back to writing

Abstract

LGBT+ people have long been marginalised and excluded throughout society, media being one of the most important aspects in today’s media-driven world. One television series, The 100, acted as a catalyst for a movement to change the way they are represented in fiction. What this essay investigates is how this series specifically mobilised the LGBT+ community to demand better treatment of LGBT+ characters in media.

In The 100, a beloved lesbian character was killed off in a way that was viewed as unnecessary and stereotypical, considering the long history of LGBT+ characters being killed off in similar ways in fiction. This resulted in an outburst on social media that quickly spread and grew into an organised movement advocating for better LGBT+ characters and storylines in media. To find out how this event specifically triggered the movement, the situation is analysed using three theories about the development of social movements: relative deprivation theory, resource mobilisation theory and structural strain theory. Analysis of the situation is done using social media, where much of the movement is based, and other online media discussing this event and the relevant social circumstances that have led up to it, such as common media tropes that are used to undermine LGBT+ characters and the importance media representation has for people.

This investigation found several factors influencing the creation of this movement. The deprivation of rights, acceptance and, most relevantly, representation LGBT+ people felt motivated them to become active. Improving attitudes towards LGBT+ people in society made it easier for their wishes to be given due consideration. The Internet provided a vital platform for communication within the wider LGBT+ community, with social media creators and for raising social awareness in general.

Introduction

Gender and sexual minorities are still discriminated against and face many difficulties heterosexual and cisgender people do not due to the society we live in. Media both reflects and perpetuates societal norms, but it also has the power to influence and change it. In a time where society seems to be opening up and changing rapidly and the power of media is growing enormously through the Internet, every LGBT+ presence in media has the potential to improve the situation of sexual minorities, both as individuals and collectives. However, many are unsatisfied with the way LGBT+ people are portrayed in modern mainstream media. In TV fiction, many harmful tropes are still used that undermine LGBT+ characters and storylines, such as queerbaiting and the Kill Your Gays trope. 

The TV series The 100 gained a lot of praise from minority populations and critics due to their diverse cast and characters. The series is about 100 juvenile delinquents who were sent back down to Earth 97 years after nuclear war forced humanity to abandon the planet and live on a spaceship. The main character is a bisexual woman, Clarke, and there are many races, sexualities and disabilities represented in the show; for example, we see a female engineer lose her leg in an accident and learn to deal with becoming disabled, and we see two very different black men consecutively have the highest positions of power in their communities. These are characters that are not common in mainstream media, and when they are featured they are usually poorly represented. Accurate and diverse representation of minorities and oppressed groups gained The 100 a passionate fan base full of minorities and social activists. When lesbian character Commander Lexa joined the show in season 2, appearing to have feelings for Clarke, fans were happier than ever, especially LGBT+ women and girls. However, Lexa was killed off one season later - this enraged fans and even people who had never watched the show. The anger sparked by that one episode was turned into an online movement against maltreatment of LGBT+ characters coined We Deserved Better. It may seem like an overreaction to just one character death in a show, but there is a long history of female LGBT+ characters dying in similar ways that needs to be considered. Lexa was the last straw.

The way social movements emerge is researched in psychology and sociology. There are many different theories that explain the factors that lead to social movements, including relative deprivation theory, resource mobilisation theory and structural strain theory. Each of these theories help explain why one scene in The 100 resulted in a social movement for LGBT+ representation.

Body

Relative deprivation theory, developed by Samuel Stouffer in 1949, states that social movements emerge when people feel deprived of goods, resources, or services. Deprivation creates discontent with the current situation and gives people the reason to create a movement for change. In this case, LGBT+ people feel relatively deprived of media representation, as there are far less LGBT+ characters than heterosexual and cisgender characters. In real life, they are also commonly deprived of legal rights and social acceptance, which is both reflected and reinforced by the media that shapes our cultures and social norms. Media representation also has a large influence on individual well-being.

Growing up, we all consume media. Children will inevitably seek role models and the personalities they see all day in television, books, magazines, video games and even advertisements are a natural source. For children of minorities this is a challenge, as we tend to look up to people we can relate to, often based on the superficial features we see in the media such as appearance. For example, black males would be more likely to look up to other black males as role models - in mainstream media, positively featured black males often seem limited to rapper and basketball players. A little black boy dreaming of becoming an astronaut or a writer will struggle to find someone who looks like him that he can aspire to be like, which can be very discouraging.

