hey siri how do i explain to tumblr that ‘bury your gays’ is about more than the texual death of queer characters and that the textual death of queer characters is not, therefore, always a bad thing
Hey Siri, how do I explain to people that killing off characters for ‘drama’ is lazy and ham-fisted writing *at best*–and that doing it to characters from marginalized groups contributes to a legacy of underrepresentation, negative representation, and bigotry that actively harms communities and is, in fact, always a bad thing?
Literally the only reason things happen in fiction is “for drama”. Like… that’s what a narrative is. Drama. The problem is when it’s done for cheap drama.
“Bury your gays” means that gay characters are treated, narratively, as more expendable than others. Their lives/stories are treated as having less potential, without the possibility of a happily-ever-after.
But like… the way to fight this trope is not to decree as a community that narratives about or featuring death are inherently homophobic. Tragedies are not unethical–they just should not be the only OR the majority of stories being told about LGBTQ and other marginalized characters. You can, like, not personally want to read tragedies, and that’s fair! But a blanket ban against character death and anyone who writes it does not actually increase the number of happy stories and is a major “fuck you” to every marginalized writer who wants to write things that are meaningful to them.
LGBTQ characters should die, but in ways and rates comparable to straight characters.
(via tissueboxesforseals)
