This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Working Title: Bury Your Gays: From YKTTW
Twin Bird: A couple things.
- Did we actually go with Bring Out Your Gay Dead?
- Er, ...Or So I Heard is usually used for things you'd be too embarrassed to know...unless Rebel Without a Cause is embarrassing now, I think it kind of gives the wrong impression here.
- Eh...Gravitation made it less likely than it was, but it still runs pretty strong in Boys' Love.
- Do we really need to list simple aversions here? Did you honestly think anyone was going to die in But I'm a Cheerleader?
- Do we really need to list every gay character who dies? It seems ridiculous in a series like Strawberry Panic, at least.
- Linking to Straight Gay and Lipstick Lesbian seems like a rather questionable move to me...
bluepenguin: Yeah, uh, only one person suggested Bring Out Your Gay Dead, and I was planning to launch it as Bury Your Gays — there weren't a lot of people saying "yes, let's call it Bury Your Gays!" but no one was arguing with it, either. Plus, it's shorter, and I like short titles.
I agree with the other points as well, and I'll give this a bit of a rewriting later if someone doesn't beat me to it.
Tabby: I'm not too keen on the title, either. I thought it was going to be about characters only being outed after they've died/been removed from the series, or after the source materal has ended.
bluepenguin: So should I YKTTW the name change, or does someone else want to do it?
fleb: (latecomer) I'll do it. That title just sounds better.
Looney Toons: removed
- In Serial Experiments Lain, Lain is erased from existence after revealing her romantic feelings for her best friend, who then forms a "normal" heterosexual relationship and is seen at the end picking out things for her wedding.
because Lain isn't erased, she just makes everyone forget she ever existed and then goes ... elsewhere. She still exists, and wields considerable, virtually godlike, power over the world.
Sir Psycho Sexy: I'm sorry. I'm a n00b to launching these things. I will be more considerate in the future. You can change this to Bury Your Gays if you want, and use Bring Out Your Gay Dead as a redirect. I jsut skimmed over the trope-title entries, and that's what caught mey eye.
I apologize.
bluepenguin: Removed the following:
- (Brokeback Mountain and Philadelphia both suffer from this trope, even though they were embraced as "progressive" by many.) Real-life gays and lesbians were pissed.
- What "real-life gays and lesbians"? This troper knows many gays and lesbians who just loved Brokeback Mountain. This trope appears in this movie to demonstrate with bleak realism what can happen if you're gay in the American South, and how hate crimes can destroy people and relationships. In other words, it's a message about homophobia.
- Nevertheless, it still fits this trope.
- What "real-life gays and lesbians"? This troper knows many gays and lesbians who just loved Brokeback Mountain. This trope appears in this movie to demonstrate with bleak realism what can happen if you're gay in the American South, and how hate crimes can destroy people and relationships. In other words, it's a message about homophobia.
Since, well, it's generally agreed that we don't want Thread Mode Conversation In The Main Page. I left the example in, and if people want to continue to debate its legitimacy, they can do so here instead.
(later) Also removed, from under the same entry:
- Maybe they didn't get their happy end because, you know, they betrayed their wives.
- They were all betrayed (Ennis, Jack, and their wives) by the circumstances, the society, in which they were in.
- Maybe they didn't get their happy end because, you know, they betrayed their wives.
Obviously this is a controversial example. Really, though, why is it so hard for people to remember that discussion goes on the discussion page?
Johnny E: On which note; does it fit the trope? The trope is "any gay character who appears will be more likely than an equivalent straight character to get a tragic ending", which in my opinion doesn't apply to what is fundamentally a tragic love story about homophobia. There's a disappointing trend in pop culture which Brokeback falls on one side of, but that doesn't work as a criticism of the film for essentially "not being a different story".
Fanti Sci: In the Rent example...Is it worth mentioning that Mimi is rescued in her boyfriend's arms by his Magical Healing Song (and apparently an appearance from Angel himself), while even Collins' constant and devoted care isn't enough to save Angel? The first thing that crossed my mind when I first saw the musical was the unfairness of poor Collins being completely unable to rescue his boyfriend while Roger gets to play the Knight in Shining Armor. However, that might be a tangent to this trope at best, and maybe the example's already long enough without mentioning it.
bluepenguin: Removed the following:
- Subverted in Six Feet Under, David and Keith were the only couple that managed to stay together over the course of the entire series, at least until the final montage that featured everyone's death.
It's Not A Subversion, it's an aversion, or possibly an inversion if one or both members of any heterosexual couple died at some point (which I doubt). If the latter is the case, add it back in, but if it's just that they're the only ones to have had a stable relationship, that's nothing to do with this trope.
