Why Does the Gay Character Always Have to Die?

Presumably 4% of the population, we'll never be in a position to have insiders-- producers, actors, writers, sponsors-- to get a leading gay character.

It's just how it is, you need your people in the decision-making process, and for now it's overwhelmingly straight male hegemony. Of those few gays in the industry, most of them value their insider status and paycheck over any responsibility to their community, so they're not rocking the boat.

An excellent article, displaying a coherent, concise and cogent view of queer male characters in our media. That sentence was kinda fun to write. Anyway, this is the sort of tough, even-handed writing that really makes AfterElton one of my top 5 favorite websites, and with the amount of time I spend reading it, probably my favorite. Also, thanks for supporting my views, Brent, it's important to me that I be right =P

"But that’s precisely the point: as long as there are no leading gay characters, gay characters aren’t being treated equally. We’re getting all of the trauma and tragedy of the gay death (and the vitriol directed at the gay villain), but almost none of the pleasure of the gay leading man."

And this, Brent, is where you hit the nail right on the head.

Sure, straight white people die pretty much weekly on CSI. But it's not an issue because it's a predominantly straight, white cast of main characters who do not die.

This is a more subtle form of the same malaise that Russo ranted about back then. The only difference is that now the writers try to make it more sympathetic in most cases, that the gay character's death was a tragedy.

The problem then is that tragedy is pretty much all that gay characters on TV tend to get. Unless they're fortunate enough to survive to the end of their show's run. Jack McPhee and Doug Witter in Dawson's Creek finally found gay happiness in the very last episode of the show and were thus never seen again.

So while straight people can tune in weekly to the suspense of knowing the Jack Bauer will survive no matter what tortures he must endure, we do not have that same luxury. We always sit and wonder when the sword will drop because the gay characters, not being in lead roles, can always be killed off at any time. They could kill Kevin, Scotty and Saul in a car accident on Brothers & Sisters next week and still have a show!

Which is of course exactly why there was outrage over Ianto's death on Torchwood.  Sure they can still take the franchise forward as they've still got Jack and Gwen and isn't that just grand? When one considers the tiny percentage of characters on TV that are LGBT the relative death rate compared to straights is ridiculously high. 

So yes, it is annoying and insulting. We get to feel the emotion of loss but not the validation that straights get from their heroic characters. Our's are always either broken, servile or on their way into the grave. 

It is a hard truth that our community does not see itself in the media like the majority. It is the hardest thing I have to try to get my str8 friends to realize in that nearly all the media caters to them and them alone. I almost never get to imagine myself as the hero without seriously re-writing the story. Look at our past, we saw ourselves as the tortured torch song singer assuming the female role only to sing about the love of a man. We had to look for coded subtleties in bit players to catch glimpses of ourselves in movies, tv shows & sitcoms and stage plays. And when we do get something good we can relate to, its taken away. Either they cancel it or just as easily they kill the very characters we relate to. It totally sucks!

what bothers me is the notion that we can only truly appreciate shows and movies that directly address our demographic (this being true for all people, straight/gay, black/white/asian/etc, male/female). the result is that most shows feature men (because that's allegedly where money is) who are white and straight (because that's the majority of the population), with everyone else playing supporting roles. if the protagonist is a woman, then it's a chick flick. if it's a gay guy, then it's a gay movie, etc. when we all get over this idea (especially straight white dudes), then i think it will be possible to have more shows in which gays are protagonists.

Felix isn't gay and no matter what lame ass afterthought Moore did with those god awful webcast episodes to satisfy the gay sci fi fans was so hackish that it ruined a great character. If Moore had taken the time and care to show Felix as a out gay man fine, but instead he turned him gay and made him a traitor for no other reason than to cover up his lazy ass writing. hmmph.

