in her show Grey’s Anatomy (2005-present)

which has also included one of the longest same-sex relationships on television. There

has also been many same-sex relationships in the other shows that have been created

under ShondaLand, like How to Get Away with Murder (2014-present) and For the People

(2018-present).

By thoroughly examining LGBTQ+ representation on television in a variety of TV

shows, and especially delving even deeper into it by using survey answers by young

adults who do and have engaged with shows with LGBTQ+ representation, we have
45
discovered how hurtful and offensive bad (re)presentation in TV shows is and can be. The

marks bad representation as well as it’s byproducts and tools such as queerbating have

left on members of the LGBTQ+ community who have looked up to characters and

storylines for inspiration to carry on and build their own futures, people for whom the

representation is vital to, can be truly long lasting and significant. Some experiences that

the anonymous survey participants described to me are very damaging to the individual,

and clearly caused by bad representation. However, there are signs of show creators

taking more steps forward and learning from their mistakes. There is more and more

positive, appropriate LGBTQ+ (re)presentation in television all the time; all of us as

viewers and consumers, community members and allies, can only keep enforcing what we

feel and know is correct in order to keep the TV industry on the right track towards well

represented diversity.

46
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Appendix I: Tumblr survey demographics

Survey details:

I went to Tumblr.com and posted a question:

“I want to ask some young adults how LGBTQ+ representation has affected them. It’s for my
dissertation, would anyone be up for this?”

I wanted to execute an informal survey where the responders can answer questions freely. I
specifically tagged the post to every same-sex fandom I had knowledge of; the post garnered 300
reblogs and responses. Some people did not want to participate but reblogged it to inform others.
There were 80 people interested in answering my questions which were: How the LGBTQ
representation on TV has affected negatively or positively your life. Is there a specific show that
made you feel certain way, good or bad. The third question was to consider queerbaiting and what
they thought about it.

Response demographic:

51 responses, the responders were from all around the world but mainly from Europe. Ages
between 18 and 25. Three responders did not define their sexuality, one explicitly identified as a
transgender woman, and 47 were female, all whom identified either lesbian, bisexual or queer.

The most mentioned shows: Countries they came from:

The L Word Denmark

Orange is the New Black The Netherlands

Glee France

Buffy the Vampire Slayer United Kingdom

Legend of Korra Ireland

Brooklyn Nine-Nine Germany

Wynonna Earp Singapore

Person of Interest Hungary

Rizzoli & Isles United States

The 100 Russia

Supergirl Mexico

Sense8 The Philippines

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Appendix II: Survey answers used in text

Number 7

LGTBQ has only affected my life positively. I am currently 23 years old and living in the
Netherlands. I have been doubting my sexuality for years now, let's say something about 3 years.

I am not yet out to my parents, but I know for sure that the LGTBQ representation will help them
accept me easier.

Many years ago, say about 10 to 12, I still can vividly remember them speaking negatively about
gay people. Like for example they would say that falling in love with the same sex was not natural
and it was abnormal.

I watch a lot of TV shows with my mom that feature gay ships. We started a while ago before I
even knew I was Bisexual.

Together we watch Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, Wynonna Earp, Shadow Hunters and Dynasty.

Since watching these shows I can see a shift in their opinion to gay people. My mom even likes a
few of the pairings. She loves WayHaught (Nicole and Waverly) From Wynonna Earp and Magnus
and Alex from Shadowhunters. Alex and Maggie from Supergirl.

I think because she saw these pairings on TV, it helped to normalize it more. I am very sure if we
didn't watch these shows together that her opinion would still stay the same.

These shows also help me personally. Because when I am ready, I can say to my mom that I am
like Sara Lance. (minus the badass fighting skills) And because she likes that character, I know
that she will accept me the way I am.

Though the LGTBQ representation is getting a lot better, I do hope for more Bisexual
representation as well. Because mostly in TV shows the characters are either gay or straight.
Rarely they are Bisexual, and if they are. It hardly gets mentioned. That was why I was so glad that
the character Rosa Diaz came out as Bisexual and that the actual word Bisexual was mentioned so
much in that episode.

