"Bury Your Gays": Tired trope or harmful trend?

What the hell is 'destiel' and what do you mean Supernatural 'made it canon'? Find out why the latest instalment entitled 'Despair' set Twitter ablaze just two episodes before the finale.

(Credit: The CW)

From The 100, to Supernatural, right through to Joss Whedon’s much-loved Buffy The Vampire Slayer, many of our favourite shows, particularly in the sci-fi genre, have been guilty of indulging problematic queer tropes.

One term you might already be familiar with is ‘queerbaiting’, where a show will attempt to reel in LGBTQIA audiences with the promise of queer representation, without it ever being realised. These scenarios often play out in classic will-they-won’t-they fashion – except that the answer will always be, ‘they won’t’.

A simple way to think about queerbaiting is to ask yourself, “If these were two characters of the opposite sex, would they be together by now?” You can understand, then, how frustrating it is for queer viewers when similar relationships are not acknowledged between same-sex characters. Queerbaiting is toxic because it encourages LGBT+ audiences, who are rarely given positive representation on screen, to become invested in a false promise.

Queerbaiting aside, there is another trope that is prevalent throughout film and TV: ‘Bury Your Gays’. The tragic death of queer characters after forming meaningful relationships, or shortly after accepting some aspect of their queer identities, is something that the LGBT+ community are tired of seeing. Unfortunately, this trope has been exploited excessively since queer relationships first started surfacing in popular fiction and on our screens.

(Credit: Focus/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock)

To be clear, I am by no means suggesting that queer characters should be bulletproof, nor am I arguing that queer love stories should never end in tragedy. Seminal stories like Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx pioneered the movement of taking LGBT+ relationships seriously in fiction, focusing on Ennis and Jack’s entire relationship and the characters in detail before killing off one of the protagonists.

However, queer character deaths often occur shortly after either the recognition or consummation of their relationships. Sometimes these deaths are even just littered in for shock value. All of this indicates that either the writers view queer characters as expendable, or more likely that they are scared to write about a healthy, normal queer relationship.

This is where the Bury Your Gays trope becomes such an issue. Queer relationships are often painted as tumultuous in fiction, from their secretive beginnings of forbidden love, to their all-too-often heart-breaking conclusions. While all this angst can make for compelling viewing, it is also harmful to queer people, as it paints LGBT+ relationships as hopeless and doomed – a message that just doesn’t ring true in 2020.

Bury Your Gays has been widely discussed recently, thanks to the rather tone-deaf handling of a love confession between two male characters in Supernatural, which sparked the ire of fans just two episodes before the show’s final episode. The scene in question, which took place in season 15, episode 18 of the hit CW show, was so controversial that #Destiel (a combination of the two characters’ names) was top trending on Twitter the night that Joe Biden became President Elect.

In a scene where Death is coming after both of them (and I do mean that in the literal sense), Castiel remembers that he can summon a being called ‘The Empty’ by experiencing a moment of true happiness – which, for him, is confessing his unrequited love for Dean. In doing this, Castiel is able to sacrifice himself for Dean, by allowing The Empty to take both himself and Death, dragging them both to a fate worse than hell.

Some fans celebrated as it seemed that, after 11 seasons of queerbaiting, the characters’ more-than-brotherly bond was finally made canon. In other words, it was explicitly acknowledged in the show's canonical proceedings - at least from one side. However, many were quick to challenge the writers’ decision to end Castiel’s life in such a shocking way, especially as it immediately followed his confession of love for another man. Other fans also questioned the logic of this scene, as Dean does not reciprocate Castiel’s feelings, merely giving him a blank, confused look (ouch), which made it hard for viewers to believe that this would cause Castiel a moment of true happiness.

Some viewers do see the bond between Dean and Castiel as fraternal, and it’s obviously up to the individual’s own interpretation at the end of the day. However, for most that have felt frustrated by queerbaiting on the show for years, it was a feeling of vindication followed by an immediate smack in the face. CBR put it best, reporting that the scene ‘doesn't read as organic storytelling or even fan service - it reads as homophobia masquerading as representation.’

In truth, after a decade of queerbaiting, the writers were really in a lose-lose situation. For years, Supernatural fans had noticed romantic tension between these two characters, often acknowledged with a cheeky wink in earlier seasons of the show. It was the showrunners’ initial brazenness, in fact, that forced them to double back when they started to be accused of queerbaiting, clarifying that they had no intention of making the relationship canon. Revealing two of the CW’s fan-favourite characters to be queer men would have been a controversial decision, especially in the classic rock, chevy driving, apple pie world of Supernatural – there was always a risk of alienating their audience.

So, why end it like this? Perhaps the writers felt beholden to finally acknowledge the chemistry that was so apparent to fans, but didn’t want to deal with the fallout of a real romantic relationship (which would have angered the viewers that insist it is all platonic). The problem is, that by having a queer love confession followed immediately by a character being dragged to what some Twitter users have coined as ‘gay super hell’, it contributes to a harmful pattern of cause and effect. Moreover, by not acknowledging the contents of this scene ever again (other than a brief mention of Castiel being in heaven in the season finale) it plays more as last-minute diversity point-scoring than as a genuine attempt to properly address the nature of Castiel and Dean’s relationship.

(Credit: The CW)

But Supernatural is only the most recent show to use this tired Bury Your Gays trope. Lexa’s death by stray bullet shortly after the consummation of her and Clarke’s relationship in The 100 shook fans, causing another massive Twitter storm. Buffy the Vampire Slayer did important work to improve on-screen queer representation in the early noughties, but ultimately fell into this same pattern with lesbian character Tara MaClay, who was killed by – you guessed it – a stray bullet after already suffering from severe brain damage in the previous season. There are many more examples from television shows, including The Walking Dead, Orange Is The New Black and The Vampire Diaries.

Ultimately, not all queer character deaths are problematic, but the way the Bury Your Gays trope is handled is a problem. LGBT+ characters and relationships are often treated as expendable or too tricky to write, and their deaths are frequently used as a narrative repercussion of their queerness. Every time writers lean on this trope, they contribute to a harmful trend. Queer children who grow up watching these shows will see characters they identify with die and be heartbroken over and over again – what kind of message does that send? If you ask me, the Bury Your Gays trope should stay buried, once and for all.

This article was originally posted on levile.co.uk.