I can agree from the bottom of my heart. And what make its worth for me is the knowledge that quite a few producers/directors/writers in Hollywood (and elsewhere) are gay but still writing/producing/directing those stuff. Like RTD did with Ianto. I, at least, expect from those which should be on our side a bit more support and sensitivity. A part of me still carries a torch of hope. Look a few years back and the only part woman played in most of the shows were the good housewives or the nice secretary. Now we have a lot of strong leading ladies. Maybe some day equality will reach us, too. Instead of having a gay character in any show just for political correctness I rather would prefer one or two really good written shows with a gay leading man. But as TPTB want the majority of the audience to identify themselves with the main characters this is most likely never going to happen. I used to watch shows just because they had a gay character in it even if I usually would not watch this genre. Personally I'm at a point now where I rather watch a good show without any gay character because this I just can watch for plain entertainment then watching one with a gay character on which I just hang my heart and soul and then will get disappointet again.

Excellent article Brent! The Celluloid Closet is an absolute MUST-READ for anyone interested in gay representations in pop culture... i.e. everyone here. It's funny, lucid, and incredible, and the necrology nailed it. So much so that between my hubby and me, now when we see a plot 'twist' in a TV show or movie, we simply say,"Another dead faggot."

I think another aspect not mentioned in this article is the fact that all this death only reinforces the idea that people (gay and straight) have, that being gay is a 'dangerous' lifestyle. That you are likely to die.

This in fact is the exact tragedy of self-perception presented in Brokeback Mountain, that Ennis' father taught him horrifically, that to be gay = violent death. And he could never get past that.

There could be another theory. Maybe the actors playing the gay parts read some of the lines these straight screenwriters think a gay person would say, and then the actors insisted the characters be killed off rather than endure further embarrassment? Who's to say how many times an "As the World Turns" or "Young and the Restless" producer has had to rush into the trailer of some actor playing a gay character, force the razor blade from the actor's hand, and scream "NO! Don't kill yourself! We'll kill off the character instead. I promise."?

Wait...Cassidy Casablancas was gay? I thought he was just messed up sexually due to being molested?

I wholeheartedly agree with this. Don't even get me started on the lack of visible gay characters that are also characters of color. When we do get a gay character that isn't white, the character is usually a stereotype or problematic in some way and is barely there anyway. If you ddn't know any better, you'd think the lgbt community is composed entirely of white people.

This is so much more articulate than I've been in in my ranting comments starting with the Big Love suicide. Thank you, thank you, thank you.I hope this gets the attention it deserves.Bravo!

"With no genune leading gay characters on television, and only a smattering of supporting gay ones, it also makes sense that we gay and bisexual viewers might become more emotionally attached to these characters than straight viewers do, and might experience them in a more personal way."

I think this is the real crux of the issue right here. Yes, supporting characters on dramas often die in order to advance the character development of the main characters. But for us, gay supporting characters are MUCH MORE than just supporting characters. For us they are the characters that we identify with, that draw us into the show, and we come to find joy in their tiny moments of screen time. So killing off a gay supporting character is much more traumatic for us than the loss of another supporting character might be.

I hate to beat a dead horse, but Torchwood is a great example of this. At the end of the second season, two straight supporting characters were killed off, Tosh and Owen. There was some backlash from their fans, to be sure, but nothing compared to the backlash over Ianto's death in Children of Earth. While Tosh and Owen were well loved and lots of fans were sad to see them die, their deaths were generally accepted as part of the plot advancement. However, Ianto's death was much less acceptable, because gay/bi viewers had developed such a deep attachment to him as one of the few identifiable gay/bi characters on television. For us he was not a secondary character to be tossed aside in the name of good drama. For us he was on par with a main character and losing him was a significant as losing Jack or Gwen would have been. It destroyed the show for us and I think similar things have happened with other series that have chosen to kill off gay characters. We lose our connection into the show and it no longer matters enough for us to continue watching.

