#especially in 2001/2002 when we weren't exactly swimming in lesbians on tv

[variousqueerthings]

EDIT:

yeah, I forgot that Cordelia actually gets impregnated three times, my bad

2. opinions on Fred or Jenny are very very valid

3. Tara is considered one of the most famous examples of "bury your gays" on TV, because Joss Whedon patted himself on the back for including lesbian narrative at a time when that was veryvery scarce, only to kill Tara in front of Willow right as they were getting back together/happy (and right after adding amber benson to the opening credits). yes, people do die on Buffy because Whedon doesn't believe in happy relationships, but when you take a grand total of two lesbians, and make that one in the most painful way possible, at a time when there were practically no queers onscreen to speak of... that is bury your gays. the fact that it originated from morality tales, doesn't mean that every version of it has been a morality tale specifically (many of them are about taking the sweetest, most innocent character and killing that character for most pain). It was narratively a deliberately meaningless death that summarised her ultimate character purpose as "dead lesbian girlfriend."

the fact that she specifically got shot by a stray bullet, is also kind of a specific version of the trope, which I don't know if originated with her, but certainly is, again, one of the most famous versions of it

however, the fact that there's dispute on this in my tags, makes me feel like we're maybe at a point where we're seeing queerness differently - that is, more characters, the idea of death is no longer equated with immediate "alright, now we've got one less character" feelings, one doesn't see a queer character and go "is this one going to be tragically killed off" or indeed, only have one or two (if they're a couple) to choose from across all of TV in a given year in the first place

kendra: introduced as the single black female recurring heroic character, given a tragic backstory, and then killed without exploring it in service to white pain

buffy: consistently put through intensely bad experiences and then getting yelled at/judged by her friends and family for emoting about it in any way

tara: one of the most prominent examples of bury your gays in tv history

cordelia: framed as deserving of constant poor treatment because she used to be mean, forcibly supernatural impregnated twice, the second time fridgeing her

harmony: consistently treated in casually misogynistic ways for being "ditzy," existing almost solely for this purpose throughout

darla: brought back from the dead to have a "destiny" pregnancy storyline that culminates in her being killed for the weirdest written character in either of the shows to be born