The effects of representation are not limited to children. Most LGBT+ people are teenagers and adults who perhaps search for less superficial features in their personal role models, although this can depend on the type of role model as well; if you want to be someone in the public eye, for example a successful actor or politician, your LGBT+ identity might be a relevant issue. Many famous people even today will not publicly out themselves due to the fear of losing fans and job opportunities, being reduced to just their sexuality or gender identity in media and being pigeon-holed into a certain kind of “gay” role. Seeing a publicly LGBT+ famous person of a profession you are interested in continue to be successful in the field can give so much hope, as many people are scared of having to be in the closet forever in their professional lives.

Another important aspect of representation for LGBT+ people are interpersonal relationships. If you are in a sexual minority there is often a great fear of never having the kind of romantic or sexual relationship you want. We grow up with certain expectations of romance - young girls will wait for their Prince Charming, their perfect wedding day and raising a family with a husband and children in a big house. This is the perfect image media tends to feed us. A young girl figuring out she is a lesbian will realise that she does not fit into that life the way she thought she should. If she sees no happy lesbian couples in either her personal life or the media, the prospect of finding any sort of “happily ever after” can seem quite hopeless, leading to feelings of loneliness and depression. This is why it is important to have same-sex relationships in mainstream media as well, and we are especially lacking those with happy endings.

The lack of positive representation created the basis for a social movement. Resource mobilisation theory emphasises the importance of the availability of resources needed to develop a social movement. Once people have identified a problem, the next step is to find the resources necessary to solve it. In this case, the resources available were the growing support for LGBT+ people and the Internet. As media generally reflects society, a shift in societal values is necessary in order for media to change. We can already see this has been happening in the ways society’s views of LGBT+ people have evolved in the last decades. The Internet has revolutionised social activism as it provides a platform for global awareness, discussion, organisation and easier communication with people with more power (such as media creators).

The Internet is also where The 100 gained the most attention. The show gets a lot of praise for its multitude of strong female characters and for how casually same-sex relationships are treated; although romance is generally not a focus of the series, many interesting relationships between various characters are explored and significant to the plot, and the genders of the characters often seem to be inconsequential. This is refreshing to see in a society where normally same-sex romance is a source of controversy and is a positive illustration of the way society’s acceptance of sexual minorities is changing.

The downside of being casual about sexuality in a series is that it is easier for makers of the show to ignore the significance LGBT+ characters have in real life. As there are still so few mainstream portrayals of LGBT+ people, each one is meaningful. Unfortunately, many writers treat their LGBT+ characters and storylines as trivial and disposable. This leads to perpetuation of harmful media tropes such as queerbaiting, which happens when characters are constantly hinted at as being LGBT+ but are never confirmed. A popular example of queerbaiting is BBC’s Sherlock - the homoerotic subtext is enough to keep LGBT+ viewers interested and waiting for a relationship to develop between John and Sherlock, but subtle enough to not raise the suspicions of their more conservative audience. When characters are too casual to clearly state their sexual preferences it is easy to make audiences assume they are gay until proven straight - or the other way around.

This seemed to be the case with season 2 of The 100 after main character Clarke met Lexa, Commander of the 12 Clans who had survived the nuclear holocaust. As they are two strong female protagonists working together to save their people and had both shown that they were at least open to same-sex relationships, fans quickly started hoping for a romance between them. This was clearly taken note of by producers when, a few episodes later, Lexa kissed Clarke. Clarke then told her she wasn’t ready for a relationship, “not yet”. The vaguely optimistic answer made fans of the pairing hopeful, as well as making the general LGBT+ community excited to see more openly LGBT+ characters in media.

This effect seemed to be fully intentional - the makers of show often openly hinted at a relationship on social media. For example, during the shooting of season 3 they frequently tweeted hints and pictures of the actors of Clarke and Lexa. One fan tweeted the producer and writer, Jason Rothenberg, “WILL HAVE CLEXA IN S3? TELL ME! I NEED TO KNOW” and he replied, “Well, @DebnamCarey is in the show, so…”, clearly implying that there will be. Clexa is the name for the relationship between Clarke and Lexa, and Alycia Debnam-Carey is the actor of Lexa. Another fan tweeted, “So today is the day you probably killed off the Commander”, to which Rothenberg simply replied, “Nope”. This sort of thing happened constantly, through different media platforms, in the months between starting production of season 3 and airing the episode that killed Lexa. It is ethically questionable for creators of a show to use social media to comfort their fans by misleading them in order to keep them watching the show, and they lost the trust of many viewers.