 

"It's weird. It's just different. It's not men. It's just him. It's only him." - Ianto Jones

Whatever excuses or rationalizations that writers or producers use to justify their lazy reliance on this hoary trope, at the root it's all about money and fear and how they are interlinked in Hollywood. Creators used to get full seasons to build an audience. Now they get six episodes if they're lucky. They're terrified of doing anything that hasn't been done before and blowing the revenue stream.

I've read The Celluloid Closet several times since I bought it back in 1987. Despite its age it's an invaluable resource.

There are differences in some of the storylines mentioned; sometimes there's a purpose behind the gay character's death, and sometimes it's just lazy writing.

Cases in point: Dale's death on "Big Love" was an indictment of the Mormon attitude toward gays; his death episode had a very pointed scene that showed the church's culpability in what was to come. I'm a little wary of gays existing as "message" characters, but the message Dale's storyline conveys is an important one in our current Prop 8 climate.

Omar's death on "The Wire" was typically complex; it was saved until almost the end of the series and punctuated several crucial ideas in the entire run of the show: first and foremost, that as one who built his own system of morality rather than depend on the corrupt pre-existing system, Omar became legend on the streets after his death-- people wanted to be Omar (and Michael essentially takes his place), while Marlo, Omar's opposite (his name is even an anagram of Omar L.), who has both heterosexual and capitalistic privilege, is shown in pointed contrast, alone and forgotten, the irony being that he will never have what Omar achieved and what he most wants. The suddenness of Omar's death befits his violent legacy, but the punctuation is that, on the streets at least (though not in the system, which typically, idiotically "forgets" Omar in the morgue), Omar lives on as legend.

Even on "Reaper" I'd argue that Steve's "death" is a set-up to turn him from a demon into an angel (an angel whose male partner is a demon, kind of like my own home scenario, though we won't say who's who); Steve "dies" but becomes a pivotal figure in the end of the second season, and from the looks of things, if the show had continued, he would have played a significant part.

Now Spartacus on the other hand... oh, Spartacus, Spartacus. Every time I want to like you (and, man, after that awful, terribly bad calamity of errors that was the show's first episode, that was a leap of faith), you f*ck things up. [rolls up newspaper] Bad show! Bad! Bad! Bad! [sprays Spartacus with a water bottle] I was okay with Barca's death. Actually, his death was a great opportunity for some really interesting storylines: Pietros learns the truth and wreaks horrible and unexpected vengeance on Ashur; or, Pietros shows he's been studying the others as more than love interests and becomes a kind of mini-might gladiator; or Pietros invents a new social networking system called Slavebook; or Pietros convinces the gladiators to form a glee club which is undermined by Roman matriarch Sueveus Sylvesterius; or, heck, anything at all.

Spartacus was just lazy writing, and you can tell by the interviews that they have what we might call "24" syndrome. On "24," the writers got all caught up in the idea that "nobody's safe except Jack Bauer" and they killed off everyone interesting until ratings went down and down, and then they realized they'd been stupid and had to scramble and do something they swore they'd never do and bring a character back from the dead. When I hear "nobody's safe except Sparatacus," I roll my eyes. It's dumb planning. See, the main character on most shows is, well, kind of boring. Spartacus himself is, by his stoic nature, dull as dishwater. Kill off characters here and there, sure, but when shows start to overdo it (I'm talking to you, Russel Davies), it ruins the "spice' that makes these shows watchable. It's not just that Barca and Pietros were gay, it's that they were actually an interesting part of the mix, and had good future story potential. I don't want to start getting invested in too many characters that just end up getting whacked. It's poor storytelling.

Oh, and Spartacus isn't killing off characters because it's "real" to the time period. Even "Pigs in Space" from "The Muppet Show" is a more realistic depiction of anything that's ever actually happened in world history than Spartacus. Every time Spartacus starts with that announcement that all the nudity and violence is about a "realistic depiction of the times," I giggle.

The climax of Vito Russo's lectures on gays and lesbians in the cinema ever-so-many-years-ago was his detailing of how many of us ended up dead -- and how. Death itself is not the point. The point is whether we deserve to live. Far too many people still believe we don't. And many of them are gay themselves.

