My Top Five Buried Gays, by Joanne Askew

Note for readers — The following feature contains major spoilers for characters in media. Please do not read on if you are not currently up to date on the following shows: The Walking Dead, Van Helsing, Heroes, Handmaid's Tale, Hemlock Grove

My Top Five Buried Gays

Pass me the shovel, honey, I’m digging up the gays.

In horror & SFF, we have the ever-so classic trope of the LGBTQ+ characters being more expendable than their straight counterparts, especially harmful when queer people are killed off just after they come out. If you want to really get into it, I’d put my money on any queer character over a straight character – we’ve survived through prejudice, homophobic remarks, and sometimes physical assaults, so we probably have a higher likelihood of survival out there in horror-land.

In celebration of queer horror anthology, Unburied by Dark Ink coming out, I’m digging up my fave buried queers from horror.

DENISE! (Denise gets all caps)

The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead, a show that turned many tropes on its head and spawned my love for Stephen Yuen, made the error of killing off the one character who oozes humble lesbian charm. The death causes grief to spawn from stoic Daryl, which leads me to believe that the death was to move him, like Beth’s death all those seasons ago in the abandoned hospital. The imaginary life of this woman should not have been taken to prove that an emotionless male character can cry and show tremendous grief. 

CAUSE OF DEATH: ARROW TO EYEBALL

SUSAN! (Susan gets all caps)

Van Helsing

A particularly painful example of burying gays, Susan, long-time friend of Vanessa Helsing, grows closer to the heroine of the series. They kiss, spend the night next to each other, then the next episode Susan is killed off to illicit a main character reaction. We see the ever-stoic Vanessa crumble at the loss of Susan and suspicions about Sam’s violent streak begin to rise in her. After many episodes of wondering who the murderer in the camp was, Susan's death confirms that Sam is the killer and a new revenge arc appears for the following few seasons.

CAUSE OF DEATH: MURDERED AND DEFINGERED BY SAM

DESTINY! (Destiny gets all caps)

Hemlock Grove

Medium, tarot reader, sex-worker, eastern-European representation, Destiny had it all, including the men and the women. Bisexual Destiny is killed off shortly after becoming engaged to a male character in Hemlock Grove. Her neck is snapped by main character Roman, which leads onto a regretful scene of him burying her. Not only was Destiny some great bi representation, but she was a great example of female representation. 

CAUSE OF DEATH: MURDERED AND POETICALLY BURIED BY MAIN MALE CHARACTER

CLAIRE! (Claire gets all caps)

Heroes

You’d think they couldn’t kill off an immortal bi character, but they did.

A lot of my fellow writers and nerds credit Heroes with early inspiration for getting into fiction, I include myself in that number, but it doesn’t often occur to people that Claire was queer. In season 4 she develops a relationship with normal college lesbian, Gretchen. Although a little unsure about her feelings after they kiss, Claire states that she wanted to hold Gretchen’s hand. The show was cancelled soon after, leaving the relationship in limbo. The revival of the Heroes world came in the form of Heroes Reborn where it is mentioned that Claire had died previously, and off screen. Another example of a character coming into their queerness then being eliminated. 

CAUSE OF DEATH: OFF SCREEN ONE LINER DEATH

EMILY! (EVERYONE GETS ALL CAPS!)

Handmaid’s Tale

The Handmaid’s Tale and Testaments have always had a slow burning queer presence, with Testaments eluding to a young lesbian girl who tragically loses her life whilst hiding in a water tank. But I want to talk about Martha. Played by our fave Gilmore girl, Alexis Bledel, Emily -or Ofglen - is a lesbian persecuted and mutilated by the Gilead regime. We watch her desperate journey as she clings to her identity, her love taken away from her and a world shunning the way she loves. The punishment for her being queer is death, and unfortunately, we see this play out over the show.

CAUSE OF DEATH: HANGING FOR HER QUEERNESS

As I was writing this, I discovered that the majority of buried gays were women and the vast majority also have been happening in the most recent decade of TV. Is this because writers don’t know what to do with queer characters when they’ve established they’re gay? Is it due to the lack of diversity in the writers’ room? Or is it a deeper fracture in our media that viewers respond to further othering of queer characters?

All I know is that every time I see a character that represents me, I can expect to see them killed off very soon after.

In all seriousness, the amazing ‘LGBT Fans Deserve Better’ site are keeping an ongoing list of all the queer characters being buried in TV. They update it regularly and even have a timer which resets every time a queer character bites the dust. https://lgbtfansdeservebetter.com/shesdead/ 

Also buy Unburied here - and I promise no gays were buried in the making of that anthology.

Joanne Askew is a Science-Fiction and Horror writer. She explores mental health issues, sexual identity, femininity and neurodiversity through speculative fiction. As an LGBTQIA+ activist, she believes that fiction will make our world a better place to come out in. She has many short story publications and has an LGBTQ+ novella coming out in 2022. She strives for more queer representation in media, particularly speculative fiction, and highlights social injustices like inner-city poverty, the justice system and mental health representation. Joanne has OCD but battles her compulsions to make sure she uses them as a superpower in an empowering way.

Website: www.jaskewauthor.com