Queerbaiting tires me out quite a bit actually. I watched the show Rizzoli and Isles, and to me it
was very clear that these two women had attraction to each other. The same was with Once upon
a Time between Regina and Emma. It made me even stop watching the show, because they would
give these characters romantic story lines that just to me didn't make sense. I know how it sounds,
but I didn't just stop watching these shows because my ships didn't happen.

Truly sorry, that it took me longer than a week to answer. If you have more question for me I would
be happy to answer them.

Number 16
57
I'm 19 going on 20 next Saturday and so to kind of give a clear picture on how LGBT
representation has affected me and my mental health or just emotions it’s a rather long story that
I'll try to shorten for you so please bear with me.

Growing up I learned from around age 5, that "Gay" was a bad word or a nasty thing you'd call
someone. And as I grew up I was often asked if I was gay myself. Naturally I denied it and I didn’t
want to be bullied anymore because of it. Before understanding what "Gay" or being gay was, I
was just a normal tv/movie viewer. I’d watch old movies with my parents like grease or west side
story, I love those movies btw. But nothing stuck me like the show South of Nowhere. I remember
watching and thinking that’s totally normal to see two girls kissing, I was unbothered and just found
myself envious. Fast forward to middle school years, by then I had learned what lgbt meant and at
the same time I had a crush on a girl that made those years bearable. The shows that made it click
for me were Glee, Pretty Little Liars and Rizzoli and Isles. 2 of which had lgbt rep., but not all of it
was good representation. With Glee I felt a connection with Faberry, one of the shows most
supported ships. It was a frustrating at the time seeing as the two characters, Quinn and Rachel
got continuously teased around as far as "will they or wont they", Constant clues and parallels to
relationship tropes and yet they were labeled as "enemies to friends" instead of "enemies to friends
to lovers". So, with Glee giving me Brittana and Klaine I was content but never whole fully satisfied
with how the show portrayed their characters in a correct light. So, for a while I'd drive myself nuts
thinking how Ryan Murphy could miss the potential. Pretty Little Liars was an interesting enigma to
say the least. There was a good amount of representation with Emily Fields, though she ended the
show with two dead ex-girlfriends, one ex that was given way too much hate and one girlfriend that
was medically impregnated with Emily's eggs without consent, but hey now they're engaged and
have two twins that look nothing like Emily. *sigh* My main discourse with this show wasn't with the
type of characters but how the they were written to the point that it horribly ruined the main plot and
the mistreatment of a certain lesbian character and the actress playing said character. This
unfortunately ended up in a ship war with Paily and Emison. Though Emison was made endgame,
it can't be ignored of how terrible the buildup was. Despite my hate for the show for good reason I
feel in love with Paily regardless, I related to the character, Paige McCullers, more than any lgbt
character at the time and she dealt with self-harm, suicidal thoughts and had trouble coming out
just like I did. And seeing her thrive in her journey to come out of the closet and fight to get the girl
gave me confidence and actually helped me make a few friends in the fandom.

Rizzoli and Isles to me had the perfect formula, and it gave me butterflies thinking of the full
potential the show could've had. Emotionally this show gave me everything I wanted in a cop show
that had two female leads and knowing it’s a direct parallel to Booth and Bones from, Bones and
Castle and Beckett from Castle, I couldn't be happier. But all those good things came to an end as
the story choices for the two characters, Jane and Maura turned to the dark hetero side. Jane and
Maura were tossed so many beards it was frustrating and made me not finish the show. And
despite those beards and faking a relationship to thwart one of the beards away, they still ended up
single? And were going to Paris together alone? And what made things sort of worse in the middle
of the series the showrunner was replaced with a well-known lgbt woman in tv media as far as
directing and producing goes, Jan Nash. She and the actress who played Jane and Maura knew its
58
core main fanbase were lgbt and yet they weren't bold enough to explore their characters in a
different light which was immensely frustrating and disappointing. And for a while I had stopped
shipping wlw couples but that was cut short thanks to the boldness from Legend of Korra a spinoff
from Avatar the Last Airbender. This one was VERY interesting, I never had watched the show, but
I came across the tag on Tumblr. I caught up on the story and it was your textbook love triangle
with a hot long-haired brunette, Asami Soto, her boyfriend at the time Mako, and Avatar herself
Korra. The showrunners were uniquely considerate with what the viewers were into as far as ships
went, they couldn’t boldly put the two females, Korra and Asami together so boldly as they
would’ve. The network for strictly kids wouldn’t allow it, instead they left breadcrumbs behind and
was well worth it till the very last episode of the series where Korrasami was confirmed canon. That
a day I never forget, Shipping became fun again and it was only filled with love, support and growth
for the lgbt community in tv media. With Korrasami and Carmilla the Web series around and in
such a large amount of support, it made me feel prouder to be a gay teen though I wasn’t fully out
of the closet yet. I had come out to a few friends and family which was a huge first step for me.

