125. Bury Your Gays

Snarky Opener (0:00)

Not only are the gays slaying, but they're also being slayed by Hollywood.

Episode Introduction (0:24)

Hello, my LGBTQuties, and welcome back to another episode of A Jaded Gay. I'm Rob Loveless and today, I am a non-jaded gay because I got in a really good workout.

So, like I mentioned way back when, in April, I started running with a gay running group here in Philly, which I love. You know, I get to meet some other people in the community.

We're running around different neighborhoods in Philly, so I'm getting used to the geography around here.

And toward the end of the summer, I also sold my car and bought a bike. So now I've been relying mostly on public transit, especially when I go to the runs.

And a lot of times, they're right by the subway stop. So, I'll take the subway in the general vicinity of where we're meeting, and then I'll walk over to the running trail.

But today, the running trail was actually not near the subway at all, and it was going to take a really long time to go from the subway to then walking there. So instead, I decided to bike.

So, I biked 4.6 miles there, ran three miles, then probably walked like maybe point five miles to a coffee shop afterwards, and then biked another 4.6 miles home. So, whew, my legs are feeling it.

But, I mean, that is what the bike is for. I hope that is part of selling my car that I would one, you know, save some money and also use the money from the car to pay for grad school and all that fun stuff, but two, trying to build up these quads, hello.

And yes, I'm anticipating on being dead the rest of the day. I did order Chipotle as a little treat myself afterwards, so I had that, and then I'm just planning on doing grad school work after this. Yeah.

Bury Your Gays (1:51)  

Anyway, moving on from scary strong legs to scary queer stereotypes.

Today, we are talking about a trope as old as time. So, you know, like I've said in the past, I love fall, I love spooky season, and I love horror.

And I've really enjoyed learning more about queer parallels with horror and connecting with other queer horror fans like Ralph Anthony, Jose Nateras, and Bobby Torrez.

And in those episodes, we've obviously talked about the ins and outs of queer horror.

And I think in the episode with Jose, we touched upon the Bury Your Gays trope, which plagued LGBTQ+ representation for a while, and that he chose to steer clear of in his film Departing Seniors.

So today, we're going to deep dive into what this trope is and how it's being challenged today. But first, tarot time.

Tarot (2:42)  

So, we drew the King of Pentacles in reverse. As you may remember, Pentacles is tied to the element of earth, so it's very grounding and stabilizing.

And the suit of Pentacles is typically feminine energy, which is meditative in nature, but the authority of the King asserts masculine energy, which is action-oriented. So, we've got a mix of both energies here. 

Pentacles is symbolic of putting in the hard work and reaping the rewards of your labor and basically, your hard work paying off.

It's also literally tied to financial prosperity, but I like to think of it as emotional prosperity. The King is also the final card in this suit, which indicates that we are at the end of a cycle or journey.

But it's also the 14th card, so we add double digits together to get five, which is tied to change, instability, and loss, which is kind of the opposite of what Pentacles typically signifies.

So, when we draw the King of Pentacles in reverse, it's telling us that we may be dealing with someone stubborn or rigid. And that person can be us or someone else.

And this stubbornness can include feeling stuck in a rut and being in a dull cycle where everything is boring and routine.

And while Pentacles may ground us to put in the hard work, this card is reminding us that we need to allow ourselves opportunities to break free from the status quo and add a little excitement into our lives. 

And since the king is telling us that we're at the end of a cycle, we should embody that feminine energy to reflect on what we need or want and how we can break out of this rut, and then leverage the masculine energy to take action as we begin a new cycle, to make sure we strike that balance between hard work and fun.

What is Bury Your Gays? (4:20)

So, with that in mind, let's talk about what Bury Your Gays is.

According to TVTropes.org, Bury Your Gays refers to a trope that presents the deaths of LGBTQ+ characters, where these characters are nominally able to be viewed as more expendable than their heterosexual counterparts.

Bookriot adds that this trope isn't just about death and loss, but it's often used to undermine queer people and relationships.

And Bury Your Gays isn't solely tied to the horror genre. We see this trope play out surrounding queer romantic relationships in which the tragic death of a queer person occurs just after a first kiss or sexual experience.

And the emphasis here is on the word tragic. It's not just that a queer person dies, but it's how they die which usually perpetuates the stereotype of queer people suffering.