- Well, the main heterosexual couple is Nate and Brenda. Nate... gives Narm its name.
bluepenguin: I spend a lot of time removing things from this page, don't I? I should probably just leave it alone. Anyway, I removed:
- Classic example is The Well of Loneliness. OK, lesbian protagonist Stephen doesn't actually die, but spends the last third of the book deep in guilt and self hatred because (even though she's very well off) she's preventing her lover Mary from partaking in respectable society (1920's Paris and England) and their relationship is 'barren' because they can't have children together. After a brief 3-way struggle with Mary's heterosexual love interest, Stephen decides to sacrifice her own relationship and the little happiness she has by dumping Mary and thus driving her into the arms of Mr. heterosexual, because he will be able to give her a more fulfilling life than Stephen ever could. Then she goes off to be miserable and alone again.
If there's no death involved, it's not this trope. This is just a particularly painful example of I Want My Beloved to Be Happy, as far as I can tell.
Justin Cognito: Altered the bit about how Northstar's death happened around the time of Freedom Ring's death. Northstar was killed (for the first time) nearly two years before Freedom Ring's death.
arromdee: I'm not convinced of most of this article. The problem is that if you have gay characters at all, a certain number of them are going to die just like anyone else. And most of the time there's no way to tell the difference between someone who's killed off for being gay and someone who's being killed off because that just happens to be the one who died.
So we end up with almost every gay death being put into this category, since there's no good way to tell which are and which aren't. Even if the tendency to kill characters off for being gay completely disappeared, it'd still be possible to add more entries to the list.
bluepenguin: That's very true, and it's something I've noticed too, but what do you propose we do about it? Like you said, there's no good way to sort out what is and what isn't a real example, and it is a valid trope, so I don't think the article should be cut or anything. Making it example-less seems a bit drastic too... I really don't know how to fix the problem.
fleb: Yeah, there's not much to do about it. This trope is just like Black Dude Dies First. Of course some minority characters are going to die, just like some straight white males are. But it's the much higher death ratio when taken in aggregate, across all works, that makes the trope, so individual examples are impossible to exclude.
- Major tipoff: If the show makes a particular point of emphasizing the homosexuality of the characters immediately before tragedy strikes, and especially if tragedy follows on the heels of sexual activity, as in the Buffy The Vampire Slayer example, it's definitely this trope.
Greenygal: From the Watchmen example: "Gay women, not lesbians. This is Watchmen, after all." Is there a distinction between the two I'm unaware of?
Revolos55: Really? Disregarding, for the moment, the fact that the sentence in question makes no sense to me, I'm with Greenygal on this. What's the difference between a gay woman and a lesbian?
Trouser Wearing Barbarian: People in Watchmen always say "gay woman" instead of "lesbian." It's just one of those subtle details used to make the alternate universe that it's set in seem different.
fleb: Conversation In The Main Page. And what the second point said, plus: the point being replied-to mentioned "relationship to end in death," so the Series Finale one wouldn't count as they're broken up.
- Buffy/Angel(dead) Buffy/Spike(dead) Xander/Anya(dead) Wesley/Fred(dead) Wesley(dead)/Illyria Angel/Cordelia(dead) The first two got better, the rest did not, and This Troper is probably forgetting a few.
- The first two got better, yes. The last three happened on a different show. That leaves only one example, which happened in the last episode, when a main character death was obligatory. It should be noted, however, that Jenny Calendar wasn't significantly more minor than Tara, it probably just feels that way to some because the former died much earlier in the series, and appeared in one less season than the latter.
- In the comics continuing the series, Wesley comes back as a ghost. So that's sort of getting better.
Furiko Maru: Okay, what the crap? Where exactly in the Revolutionary Girl Utena mangaverse does Utena get erased from existence? Everyone forgets who she was because Ohtori Gakuin is a dreamworld; anyone who leaves for the real world is immediately written over - and because Anthy's been locked in her illusion as long as she has, she can't tell the difference between 'breaking the shell' and 'ceasing to exist'. That was why Utena gave Anthy the ring; to let her know that there was a way out. Hell, in the last panel of the comic they meet again in the real world and embrace; that's a heck of a lot less ambiguous than the anime ending. Whatever, I'm taking that part out.
Twin Bird: Score one for Completely Missing The Point. These are not duplications of anything. Rather, they are differentiated from other Death Tropes by...you guessed it...the gender/sexuality of the victim! The point is that these characters' deaths tend to be well telegraphed by the fact itself, and treated in similar ways by the plot (as "punishment," or just insufficiently). By this logic, you might cut all the Death Tropes since they're just the same thing - someone dies. (Yes, this is copy-pasted, but what's wrong with that? It's the same objection each time.)
