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Bury Your Gays: Difference between revisions
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{{examples}}
== Anime & Manga ==
* Hagino and Mari from ''[[Blue Drop]]'' are obviously not meant to be happy together, despite the ''whole'' series being about their growing relationship. When they finally confess their feelings for each other, Hagino dies in a [[Senseless Sacrifice]].
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* An [http://www.bumbleking.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5334 unintentional] example, one can't help but think this with Rotor's brutal torture (and his significant other Cobar's implied death) shortly after their [[Word of Gay]] reveal in the ''[[Archie Comics Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' story "Mobius: 25 Years Later". The fact that writers Ian Flynn and Ken Penders (the one who wrote the torture and revealed the Word of Gay, respectively) are at odds about each other's writings, and the former's denouncement of the Word of Gay as "irrelevant" years earlier, didn't help matters any.
* It's suggested that John Reddear from The Tamakis' ''[[Skim]]'' was in love with another boy from his Catholic school and is part of the reason he committed suicide at the start of the story. Unfortunately this sort of happens all too often in real life.
* This is used in the original ''[[Watchmen (comics)|Watchmen]]'' comic to deconstruct ideas about homosexuality in golden age comics. A lesbian superhero is outed and thrown out of her
* This is a plot point in ''[[Sandman Mystery Theatre]]''. In ''The Phantom of the Fair'', a a serial killer suffering from either schizophrenia or multiple personalities lures unsuspecting gay men, kidnaps them, then tortures them while dressed in a gimp suit. He then leaves the bodies in the Worlds Fair, in places where anyone and everyone can see them until the police get them removed.
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** Speaking of [[Depraved Homosexual]]s, there's Larlene, who gets killed once for being a [[Psycho Lesbian|scary lesbian]] [[Have I Mentioned I Am Gay?|spouting sexually harassing threats at a het woman]], and then killed again for being a [[Lesbian Vampire|Lesbian Zombie]], who [[Incredibly Lame Pun|eats out]] a young female.
*** But don't worry: [[It Was His Sled|A heterosexual survives]].
* ''[[9 Dead Gay Guys]]'': [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|All there in the title.]] The two protagonists,one straight and one gay, live.
* ''[[Beyond the Valley of the Dolls]]'' in some way subverted this trope. Though the lesbian couple in the film were not the only ones to die in the show, their fate was specifically mentioned in the sarcastic voice-over ending as not being based around the fact that their relationship was in any way evil. Of course, they also weren't the only people to die, just the only ones for whom it wasn't supposed to be a consequence or punishment of their wrongdoing according to that monologue.
* There's a montage in the documentary ''[[The Celluloid Closet]]'' (a history of homosexual depictions in film up through the early 1990s) of a ''litany'' of gay/lesbian characters either dying or being [[Depraved Homosexual]]s or (most often) both.
* In ''The Fox'' lesbian Jill is killed and her girlfriend runs off with a man.
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* The ''1919'' German film ''Anders als die Andern'' ("Different from the Others") used this trope to a much better effect than ''[[Brokeback Mountain]]'', because it was genuinely trying to educate the public about the senseless persecution of gays and included real life sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld giving a lecture that homosexuality was completely natural. That said, the main character still gets thrown out of school, loses all of his clients, is blackmailed and eventually commits suicide.
* ''[[A Single Man]]'': George's partner of sixteen years dies in a car accident eight months before the start of the film. By the end of the story, George himself dies due to a heart-attack, right after an epiphany which stopped him from committing suicide out of unsustainable grief. He was so busy preparing for his death that day that he forgot to take the heart medicine keeping him alive. [[Tear Jerker|It's all pretty tragic, really.]]
* ''[[Milk]]'': Controversial, to say the least: Harvey Milk may not have been killed specifically ''because'' he was gay, and Mayor George Moscone, a staight man, was killed in the same incident. However, Dan White, the assassin, was a self
* The lone gay man in ''Single White Female'' gets in the villain's way... but he gets better and comes back to help [[Bridget Fonda]] kick [[Jennifer Jason Leigh]]'s ass. Although you could make the argument that Leigh's character herself is an example of this trope, as well as a [[Psycho Lesbian]].