Variants of the Bury Your Gays Trope (5:10)

And going back to TVTropes.org, they list out these specific variants of Bury Your Gays:

So, the first is Gay Guy Dies First.

This is often when the only queer character dies early on before any of the straight characters.

Number two, Gayngst, and that's G-A-Y-NG-S-T, so like gay angst. Gaynst-Induced Suicide.

This is when an LGBTQ+ character commits or attempts to commit suicide because of reasons connected to or caused by being LGBTQ+.

Number three is Homophobic Hate Crime.

This one's pretty self-explanatory. It's when a character is attacked and often murdered by homophobic characters.

Number four is Out of the Closet into the Fire.

And this is when, after a character comes out, they're quickly killed, harmed, or cosmically punished. 

Number five, Tragic AIDS Story.

Again, pretty self-explanatory. This is when the story involves the miseries of HIV and AIDS, often starring gay men and sometimes treated like a punishment for homosexuality.

And lastly, number six, Vasquez Always Dies.

And this is when the most lesbian-coded character, or the closest thing the work has to a butch character, always seems to get killed off or has the most violent and drawn-out death.

And for that last one, it comes from the movie Aliens, where Colonel Marine Vasquez, who is definitely more butch, dies, as opposed to the maternal civilian Ripley.

And obviously, Ripley is the main character in the Alien franchise, so yes, of course, she's not going to die. But Vasquez is an early example of the lesbian, coded character getting killed off.

Themes of Bury Your Gays (6:43)

Additionally, Pride Reads lists four key themes that comprise the Bury Your Gays trope:

·       Number one, the queer character's death furthers the plot of a cisgender heterosexual character

·       Number two, the queer character's happiness is short-lived and snatched away

·       Number three, the queer character's life is turbulent, and they regularly face homophobia

·       And number four, the queer character, or characters, are the only ones to die

So, with that all in mind, how did this trope originate?

The Origins of Bury Your Gays (7:12)

Well, according to a 2022 Screen Rant article, Bury Your Gays dates back to early film and 19th-century literature.

And this trope actually began as a refuge for queer authors. You'll remember that we covered the history of gay representation in TV and film in an earlier episode.

And in that, we touched upon how a lot of early representation was somewhat subtle, and also, there were some challenges regarding how queer themes and characters could be shown in the media

And the same holds true for Bury Your Gays. In order to get queer stories published, authors would use the death of their queer characters as a way to subvert censorship.

Basically, if the queer character suffered a horrific death, the authors couldn't be blamed for promoting quote-unquote perverse acts which could prevent publication at the best and result in arrest at the worst.

Now, while it certainly wasn't ideal, this did serve as a workaround to allow queer stories to be told.

But this workaround resulted in queer characters being portrayed as being mentally ill or not really gay but simply confused, and their homosexuality could be quote-unquote fixed by their deaths.

And over time, this evolved into the Depraved Homosexual trope, which we briefly talked about in that history of queer TV and film representation episode.

You might remember that we noted that a lot of villains were queer-coded and displayed flamboyant mannerisms.

And in a separate episode, I think it was about 30 being gay death, we talked about how there's another trope where older gay men are viewed as predatory toward younger men.

Both of these originate from that trope where the queer character's depraved sexuality is the motive for their villainous ways.

And as we're talking through this, I can see how this ties into the origins of the gay panic defense.

Ties to the Gay Panic Defense (8:56)

Again, another early episode, but we discussed how, in 1920, psychiatrist Edward J Kemp coined the term homosexual panic and described it as a condition of panic due to the pressure of uncontrollable, perverse sexual cravings.

More specifically, he said that men who were experiencing homosexual panic were suffering from symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions.

But the onset of this condition wasn't attributed to unwanted sexual advances. Instead, Kemp stated that it was actually caused by an individual's own aroused homosexual cravings.

But then, over time, this debunked idea evolved into a legal strategy for homophobes called the gay panic defense, which is positioned as a framework of temporary insanity on the defense's part and asks a jury to find that a victim's sexual orientation or gender identity is to blame for the defendant's violent reaction, including murder.

Usually, people pleading this defense claim a queer person made unwanted advances, or their sexuality or gender identity made them uncomfortable, so they attacked the queer person out of a state of panic and then expect to be found not guilty for their violent crimes.

It's a crock of shit that we covered back in 2022, so give that episode a listen if you haven't already. Anyway, I'm going on a tangent. Back to tropes.

