Media outlets have joined LGBT rights advocates in their outrage over the deaths of gay characters.
After the death of lesbian character Lexa on CW’s The 100, fans protested with the Twitter hashtag #LGBT fans deserve better. Kira on Syfy's The Magicians and Rose on CW's Jane the Virgin also died on screen in the past month.
LGBT characters are killed off frequently in TV storylines, contributing to the TV trope “bury your gays.” AutoStraddle counted 148 openly bisexual or lesbian female characters alone who have died on TV.
Despite LGBT character deaths, however, the LGBT population is already over-represented on TV. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in 2014 that less than 3 percent of the population identifies as gay. Yet a 2011 Gallup poll found that U.S. adults estimated that about 25 percent of the population is gay.
Many media outlets are joining the push to normalize LGBT characters, which includes creating more of them and avoiding killing them off.
Vanity Fair and Entertainment Weekly lamented the death of Lexa as well as of Denise Cloyd on The Walking Dead recently.
Huffington Post Entertainment published an op-ed by Lisa Steinberg shaking a finger at The 100’s producer Jason Rothenberg, who wrote a letter apologizing to fans for Lexa’s death.
“As the lesbian death toll continues to rise in 2016, I hope that showrunners learn from this very instance. Never underestimate the power of a fandom, and more importantly, admit and learn from your mistakes,” she said.
Vox and E!Online added their voices to the clamoring against LGBT character deaths.
A guest column in The Hollywood Reporter by Dorothy Snarker claimed, “The trend has seen a disproportionate number of LGBT characters killed off, often in the name of propping up and/or advancing a heterosexual leading character's storyline.”
Magazines and other news outlets such as Mic.com and Salon push regularly for gay characters to be mainstream.
However, Emmy-winning actress Merritt Wever, who played Denise said she doesn’t see her character’s death as playing into the “bury your gays” trope.
“I never felt like I was somehow not being valued. This was always the plan. And I think in the comic book, I think [Denise] is with a man,” Wever remarked. “From my end, it didn’t feel like that’s what was happening though. But I certainly understand the concern in the wider culture.”
While it is indeed sad that so many LGBT characters die or get killed off, normalizing their presence on TV and in the culture is not the answer.
