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SMNTY Classics: Bury Your Gays · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Sanny and smitha welcome to stuff.
0:07
Speaker 2: Never told you productive I heard you, And today we're
0:19
Speaker 2: bringing back a Kristen and Caroline episode that I can't
0:23
Speaker 2: believe we've never brought back as a classic before, but
0:29
Speaker 2: is on the barrier Gaze trope, which I had a
0:35
Speaker 2: conversation with a friend about with a friend of mine
0:38
Speaker 2: about it recently and.
0:41
Speaker 1: She didn't know what I was talking about.
0:42
Speaker 2: It kind of surprised me. Do you ever have those
0:44
Speaker 2: like topics that you think everybody knows, yeah, and then
0:47
Speaker 2: when you find out, oh, you don't know about this,
0:50
Speaker 2: it's kind of a jarn.
0:52
Speaker 3: It does. It's because it's not a world. And then
0:54
Speaker 3: they're like did you know?
0:55
Speaker 1: And it was like yes, and then I'm like we
0:57
Speaker 1: did an episode.
0:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you kind of feel like a jerk
1:01
Speaker 2: or yes, like you don't want to be a no
1:05
Speaker 2: at all, but also, that's our job. This is our job.
1:10
Speaker 2: This episode came out. I remember the specific incident they
1:16
Speaker 2: talk about in this one with Alexa in one hundred,
1:23
Speaker 2: So this was a long time ago. It is still
1:27
Speaker 2: a thing. I feel like it's progressed since then, but
1:30
Speaker 2: it is still prominent in some cases, so I wanted
1:37
Speaker 2: to bring it back just in case you haven't heard
1:40
Speaker 2: of it or missed it somehow. You need to know, Yeah,
1:44
Speaker 2: you need to know, So please enjoy this classic episode.
1:53
Speaker 4: Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how Stuff
1:56
Speaker 4: Works dot Com.
2:02
Speaker 3: Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Carolyn,
2:05
Speaker 3: and today we're talking about a TV topic that a
2:09
Speaker 3: lot of you lovely listeners have asked us to investigate.
2:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that is the barrier gaze trope, also known
2:17
Speaker 1: as the dead lesbian syndrome or dead lesbian trope. Basically,
2:21
Speaker 1: things reached a fever pitch recently with lesbian and by
2:25
Speaker 1: characters specifically getting killed off of shows, and a lot
2:28
Speaker 1: of you guys wrote.
2:29
Speaker 3: In Yeah, and if you aren't familiar with the trope,
2:32
Speaker 3: which honestly I was not before doing research for this episode,
2:37
Speaker 3: you can already tell just by the names of barrier
2:40
Speaker 3: gaze and what's the.
2:42
Speaker 4: Lesbian dead lesbian syndrome? Dead lesbian syndrome? Probably not positive
2:47
Speaker 4: depictions going on. And it's an extension too, of conversations
2:53
Speaker 4: that you and I have had and also when we
2:55
Speaker 4: had a transactivist and friend, Raquel Willison here just about
3:00
Speaker 4: the issue of the tragic.
3:04
Speaker 3: Queer character, both in literature and big screen and small screen,
3:09
Speaker 3: and today we're really focusing in on television and why
3:14
Speaker 3: people are especially concerned in calling it out today, as in, like,
3:20
Speaker 3: right this very day, the day you'll listening to this
3:23
Speaker 3: these days.
3:24
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, first we do want to give you a
3:26
Speaker 1: breakdown basically of what this trope is, what it means,
3:30
Speaker 1: what it indicates, and how it sort of exists at
3:34
Speaker 1: a cross section of a few other tropes. But basically,
3:37
Speaker 1: barrier gaze or dead lesbian syndrome tropes involve gay characters
3:42
Speaker 1: getting killed off. Not surprisingly, that's pretty self evident. It's
3:45
Speaker 1: another way of not allowing them happy endings. It's obviously
3:49
Speaker 1: the most extreme version of not allowing them happy endings.
3:52
Speaker 1: And like Kristen said, it goes along with that tragic
3:55
Speaker 1: gay or tragic queer character trope of like you've got
3:58
Speaker 1: to be punished for your subversive activity or going against
4:02
Speaker 1: the norm. And as TV tropes dot Com explained it
4:08
Speaker 1: and it's a great, great resource, this exists at the
4:12
Speaker 1: intersection of the sex is Evil trope and the all
4:16
Speaker 1: gays are promiscuous tropes, So sex is Evil you might
4:19
Speaker 1: also see that, of course in like horror movies when
4:21
Speaker 1: the virgin has sex and she's like instantly killed. Horror
4:24
Speaker 1: movies are a trope corn ucopia.
4:29
Speaker 3: Oh for an, you a copy of tropes solution.
4:32
Speaker 1: I take that to Thanksgiving with me. But it doesn't
4:35
Speaker 1: have to happen to LGBT characters in relationships. They don't
4:39
Speaker 1: have to actually be having sex or be dating for
4:43
Speaker 1: them to be killed off. In case you're wondering, you
4:46
Speaker 1: also might have the trope of the psycho lesbian or
4:49
Speaker 1: the depraved homosexuals tropes. Basically, the gay character or you know,
4:56
Speaker 1: the LGBT character in question might simply be getting punished,
5:01
Speaker 1: especially if he or she tried to pervert another character
5:05
Speaker 1: on the show. So if you had a lesbian character
5:09
Speaker 1: confessing her feelings to a presumably straight lady character, that
5:15
Speaker 1: character is probably gonna get killed off.
5:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, because if you look at film history, gay characters
5:22
Speaker 3: have typically been evil because of their deviant sexuality, and
5:28
Speaker 3: that also ties into the trope of all gays or promiscuous.
5:31
Speaker 3: They're evil by virtue of their sexual proclivities and insatiable
5:35
Speaker 3: sexual appetite. This is also something that we talked about
5:38
Speaker 3: a lot in our Bisexual Erasure podcast, and if they
5:44
Speaker 3: aren't evil, then they must die, you know, and usually
5:50
Speaker 3: die in a magic pixie dream gol kind of way
5:52
Speaker 3: in order to further a straight person's narrative, or they
5:58
Speaker 3: might even uh so the role that you see often
6:01
Speaker 3: with like the magical black person who's so wise hashtag
6:06
Speaker 3: legend of bager Vans. I don't know why I needed
6:08
Speaker 3: a hashtag that. That's just the title of a movie.