Fast forward to today, we have a growing amount of lgbt in television from 2017 into 2018 and
were only getting started. Although I feel like there's still work that needs to be done. there’s still
discourse and fan wars, and it seems to be revolved around the infamous ship of SuperCorp. I
myself ship it, who wouldn’t. There’s chemistry, the dialogue and main plot supports a relationship
and it’s a direct parallel to Clark and Lois. though in my observation there’s still the usual hate from
Karamel fans topped with some WestAllen fans from the Flash, and some Black lightning viewers.
Which is troubling and is a bit more harder to enjoy the ship and the creative content the fandom
produces. I wish I can say were in a perfect place for lgbt representation currently, but with some
discourse within the community and fandoms we have a whole lot of work to do which makes me
want to fight harder for misrepresented characters in television. Anyway, I hope this wasn't too long
and I hope this helps out in some way for your dissertation.

Number 61

Queer rep in television: Without it I wouldn't be who I am now, I'm still unsure with most things but I
can say for certain that I am not straight.

Looking back, I should have known but it took me ages, I guess I was 17 when I finally understood
it better, caused by Carmilla.

Their positive rep helped me overcome a lot of internalised homophobia I had against myself and
helped me find out who I am.

I've a history of liking badass female characters but none of them were queer, I remembered
watching some wlw scenes fairly interested (like some scenes of lost girl and the second(?) ep of
torchwood with Gwen and the orgasm alien) but I didn't ask myself questions about them. I think I
started questioning first with the queerbait couple Rizzles, to be fair, the only reason I watched
Rizzoli & Isles.

59
They had a lot of scenes teasing it, but they never dared to make it canon, so I left it a few seasons
before it even ended (though I monitored what happened with them from afar...which was fairly
disappointing).

I was interested in the 100 before I knew of the gay character, but I got truly invested BECAUSE it
had Lexa and damn, Clexa were a treat.

I felt like they done them badly with the whole betrayal and stuff (though it kind of made it spicier)
and we truly should have known it would end badly but they were just awesome - the epitome of
power couple while being gay.

The bury your gay trope already was a known thing but we, the fans, were promised to get a queer
couple - a bi female lead and a strong lesbian who overthrew all of her principles for one equally
strong girl - that was safe and sound and would stay strong and happy couple ruling side by side,
binding their two peoples together.

I thankfully quit the show BEFORE 3x07, the fateful ep, was happening (because they did wrong
one time too often for my liking and since then only made it worse, or rather made it worse since
episode one but I could live with that).

But I didn't quit Clexa, thank god some gay little girls cut together all the gay ship scenes and
upload them to YouTube.

The crew behind the 100 promised to keep them save and tried to mobilize every fan, esp. the
Clexa fans, to watch the 7th episode of season 3 that they had praised again and again as the
greatest Clexa ep and teased that they would make a huge step in their relationship.

They did, so much was true, but they made us all believe that she was a safe gay.

My expectations where low, I had quit it already, but I still was devastated.

Up to this point I wasn't informed about the BYG trope and I learned it the hard way by losing a
character I held dearly.

Clexa, the beautiful POWERFUL wlw couple in a successful show, a couple who could have been
so much, got their 5 minutes of closeness and love and after repeating that love isn't weakness and
their first time having sex Lexa got ripped out of life (mostly if you don't count that virtual hoax with
which they tricked the queer fans in watching yet another episode after they have already lost their
fav and the nods that happened later to (c)Lexa) by a STRAY BULLET.