The Hays Code (10:12)

Going back to the Screen Rant article, in the 1920s and 30s, films became more salacious, and they began pushing the envelope regarding what they could show on screens.

And this included an increased prevalence of queer characters. But eventually, Hollywood ran into a challenge: The Motion Picture Production Code.

Also known as the Hays Code, it was implemented by William Hays in 1934. Now, Hays was a former Republican congressman and left his role in politics to become the head of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association.

With the backing of conservative and religious groups, Hays implemented this code, which was a set of self-imposed industry guidelines consisting of 36 rules that prohibited things like profanity, graphic violence, and quote-unquote sexual perversion.

And this was in effect until 1968. So, during this time, positive representation of LGBTQ+ characters was forbidden.

So, creators at the time were forced to use negative stereotypes and villainized depictions of queer characters in order to avoid mass boycotts of their films.

And Screen Rant asserts that this era is what gave rise to the concept of queer coding. And while following the Hays Code was technically voluntary, those who didn't comply were blacklisted and erased from history.

And interestingly enough, this code was abandoned in 1968 when film companies adopted the Motion Picture Association of America rating system that we know today.

And even though we've moved past the Hays Code and have seen increased LGBTQ+ representation in media, the Bury Your Gays trope is still prominent.

And while you can see this across every genre, I'm going to focus on the horror genre specifically since it is October.

Modern Examples of Bury Your Gays (11:58)

So, here's a few examples.

In November 2020, during the final season of Supernatural, Castiel confesses his love to Dean and sacrifices himself so Dean can live.

And then, Castiel gets dragged into The Empty, which is a place where angels and demons go when they die.

In Halloween Kills from 2021, we were introduced to the couple, Big John and Little John, the first queer representation in the 40+ year legacy of the Halloween franchise.

And, spoiler alert, they were both killed.

And I remember when this came out, there was debate over this because some people within the LGBTQ+ community were mad the couple was killed. And then some didn't think it was a big deal.

And I think the main ire with this is that the only form of queer representation in this franchise was killed off as soon as they were introduced.

But, I mean, in my opinion, Halloween is a slasher movie. Everyone is fair game.

And it's been a few years since I saw Halloween Kills, but I don't remember their deaths as being any more gruesome than others killed off in the movie.

And truthfully, I was just thrilled that Kyle Richards survived because I love her.

*We were all so happy that day. It's actually hard to even imagine how terrible things would soon become.*

But enough gushing over reality stars. Turning to an example of Bury Your Gays, which was probably the most horrific to me, was 2019's It Chapter Two.

This starts off with a gay couple at a local fairground having a cute date night until they're confronted by some homophobic guys.

And they're followed onto the bridge and attacked. And they throw the one guy, Adrian, over the bridge, and he plunges into the river below.

Adrian survives and tries to swim over to the river bank, and his partner hurries down to save him.

And he gets there just in time to see Adrian pulled to the opposite bank by Pennywise the Clown, who then sinks his teeth into Adrian's chest and rips a big old chunk out of him.

And I remember when this movie came out, there were actually trigger warnings floating around the internet warning about this because it is pretty disturbing.

And just to preface, that whole kill scene wasn't necessarily something new to the film. Stephen King did actually write that in the book, It.

And I actually saw a headline recently that that scene in particular was actually inspired by a real-life hate crime.

So, I have that tucked away in my pocket for potentially a future episode. But, just wanted to clarify that there.

Moving Away from Bury Your Gays (14:25)

Now, with all that in mind, some people like to push back and say, "Oh, so gay people get special treatment so they can't die in storylines?"

And that's not it at all. I mean, obviously, not every LGBTQ+ character can have a happy ending. Just look at me. Just like every straight character can't have a happy ending.

However, a queer character can die in a narrative without relying on the Bury Your Gays trope. And Bookriot uses Rent as an example that features queer deaths without playing into the trope.

Now, full disclosure: I'm a bad gay, and I've never seen Rent.

But according to Bookriot, most of the characters in it are queer, and a good number of them have HIV or AIDS. And Angel even dies from AIDS during the storyline

But despite this, Bookriot asserts that Rent avoids the Bury Your Gays trope for a few reasons:

·       Number one, Angel's queerness is addressed and admired

·       Number two, this story takes place during the AIDS epidemic, so it would seem disingenuous for a gay character not to die from the disease

·       And lastly, number three, the number of queer characters in Rent exceeds the number of queer characters who die

Remember, with the Bury Your Gays trope, usually the only queer character is targeted.

