Sexualized Saturdays: The Dead Lesbian Trope Needs To Die

Here is a picture of a couple who lived happily ever after in canon to raise our spirits before delving into the depressing fates of many other queer female characters. (art by Bryan Konietzko)

I spent a lot of time trying to decide on a topic for today’s post. But I could really think only of one topic, although I tried to resist it for a while because it’s too sad and frustrating. In the end, I decided to go with it. And so today I want to join the conversation discussing the queer women that have died on our TV screens this year, the Dead Lesbian trope, and the implications of this continuing trend.

Spoilers for Lost Girl, Person of Interest and The 100 below (and of course, don’t look at any of the links if you don’t want to be spoiled about any character deaths anywhere).

Oh, My Pop Culture Religion: The 100 and That Old-Time Religion

There aren’t many shows on television anymore that I enjoy as much as CW’s The 100. Ace has been following the series here since it began, and I’m only just getting caught up. The 100 offers a kind of teenage/YA dystopian escapism that my preteen self would have obsessed over, plus an imaginary boyfriend to boot (Hello, Nurse Bellamy!). Who cares if we never figure out how the characters maintain their never-ending supply of mascara when we have issues to tackle like turf wars and privilege and racism and sexuality? Among these, I had hoped that religion would be handled thoughtfully, but the result is pretty meh. Nevertheless, The 100 gives us a pretty good example of some typical science fiction religion tropes, and how religion can function in ways that help (and hurt) the quality of the story.

Spoilers for The 100 through Season 3 Episode 8, “Thirteen.”

The 100 and Tragic Queer Relationships

I’ve been sitting on the The 100’s most recent episode “Thirteen” for a few days now, trying to wrap my head around what happened. And, well… I’m disappointed, to say the least. The 100 has struggled with important issues in the past, such as racial representation, which it continues to struggle with today. However, while it hasn’t always done a good job with depictions of race and characters of color, it’s consistently done well with Clarke’s and Lexa’s plotline. The show has spent the past two seasons excelling at characterization, worldbuilding, and being an inclusive and friendly show for LGBTQ+ people, despite its often violent premise. At least, that was the case until last week.

Spoilers after the jump.

“Blood Must Have Blood” in The 100 Season 2 Finale

The second season of The 100 has come to a close, and what a season it was. Numerous characters, including the main male love interest, were killed, Clarke became the CW’s first bisexual lead, and the Grounders and the Skypeople formed an uneasy truce and went to war with the Mountain Men. The entire second season was fun, exciting, and filled with twists and turns. Unfortunately, the last episode wasn’t as strong as it could have been. It wasn’t a bad episode by any means, but there were plenty of things about it that made little to no sense—and I’d already suspected the twist ending involving Jaha and Murphy episodes ago.

Spoilers after the jump.

The 100, Warlords, and the CW’s First Bisexual Lead

For anyone who doesn’t watch The 100, the CW made great strides toward representation when it revealed that its leading character is bisexual. Initially, Clarke came across as the generic cishet white girl we now commonly follow in dystopian societies, and I got on The 100’s case about that a while back. I have never been happier to be wrong. The 100 started off rather campy, but it has really grown into its potential, and it is most certainly one of the better shows on TV right now. The reveal of Clarke’s bisexuality and Lexa’s queerness only added more layers to two already well developed characters—but the writers are also taking another step to show why their sexualities should matter to us.