User:Ahthena/sandbox

Stereotypes
More often than not, LGBTQ characters are reduced to a stereotype – their narrative written so that their character portrays certain characteristics with a story that doesn’t necessarily go beyond that. They are reduced to how the dress, how they act, how their voice sounds etc., with a primary story focusing on sexuality. Common stereotypes such as “flashy effeminate male,” “the macho gay,” or “the butch lesbian,” continue to enforce heteronormative gender roles. Within their narrative, LGBTQ characters are not written as the protagonists, they are usually written as the side character with a story less important in developing. This adds to the lack of diversity of LGBTQ characters – characters are either gay or lesbian. Rarely are there representations of bisexuality, asexuality, and/or transgender/transsexual people, especially as people of colour. Stereotyping is also a problem for racial representations in TV, where characters are also reduced to certain characteristics surround their culture and race such as black males being represented as an aggressive thug or asians being represented as the foreigner who has to assimilate into western culture.

Bait and Switch
Tropes such as the bait-and-switch (also note: queerbaiting) where two characters may be presented as having a relationship with the same sex but in reality are just really close friends. These relationships are given queer like characteristics, only to have the characters have romantic and sexual relationships with other heterosexual characters. The bait-and-switch lesbian trope is seen more with manga and anime, whereas queerbaiting is more often assciated with western television. Western TV shows and TV Networks have recently been under harsh scrutiny from the LGBTQ audience for queerbaiting in their show to gain more viewership through the LGBTQ community.

Bury Your Gays
The LGBTQ audience noticed a pattern in deaths in relation to LGBTQ characters. The Bury Your Gays trope has been coined by the community because LGBTQ characters are being killed off. LGBTQ characters are not written off due to their sexuality within the narrative, but regardless, are still being killed off. LGBTQ people are under represented as it is, killing off LGBTQ characters continues to erase that representation. Death rates of LGBTQ characters are much higher than straight characters on TV. If the death of straight characters were the same as LGTBQ ones, 736 characters would have died – only 130 did.

The 100
The 100, directed by Jason Rothenburg, was criticized over the narrative of an LGBTQ character. Lexa was a well-rounded lesbian character who was written with dominant characteristics that weren’t typically seen with lesbian characters – she was the leader of her people with a story arch that dealt with her fighting both physical and moral battles for the survival of her people. What was originally a positive representation of a lesbian character, became another statistic in this trope. Lexa was shot to death by a stray bullet after a loving scene with her girlfriend; fans were outraged at the poor timing and execution of writing.. In lieu of this, campaigns such as LGBTFansdeservebetter have been trending worldwide to fight for the end of this trope and better treatment of LGBTQ characters in media.

The Coming Out Story
The largest narrative that seems to surround LGBTQ characters is their coming out story. While coming out stories happen in multiple ways, media portrays the 'big reveal' through two extremes: one positive, one negative. Mainstream media writes the narrative of the coming out story as a singular event that determines the outlook of their future. Either the character in mention gets a positive response from friends and family with the utmost support, or they get a negative, homophobic response. These responses then affect the LGBTQ charaters storyline which continues the cycle of tying the character to a narrative surrounding their sexuality.

Supergirl
The LGBTQ community has recently applauded the Supergirl creators for their portrayal of Alex Danvers' coming out story. Fans were happy with how relatable the story was - realistic in a way that media typically does not show. From the beginning, fans found themselves understanding exactly what Alex was going through when she was figuring out her sexuality - the LGBTQ audience expressed having experienced it in the same way her character did. Her coming out story was shown multiple times, once to her sister, once to the rest of her family and once to her friends and coworkers.

Media as a voice
Rarely do we see queer people of colour represented in the already limited queer representations in mainstream media. Because of this, queer people of colour are using media to their advantage to get their stories and their representations out there.