Ultimately, though, the primary distinction between queer characters dying and the Bury Your Gays trope is that the trope asserts that the queer characters are disposable.

Essentially because they're queer, they must die because they can't live happily ever after like their heterosexual counterparts do.

And really, this trope reinforces the stereotype that to be queer is synonymous with suffering, which isn't the case at all. And we talked about that in the queer joy episode.

Episode Closing (16:01)

So, as we're wrapping this episode up, I would like to close out with a paragraph from the Screen Rant article:

"As more and more queer characters are having their stories told, creators are beginning to move away from the idea of inherent struggles to tell stories of love, friendship, and acceptance.

Movies like Call Me by Your Name and Love, Simon may not always be happy, but they explore deep, enriching stories that don't reduce their queer characters to being martyrs and victims.

LGBTQ+ stories can't always be happy, but when movies tell the stories of queer characters and allow them to matter instead of reducing them to an expendable plot device, queer characters are finally allowed to be nuanced, complex, human characters.

As more queer stories are being told, more diverse queer stories are being told. And creators are leaving behind Bury Your Gays to instead embrace fully developed LGBTQ+ characters and their stories."

And connecting it back to the tarot, King of Pentacles in reverse.

Again, this is signifying that someone, something, some situation might seem stubborn or rigid. Like it's stuck in a rut and that it's this dull cycle where everything is boring and routine.

And that's how LGBTQ+ representation can feel at times. It's old, it's inauthentic, it's been done to death, no pun intended, and it can leave us, as members of the LGBTQ+ community, really wanting to see more for queer characters in Hollywood.

So, this card is giving us permission to find new ways to express ourselves and be creative and basically break out of the Bury Your Gays stereotype.

I think we talked about this in the Netflix episode, but we really need to make sure we're supporting queer creators.

Even if they're not the actor in front of the camera, there's still a need to have queer people in the room, whether they're writers, directors, whatever.

We need queer representation, all aspects of this, to create more authentic representation in Hollywood. And that involves supporting queer creators.

You know, we're not always going to see this blockbuster, huge queer film, but if you go on any streaming site, if you look specifically at queer streaming channels, like OUTtv, there are a lot of queer films out there that maybe just haven't risen to that level of popularity and commerciality.

In fact, there's a lot of queer indie films out there, and while they might not have broken through to the mainstream yet, those stories are just as entertaining, and a lot of times, they have more authentic queer representation.

So, by supporting these creators, you know, watching their content, sharing it with friends, promoting it online, we're helping to push the needle forward on promoting these queer creators to hopefully get them in the studios of Hollywood so that way we can mass produce the queer representation on a blockbuster level like we've been craving for so long.

And for any queer creator out there, keep on pushing forward. Again, you want to make sure you strike that balance between working hard and having fun. But don't let your lack of progress discourage you. 

And also, when we talk about breaking free to have fun, don't be afraid to throw some crazy ideas out there into your work.

Maybe it's this really zany, queer plot line that hasn't been done before that you think, "Oh, is this too weird?" Or, "Oh, is this too quirky?"

Go for it. This is the time to express ourselves in new ways and have fun.

Yes, we want to make sure we're putting in the hard work, but we want to make sure we're enjoying the work we're doing, too, because when we're passionate about something and having fun in the work we do, it's going to show through.

And especially when we're talking about overcoming the stereotype of tragic queer deaths, we want to make sure that the joy and the fun and the passion is really showing in the queer work we're putting out there.

Connect with A Jaded Gay (19:21)

So, as always, thank you for listening. I hope you found this topic interesting, and let me know your thoughts.

I mean, are there any horror movies you think that do a good job of avoiding the Bury Your Gays trope? If so, send me an email because I'd love to hear about it. I'd love to watch it. I love all queer horror. Yeah. 

So, send those my way, rob@ajadedgay.com. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast. Greatly appreciate it.

For more information on this topic, along with episode resources, blog posts, links to socials and merchandise, all that fun stuff, you can check out the website ajadedgay.com.

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And remember, every day is all we have, so you gotta make your own happiness.

Mmm-bye.

Outtake (21:04)

With the backlog, oh, not the right word.