6:10
Speaker 1: Where where hashtag Morgan Freeman.
6:12
Speaker 3: Yes, where the gay character doesn't really have any storyline
6:19
Speaker 3: to themselves, but they're just there to share their gay
6:25
Speaker 3: wisdom and then disappear gay wisdom in order to though
6:28
Speaker 3: only develop was a streat people, not the plot of
6:31
Speaker 3: Queer Eye for the Straka gay Wisdom. I think so yeah.
6:35
Speaker 1: I love that you brought up the manic Pixie dream
6:37
Speaker 1: girl because while the manic Pixie dream girl is punished
6:40
Speaker 1: for her cuteness and quirkiness by having to date the
6:44
Speaker 1: whole the drag of a main character hashtag zact Brath.
6:48
Speaker 3: We just hashtag all the names that we mentioned hashtag
6:51
Speaker 3: zac Brath. Listeners are saying, hashtag no.
6:57
Speaker 1: Well, the magical gay character just gets killed off. It
7:03
Speaker 1: ties into these other tropes one is too good for
7:06
Speaker 1: this sinful Earth, or the heroic sacrifice trope, with the
7:11
Speaker 1: justification that you know, these people are just they're too good.
7:16
Speaker 1: And you saw that trip start to evolve as our
7:19
Speaker 1: attitudes toward LGBT people IRL in real life started to improve,
7:25
Speaker 1: So like, oh, well, all right, we don't want to
7:27
Speaker 1: necessarily like punish someone for being gay because it's not
7:31
Speaker 1: so deviant anymore. We're more accepting now, so let's just
7:36
Speaker 1: kill them off because they're too good. There, you are amazing.
7:40
Speaker 3: They're still not being humanized as characters. But caveat here.
7:44
Speaker 3: A queer character dying on screen does.
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Speaker 1: Not necessarily always.
7:51
Speaker 3: Meet the qualification of this barrier Gay's trope, because if
7:55
Speaker 3: you're working with and anyone can die tropes situation allah
8:01
Speaker 3: Game of Thrones, it's probably not there to teach anyone
8:06
Speaker 3: anything or indicate prejudice of some sort. It's just George R. R.
8:11
Speaker 3: Martin being like, I love killing people.
8:13
Speaker 1: I loved Red Wedding exactly, and especially when you have
8:19
Speaker 1: so many characters on Game of Thrones who do have
8:22
Speaker 1: sort of fluid sexuality. Yeah, it's like, oh well, good.
8:28
Speaker 1: So they're just being killed off because Martin.
8:30
Speaker 3: Way that any other human character would be killed off off.
8:34
Speaker 3: It's equal killing, you know, and that's what we're really
8:38
Speaker 3: about here, equal killing, equal character murder. Before we go
8:42
Speaker 3: any further in this podcast episode, though, we must issue
8:47
Speaker 3: a spoiler alert.
8:49
Speaker 1: I mean that goes out saying like murdering characters is
8:52
Speaker 1: like the whole.
8:53
Speaker 3: Topic of this spoiler. So the first spoiler alert applies
8:58
Speaker 3: to show the one because an incident in this show
9:03
Speaker 3: is really what sparked a lot of conversation and backlash
9:09
Speaker 3: against Barrier Gaze and has now reached the industry Hollywood
9:15
Speaker 3: that's now grappling with, well, how should we do this?
9:19
Speaker 3: Because the fan outrage was so loud and so strong
9:23
Speaker 3: when a beloved character, very tough woman, Lexa, was killed
9:29
Speaker 3: and it seemed like she was senselessly killed.
9:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that was the tipping point. But she was
9:36
Speaker 1: not the first such character to die. So in February
9:39
Speaker 1: and March of twenty sixteen, like a whole Messa women
9:42
Speaker 1: were killed off. You had Rose killed. She was on
9:46
Speaker 1: Jane the Virgin, That was in February, she was killed off.
9:49
Speaker 1: Then Lexa on the one hundred then Kira on The Magicians,
9:52
Speaker 1: and then Denise on The Walking Dead, who I think
9:54
Speaker 1: got a like an arrow through the eye as she
9:57
Speaker 1: was talking.
9:58
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, a lot of these barrier Gay's deaths, and
10:03
Speaker 3: with destray bullets, they like catch other people's bullets or
10:06
Speaker 3: throw themselves in front of someone else, sort of sacrificial
10:10
Speaker 3: lamb style. But in the case of Alexa, you know,
10:13
Speaker 3: the bullet I believe that killed her wasn't meant for her,
10:18
Speaker 3: and people were especially outraged because not only is she
10:22
Speaker 3: a queer character, but in the story arc, she had
10:26
Speaker 3: just reached this pivotal moment with a romantic plot line,
10:33
Speaker 3: and I think that they had finally had sex for
10:36
Speaker 3: the first time and then boomed death.
10:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, well exactly. And I mean, these women in that
10:42
Speaker 1: show were allowed to be fierce warriors, independent, they had agency.
10:50
Speaker 1: Lexa in particular, was her clan's warrior commander, and she
10:54
Speaker 1: was in a relationship with Clark, who was the leader
10:57
Speaker 1: of her own people. And these fans, because everybody loves
11:02
Speaker 1: to put names together, Klexa fans did have a real
11:05
Speaker 1: reason to hope. I mean, they were in contact with
11:09
Speaker 1: series creator Jason Rothenberg and his staff. They were talking
11:12
Speaker 1: on Twitter, they were talking all over the Internet, and
11:15
Speaker 1: they'd really engaged the audience and encouraged their love of
11:19
Speaker 1: Clark and Lexa. They were like, yeah, these are great characters.
11:22
Speaker 1: We're glad you love them. Continue to love them.
11:24
Speaker 3: We're gonna make them fall in love with each other.
11:26
Speaker 3: But it's gonna be complicated because you'll love that even
11:28
Speaker 3: more because that's how relationships were.
11:30
Speaker 1: But unfortunately, the actress Alicia Debnham Carrey, who played Lexa,
11:36
Speaker 1: was getting ready to move over to Fear the Walking Dead.
