Making up for lost LGBTQ+ tropes

In regards to the Last Season Coming out, could we name it "Finale Out"? Or does that give it a bad interpretation?

Didn't that concept get turned into this TLP?

Unconventional Family seems like a good supertrope. I'd be surprised if we don't have it.

Personally, I notice that, in media, kids with two same-gender parents tend to be more politically conscious and doted upon. It isn't really necessary in a Non-Heteronormative Society in works but usually in works set in a normal world, it contextualizes a child's struggles to fit into their world.

Not sure if Has Two Mommies needs to be retooled in that direction... I think Sync has a point that it's sort of a trope in aggregate where same-gender parents being portrayed positively isn't a common thing. Maybe it's comparable to the likes of Good Parents and Wholesome Crossdresser and the like? But those also get used like chairs sometimes...

Hey, was Queer Romance ever cleaned up like Queer Media was? I was looking through it earlier to see if a webcomic I was reading was on there, and a there are a lot of works better fit for LGBT Representation in Media, in addition to some works lacking context or just not having any, period.

re: context: Well, it is an index. The context thing was discussed here. While I think it would be improved with context, I don't think it should be a requirement, for the reasons I stated in that thread.

re: cleanup: not sure.

Edited by Twiddler on Jun 18th 2022 at 3:16:30 AM

I would love to revive this topic. I think Badass Gay should be brought back as it was. Culling it seemed like a highly over-sensitive axe. Some tropes, especially where the LGBT community are concerned, should be allowed to exist as celebrations of fiction rather than strict square peg descriptions in square scenario holes.

That's a way broader discussion that requires redefining what a trope is (or rather, what we should be categorizing) entirely.

Have you checked LGBT Representation in Media? That's sort of celebrating LGBT rep.

Edited by mightymewtron on Jul 13th 2022 at 5:23:36 AM

You're kind of asking to change what the website does at a fundamental level. Tropes that are about "celebrating good representation" are a huge minefield because we would have to officially declare what "good representation" is.

by someone saying the same thing.

Edited by TheMountainKing on Jul 13th 2022 at 5:24:32 AM

I lobbied for the cutting of Badass Gay, as a lesbian, because it felt like a weird backhanded compliment, and many other lgbtq+ tropers agreed with me in the discussion. I don't appreciate the implication that we're "over-sensitive"

I'm all for celebrating representation, but we need to stay on-mission. We cut Badass Gay because we determined there was no narrative weight or meaning behind "LGBT person who is badass", or at least nothing that wasn't covered by other tropes.

Edited by ImperialMajestyXO on Jul 13th 2022 at 5:50:49 AM

I mean, I think we can stay on-mission and still have a little room for flexibility. Badass Gay was a page that I enjoyed because it introduced me to what I was looking for in gay characters, and introduced me to a lot of media in general. There's never going to be a version of TV Tropes where there's no tropes left that could be argued as unnecessary. I don't see that trope's existence and application as any more superfluous than an Awesome page, for example.

There's some things that should be looked at through the scope of a browsing casual as much as, if not moreso than, an editor on the site, and I think this is one of them.

Surely it's not any more harm than Adorkable or Moe, right?

Edited by wearg on Jul 13th 2022 at 6:17:38 AM

Adorkable and Moe are YMMV tropes documenting audience reactions — in fact, Adorkable actually went through TRS a few years back because it was so heavily misused.

As you'll see if you read this thread back, all of us really do care about representation. Thing is, our site is about documenting patterns in the storytelling, and characters being gay isn't meaningful on it's own. That, combined with the fact that many have argued Badass Gay is somewhat homophobic (as mentioned above), what counts as "good representation" is too nebulous to trope.

That's why we made the LGBT Representation in Media index.

To put it bluntly, Badass Gay had exactly the same problem as a slew of other "badass and also, unconnectedly, other trait" tropes that also got cut. It's not getting restored just because the unconnected other trait is one people like more.

That, too. Nobody's arguing for the return of Badass Grandpa or Bald Of Awesome. The only reason people like Badass Gay is because gay.

Or Badass Princess, or Badass Beard, etc. I’m planning to take Badass Adorable in at some point too for similar problems.

Just binged through the entire thread... did anything ever come of the Gushing About Representation You Like page?

I remember I had had a similar idea when Bi The Way was cut, but from a slightly different angle: would it be practical to have a page for Representation in general? What I imagine is the main page would be treated as Trivia, written to be Useful Notes-ish and example-less, and then individual works could link to it on their Trivia subpages with a description of whatever form of representation it's relevant to (race/culture, gender, sexuality, ability, etc) and whether it's positive or negative (ideally with citations to criticism like I think most Trivia should have). I think it would be more useful than something tucked away on Sugar Wiki, and treating it as extranarrative documentation could help keep it from becoming unmanageably effusive. But I don't know how practical that would be or if it would fit existing policy, and it seems redundant to a dedicated gushing page.

To our recollection, the page kinda slid quietly to a halt, mostly but not entirely because people could gush on the forums instead.

If Representation is written as an objective page (whether Trivia or trope), it would need firm guidelines on what would count, and I don't think it's possible to do so for such a broad concept. Otherwise, people are going to put it on the trivia pages of every work they want to gush about, no matter how minor the character in question actually is.

We ditched the Gushing page due to concerns about curating it (i.e. would people fight over what kind of rep is good or not), and I have no idea what a general "Representation" page that isn't an index would accomplish due to being so broad. We have an index for general LGBT rep now anyway.

That too, overall the idea was just too personal to implement safely.

Edited by mightymewtron on Jul 15th 2022 at 5:32:03 AM

As well as Watched It for the Representation, which you can use if people really did watch a show for one badass gay character. (The 100 example is on that page)

I think we were also worried about whether or not people would have to out themselves to use the gushing page.

I think one question about Badass Gay is whether we ought to have a trope for aversions of the "gay people are weaklings" stereotype. That trope isn't Manly Gay which is about aesthetic choices and not physical prowess.

I think this might be workable, but only for male characters. Gayness in boys is associated with being sensitive/soft/effeminate, but lesbians have different stereotypes.

For examples that don't fit under Manly Gay, there's:

• Gay Perry from Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, a competent detective who is cool under pressure and handy with a gun, and takes advantage of a guy's homophobia to get the upper hand and kill him. He's only about averagely masculine-looking, and according to the work page, "he has several Camp Gay moments, such as having "I Will Survive" as a ringtone."
• Gregg from Night in the Woods is a delinquent who rides a motorbike and does dangerous stuff like knife-fighting for fun, but isn't particularly manly in appearance or personality, being average-sized at most and hyperactive.

We have Agent Peacock, which covers effeminate men who are badass.