* Many people remember the sixties hit song "[[Ode To Billy Joe]]," about a young man who kills himself by jumping off the Tallahatchee Bridge, for reasons unknown. What few people remember is that in 1976, Hollywood decided to make a movie of the song that would explain exactly why Billy Joe jumped. Turns out it was the [[Gayngst]].
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* In the documentary ''The Lavender Lens: 100 Years of Celluloid Queers'', there's a very striking montage towards the end of gay accidental death, murder and suicide scenes from various films, set to 'Another One Bites the Dust'. The film ends with a Bugs Bunny clip in which Bugs is suspected dead but revives and runs off wearing a tutu.
* Martineau in ''[[Another Country]]'' gets caught during some guy-on-guy action and a few minutes later (in the film) he offs himself. In a church, of all places.
* In ''[[Bent]]'', it is a movie about two gay men in a concentration camp during the holocaust. Use your imagination.
* Lucy bites it at the end of ''[[High Art]]''.
* ''Cruising'' is also a serial killer stalking New York City's gay leather subculture, and Al Pacino going undercover to stop this. In contrast to the acres of dead sexually active perverts, Al's neighbor, Ted, is offered up as a contrast - he has a steady boyfriend and hates the idea of cruising. And he dies, too.
* The 1987 thriller ''[[No Way Out]]'' features a [[Depraved Homosexual]] as the story's main antagonist. When his [[Unrequited Love]] for the man he's protecting from a murder accusation is outed, he [[Driven to Suicide|shoots himself]] and is posthumously framed both for the murder and for being a [[Red Herring Mole|Soviet mole]].
* The titular funeral in [[Four Weddings and a Funeral]]. The eulogy delivered for Gareth got the main character thinking about love and marriage, setting up the climax.
* ''[[Independence Day]]'' features a walking—nay, prancing—gay stereotype played by Harvey Fierstein. Naturally, the aliens get him.
* ''[[Your Highness]]'' gets extra special mention for Boremont, who reveals his love for Fabious, [[Dying Declaration of Love|as Fabious is stabbing him]].
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** Similar to the 40k example, Jame and her wife Cathie in the first [[Alien vs. Predator]] novel are among 4 characters to make it to the end and are actually among the nicest most sympathetic characters in it. Their relationship is a [[Hide Your Gays|bit more subtle]] in the comics though.
* C J L Almquist's ''The Queen's Tiara'', which is set in Sweden in 1792, has Tintomara, who pretty much personifies [[Attractive Bent Gender]]. Two sisters and their respective suitors fall in love with her, the men thinking she's a woman, the girls convinced that she's male (at least initially). The men fight a [[Duel to the Death]] over her, the sisters go insane, and Tintomara herself is eventually killed for her refusal to pick a gender role and stick with it.
* In [[Clive Barker
* In ''[[The Golden Compass]]'' there is Balthamos's death, six other characters on the protagonists' side had died in the series, most of them fairly major characters.
** Also, note that angels are made of Dust, the sentient particle; a common theme of the third book is that dead people's souls reunite with their loved ones, daemons or other people, once their Dust particles spread across the universes, after getting out of the underworld for humans of course. Having this in consideration, maybe Balthamos and Baruch had a happy ending after all...
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* ''[[The Picture of Dorian Gray]]'', in which the two main characters (Basil Hallward and Dorian Grey) are heavily implied to be gay or bisexual, ends up with two of them dead, one murdered by the other. The other later effectively committed suicide. This may be a reflection of the difficulties of being a gay man in Victorian England, though (Wilde himself eventually died in poverty after being imprisoned for "gross obscenity", i.e. having sex with men).
* ''Kiss of the Spider Woman'', in which the gay protagonist demonstrates his new-found bravery by accepting a suicide mission to pass a message to political revolutionaries.
* The
* Margaret in ''Affinity'' intends to take her life at the end of the story. The TV adaptation explicitly shows her jumping into the Thames.