Black Humor: Dead Kennedy, you seem to be making a lot of these. I'm sure we have this guideline here somewhere but this was easier to find.
Dead Kennedy: Twin Bird, you're an idiot.
Rogue 7: what a dashing rebuttal.
Fast Eddie: There we go. Ad hominem attack. Game over, Dead Kennedy.
Morven: Removed a whole bunch of poor examples, aversions, partial aversions and the like. This is NOT supposed to be a 'every gay character that dies' trope; it's the specific "must die because they're gay" trope. Gay characters are common enough now that them not dying is not really noteworthy. Gay characters dying indistinguishably from straight characters is not this trope either. Good examples only, please, not half examples or dubious examples or kinda-sorta examples.
bluepenguin: Ah, I was just coming over here to applaud whoever took it upon themselves to clean up the examples (the page really needed it). So, thanks, Morven!
bluepenguin: I don't think this trope is quite ubiquitous enough to list aversions — if Buffy's not an example, don't list it. If you just want to expound on why there isn't any problem with the show's treatment of gay characters... well, do it somewhere else.
Twin Bird: Um...why is the picture a random empty grave now? I'll grant that the old picture was perhaps a bit too flippant, and the Photoshop was way too obvious, but at least it had something to do with the trope. It would probably be better to have no picture at all, really...
Fubar: "Unfortunately, this is the sort of plot hole that many a gay character ends up falling into."
Ook: I removed the Song of Ice and Fire segment. The series has a very extensive body count and there's no clear case that Renly died or Loras probably dies because they're gay. Renly dies because he's one of the competitors for the throne; several others die for the same reason. Loras is a knight and Martin's realistic about the dangers of that profession. In short, they're gay character who died, not character who died because they're gay.
gkong3: Removing FMP:TSR twincest Chinese girls from examples; FMP in general (except for the second season, which featured rubber bullets for Rule of Funny) has a body count that is positively Rambo-esque. The first death comes within 5 minutes of the first episode, Sousuke's entire (albeit temporary) team dies in Aghanistan (okay, Helmajistan, but seriously) along with his childhood friend Zaid, his own superior Gail Mc Allen and Lian Whatshisname die in Tuatha de Danaan towards the end of the 1st season, and in TSR the entire city of Hong Kong hovers on the brink of extinction. Two creepy girls dying is a drop in the ocean.
Katsuhagi: Removed the bit about gays being more promiscuous, since it's simply not true by word of most valid studies. That's all I'll say on it, and besides just being more promiscuous doesn't lead to a higher death rate, Death By Sex or no. I admit it was a bit of a Berserk Button for me, but the bit had no relevance here.
gkong3: Added it back in. Sorry, neighbour, but I did my due diligence before adding the line, which I do for everything I expect need backing up, even though There Is No Such Thing As Notability here. Statistical significance doesn't necessarily mean by huge margins, nor does it imply that a majority of the LGBT community is promiscuous. However, increased promiscuity does lead to the increase in the sharing of diseases, especially STDs and VDs, which can lead to an overall decreased life expectancy. Sort of like left-handed people tend to die younger, because they have to operate in a mechanised world designed for right-handed people. Not the root cause, but an indirect cause, so to speak.
But hey, it's not really a big deal for me, so if you want to take it right back out, I'm not going to put it back in again.
Kurosau: About Ianto from Torchwood. I removed him because he doesn't count. A) Everyone on the Torchwood team has had a same sex relationship save for Gwen who just got a few minutes to make out. B) The show distinctly tries to not paint any character as 'the gay one'. So much so that the miniseries is the first time where someone's even directly referenced the fact. C) No one on Torchwood gets a happy ending. D) It clearly wasn't being done in the manner this trope suggests.
Come on people, this is why there's an explanation at the top of the page!
Kurosau: And again. Removed another reference to Ianto. He very clearly wasn't killed off as part of this trope. Torchwood team members die, they've implied that the institute has a way of killing people for a long time. And Ianto didn't have problems with his sexuality, he had a family that obviously wasn't that accepting straight off that he didn't talk to about it. His problem, and I want to be very clear about this, is the fact that Jack couldn't discuss their relationship, because Jack doesn't like to admit that he gets attached to people, seeing as he's immortal and they all die.
