Ever wondered how to kill off a queer character without falling into the 'Bury Your Gays' trope?
A case study by Pride Reads
'Bury You Gays' is when the queer character in the story, often the only one, is killed off. They're usually killed by someone, or die from an aggressive illness. Basically, it's a violent death.
Although the trope is called 'Bury Your Gays', in this instance, the word 'Gays' is an acronym for lgbtq+, so can be for any member of the queer community (although it's worth noting that lesbians have their own "Dead Lesbian Syndrome" because queer female deaths have become the most prevalent in recent times.
The reason this trope is the most hated of all queer tropes, is because it reinforces the idea that queer people are more expendable than their heterosexual counterparts.
You can imagine how damaging this is to queer audiences, seeing a character that represents them, always dying.
But it doesn't have to be that way, and no it doesn't mean that you cannot ever kill off a queer character (although if your first thought when writing your token queer character is that they're going to die at some point, then you might want to take a long look at yourself and why you're doing that).
For this case study I'm discussing Episode 3 of
'The Last Of Us'.
There will be spoilers ahead so if you've not watched it, you've been warned.
Also CW: Death and suicide
Episode three saw the main story take a detour to give backstory to a couple of characters relevant to the plot of that particular episode. Bill and Frank were two queer men (I say queer rather than gay because they didn't state their label so I cannot be sure. Assuming 'gay' when someone doesn't state a label is how there's so much bisexual erasure. However, Bill does say there was never any women but still, this is why I advocate for labels for characters but I digress).
Bill and Frank are a same-gender couple, happily in love, but they are dead by the end of the episode.
Many people online have argued that this episode was the 'Bury Your Gays' trope, but I completely disagree and I'll tell you why, because understanding the reasons, will help you avoid this trope yourself.
Before I get into the actual dying part, let's look at 4 things that play into the 'Bury Your Gays' trope (and how this episode avoided/subverted them)
The queer character's death furthers the plot of a cishet character
Although nothing definitive has been stated in the TV show by this episode, it seems that only Joel is cishet. I've never played the game, but apparently Ellie is queer in that. In any case, in the very first episode she appeared in, they had a whole conversation about if she had any boys waiting for her, and they hung a bit of a lamp on her saying no, and nothing more. If you understand anything about TV characters, you should know that what people DON'T say, speaks louder than what they do.
Ellie is most likely queer, so even if Joel is a cishet guy, Bill and Frank's death wouldn't be furthering just a cishet character's plot.
It didn't anyway, because their deaths didn't trigger an action. Joel didn't go on a revenge arc, or be overwhelmed with grief so much that he was unable to do a certain thing. Neither of the characters learned a lesson from the death. The only way the death was in any way furthering their plot, was by giving them a vehicle and supplies.
In my eyes, that is not enough for this trope.
The queer character's happiness is short-lived, then snatched away
During the episode we see Bill and Frank find happiness, and yes by the end of the story they had died. However, this wasn't something that happened quickly. They did not find each other and immediately die. They didn't profess their love and then have it taken away. They had a full life together.
It was at least 16 years according to my calculations. So their death didn't steal any time from them. 16 years is a long time by any standards, but by zombie apocalypse standards, that is basically a lifetime.
Also, it wasn't something that went on for many episodes and got the audience invested in the characters. When shows do that, it feels really hurtful to then have to grieve the character. We only got to know these characters over the space of one episode. It was long enough to enjoy their story, but short enough so their death didn't milk the drama.
So, still not falling into the trope.
The queer character's life is turbulent and they regularly face homophobia
Sometimes I think writers feel they have to kill queers off, because it gives the character some relief, as though that miserable life makes their death inevitable. I know right.
Well, sure, Bill and Frank did not have it easy, but that had nothing to do with being queer. We never saw them fall victim to a single moment of homophobia or hate. The one time we did see their lives threatened, had absolutely nothing to do with their sexuality, besides, they survived that.
If anything, compared to what other characters were going through, they were actually having an amazing life.
Once again, the verdict is that it's not this trope.
The queer character/s are the only ones to die
My favourite thing about this episode, and a big reason why it is not the Bury Your Gays trope, is that this was the 3rd episode. We had already seen many characters die, and yes we couldn't be sure of their sexuality, but usually characters are cishet until proven otherwise, it's just the biased nature of the majority of audiences based on a lifetime of that being the way it usually is.
If we had seen Bill and Frank die in episode one, then I may have a different opinion on whether this is the trope, but they cleverly kept this episode until episode 3. We saw two queer men thriving after so much death, and that is the difference.
Their deaths came after several big character deaths so it didn't seem out of place. Also, the biggest difference is these characters did not get killed, unlike every other character's death that came before.
Totally not Bury Your Gays at all.
When it comes to dying, 'Bury Your Gays' is usually violent; dead before their time.
None of that happened in this scenario. Yes the two queer men ended up dead, but first and foremost, nobody killed them. Not only did they die on their own terms, after a long life together, but it was a decision they made together. Yes they took their own life, but in the reality of the world of the show (namely, zombies), and because of their age and health, it was a decision they felt was right.
It's worth noting that neither of these characters succumbed to the virus that turned most of the world into zombies. Also, nobody came to kill them for being queer. One of them didn't have to watch the other suffer before they lost them forever either. They had a life full of love in the most extreme of situations, and they went out with love too.
Finally, and this is the absolute biggest thing I want you to take away from this, at no point did you see the characters dying nor did we see them dead.
Not even a hint of a dead body. Yes we saw them take the pills that would end their lives, but we did not see them react negatively to this, we did not see them in pain, and we did not see them take their last breaths. It was enough that we knew it was going to happen. It wasn't glorified. Everything they did felt right for the character, and it wasn't done to shock.
Now, I know the writer of this show isn't queer, but I'm pretty sure he had lgbtq+ input in order for this particular episode to be the success it was. Don't forget, one of the actors is an out gay man, so was the director. Having queer input is absolutely necessary for telling authentic lgbtq+ stories. There were probably other queers involved in the process too, such as script editors, producers and beyond, but ultimately a cishet guy was driving the story of that episode, so it just goes to show that you don't have to be queer to write good queer stories.
And you don't have to resort to tropes and stereotypes just because that's how it's always been done.
Hopefully this case study has shown how you can write compelling lgbtq+ stories without the need for tropes. I always think showing how TO DO something is better than how NOT TO DO something.
I hope you found this case study useful. Please let me know if you did, as I may write more case studies about other tropes and stereotypes so you can see how to avoid them without compromising on story and drama.