11:38
Speaker 1: She got a new job, so they had to kill
11:40
Speaker 1: her off. Just so happens that her character was a
11:42
Speaker 1: really powerful lesbian, So she ends up taking a stray
11:47
Speaker 1: bullet and all the nerd rage. But so you mentioned, like, oh,
11:52
Speaker 1: but she had just reached this pivotal point in her
11:54
Speaker 1: relationship and character. The audience loved her, and then all
11:57
Speaker 1: of a sudden she dies. That exactly Parallelll's earlier nerd
12:01
Speaker 1: rage from two thousand and two. Hollywood Reporter read all
12:04
Speaker 1: about this when Tara on Buffy was killed. So, as
12:09
Speaker 1: Hollywood Reporter points out, both of these characters, Tara and
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Speaker 1: Lexa were shown consummating their relationships with their female love interest.
12:19
Speaker 1: Just minutes before getting killed. Both were hit by stray
12:23
Speaker 1: bullets meant for another person. Both died in their lover's arms,
12:27
Speaker 1: and both have led to fandom outrage.
12:32
Speaker 3: And in the case of Lexa, the fans also felt
12:36
Speaker 3: bamboozled in a way because they felt like their fandom
12:41
Speaker 3: had kind of been used against them to sort of
12:43
Speaker 3: draw them in with the what they felt like was
12:46
Speaker 3: a direct contact with the showrunner and suddenly the thing
12:53
Speaker 3: that they loved and were rooting for was taken away
12:56
Speaker 3: for them from them.
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Speaker 1: So that started the.
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Speaker 3: Hashtag LGBT Fans Deserve Better on Twitter, and they are
13:05
Speaker 3: now two websites, Wedserve Better dot com and Lgbtfans Deserve
13:09
Speaker 3: Better dot com, which has a ton of great resources
13:13
Speaker 3: if you want to learn more about these tropes and
13:15
Speaker 3: just about LGBTQIA representation in film and television. That's quickly
13:24
Speaker 3: developed into a great source for that.
13:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they also channeled their frustration and nerd rage
13:30
Speaker 1: into in real life activism as well. They helped raise
13:34
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of dollars for this group called the
13:37
Speaker 1: Trevor Project, which is a nonprofit focused on LGBTQ youth
13:42
Speaker 1: suicide prevention. So this is not just something that you
13:45
Speaker 1: can dismiss with like, oh, those are angry fangirls and fanboys. No,
13:50
Speaker 1: these are people who are putting their money where their
13:52
Speaker 1: mouth isn't saying okay, are you going to continue to
13:55
Speaker 1: show negative representations or not allow gay characters to have
13:59
Speaker 1: happy endings? Well, we are going to counteract that in
14:02
Speaker 1: real life and try to counteract any effect that those
14:06
Speaker 1: negative depictions might have and support our fellow LGBTQ IA
14:10
Speaker 1: community members.
14:11
Speaker 3: Which makes sense when IRL again, I think this episode
14:16
Speaker 3: might be the most time we'd ever used IRL, and
14:18
Speaker 3: I'm totally cool with it, But also to the betrayal
14:23
Speaker 3: of being a queer fan sitting there and seeing this happening,
14:27
Speaker 3: and then when you turn off a TV and you
14:30
Speaker 3: have to walk outside, go to school and be in
14:32
Speaker 3: public and also be concerned for your safety potentially sure,
14:35
Speaker 3: you know, like, there are a lot of layers to this.
14:38
Speaker 3: This is about a lot more than just having a
14:41
Speaker 3: beloved character taken away. And as a result of this
14:47
Speaker 3: fandom force, the mainstream media has taken note and Rothenberg,
14:53
Speaker 3: the show creator, directly apologized and it sparked a lot
14:57
Speaker 3: of coverage from auto Straddle and pretarticular Auto Strata. We
15:01
Speaker 3: cite on the podcast all the time. They're a terrific
15:04
Speaker 3: site for all things queer, So check them out if
15:08
Speaker 3: you haven't already. But they put together a list of
15:12
Speaker 3: killed off lesbian and by characters beginning in nineteen seventy
15:17
Speaker 3: six and even looking outside of shows in the United States,
15:22
Speaker 3: and they revise it to then include a total of
15:24
Speaker 3: one hundred and sixty six When they opened up, you know,
15:28
Speaker 3: the comment thread to fan saying, Okay, who have we missed?
15:31
Speaker 3: And boy is it startling how many they did.
15:34
Speaker 1: Miss Yeah, And you know, because that list does open
15:37
Speaker 1: it up to shows all over the world. Germans, you
15:40
Speaker 1: got a lot of dead lesbians on your media's.
15:43
Speaker 3: There was that one show in particular two where.
15:46
Speaker 1: I can't remember what it was, but there were a lot.
15:48
Speaker 3: Yeah German listeners, if you know what we're talking about.
15:51
Speaker 3: Because scrolling through it was like every other one, it
15:56
Speaker 3: was like, getta dat house. And that's the only.
16:03
Speaker 1: Well my favorites. So anyway, because so many of those
16:06
Speaker 1: shows were not US based shows, I had not seen
16:09
Speaker 1: a lot of them, and some of my favorites though,
16:13
Speaker 1: and that's a weird thing to say. Your favorite character
16:16
Speaker 1: favorite characters who were then also killed were definitely Rachel
16:20
Speaker 1: from House of Cards. She's a bisexual character who had
16:25
Speaker 1: a met a terrible fate or thing bless her heart.
16:28
Speaker 1: But also from Boardwalk Empire, one of my favorite shows
16:32
Speaker 1: that I legit miss being on the air, Angela Darmody,
16:38
Speaker 1: who was Jimmy Darmody's wife, so another bisexual character and
16:42
Speaker 1: her lover, Louise Bryant. They were killed in this tragic misunderstanding.
16:48
Speaker 1: This gangster shows up to kill Jimmy, but he gets
16:51
Speaker 1: there and it's only Jimmy's wife and when her lover
16:55
Speaker 1: comes out of the bathroom, he thinks it's gonna be
16:57
Speaker 1: Jimmy because there's his wife in bed, right, so that's
16:59
Speaker 1: got to be Jimmy. No, it's another woman, and he
17:02
Speaker 1: like confusedly and panic e Lishley shoots both women and
17:09
Speaker 1: it's it was horrible.
17:10
Speaker 3: It was so sad, panicky Lishy. Also, yeah, my new
17:13
Speaker 3: favorite advert.