Lexa had quickly become a fan favourite, which creators took advantage of in their marketing techniques as well. Lexa was the only guest-star to feature on promotional material, and she was featured heavily. This makes it even more clear that creators were using her character to gain popularity and viewers as much as possible before they killed her off.

The 100 is considered to be a cult show, with most of its fanbase being made up of minority people and activists on the Internet - which is also why the Internet was widely used by creators to target their audience. It has gained such a dedicated fanbase largely thanks to the diversity of characters, which is notoriously rare in the sci-fi genre. It has been one of the most discussed shows on the Internet in recent years - it was not uncommon to see trending topics on Twitter about the show every week when a new episode came out. Due to the relatively low number of series (and other media forms) that have as much quality minority representation as The 100, the ones that do are put on a sort of pedestal and held to high standards which are easy to disappoint. As the Internet was where fans of the show gathered, it was naturally the medium they used to voice their disappointment and criticisms and eventually come together at a much greater scale.

The structural strain theory was proposed by Neil J. Smelser in 1965 and names six factors needed for a social movement to grow:

  1. deprivation,
  2. recognition in society of the problem of deprivation,
  3. an ideology aiming to solve the problem develops and spreads,
  4. trigger events,
  5. society and those in power are open to solving the problem,
  6. mobilisation of resources.

Recognition of the problem has already been discussed as being the rising awareness and discontent with the lack of LGBT+ representation in media.

As for the third point, liberal social justice ideology has spread on the Internet for years, especially among communities with many minority and disadvantaged people. However, it is not an ideology offering many direct solutions - rather than promoting specific actions, the main aim of the ideology is to spread. As the problems they tackle (discrimination, societal attitudes, mental health, media biases, legal rights, injustice and inequality) are very widespread and often ingrained into our society, there is no easy fix. Therefore, the focus is on spreading and promoting their ideas as an attempt to change the way society and its cultural gatekeepers treat certain issues and groups of people. The LGBT+ communities following this ideology were then mobilised into action by The 100.

In episode 7 of season 3 in The 100, a requited romantic scene happens between Clarke and Lexa and they consummate their relationship. Within the next minute, Lexa dies from a gunshot aimed at Clarke by Lexa’s advisor. He was shooting at Clarke because he thought she was a distraction to Lexa, meaning she was quite literally killed for her relationship with a woman right after it had been consummated. This is reminiscent of an old trope from the days gay characters were deliberately killed in fiction as a punishment for their sinfulness. The fact that her killer is an overprotective father-figure she trusted adds another layer of painful recognition among LGBT+ viewers, as it is not uncommon that the people who are supposed to care about them most end up hurting and abandoning them after they come out.

It is easy to see why fans were enraged. The combination of a whole season of baiting and anticipation, the fact that it was taken away so quickly and the way it was taken away seems unjust and pointless to many. Lexa had proved herself throughout the show to be incredibly strong and resilient, suffering many wounds and always surviving, so an accidental shot to the chest being what finally kills her seemed to many almost disrespectful to the character.

Lexa’s death is part of a larger trend, coined the Bury Your Gays trope. LGBT+ characters tend to be killed off far more often than others - considering how few of them there are in the first place - and it is difficult to find happy endings for them in media. A good illustration of how much of an effect the death of an LGBT+ character can have on an audience is how many people immediately compared it to Tara’s death in Buffy the Vampire Slayer - she was undoubtedly one of the most prominent lesbian characters of the time (1999-2002) in a serious relationship with one of the main characters of the show. Like Lexa, she was killed by a stray bullet right in front of her girlfriend. What is notable is that, 14 years after her death, she is still remembered for this. As senior editor of Autostraddle, a magazine for queer women, Heather Hogan put it: “It’s not only a reminder that TV doesn’t happen in a vacuum, but also that there are so few resonant lesbian storylines that my 37-year-old experience is the same as an 18-year-old’s experience because they’ve gone back and watched everything that mattered.” As there are so few significant lesbian characters, every life matters that much more.

As already mentioned, society has been gradually becoming more accepting of LGBT+ people, and as TV producers are open to creating anything that will get viewers, this will encourage them to introduce more LGBT+ characters and storylines without having to worry about losing their audience. Society is more ready than ever to accept changes and the many LGBT+ activists and allies served as a useful resource for spreading the movement.