Something that had happened before in television, the most prominent example being in buffy, was
cheaply copied and sold as an important plot device.

Clarke had medical experience, the whole group have brought back medically dead people and
saved ones that were far more severely injured but had already survived days or maybe weeks
without proper health, but Lexa died within minutes and nurse Clarke was unable to do something?

60
Some say it was important for the plot, I call it homophobia cause the ones who survived were all
straight...

I was devastated, this bad representation made me and others into internet warriors who fought for
better representation and basically managed to almost destroy the show, created a strong queer
fanbase, made fundraisers for queer people and generally showed how powerful we as a group are
- it's a big mistake to underestimate the queers.

Clexacon, a successful convention with important and interesting panels, was born from the ashes
of Lexa.

Rage can fuel people.

But I've seen so many teens who took it worse, not my personal experience - I was sad and angry,
still am - but they felt like their world was falling apart, I've heard that many hurt themselves or even
considered suicide because what happened to them was they have seen themselves dying on tv.

Bad representation in this case (and that is the strongest example and maybe the only but certainly
the first time of truly good things coming out of despair) has made many good things happen but on
the other side hurt people deeply, it hurt even more than a "regular" death of a beloved character
because Lexa was important.

She showed that wlw could be strong, that women can be leaders, equal next to men, that love
made people stronger instead of vulnerable and that it was okay to be gay and it was promised that
this particular lesbian would have a bright future together with her lead character girlfriend (as
bright as a future can be in a post-apocalyptic setting at least).

And all of that was taken.

Love is weakness.

Being gay has to be punished by death.

Same sex couples don't deserve happiness.

Maybe the uproar in the past was almost non-existent because wlw back then were used to it?

It's just my assumption, they had almost no happy ends, they just learned to live with it even
though it also hit them hard.

But Lexa was the bright star of a new generation of young lesbians and other queer women and
others (that are no cis men), she was praised as the messiah of the new queer era and the young
gays (etc) looked up to her and saw themselves, saw that it was okay and that they were respected
- while in reality they were tricked for view gaining.

I believe that the creation of Lexa/Clexa was without bad intentions, however, it was the
showrunner who disliked it (cause it was more successful than his couples) and he demanded a
shocker, but he died with Lexa as he was basically killed by the queer fandom and then again after
he killed Lincoln in an ugly way after having personal problems with the actor.

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Still, after 2 years, Lexa is still beloved and certainly won't be forgotten as she has become a wlw
icon, still standing for queer power.

Good representation is always helpful, it makes young queer people embrace themselves and
makes them accept the way they are and probably also form straight allies as they are told by the
media that The Homosexuals are not to be feared.

The good example of queer representation with a reverse BYG is Wynonna Earp, with a healthy
wlw couple that is (mostly) happy even though they live in demon hell. They don't only show it on
the show but are also very supportive of the fans and the queer community (sometimes a bit too
eager to please but that is WAY better than the way they dealt with their queer couple at the CW).

But things like queerbaiting and bad representation usually only hurt the people.

Queerbaiting is the more harmless form, but it's pure queer exploitation and a form of disrespect
and homophobia because they want their queer fans but don't dare or don't bother to make it
canon or in some cases are not allowed to by their network.

But bad rep is so far worse, it hurts mainly young people who are still so unsure with their life and
easily to manipulate. It's also a way to keep the views up.

Most importantly though: Making queer villains or showing toxic relationships/people form the
views of the heteronormative society on same sex attracted and/or non-cis gendered people and
keep up the stigmas and clichés and showing that non-straight people only deserve death and no
happiness increases the self-hate of young queer people who already suffer a lot.

When someone believes they are not affected by the media then they haven't opened their eyes, in
my opinion.

And those who are underrepresented and marginalized and who have it the hardest in life try to
find themselves and validation, this is something that people that belong to a majority group don't
understand.

They see themselves everywhere and are blind to this because of their privilege.

So, when minorities are represented it's important to do them justice.

Otherwise a lot of damage might be done.

Or worse for those who created them: they might find themselves as the targets of a revolt.

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