Yesterday, I had the privilege of writing about the Bury Your Gays TV trope as a guest columnist for The Hollywood Reporter. It’s a credit to all the fans and supporters behind the LGBT Fans Deserve Better campaign that this happened in the first place. And it’s a further testament to the issue’s importance that, for several hours yesterday, the story was actually leading the entire Hollywood Reporter homepage. There it was, sitting atop one of media’s biggest trade and entertainment publications. This is a site read not only by everyday fans, but also show creators, producers, writers and industry insiders. It was amazing; it felt amazing.
And that was not just for vain reasons like it’s cool to have byline in The Hollywood Reporter. It’s amazing because what you have all been saying so loudly and so passionately possibly, maybe, for real has a shot of getting through to the people who make the stories we watch. This isn’t about one show, this is about LGBT representation as a whole. This is about not wanting to see an overwhelming number of our stories turn out tragic. This is about understanding that courting queer fans means giving us real narratives, not just lip service.
Yesterday’s article was also a reminder of there are still so many people who simply a) do not get it or, b) do not care but want to yell at you instead because you are daring to say their favorite TV show isn’t entirely flawless. I haven’t even done more than a cursory glance in the THR comments section, but I commend those of you fighting the good tight in the trenches. For my part, I decided to try to educate a few straight dudes who wandered into my Twitter feed. Here is how it went:
When the stories you’ve always been given reflect your life effortlessly, it’s easy to feel satisfied by what you see on screen. And it’s just as easy to dismiss those asking for more as complainers. Things seem fine to you, why aren’t they equally fine for everyone? But if you think, for even a minute, about the mental hoops all the others in this world (the LGBT people, the people of color, the people with disabilities, the people who simply don’t fit into our predominant straight, white, male culture) have to jump though just to imagine their own happy endings you would realize how exhausting the exercise becomes. Maybe it will sink in to some folks. But in the meantime you’d better believe LGBT fans won’t just be idly waiting and hoping for it to happen.