More dead lesbians? Seriously? What the hell is wrong with the 2014-15 TV season?
As Arrow executive producer Marc Guggenheim explains:
The pain of the brutal plot twist was worth it because “the story implications for this development are so far-reaching for the show and affect all of the characters.” For starters, it launches the mystery of “Who killed Sara?” which “will drive us for at least the first half of the year,” the EP previews. “It will set Laurel on a trajectory that she’s never had before on the show. It will create all these other complications and dynamics that I can’t talk about because it would spoil stuff. It buys us a lot of story, and it speaks to all the things that we wanted to do this year in terms of Laurel’s character, in terms of Oliver’s character, in terms of Felicity’s character.”
Well. Thanks, but did you have to kill the bisexual? Look, I’m the last person to make a mountain our of the lesbian mole-hill, but that’s two women, let alone two LGBT, killed to further the plots of men.
The recurring theme of ‘It’s okay for women to die as a plot point’ is sending a message that we’re not as important. And yes, I’ve heard the argument that women have to die to make it important enough. I remember when Tara died on Buffy, and we all complained that they could have made Willow go evil in another way. It’s not endemic to lesbians, but it certainly feels like it is to women. Why do we have to die? Why is it okay that we die? Why is it okay at all?
Back in 1999, Gail Simone (before she was well known as being the awesome writer she is today) had a list called “Women in Refrigerators Syndrome” and it’s still up online today at http://lby3.com/wir/ as a list of all women in comics (just comics) who ended up beaten, abused, depowered, or what have you. It was galling then. It’s nearly been 20 years and it’s still depressing.
Can we please stop this? Shay and Sara died for someone else’s plot and it doesn’t make me want to watch the shows. It makes me feel like I’m a plot device.