Its a Subject that is very near and dear to my heart. Its something that every time I see a gay character in a regular show that I think about. Will that character die "For Drama" "To Move the Story Along." etc..

 

I applaud this article, I think it talks about something that is still a very huge problem.

just wanted to say fantastic article ... you should write one about films because as wonderful as they are, we also end up dead... Philadelphia (Aids); Boys don't cry (murder); brokeback mountain (beaten to death)...I think this is the worst... one dead, and the other depress and alone, double whammy... oh!, and milk(shot).. great. 

Where is our happy ending? I thought there would be one by now?!!

no romantic comedy with jude law and Ryan Reynolds? They meet,some kind of misunderstanding happens, hate each other for the next 2 hours, and kiss at the end... now, that, would be ground breaking!

"With no genune leading gay characters on television, and only a smattering of supporting gay ones, it also makes sense that we gay and bisexual viewers might become more emotionally attached to these characters than straight viewers do, and might experience them in a more personal way."

May I just say that straight viewers also do become attached to LGBT characters (STILL in mourning for Ianto here). They are our friends, family, collegues and they are, with just some small differences, us.  We would love to watch them go thru their journeys, rise to the challenges, contend with the knock downs but continue on to the very end.

Look at your own list. Being portrayed as victims in crime procedurals is one thing, as you say it's the only way they include guest stars, but what about the message the trite plot device of the gay suicide sends to gay youth. It's beyond irresponsible. Other minority groups may share the honor of being the expendable character when the plot requires a death, but I believe gays are unique in the cliche gay suicide plot device. Sometimes these suicides are painted as noble, like on NCIS, to avoid some scandal associated with gayness, but even those suicides buy into the "gay is shameful" trope. Let's have a campaign for a moratorium on gay suicide in TV. Are we so used to being portrayed this way that we don't realize how harmful it is?

Nous Sommes Tous Sauvages.

The seminal dead gay guy film. How many ways can you kill gay guys? Only the British!

I haven't read the original Christopher Isherwood book that the Tom Ford movie is based on, but I read somewhere that Isherwood had a longtime relationship in real life, and so has Ford. So it is possible for gay men to have healthy, longstanding relationships. But in Ford's film, the central character of George, an English professor who mourns the loss of his lover, spends the day contemplating suicide. Toward the end of the movie, one of his students, Kenny, starts to fall in love in George. And George finally decides that killing yourself isn't the way to end your life, but then (IRONY!) he has a heart attack and dies. No matter how terrific Colin Firth was in the role, and no matter how impeccably shot it all looked, this movie just became another cruel variation on the gay-guy-must-die routine. Enough! It's time for gay films with happy endings.

While I found your article's observations valid and thought-provoking, my own responses to many of the cited examples seem to be far different from the majority of gay men. "Brokeback Mountain" was tragic because it's a tragedy, and it's the perfect tragic love story. Gaeta from "Battlestar Galactica" was executed because that was the most interesting and most "real" result of that character's actions in that universe. And forgive me if I offend, but the death of Ianto was moving, brilliant, and one of the most validating scenes depicting true love that I've seen on television. The decision to have Ianto die in his lover's arms, and to have his lover (a GAY MAIN CHARACTER WHO DOESN'T DIE) then react to his death in real and profound ways, did much more to express the emotional truth that exists between two men in love than any contrived "happy ending" might have done. Yes, it would be nice to see fictional gay men live happily ever after and not be killed off. But most successful fiction, gay and straight, involves pain and suffering and loss and death. I would personally be far more insulted by writers who chose to sugarcoat a gay relationship, as though gay men are spared the tragedies of loss and death. But again, all of the examples being discussed are from such varied genres of fiction, that I believe it's necessary to examine the purpose of each narrative, as well as the author's intent if and when a fictional gay character is killed.