17:14
Speaker 1: You're welcome. Well, I just Angela Darminy's character was so
17:18
Speaker 1: great on Boardwalk Empire And if you haven't watched the show,
17:22
Speaker 1: I recommend you do it. It's a good binge watching show.
17:26
Speaker 3: And it kind of follows a pattern that I casually
17:31
Speaker 3: notice scrolling through that auto straddle list, where it seems
17:35
Speaker 3: like for lesbian and bisexual women who were killed off,
17:42
Speaker 3: there's also that negative undercurrent of the deceitful h lesbian
17:49
Speaker 3: and bisexual woman. Usually she's perhaps like cheating on her
17:53
Speaker 3: husband with a woman and he is then enraged and
17:57
Speaker 3: kills her. There's a lot of murder jealous lovers go
18:01
Speaker 3: on as well.
18:03
Speaker 1: Now, the thing is, though, all of these character deaths
18:07
Speaker 1: go back way farther, way farther back in time than
18:11
Speaker 1: Lexa getting killed on the one hundred, and both the
18:15
Speaker 1: character killings and the audience reactions are tied into a
18:19
Speaker 1: lot of views about the acceptance honestly of LGBT people
18:24
Speaker 1: in real life, in reality. And so we are going
18:27
Speaker 1: to dive into some of that historical representation of LGBT
18:31
Speaker 1: folks on screen. We come right back from a quick break.
18:47
Speaker 3: So to put a little historical context on this conversation,
18:50
Speaker 3: as we like to do here, it's stuff Mom never
18:52
Speaker 3: told you. We are relying a lot on a book
18:55
Speaker 3: by Steven Schropiano called The Primetime closet a history of
19:00
Speaker 3: gays and lesbians on TV, and as it's probably not
19:06
Speaker 3: surprising as the LGBTQIA community has gotten louder and more
19:13
Speaker 3: visible offscreen, they've become more fed up with that lackluster
19:20
Speaker 3: and often discriminatory media representation, which today is mirroring what
19:27
Speaker 3: happened back in the sixties and seventies, which is when
19:30
Speaker 3: we see the first lesbians in particular start dying on television.
19:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so if we go back to the nineteen sixties,
19:38
Speaker 1: basically through the mid sixties, the discussion and representation of
19:43
Speaker 1: gay people on TV was generally limited to talk shows.
19:46
Speaker 1: I thought that was interesting. I had never thought about
19:50
Speaker 1: that really, And that is because you know the same
19:55
Speaker 1: way that today, on like sixty Minutes or Barbara Walters
19:59
Speaker 1: or something like that, they might take a social issue
20:02
Speaker 1: that a lot of people are scared of, like heroin
20:04
Speaker 1: abuse or opiate overdoses and go dive deep into it
20:09
Speaker 1: for an hour to address people's fears. The same frickin'
20:13
Speaker 1: thing was happening with LGBT people back in the day.
20:17
Speaker 1: So in response to viewers presume concern over gay people,
20:22
Speaker 1: these talk shows were investigating homosexuality along the same lines
20:28
Speaker 1: as alcoholism or drug abuse, because, like Kristin was saying,
20:33
Speaker 1: as the LGBT community is getting bigger, more vocal, more visible,
20:38
Speaker 1: so is the concern and the homophobia around them. Well,
20:43
Speaker 1: at this time it was mostly focused toward gaymen because
20:46
Speaker 1: at the time people were like, what lesbians, that's just
20:50
Speaker 1: you have some like weird problem where maybe your husband
20:54
Speaker 1: isn't satisfying you, but game in we're watching you yours.
20:58
Speaker 3: That's deviant. I would also like quick side note, when
21:03
Speaker 3: you said talk shows, the first thing I thought of
21:05
Speaker 3: was like Jerry Springer style talk shows, But I don't
21:09
Speaker 3: know the Jerry Springer shows not on in the sixties
21:11
Speaker 3: and seventies, but I would imagine that you would also
21:16
Speaker 3: see them on daytime talk shows, but more in the
21:18
Speaker 3: freak show style of look at these you know, she
21:22
Speaker 3: didn't know her husband was gay? Riting just like again,
21:25
Speaker 3: being treated as characters rather than people. And in nineteen
21:30
Speaker 3: sixty seven, Oh Mike Wallace and CBS News produced a
21:36
Speaker 3: special report on gay people literally called CBS News the Homosexuals.
21:46
Speaker 1: I mean, it would be funny if it weren't so.
21:47
Speaker 3: Awful, right, I mean very much a product of its time. Yeah,
21:52
Speaker 3: but Mike Wallace interviews all these gay men and describes
21:57
Speaker 3: them as quote the most despised minority gris in the
22:00
Speaker 3: United States, which, okay, might not be off the mark there,
22:04
Speaker 3: But then he starts talking to psychoanalysts, and this is
22:08
Speaker 3: really where the thing just goes right off the side
22:12
Speaker 3: of the cliff.
22:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, because one of those psychoanalysts that he talked to
22:15
Speaker 1: emphasized being gay as a mental illness which has reached
22:19
Speaker 1: epidemiological proportions. He also indicated that it's a learned behavior
22:25
Speaker 1: tied with an unnaturally strong tie with the mother, which
22:29
Speaker 1: disrupts normal gender identity, triggers separation anxiety, and prevents him
22:35
Speaker 1: from forming heterosexual relationships in adulthood. Oh good, So we're
22:40
Speaker 1: not quite past Freud yet, we're still very very afraid
22:45
Speaker 1: of what it means to be gay. But not too
22:48
Speaker 1: long after that CBS report comes out, you have some
22:53
Speaker 1: massive cultural shifts going on, because in June nineteen sixty
22:56
Speaker 1: nine you get the Stonewall Riots, which marks basically the
22:59
Speaker 1: beginning of the modern vocal gay liberation movement. And that
23:04
Speaker 1: means more than ever, the community is more visible and
23:08
Speaker 1: it's a more viable political force.
23:10
Speaker 3: And quick Stonewall shout out to trans women of color.
23:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so things start falling like dominoes when it
23:19
Speaker 1: comes to the gay rights movement. In nineteen seventy three,
23:22
Speaker 1: the American Bar Association passed a resolution supporting the repeal
23:25
Speaker 1: of statesodomy laws, and just a year later, in seventy four,
23:29
Speaker 1: homosexuality is finally removed from the American Psychiatric Association's list
23:34
Speaker 1: of mental disorders. The same year, you get federal anti
23:39
Speaker 1: gay discrimination bills introduced into the House, and it failed,
23:43
Speaker 1: but similar measures were passing in cities and counties around
23:47
Speaker 1: the country.
23:48
Speaker 3: And all of this is being mirrored on television in
23:52
Speaker 3: the nineteen seventies where you actually start to see gay
23:57
Speaker 3: characters on TV medical drama's life like.
24:00
Speaker 1: The bold Ones Medical Center.
24:03
Speaker 3: Which I like how it's like, well, you know what
24:05
Speaker 3: you're getting with that one, and Marcus Welby m D. Yeah.
24:11
Speaker 1: And I mean, just like we've seen in these in
24:13
Speaker 1: these trends we've been talking about, in response to the
24:17
Speaker 1: growing gay rights movement, LGBT characters are starting to get
24:21
Speaker 1: treated with a more liberal attitude. That's great, right, Yay,
24:25
Speaker 1: a more liberal attitude. But but we're still scared of them, right,
24:29
Speaker 1: that that fear and condemnation that sort of pervaded all
24:34
Speaker 1: of the earlier talk shows and CBS specials was just
24:38
Speaker 1: replaced with pity, intolerance, not acceptance and treating them like
24:43
Speaker 1: human people.
24:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean still there's a there's this old saying
24:48
Speaker 3: that I remember from my Christian upbringing of love the
24:52
Speaker 3: sin or hate the sin, and very much that that
24:56
Speaker 3: kind of mindset with this, well, we accept you, but
25:02
Speaker 3: not actually really because we think that inside your core
25:04
Speaker 3: something is broken.
25:05
Speaker 1: Right, and so on these shows, if it was the
25:07
Speaker 1: patient who was gay, the sexuality itself was not treated
25:13
Speaker 1: as a disease, which okay, good, but that so called
25:19
Speaker 1: or so deemed sexual confusion or homosexual panic was often
25:24
Speaker 1: part of the plot's medical mystery and linked with some
25:27
Speaker 1: other condition like diabetes, heart disease, or ulcers. You know
25:29
Speaker 1: how these medical shows even today always have to have
25:32
Speaker 1: some like underlying drama driving the plot. It's not just
25:37
Speaker 1: like she came in with a headache. It's like she
25:39
Speaker 1: came in with a headache cause she's in the medal
25:41
Speaker 1: of homosexual panic.
25:43
Speaker 3: I'm trying to now imagine an episode of house where
25:47
Speaker 3: it's like, well, it turns out he's gay, that's it.
25:53
Speaker 1: So in other words, basically, with these plot lines, you
25:57
Speaker 1: had to resolve the questionable sexual orientation before you could
26:01
Speaker 1: uncover and treat that underlying medical condition. And of course
26:06
Speaker 1: being gay was usually linked with a parent and or
26:09
Speaker 1: just choosing the lifestyle. So, for instance, this one example
26:13
Speaker 1: that author Stephen Tropiano gives is you have this man
26:18
Speaker 1: in this one episode on a medical show who he's diabetic,
26:21
Speaker 1: He's gaining a lot of weight, He's miserable, and so
26:23
Speaker 1: is his wife. His miserable wife is complaining about how
26:26
Speaker 1: basically she doesn't get late anymore and she wants to
26:28
Speaker 1: divorce him. And their son is quiet and withdrawn. So,
26:32
Speaker 1: like all of these health problems combined with social and
26:36
Speaker 1: marital and parental problems, what's going on?
26:38
Speaker 3: Diagnosis gay? Right?
26:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, Basically, the doctor figures out that this diabetic man
26:44
Speaker 1: is gay, and the diagnosis, so to speak, basically sends
26:48
Speaker 1: him into deep depression and he attempts suicide, which, hello,
26:53
Speaker 1: we already have like a super high rate of LGBT
26:57
Speaker 1: people in this country being more likely to attempt suicide.
27:00
Speaker 1: So the character attempts suicide, goes to a shrink. Oh,
27:03
Speaker 1: but it's a happy end in Christin Oh what happens? Right, Well,
27:07
Speaker 1: he goes to the shrink and he finds out that
27:09
Speaker 1: he's not actually gay. It's just his fear of homosexuality
27:13
Speaker 1: that's at the root of a neurosis.
27:15
Speaker 3: Oh called internalized homophobia. Right.
27:18
Speaker 1: Oh, thank god? Right, Like, he's not actually gay, just
27:21
Speaker 1: hate gay people, and therefore he doesn't have to die. Yeah, exactly.
27:27
Speaker 3: And if we hop forward across a lot of doctors
27:31
Speaker 3: and nurse characters at this time who are never really
27:35
Speaker 3: fully fleshed out, but they might be gay, and they
27:36
Speaker 3: don't necessarily die, but they're just sort of like sideshow
27:40
Speaker 3: freaks really.
27:40
Speaker 1: Right, Like, So if a doctor comes out, it's usually
27:43
Speaker 1: not going to be a recurring character a doctor nurse.
27:45
Speaker 1: It's gonna be someone who's in there to stir up
27:47
Speaker 1: a bit of drama. And because they've stirred up drama,
27:50
Speaker 1: they're putting either their lives or the patient's life at risks.
27:53
Speaker 1: So you've got to.
27:54
Speaker 3: Go, sister, get out of here, Get out of here,
27:56
Speaker 3: and literally get out of here. One woman did. Okay,
28:01
Speaker 3: that's a weird way to say that. The character was
28:04
Speaker 3: killed off. So when we get to nineteen seventy six,
28:07
Speaker 3: there's a soap opera called Executive Suite, and this is
28:13
Speaker 3: the origin of the so called dead lesbian syndrome. So
28:18
Speaker 3: on an episode of Executive Suite, there's this woman Julie
28:23
Speaker 3: who confesses to another woman, Leona, that hey, Leona, I'm
28:28
Speaker 3: a lesbian. And Leona's like, oh my god, Julie, I'm
28:31
Speaker 3: a lesbian too, and I'm very attracted to you. But
28:36
Speaker 3: they're both like, but diagnosis gay.