Danel: I propose a rename to this trope to: A Gay Character Dies, because that's what it seems to be. The trope description is clearly wrong, since half the examples are just cases of gay characters dying regardless of how many straight characters died along with them, and regardless of whether there were other gay characters who survived. Now, the Ianto examples outright CONTRADICTS THE TROPE IN ITS DESCRIPTION, boasting about how it's "also" Anyone Can Die,
Kurosau: I concur, this list doesn't seem to be representative of what the trope represents, and it's pretty damn misleading in this respect. This trope describes a rather subtle form of sexism targeted against gay characters, so any show on this list is going to be viewed through that perspective, whether or not it's actually sexist. We should be congratulating the shows that help break down sexist views, not bashing them.
Also, I wiped out that latest Torchwood reference.
Kurosau: Oh, and can someone tell me how BSG or DS 9 qualify for this list? Or is that just more grasping for examples?
Kurosau: I wiped out another Torchwood reference. No, I'm not ignoring the fact that people made fun of Ianto for being gay in the series. However, very clearly, that's because of the fact that this is the first time that Torchwood has interacted with the "Real World". The first situation is one where Ianto's sister asks, and then the husband brutishly comes in making fun of Ianto, and the sister chides him for it. And it isn't being made as a hateful scene, but as a haha-let's poke fun at a loved family member who's different. And the second time, it's an old man who was a kid in 1965 that says it, and even Rhys jumps to calling bullshit on them. The point is not to kill Ianto because he's gay, or to make fun of the character, the point is to show off that yes, Torchwood is in a bubble, here it is outside the bubble, and our heroes can act the same, they can make the right choices and treat people properly, and even deal with the criticism that brings from people outside the group. They've even influenced Rhys to be a part-time world saver.
Saavik: I think Torchwood fits the trope. Ianto was killed exactly on the same season in which, in spite of everyone on the series having kissed a person of the same sex at least once, he was identified as "the queer". Besides, it it not true that no one in Torchwood gets a happy ending- Gwen, the one who only kissed a person of the same sex because the girl was possesed by an irresistable alien, is happily married, pregnant, and when her husband died he was brought back to life undamaged. Something that, now that Ianto is the one dead, production has been saying it´s impossible.
Twin Bird: I'm going to say "no." Granted, Gwen is the straightest member of the cast and the one of the two left alive...along with the gayest member of the cast. Given Ianto was known to say "it's just him," and he's the third member of the main team to die in as many episodes...no.
Kurosau: To be further clear. Gwen didn't get a happy ending. She got a mostly normal one. She's got as much of a screwed up life as the rest of them, given that she freakin' retconned her own beloved so she could get it off her chest that she cheated on him and not live with the consequences of that act. But more importantly, Rhys got brought back to life for one and only one reason. Because of the rift. Much like Suzi, a very plot dependent, one time only kinda thing happened. And finally, Ianto didn't die because he was gay! There's nothing in the show that points to this fact! Nothing! Not a single iota.
stardust_rain: Actually, if you look at the context Torchwood does qualify, regardless of the "if it's him, it's okay" statement and Anyone Can Die factor. A lot seems to come down to this: Ianto died as a lover, not as a soldier. His death scene (last words, conversation, the last kiss) was connected to his and Jack's relationship. The death was about shedding light on Jack and Ianto being lovers (for example, Jack's "I take it all back, but not him!"), not Jack and Ianto being people who fight aliens. Compared to the deaths of Tosh and Owen, who both go out trying to save the city from a nuclear meltdown, it was highly sexualised death, an idea that for Ianto, death and sex go hand in hand. It made narrative sense, as a comparison to Jack's immortality but it doesn't exempt it from this trope.
Another note is that previous seasons have lampshaded his and Jack's dabbling (Owen in Captain Jack Harkness and Martha in Reset), but this is the season where it's explicitly pointed out that Ianto is gay. Before, Ianto was just "screwing Jack", they were just another relationship and treated as such, with condescension from Owen and curiosity from Martha. It's not who says it and with what implication in mind, but the fact that when it's stated as a gay relationship, Ianto get Bridge'd. We develop go from "here is a love interest" to "here is a gay love interest" to "here is a dead gay love interest".
Saavik: I agree with stardust_rain. Since the fanbase seems to be divided on this,couldn´t we settle on keeping my entry and Kurosau adding a paragraph on why another group disagrees?
Teapot: I altered the line about disease and promiscuity on the grounds of Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment, and because this trope is more about how the writers perceive homosexuality than about any "real life" statistics (which other tropes would indicate have very little bearing on how writers operate anyway).
Count Choculitis: Cut this note and put it here, in case anyone wants to argue for it.