In general, I can agree with most of what you wrote. I do think most of it because the gay characters tend not to be the leads unless it is on Logo, etc. However, I'd like to point out that the lives of these characters, whether it's tragic, comedic, etc, can sometimes have an effect on peoples' perception of what gays are like and how we live. And even show that we are more alike than we are different. How many parents are like Cam and Mitchell and discussed ferberizing their baby? Or totally freaked out the first time they hit their new baby's head? Or are like Justin and Kurt and are bullied for being different? Another thing I like to do is put this type of social evolution into historical perspective. It just takes time. Not saying it is right, it is just the way it is. It was nearly a hundred years after being freed that blacks got legal equality. And here we are 50+ years after that and there is still discrimination and small-minded all across this country. Though it truly does suck while you are living through the changes.

The first play I wrote in the early 90's that played in Seattle (the New City Playwright's Fest, where it was runner-up for Best Play) and the SF Fring Festival ended with the main character's suicide. I've never read "A Single Man," and was astonished how much the film mapped out a similar trajectory to my main character: an older classics instructor (though mine was in his late 60's) has a relationship with a younger man, loses him tragically (to AIDS, I wrote), and then resolves himself to suicide, like the Shakespearean characters he reveres. (He also loses a sister to Alzheimers, tying in with other Shakespeare women who lose their minds.)

I'd actually read "The Celluloid Closet," but I wasn't (conciously) writing out of a place of internalized homophobia--I was trying to create a modern Shakespearean tragic hero, who when he has no options left decides to take matters into his own hands. (Well, his lover's ghost helps.) One of the directors actually took the production to a group of seniors, who gave her the feedback that yes, when you're the only one left after you've lost all your loved ones, you do indeed wonder why you should go on.

 Now, however, I've definitely had some changes of heart--partly because my dad became a widower at 64, and is still very much alive, active, and participating in life, though he's lost his great love. I've thought about expanding the work, and having an Act I dealing with the young man's life and him fleeing the South, so then there'd be more dramatic "arc." But also, I'm more sensitive to how things "play" in the outside world, besides in my imagination, and the political and cultural significance of creating gay art. As much as I still like this play (though "A Single Man" may have now made it somewhat irrelevant), I now feel a little badly about its original trajectory, and when a gay character has died in my subsequent works its been due to things like a car crash (again, curse you "A Single Man"!), instead of at the character's own hand.

I do agree with someone above who posted that you have to have loss to create drama. Still, I think we as a culture need more great gay love stories that don't end tragically (besides "Angels in America" "Latter Days" "Big Eden" "Maurice" "Jeffrey" and "trick"), and I acknowledge that I'm going to need to work to be part of that. Sir Donald Wolfit said "Dying is easy, comedy is hard"; well, killing off characters is easy too--keeping them alive to fight another day despite the overwhelming odds, that's the real test.

thank you for a great article! i have been wondering for some time WHY in so many films and also some really good books there must be a gay death or gay tragedy. sometimes when i watch a new film i wonder from the beginning who will be "the one" this time and/or how it's going to be this time...

Love the idea of a rom-com involving gay leads! It would definitely need to star Ryan Reynolds! Interesting article. The cliché I always dread is the guest-starring HIV-positive gay man, teaching the main characters about what really matters in life. I don't if it really has been done that much, yet when I see such a story it feels like it's been done to death. It wasn't too long ago when the only gay men on tv were either miserable or flakes. Things are slightly improving I guess.

Mike Spencer isn't gay, nor do I remember him getting murdered. In the MaryAnn orgies he's shown having sex with women and referenced as sodomizing a pine tree, and in the final scenes his fate is left unclear - but seeing as most of the town survives, I'm thinking he does too. The most prominent gay character on True Blood, Lafayette, was killed off in the beginning of the second book, but kept around in the series and in fact given a bigger role because the audience responded so positively to the character. And he gets a boyfriend next season.