28:39
Speaker 1: This can't be right.
28:41
Speaker 3: And so Julie gets so upset and she rushes after Leona,
28:47
Speaker 3: who's just like, you know, trying to I guess see,
28:51
Speaker 3: trying to run away from her lesbianism. And Julie gets
28:54
Speaker 3: hit by a truck. And then get this, Julie's husband,
29:00
Speaker 3: because of course here we go with like the deceitful
29:02
Speaker 3: sexuality thing. Julie's husband then blames Leona, and Leona has
29:07
Speaker 3: a nervous breakdown.
29:09
Speaker 1: Though we only have one dead lesbian here, the other
29:12
Speaker 1: one is safely tucked away in a some kind of
29:15
Speaker 1: mental institution. Yeah, so good, we're all safe, right, the lesbians,
29:20
Speaker 1: we're putting them away. But yeah, that nineteen seventy six.
29:25
Speaker 1: Executive Suite is always cited as the first time you
29:28
Speaker 1: start to see lesbian or by or gay characters just
29:33
Speaker 1: getting killed off as punishment not having to quit their
29:36
Speaker 1: line of work as a doctor on a show.
29:38
Speaker 3: And even though old Twitter and snatchits didn't exist, there
29:44
Speaker 3: was protest. So as gay advocacy groups and activists and
29:50
Speaker 3: allies started noticing this pattern on television, especially on primetime TV,
29:57
Speaker 3: they began to stand up against it, especially because primetime
30:02
Speaker 3: television was critically symbolic in their struggle to gain acceptance
30:08
Speaker 3: in wider society, because it's like, if you can be
30:12
Speaker 3: portrayed as an actual human person who's not broken, you
30:16
Speaker 3: simply like everyone else, possesses sexual orientation of some sort,
30:21
Speaker 3: then that is a sign of a cultural shift in
30:26
Speaker 3: a positive direction. And gay activists succeeded in sending a
30:31
Speaker 3: clear message to television producers and broadcasters and listen, these negative,
30:35
Speaker 3: malicious stereotypes are not going to be tolerated. So history
30:42
Speaker 3: is repeating itself really in terms of the activism around it.
30:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like the more vocal and this is
30:48
Speaker 1: not just for LGBT folks, but the more vocal. A
30:51
Speaker 1: marginalized group is the harder and weirder.
30:55
Speaker 3: The pushback is from dominant groups, and we aren't going
30:59
Speaker 3: to get into this. So listeners, if you have insights,
31:03
Speaker 3: please share them with us. But I'm now curious, since
31:07
Speaker 3: this was going on in the seventies and gay advocacy
31:12
Speaker 3: groups were making headway, what impact then the AIDS crisis
31:18
Speaker 3: had on all of it this. If it stalled it,
31:20
Speaker 3: if it pushed it back.
31:22
Speaker 1: Well, I think that would play into and please, I
31:26
Speaker 1: do want to hear from listeners, but I think that
31:27
Speaker 1: would play into the pity the gay person. Don't fear
31:32
Speaker 1: the gay person or condemn the gay person as much,
31:35
Speaker 1: at least as it played out on TV or in
31:37
Speaker 1: mini series or things like that.
31:39
Speaker 3: But here's the thing, Caroline. Straight characters are killed off
31:43
Speaker 3: all of the time.
31:44
Speaker 1: It's true.
31:45
Speaker 3: What's wrong with that?
31:47
Speaker 5: We're going to talk about that when we get right
31:49
Speaker 5: back from a quick break.
32:03
Speaker 3: So in the words with Jerry Seinfeld seenefeld As, I
32:07
Speaker 3: like to call what's the deal with the with straight
32:11
Speaker 3: characters dying? And we're not calling it the barrier straight strope.
32:16
Speaker 3: I'm playing like an and culturish Devil's advocate right now,
32:20
Speaker 3: and I really don't like it.
32:23
Speaker 1: Well, Reese over at Auto Straddle puts it really well,
32:27
Speaker 1: so I will quote her. Reese says, we comprise such
32:30
Speaker 1: a teeny tiny fraction of characters on television to begin with,
32:34
Speaker 1: that killing us off so haphazardly feels especially cruel.
32:38
Speaker 3: And this is.
32:38
Speaker 1: Something that Dorothy Snarker love your last Name dot echoes
32:43
Speaker 1: over at Hollywood Reporter. She says, it's not that lesbian
32:46
Speaker 1: and bisexual characters shouldn't ever die on screen, far from it,
32:50
Speaker 1: but currently our tragic endings are shown at an inordinately
32:54
Speaker 1: higher rate than our happy one.
32:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean painting. And this was something too that
32:59
Speaker 3: snake you think a lot of. Raquel willis in our
33:02
Speaker 3: conversation with her about trans characters on television in particular,
33:07
Speaker 3: and just her desire and that we share with her
33:11
Speaker 3: to see portrayals of trans people who aren't tragic, who
33:17
Speaker 3: can fall in love, who can live a life like
33:22
Speaker 3: everyone else you know, and just be characters rather than
33:27
Speaker 3: having to be the tragic other. And you also have
33:31
Speaker 3: to keep in mind statistically just the disproportionate rate of
33:36
Speaker 3: these kinds of characters being killed off. If you look
33:40
Speaker 3: if you compare to population wise, not only of their
33:43
Speaker 3: representation on screen, but also more broadly.
33:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean LGBT characters are super underrepresented on TV,
33:52
Speaker 1: but their deaths are overrepresented. And so basically, if one
33:55
Speaker 1: straight character is killed, there's still going to be a
33:57
Speaker 1: whole mess of other straight characters left. It's a whole
34:00
Speaker 1: mess of a whole mess of them, and this show's
34:02
Speaker 1: lousy with them. But if a gay character is killed,
34:06
Speaker 1: it's not like there's going to be so many other
34:09
Speaker 1: LGBT characters in the wings to I don't want to
34:13
Speaker 1: say cushion the blow, but like it. It's it's a
34:18
Speaker 1: harder hit basically character wise, if like your one gay
34:21
Speaker 1: character or you're like two gay characters are killed off.
34:24
Speaker 3: And chances are that's not even going to be a
34:26
Speaker 3: lead character, so you don't even have a fully fleshed
34:29
Speaker 3: out like person there.
