Sexualized Saturdays: Single Queer Characters Are Still Queer!

A few months ago, I wrote a piece about what I termed “Magical Obligatory Queer Dating”: to make a long story short, some characters have greatness thrust upon them, and some have seemingly obligatory relationships with the only other LGBTQ+ character on their show thrust upon them. However, we sometimes see an alternate, almost opposite, scenario—queer characters on TV shows who rarely or never seem to have any romantic relationships. In essence, I believe both situations ultimately end up stemming for the same problem: time constraints. When there are LGBTQ+ characters on TV shows, they are more likely than not to be side characters, rather than main characters. As such, they have limited time to explore their love lives, so writers either end up pushing them into an ultra-convenient same-sex relationship, or just not bothering to have the character date at all. However, I don’t think the latter option has to be as problematic as the former, and can actually be a source of good queer representation.

Single sometimes, in a relationship sometimes, gay all the time.

Oh, My Pop Culture Resurrection: Who Gets to Come Back?

Hello lovely readers! Since it’s been roughly one week (and 2000 years, give or take) since one of the most famous resurrections, I thought I’d talk a little about some slightly more recent examples from pop culture. More specifically, I’m gonna talk about that awkward moment in a sci-fi/fantasy show when a character gets resurrected, and then, a season or two later, some other character does not get resurrected. Whoops. This is even a scenario that takes place in the Bible. We have stories of Jesus raising Lazarus in one of the Gospels, and the daughter of Jairus in the others, clearly establishing Jesus’s ability to raise the dead. But how many other people around him and his followers died without being resurrected?

This happens frequently in any story world where resurrection is possible. Why does this happen? Oversight? Quota filled? Price hikes? Join me on a tour of some of the more notable instances of this phenomenon in some of geekdom’s favorite shows. Character deaths are obviously major spoilers, so spoiler alerts below for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Warehouse 13, and Charmed.

Yo, Buffy, I’m really happy for you, I’mma let you finish rising from the dead, but Jesus had one of the best resurrections of all time!