* Played as a [[Gay Aesop]] in ''The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay'', Sam Clay's too-good-to-be-true boyfriend Tracy is killed in action in World War II. Soon after, Sam marries fellow comic book writer Rosa Saks. Sam and Tracy were arrested in a raid, where the arresting officer basically raped Sam before letting him and Tracy go. Tracy wanted to know what happened, but Sam [[What the Hell, Hero?|breaks off the relationship and never tells Tracy why]]. Rosa becomes [[The Beard]] because she'd gotten pregnant before her fiancée Joe (also Sam's cousin and writing partner) ran off to join the Navy. After Joe comes back and is [[Easily Forgiven]], Sam is pretty much outed for the [[All Gays Are Promiscuous|multiple affairs he's had with other men]] and regrets having treated Tracy so poorly. Sam is forced to renounce his [[Jerkass]] [[Gayngst]] and [[Earn Your Happy Ending|move on with his own life.]] As for Tracy, being an [[Heroic Build|able-bodied American male]] on the eve of [[World War II]], he might have wanted to [[Truth in Television|join the Air Force regardless of his relationship status]]. No news on if Tracy ever found [[Hello, Sailor!|love in the barraks]].
* ''[[The Book of Lost Things]]'' features the knight Roland, who is trying to find out what happened to his lost lover, Raphael. He is, of course, dead. Roland ends up dying as well, once he finds out what happened.
* In Fritz Peters' ''Finistère'' Michel drowns at the end, probably intending to die though this is only hinted at. When the book was published—in the early '50s—the tragic-conclusion trope was still de rigueur.
* ''[[Wicked (novel)|Wicked]]''. [[Word of Gay]] is that there was something going on between Glinda and Elphaba. Elphaba,
* Carol Plum-Ucci's ''What Happened to Lani Garver'' is built around this trope, although it's justified in that one of the major themes of the book is to bring attention to homophobic hate crimes. Also, it's strongly implied that Lani is actually an angel, which may change things a bit.
* [[Perry Moore]] wrote his young adult novel ''[[Hero (novel)|Hero]]'' as a response to the use of this trope in superhero comics. There are several gay characters and several characters who die, but no overlap.
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* Subverted in ''Captain Corelli's Mandolin''. The gay character Carlo survives a horrific campaign in Albania while the heterosexual man whom Carlo secretly loves [[Died in Your Arms Tonight|dies in his arms]]. Carlo is later killed in the Cephallonia massacre, but (as with the real-life historical event) every single one of the other Italian soldiers dies with him except the Captain.
* A particularly grotesque version of this in Orson Scott Card's ''Song Master'': the bisexual character gets married to one of the female characters and they have a happy marriage except he warns her that he's attracted to the inhumanly gorgeous main character. She tells him that that's fine, she doesn't mind if he sleeps with the main character but he still continues to worry about it. In the end the main character and this guy do end up getting together. Unfortunately, treatments he received as a child to delay puberty cause a weird chemical reaction, making sex intolerantly painful. The other character is hunted down and has his genitals removed as punishment for "raping" the main character. Said character then dies. His wife remarries the next day and in the epilogue is said to be much happier in this more peaceful relationship. Subtle Card, subtle.
* Hal Duncan's ''[[The
* A plot point in ''[[Darkship Thieves]]''. Max kept his orientation a secret, so his [[Grand Theft Me|identity thief]] doesn't realize he's [[Something They Would Never Say|given himself away]] by ignoring the lover, Nat. Still, the book ends with one gay man dead and the other consumed by his need for revenge.
* Teenaged Harold's heroic death in ''The Garden God'' (1905). He dies saving his friend/lover's life; it's implied that this wipes out the 'sin' of his previous homosexual acts.
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* Ashley's suicide over his homosexuality in ''Lord Dismiss Us'' (1967).
* Happens to Jack in ''[[Brokeback Mountain]]''. Also in [[The Film of the Book]].
* Pippa (of Libba Bray's ''Gemma Doyle'' trilogy) dies at the end of the first book, leading to her gradually turning into a monster in the realms before she is [[Killed Off for Real]] in the third book. However, the trope is subverted, as the series does not shine a negative light on homosexual relationships, and the reader only finds out she and Felicity were [[Schoolgirl Lesbians|in love]] after Pippa dies the first time.
* Played with in the House of Night series, which portrays gay relationships positively (if unrealistically/stereotypically). Jack is killed by Neferet as a sacrifice to Darkness, since he is a "pure" soul. While this is completely against the homosexuality = sin mentality of many of the other examples of this trope, it still prevents Jack and his boyfriend Damien from getting a happy ending.