34:31
Speaker 1: They might just begin wrapping up the storyline.
34:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Vox tallied up all of the deaths, all
34:38
Speaker 3: the TV deaths from seventy six to twenty sixteen, and
34:43
Speaker 3: they were focusing on American television because they noticed especially
34:50
Speaker 3: with and they really do tie it to spoiler Ned
34:54
Speaker 3: Stark's death on Game of Thrones, starting this trend of
35:01
Speaker 3: a lot of death on television. Yeah, so for an
35:04
Speaker 3: idea of just how deathly TV has become, so Vox
35:09
Speaker 3: crunched the numbers and found that two hundred and forty
35:13
Speaker 3: two characters of all characters on TV died between the
35:18
Speaker 3: fall twenty fifteen and spring twenty sixteen television seasons, and
35:22
Speaker 3: that about ten percent of those were LGBTQ women.
35:27
Speaker 1: Interesting. Yeah, I mean, we do love statistics here, so
35:30
Speaker 1: I have some more for you. Auto Straddle also crunched
35:33
Speaker 1: them numbers and posted this fabulous infographic that looked at
35:37
Speaker 1: LGBTQ characters deaths between nineteen seventy six and twenty sixteen.
35:45
Speaker 1: They said that there were more than fifteen hundred shows
35:48
Speaker 1: with straight characters and just one hundred and ninety three
35:52
Speaker 1: featuring lesbian or by characters, which is about eleven percent.
35:57
Speaker 1: Of those one hundred and ninety three shows, six eight
36:00
Speaker 1: had dead lesbians, and about half of those were shows
36:03
Speaker 1: where anyone can die, like a Game of Thrones. And again,
36:08
Speaker 1: of the one hundred and ninety three lesbian featuring shows,
36:10
Speaker 1: just sixteen percent had happy endings for lesbian and by characters.
36:14
Speaker 1: And the thing that is emphasized over and over again
36:18
Speaker 1: is that, ay, this is not great. Why are we
36:21
Speaker 1: over representing gay character's deaths. Well, we just talked a
36:24
Speaker 1: lot about it. But also this negative representation is reinforcing
36:28
Speaker 1: a lot of cultural bs that is happening right now,
36:31
Speaker 1: because we all want to see ourselves represented positively in media,
36:35
Speaker 1: right and when LGBTQ kids or adults for that matter,
36:40
Speaker 1: only see themselves as tools facing imminent demise, as Snarker writes,
36:45
Speaker 1: death sadness and despair can seem like a self fulfilling prophecy.
36:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's if you even see a gay character
36:55
Speaker 3: on television. Glad studies this every year and keeps tallies
36:59
Speaker 3: and in twenty fifteen, out of eight hundred and eighty
37:06
Speaker 3: one regular roles on broadcast TV, only four percent or
37:11
Speaker 3: thirty five of them belonged to LGBTQ characters. So, first
37:18
Speaker 3: of all, you're not even seeing them, but then when
37:20
Speaker 3: you are, you're seeing them meet tragedy. And in the
37:24
Speaker 3: context of our offscreen wave of anti LGBTQ sentiment and
37:31
Speaker 3: legislation like the whole bathroom bill issue that is now
37:36
Speaker 3: made its way up to the Supreme court, and the
37:40
Speaker 3: fact that you can still be fired for your sexual
37:43
Speaker 3: orientation in most states, and also on top of that,
37:46
Speaker 3: issues like the super high unemployment rate among trans individuals,
37:51
Speaker 3: the homelessness rate among LGBTQ youth, bullying, and links to
37:58
Speaker 3: attempted suicide and drug abuse, like it's it's not offering
38:04
Speaker 3: very much, hope. You know that's not exactly. You know,
38:07
Speaker 3: we watch TV a lot of times as an escape, right,
38:10
Speaker 3: but that's not an escape, yeah, just a reinforcement.
38:14
Speaker 1: And I mean tropes are tropes for a reason, right.
38:17
Speaker 1: They exist as tropes because they happen so often, and
38:21
Speaker 1: they are props for storylines that are used so often
38:25
Speaker 1: that you can spot them, and they are coded in
38:27
Speaker 1: a certain way so you know what is happening and
38:29
Speaker 1: why something is happening. And to me, like, we can
38:33
Speaker 1: live a lay for a bit, because otherwise it's clearly
38:36
Speaker 1: just becoming lazy storytelling. At some point now it's already
38:40
Speaker 1: become lazy storytelling. And so that's why it's so interesting
38:43
Speaker 1: to study storylines that take this dead lesbian syndrome trope
38:49
Speaker 1: or this barrier gaze trope and put a different bend
38:54
Speaker 1: in the storyline so that it is tragic when a
38:58
Speaker 1: character dies, when a queer character dies, when a character
39:01
Speaker 1: of color dies, but that it doesn't have to be
39:06
Speaker 1: meaninglessly tragic.
39:08
Speaker 3: And an example of that and major spoiler alert to
39:13
Speaker 3: Orange is the New Black. Fans who are not caught
39:16
Speaker 3: up on the show, skip ahead or just listen to
39:20
Speaker 3: another episode, because this is a big one. So in
39:26
Speaker 3: the latest season finale, Cohouse is tragically and senselessly killed
39:34
Speaker 3: during a peaceful protest at the prison where the show
39:39
Speaker 3: takes place.
39:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, and as you can imagine, people freaked out. I know,
39:43
Speaker 1: she was one of my faves. She was probably my favorite.
39:48
Speaker 1: She was a great character.
39:50
Speaker 3: Her relationship with Tasty.
39:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, Oh, she's a great character on TV, but also
39:55
Speaker 1: a great depiction of just just a kind like I've
40:00
Speaker 1: if you were in real life, I would want to
40:01
Speaker 1: be friends with you. And you can imagine that people
40:05
Speaker 1: freaked out, not just because she was such a beloved character,
40:07
Speaker 1: but here she has a queer character of color. And
40:10
Speaker 1: Catherine Van Aaron donc another great name over at Vulture
40:13
Speaker 1: in June twenty sixteen, really kind of investigated Poussey's death
40:18
Speaker 1: from the perspective of all of the anger that fans
40:22
Speaker 1: were feeling, especially through the lens of the Barrier Gays trope,
40:26
Speaker 1: like why do we have to kill off yet another
40:29
Speaker 1: queer female character, and Van Aaron Donc basically comes to
40:34
Speaker 1: the conclusion through her piece of like, well, this isn't
40:38
Speaker 1: the same thing really as Barrier Gaze. Pousey's death was
40:43
Speaker 1: not simply there to prop up a straight white character storyline,
40:48
Speaker 1: even though a white character is technically the quote unquote lead.
