So, wow, I was gone for two weeks and four (yes, FOUR) lesbian, bisexual (or as Ilene Chaiken likes to say “opportunist”) female characters were killed off. That’s two on “The Vampire Diaries” and two on “Empire.” Forget boat, we’re going to need a bigger graveyard to bury all these gays. By my (and Autostraddle’s) count, that is 11 dead queer female characters on American scripted television in the 102 days of this year. If you do the math, that’s about 1 dead queer lady every 9 or so days of 2016. Cool story, bro and bro-ette. Tell me again about how your dead and buried gays “aren’t a part of that phenomenon or conversation.” Well, at least this allows us all to once again shake our fists at the sky and scream, “CHAIKEN!”
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it and will keep saying it a thousand times until it fucking sinks in. The stories we tell, particularly about underrepresented groups – like queer people and people of color and people with disabilities and the like – matter. They feed into a cultural narrative which then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy – both for LGBT people and how the outside world views LGBT people. It really isn’t much to ask that the majority of stories told about queer women not be tragic. And if none of that matters to you all those TV makers out there, maybe this will: At the rate burying your gays is just one small step above waking up and having it all being a dream in terms of stunningly unoriginal storylines. Do better, television. Because LGBT fans deserve so much better.