* Rosemary Sutcliff wrote historical novels stuffed full of homeoeroticism but had only three explicitly gay characters. All three are minor. One, in ''Blood and Sand'', is a villain who sleeps with young slave-boys and whom we never actually meet. The other two, in ''Sword at Sunset'', are heroic warriors whose love inspires them to greater heroism. However, one of them dies nobly in battle, whereat the other feels suicidal and ends up dying too, saving everybody's life in the process. Mind you, this was published in 1963.
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* In ''Tout contre Léo'' (''Close to Leo''), Leo is very young, gay and dying of AIDS. The book is told from the point of view of his little brother Marcel.
* In the [[Left Behind]] book series, closet lesbian and [[Straw Feminist]] Verna Zee gets killed by the Wrath Of The Lamb earthquake in the book ''Nicolae''. In the prequel novels, the Antichrist villain Nicolae Carpathia has [[Has Two Daddies|his two biological fathers]], who were both gay, killed off.
* In Terry Goodkind's ''[[Sword of Truth]]'' series the lesbian Raina dies from a magical plague in Richard's arms while her lover is trying to find a way to save her. They have time to say they love each other before she dies.
* ''[[Mass Effect: Deception]]'' kills off Hendel Mitra, established as [[Invisible to Gaydar]] in [[Mass Effect Ascension|another book]]... after ''Deception'' makes an effort to make him ''un''-gay by having him ogle asari strippers. Asari are monogendered aliens who [[Green-Skinned Space Babe|all look like blue women]].
* [[Truth in Television]] with ''[[Someone Else's
== Live Action TV ==
* Surprisingly, this is played straight more often than not in ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]''; specifically, Larry, the only (confirmed) gay man to ever appear on the show was killed off in the battle against The Mayor, and Tara, Willow's long term girlfriend was shot by Warren Mears. In addition to Tara, Willow's next girlfriend, Kennedy, was killed between Seasons 7 and 8, but then revived by Willow.
** Though this being a ''Joss Whedon'' series, straight people get bumped off just as often. And the deaths are never played as a punishment for being gay. Lets just say no one, gay or straight, is safe when Joss is writing.
* For a series that has been praised for it's portrayal and inclusion of gay characters and themes, ''[[True Blood]]'' does often fall victim to this trope. While the majority of the series' vampires are [[Ambiguously Gay]] or flamingly bisexual, the only strictly gay vampire, Eddie Fournier, {{spoiler|was kidnapped and staked to death by Jason's psycho girlfriend}}.
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** Averted in ''Vengeance''; fans were actually ''celebrating'' the fact that the gay couple didn't get a scene in the finale, [[Anyone Can Die|because at least they survived it!]]
* Although ''[[True Blood]]'' initially [[Spared by the Adaptation|subverted]] this trope with Lafayette, the fourth season finale kills off both Lafayette's boyfriend, Jesus, AND [[Suddenly Sexuality|Tara.]] Unless [[Unexplained Recovery|she gets better]].
* In the ''[[Warehouse 13]]'' season 3 finale, they seem to have done this with BOTH of their queer characters—H.G. Wells and Steve Jinks. Fortunately, there's a hint that the deaths may not be permanent.
* In ''[[Boardwalk Empire]]'', the only queer regular character is Angela, Jimmy's bisexual - though lesbian-leaning - wife. She and her lover are killed by Manny Horovitz as retaliation for the hit Jimmy put out on him. Bury Your Gays '''AND''' [[Stuffed Into the Fridge]]! Thanks, Winter!
* A possible subversion in ''[[The Tudors]]'' with George Boleyn and Mark Smeaton..only one other person even knows that they are gay, and they are actually executed for an(alleged)''heterosexual'' sex act.
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== Music ==
* Spoon's "The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine":
{{quote|''I wanna play the part of Eddie in
''He makes love to the duke
''He swordfights the queen
''He steals the whole show in his last dying scene
* Elton John's "All the Girls Love Alice," about a lesbian who dies:
{{quote|''Gettin' your kicks in another girl's bed
''And it was only last Tuesday
''They found you in the subway
* The name "[[Scissor Sisters]]" is a shortening of the band's original name, "[[Refuge in Audacity|Dead Lesbian and Her Fibrillating Scissor Sisters]]".
* Bobby Gentry's ''Ode to Billy Joe'', depending on the interpretation.