The other important resource for this movement was the Internet. Outrage over her death began on social media - as that is where fan bases are most active. It started with fans being shocked and mourning Lexa’s death, and then they were joined by LGBT+ people who did not watch The 100 but could empathise. This turned into a broader discussion of the amount of LGBT+ characters dying in media, first in social media and then among journalism and news media. Social media was an effective way of raising awareness, as so many people see the trending topics on Twitter, for example, and if something is so widely discussed, it is difficult to avoid on any social media. The reaction was so big that news media could not ignore it, and neither could the makers of the show.

Many members of the cast and crew of The 100 have addressed the issues brought up by Lexa’s death. Rothenberg said it was just “a show where people die” and it was not meant as an attack towards their LGBT+ fans. He also later acknowledged his privilege as a heterosexual male who is generally not discriminated or underrepresented in media, which caused him to underestimate the effect the death would have on LGBT+ viewers and apologised. The writer of the episode, Javier Grillo-Marxuach, explained that they had to write Lexa out of the show because the actor was leaving to work on other projects and that death seemed the most appropriate end to a great leader. Fans and activists generally found their response to be unsatisfying, as it still did not excuse the cliché way Lexa was killed nor the promoting of the show by implying Lexa would be a big part of it (with Clarke).

From all the discussion that started within the LGBT+ community, a larger movement had begun against the maltreatment of LGBT+ characters (especially women) and Lexa was the face of it. The movement is based off the phrase LGBT Fans Deserve Better, referring to how LGBT+ audiences deserve better representation in media. The website LGBTFansDeserveBetter.com created the biggest fundraiser ever of The Trevor Project, a charity that supports at-risk LGBT+ youth, and have by now raised over $130,000. The movement gained attention all over the Internet, being covered even by mainstream news sources such as BBC News and the Washington Post.

In an attempt to make a real difference in the way LGBT+ characters are treated in media, the Lexa Pledge was created. It has so far been signed by 16 writers and producers promising to ensure their creations follow the seven rules on the pledge, which are:

  1. We will ensure that any significant or recurring LGBTQ characters we introduce, to a new or pre-existing series, will have significant storylines with meaningful arcs.
  2. When creating arcs for these significant or recurring characters we will consult with sources within the LGBTQ community, like queer writers or producers on staff, or members of queer advocacy groups like GLAAD, The Trevor Project, It Gets Better, Egale, The 519, etc.
  3. We recognise that the LGBTQ community is underrepresented on television and, as such, that the deaths of queer characters have deep psychosocial ramifications.
  4. We refuse to kill a queer character solely to further the plot of a straight one.
  5. We acknowledge that the Bury Your Gays trope is harmful to the greater LGBTQ community, especially to queer youth. As such, we will avoid making story choices that perpetuate that toxic trope.
  6. We promise never to bait or mislead fans via social media or any other outlet.
  7. We know there is a long road ahead of us to ensure that the queer community is properly and fairly represented on TV. We pledge to begin that journey today. 

There is a clear aim of creating more quality LGBT+ characters and including more real LGBT+ people in the creation of media. Although some points may sound a bit extreme and limiting, such as the fourth, they were created in a context that makes them seem reasonable. As many LGBT+ characters in mainstream media have been side characters used and abused as simple plot devices, it makes sense that many people would want an immediate stop to this. Instead of existing only to develop heterosexual characters, people want to see more LGBT+ characters be the ones who develop themselves and survive the plot twists (as stated in point one).

Point two is important, as it is a clear demand that helps real LGBT+ people, both content creators and consumers. LGBT+ people still struggle to be successful and influential in many fields, content creation being one of them. Making a larger effort to include them in the creation process can help to alleviate political and socio-economic imbalances that are still present between gender and sexual orientations. LGBT+ media consumers will benefit from this as well, as people who are a part of the community are more likely to create characters and stories that accurately represent the community. They are less prone to perpetuating harmful stereotypes and media tropes. 

Some other points are more general and vague, especially the last one. This is important as they are not trying to control the way media evolves and restrict artistic freedom, but to bring attention to bigger issues that can be resolved in many different creative ways. The aim is to inspire content creators to diversify their art and challenge the heteronormative paradigms that still shape most of our society in their own ways.

The movement is still relatively recent (late 2015 to early 2016) and it is hard to say what larger effects it might have had. Year after year, the amount of LGBT+ representation in mainstream media seems to be growing, and this movement provided a larger scale critical view of the current situation. Although it is difficult to prove any causational relationships between the LGBT Fans Deserve Better movement and the diversification of media, the movement succeeded in bringing together the LGBT+ community and creating a much-needed discourse that included media creators as well. The community can only hope that they were heard enough to make a lasting difference, and know that they are able to raise their voice again when necessary.