- That can be seen as Rowling treating Dumbledore's homosexuality as no more of a plot point than Harry's heterosexuality, which is an excellent thing.
Except they're not really treated the same at all. When Harry and other straight characters (including incredibly minor characters, like the Gray Lady and Teddy Lupin) have romantic relationships and infatuations, they're stated as such frankly, in the text, instead of being buried under layers of subtext that are only clarified, that need to be clarified, via interview after the fact.
And that still doesn't get into the full problem that most fans have with Dumbledore's sexuality (which is, admittedly, only partly related to Bury Your Gays): that in a Cast Of Hundreds, Dumbledore is the only one identified as gay, and he's dead. And he spent the rest of his life celibate after the one great romantic love of his life led him down the primrose path to evil. I don't hate the Dumbledore storyline, but progressive it's not.
Landstander: I deleted the Dumbledore example. You can make arguments about weather or not Dumbledore's storyline is a big ole case of Unfortunate Implications till the cows come home, but his death itself is not a case of Bury Your Gays. The guy was 150 years old for god's sake, he went into his death willingly and his death itself was not related in any way to his gayness!
Britninja: Re the current Torchwood discussion. I'm tempted to edit the initial comment, not necessarily because I feel Ianto doesn't have a place here, but because I think such a subjective and downright inaccurate assessment of the canon doesn't have a place here. All tropers have their personal feelings about stuff, but for the tone of the page should really try and express themselves neutrally. It should at least be re-worded along the lines of "Some fans feel that..." However, I'm unsure how to go about editing without then invalidating some of the much more sensible discussion below, which I think ought to stay (if only for the sake of balance, because I think it's genuinely debatable whether the trope applies in this case; however if it's deleted altogether it'll only keep getting re-added. If it stays up with both pro and anti arguments intact, at least people can make their own minds up).
Anaheyla: Maybe I'm just paranoid, but alot of the entries on the main page seem to be less "Bad things happen to gay people more often than is normal" and more "Something bad happens to a character who by complete coincidence happens to be gay".
Mimimurlough: That's just it, isn't it? In individual examples, most of the time a dead character happens to be gay, and death being explicitly connected to sexuality is rather uncommon in our day and age. But then there's another dead person who happens to be gay. And another one. And another one... You get my point. Personally I like having examples from gray areas and many of them too, just because this is a trope that has its effect in quantity before quality.
Britninja: To the (even more ninja than me) Braveheart editor: I really think you're missing the point of the entire Bury Your Gays trope in your attempts to defend that scene. Just because Edward is a murderous type doesn't make the who/how/why of the choices in this scene irrelevant. If Edward might have thrown anybody out of that window... why was the creative choice made to have him throw a gay character? Why didn't he throw someone else? Why did Gibson choose to portray the prince as gay (which is speculation, not historical fact) and then kill his lover horribly in the first place (which was also not a historical event)? Why did he choose to frame it in a way that made it seem like a Take That? Those are the kinds of questions that make this trope genuinely relevant here, not Edward's general temperament. Very little of Braveheart was actually historically accurate, so that's not an excuse either; this scene being inserted at all, let alone framed the way it was, was a creative choice and it's totally legitimate to question why it was made.
Jack Butler: And your argument could well be seen as a case of If you look for sinister motives in everything, sooner or later you find them everywhere. The point of the scene wasn't "kill the gays" it was "show how much of an evil fuckwad Edward Longshanks was". Yes, the trope is appropriate. But the truth is, the fact that Edward was the kind of person who'd defenestrate anyone he didn't like regardless of their sexual orientation means that the accusations of homophobia could very well be interpreted as a case of making mountains out of molehills.
Britninja: No, I don't agree, I still think the way that scene was framed was extremely questionable - especially if you look at it in the context of the homophobic views Gibson has expressed elsewhere (check his real wiki page if you want other examples). Questioning how someone with a history of homophobia deals with gay characters is not making mountains out of molehills (I'd add also that scene wasn't the only problematic thing in that film; the portrayal of the prince as a weak, sickly, cissy gay man wasn't exactly thrillingly nuanced either). And FWIW I'm not usually kneejerk about this kind of stuff, despite being gay as a daisy; I've happily defended many of the other listed examples against charges of homophobia; it was me who tidied up the diatribes in the Torchwood entry, for example, and I've defended Joss Whedon on many an occasion. If you must express a contrary view, may I politely suggest you find a way to do so that puts your view more neutrally and distinctly - ie don't undermine the original entry with a jokey little collary implying everyone who thinks this is missing the point.