40:50
Speaker 3: Of that show. Yeah, if she had like taken a
40:52
Speaker 3: bullet for Piper or something, we would be having a
40:55
Speaker 3: different conversation.
40:56
Speaker 1: Right, But Poussey is not the only queer character on
40:59
Speaker 1: the show, the only queer character of color on the show,
41:02
Speaker 1: And she wasn't killed because she was a queer woman.
41:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, And clearly, her being senselessly killed by hired law
41:12
Speaker 3: enforcement in the case of the prison, by these correctional
41:17
Speaker 3: officers mirrors what is happening offscreen with police brutality and
41:26
Speaker 3: black lives matter, And the entire episode became really a
41:32
Speaker 3: eulogy to.
41:34
Speaker 1: Pousse Yeah, and a eulogy for the black people in
41:38
Speaker 1: this country who have been gunned down by police. And
41:42
Speaker 1: it's also a commentary on our prison system, our justice system.
41:46
Speaker 1: The fact that someone who was so beloved, a character
41:49
Speaker 1: who was so beloved by the other characters but also
41:52
Speaker 1: the audience could just be wiped off the face of
41:56
Speaker 1: the earth in just a moment like that, in a
41:59
Speaker 1: moment that they were trying to restrain her and they
42:02
Speaker 1: accidentally killed her. It is senseless, but it has so
42:07
Speaker 1: much meaning and it was monumental for the show and
42:10
Speaker 1: for the other characters. It wasn't treated as just like.
42:13
Speaker 3: And now the storyline progressive, right, and now a joke
42:16
Speaker 3: from Pensentucky right.
42:19
Speaker 1: And of course another show and again massive spoiler alert,
42:23
Speaker 1: but another show that really does kind of an interesting
42:26
Speaker 1: take on the traditional barrier gaze trope is Black Mirror.
42:31
Speaker 1: They're all standalone episodes, and the episode titled San Junipero
42:36
Speaker 1: features two queer women characters who fall in love. So
42:42
Speaker 1: you imagine, like, well, tragedies right around the corner, and
42:47
Speaker 1: it kind of is, but there's a happy ending.
42:50
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they did. They pulled this off lawlessly. I thought,
42:53
Speaker 3: I loved the episode. How do we even describe it?
42:57
Speaker 3: It's such a I don't I want listen to watch it,
43:01
Speaker 3: because it really is a beautiful episode and very Unblack
43:04
Speaker 3: Mirror in its in its happy ending spoiler alert, but
43:10
Speaker 3: it doesn't. While Yorky one of the characters, we know
43:16
Speaker 3: that her family was not accepting of her being a lesbian,
43:21
Speaker 3: and that when she came out she left the house
43:26
Speaker 3: I believe, and was in a terrible car accident the
43:28
Speaker 3: paralyzed her. So you do have like that element of punishment.
43:33
Speaker 3: But when it comes to their love story, it's really
43:36
Speaker 3: pure and beautiful.
43:37
Speaker 1: You know, it's too It's it's fun to watch because
43:41
Speaker 1: it's two young women being so giddy in their love
43:45
Speaker 1: for each other, and there's drama, and there's conflict and
43:48
Speaker 1: should I should we do? I love you?
43:50
Speaker 5: Do I not?
43:51
Speaker 2: Do?
43:51
Speaker 1: I want to be with you? And they do get
43:54
Speaker 1: to be together. But here's the twist. So again spoiler
43:57
Speaker 1: like if you're still listening to Eylther, But the whole
44:00
Speaker 1: thing is this exists in the future, and in the future,
44:04
Speaker 1: when you die, you have the opportunity to basically be
44:07
Speaker 1: uploaded to some spirit cloud. Basically Apple is our overlord,
44:14
Speaker 1: and it is through this program that these two women
44:19
Speaker 1: who would not have otherwise been able to even meet
44:22
Speaker 1: or be together, got to not only meet and not
44:27
Speaker 1: only fall in love and be giddy and have great sex.
44:30
Speaker 1: But they got to go off into the sunset in
44:33
Speaker 1: a jeep wrangler and live happily ever after together. So yes,
44:36
Speaker 1: is their punishment? Is there the acknowledgment of life not
44:40
Speaker 1: being not easy for queer people? Yes, but through death
44:47
Speaker 1: they get to live together forever.
44:50
Speaker 3: And also the fact that we have Kelly who is
44:56
Speaker 3: proudly and openly bisexual, and she a woman of color,
45:01
Speaker 3: and her character also was married and had a child,
45:06
Speaker 3: and her husband and a daughter had both since died
45:10
Speaker 3: and chose not to go to the cloud, chose not
45:16
Speaker 3: to go to the Steve Jobs heaven. So that too,
45:21
Speaker 3: is a pretty revolutionary depiction that you rarely see on television.
45:27
Speaker 3: So I thought that they handled it swimmingly. And this
45:32
Speaker 3: was certainly a fine example of queer people dying on
45:36
Speaker 3: a show, but the death being.
45:39
Speaker 1: Joyful, Yeah, and it being just the beginning. They get
45:43
Speaker 1: to have their their happy ending together.
45:45
Speaker 3: And there's been this thing called the Lexa Pledge that
45:50
Speaker 3: some creators developed in the wake of fan protest over
45:56
Speaker 3: Lex's death in the one hundred that has sparked more
46:01
Speaker 3: conversations about showrunner responsibility for how they depict gay characters,
46:06
Speaker 3: because there is that line between not wanting to stifle
46:09
Speaker 3: the creative process, but also understanding that as a creator,
46:14
Speaker 3: you have a responsibility to your audience and if you
46:17
Speaker 3: care about the impact of your media that you're making
46:20
Speaker 3: on the world at large, then it's something that you
46:25
Speaker 3: absolutely need to consider. So I'll be really curious and
46:30
Speaker 3: I'm hopeful to see whether this barrier gaze trope dies,
46:35
Speaker 3: whether we can bury it.