Conclusion

Cult show The 100 was renowned for its highly diverse cast and characters, drawing many minority fans to watch the show. The death of lesbian character Lexa was a shock to viewers, as creators of the show had been queerbaiting in the show and also in social media, convincing viewers that the relationship between Lexa and main character Clarke was going to happen. It did, but minutes after it had been consummated Lexa was killed. Viewers were able to draw many parallels between this event and other female LGBT+ characters in media who had met a painfully similar fate - dying from a stray bullet, dying as a direct result of their sexuality or gender identity, dying at the hands of a father-figure, dying shortly after establishing a same-sex relationship. Due to the amount of LGBT+ characters that end up dead compared to the small amount of LGBT+ characters that exist at all, LGBT+ viewers and activists decided this needed to change.

This ultimately led to the movement coined We Deserve Better, meant to raise awareness of the problems in LGBT+ representation (and lack of it) in media and to ask creators to make a change by signing the pledge and creating more positive LGBT+ content. The emergence of this movement can be explained through patterns identified in many other social movements in the past few decades. The main factors were deprivation of LGBT+ representation, the existence of an ideological community who supported the cause, and the ability to organise and mobilise through the Internet. Although long-term effects of the movement are yet to be seen, it can be considered a successful movement as it significantly raised awareness for the issue in mainstream media, came up with a specific plan for action and raised a lot of money to support LGBT+ youth.

Bibliography

Butler, Bethonie. “TV keeps killing off lesbian characters. The fans of one show have revolted.” The Washington Post, 4 April 2016, www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/04/04/tv-keeps-killing-off-lesbian-characters-the-fans-of-one-show-have-revolted.

Carbone, Noelle, et al. “Pledge.” LGBT Fans Deserve Better, lgbtfansdeservebetter.com/pledge.

“GLAAD - Where We Are on TV Report - 2015.” GLAAD, www.glaad.org/whereweareontv15. 

“Heda, may we meet again. Your fight is over, ours is just beginning.” Leskru WW’s fundraising page for The Trevor Project, give.thetrevorproject.org/fundraise?fcid=625415. 

Hogan, Heather. “Heather Hogan on Twitter: “...that my 37-year-old experience is the same as an 18-year-old’s experience because they’ve gone back and watched everything that mattered.”” Twitter, 4 March 2016, twitter.com/hhoagie/status/705813439973888001?ref_src=twsrc^tfw. 

Mass, AJ and Jo Garfein. “Interview with Jason Rothenberg, Post Episode 307.” The Dropship: The 100 Podcast, 5 March 2016, thedropship.podbean.com/e/interview-with-jason-rothenberg-post-episode-307.

Mass, AJ and Jo Garfein. “Interview with Javier Grillo-Marxuach.” The Dropship: The 100 Podcast, 6 March 2016, thedropship.podbean.com/e/interview-with-javier-grillo-marxuach. 

“Media Representations and Impact on the Lives of Black Men and Boys.” The Opportunity Agenda, www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/Media-Impact-onLives-of-Black-Men-and-Boys-OppAgenda.pdf. 

Pettigrew, Thomas F. “Samuel Stouffer and Relative Deprivation.” Social Psychology Quarterly, vol. 78, no. 1, Mar. 2015, pp 7-24. SAGE Journals, www.asanet.org/sites/default/files/savvy/journals/SPQ/Mar15SPQFeature.pdf. 

Romano, Aja. “‘Sherlock’ cut a scene of John and Sherlock at a ‘gay club’.” The Daily Dot, 19 February 2014, www.dailydot.com/fandom/bbc-sherlock-watson-gay-club-scene-cut.

Sen, Anindya, et al. “Why Social Movements Occur: Theories of Social Movements.” The Journal of Knowledge Economy and Knowledge Management, vol. 11, no. 1, 2016, pp 125-130. BEYKON, www.beykon.org/dergi/2016/SPRING/2016XI.I.10.A.Sen.pdf. 

Smith, Tom W. “Public Attitudes Toward Homosexuality.” NORC at the University of Chicago, Sept. 2011, www.norc.org/PDFs/2011%20GSS%20Reports/GSS_Public%20Attitudes%20Toward%20Homosexuality_Sept2011.pdf.

The 100. Developed by Jason Rothenberg, performance by Eliza Taylor and Alycia Debnam-Carey. The CW.

We Deserved Better. Wedeservedbetter.com.

Wendling, Mike. “Fans revolt after gay TV character killed off.” BBC News, 11 March 2016, www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-35786382.