* The [[Velvet Underground]]'s "Lady Godiva's Operation" is a [[Black Comedy]] song about a [[Transsexualism|transsexual]] who accidentally gets sent to a brain operation and dies due to an incompetent surgeon.
* Rich Mullins' "Awesome God" in its entirety has a line referencing God pouring out His wrath on Sodom, which [[Second Verse Curse|can partly explain why the chorus version of the song is more commonly used]].
* The titular couple of Cosmo Jarvis' "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dysG12QCdTA Gay Pirates]" end up forced to walk the plank.
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* In ''[[The Children's Hour]]'', two schoolteachers, Martha and Karen, have their lives and reputations irrevocably shattered after one of their beastly students spreads a rumor that they are lesbian lovers. After a bitter confrontation with the student's grandmother, and even after the women lose their court case for slander, the big twist is that Martha really ''did'' have those feelings for Karen, but never knew how to articulate them until they were spoken by someone else. Karen is accepting of her friend, and suggests they move away and start a new life together. In both the film and theatre version of the story, Martha kills herself before the night is through.
* Marlowe's ''Edward II'' (1592). The explicitly gay title character and his boyfriend both meet a nasty end. Mind you, so do lots of other people.
* Painfully and sadly played straight in ''[[A Chorus Line]]''. Paul, after suffering a horrible childhood being rejected for being gay, falls on his leg that was operated on some time ago during a tap routine. While he doesn't die ''per
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* Subverted in the ''[[Shadow Hearts]]'' series, where straight couples kick the bucket with astonishing regularity while gay characters fulfill their romantic relationships.
* In ''[[Star Control]] 2'', practically the only named character to die is [[Depraved Bisexual|Depraved Omnisexual]] Admiral ZEX.
** Also applies to {{spoiler|the Androsynth race from the original ''Star Control''. Yes, the ''entire species''.}}
* Viranus Donton in ''[[The Elder Scrolls]] [[The Elder Scrolls Four|IV: Oblivion]]''. The only one character to be strongly hinted to be gay, and guess what happens to both him ''and'' his apparent romantic interest? The short version: mistaken for ''cavern trolls'' by a bunch of heavily armed mercenaries on acid.
* Inverted in ''[[Tales of the Abyss]]''. [[Camp Gay]] Dist is the only one of the villains who survives.
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== Web Original ==
* There are three homosexual characters in ''[[Tactical Noobs]]'', all of whom die horribly within seconds of being introduced. The first blasts himself with a rocket launcher. The second two are [[Kill It with Fire|flame-throwered]] by someone who disagrees with their choice to vote for [[Barack Obama]] for president.
* Discussed at After Elton, a gay entertainment site [http://www.afterelton.com/TV/2010/3/why-gay-characters-always-die here].
* Usually averted in ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'', thanks to the [[Kill'Em All]] / [[Anyone Can Die]] storyline in play, which means most characters regardless of sexual orientation will die. However, the [[Spin-Off]] ''Evolution'' had [[Invisible to Gaydar|Billy-Jay Clarke]] be the very first person to die, due to his power overloading, causing his [[Eye Scream|eyes to melt out of their sockets]].
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== Western Animation ==
* Surprisingly subverted in ''[[Superman: The Animated Series]]'' (That is, if [[Hide Your Lesbians|you managed to notice it at all]]), espcially since this is a show that is ''not'' [[Never Say "Die"|afraid to say "die"]]. Maggie Sawyer is blown out of her car during an attack by Intergang, and the next shot has her badly burned and motionless beneath a crushing pile of rubble, ''without'' [[Eye Awaken|moving her eyes]] or [[Finger-Twitching Revival|her fingers]]. Dan Turpin even calls the attackers "murderers" as he screams at them, so everything seems to be indicating that she [[Killed Off for Real|is really dead]]... [[Not Quite Dead|except she is alive]], and she returns later on in this and future episodes. In fact, her recovery is the first ([[Hide Your Lesbians|and only]]) appearance of her girlfriend in the series... and ''Turpin'' is later [[Killed Off for Real]].
* Weirdly enough, inverted in ''[[Superjail]]''
* In the show ''[[Adventure Time]]'', a group of gladiators killed each other, and were forced to continue fighting each other in the afterlife as ghosts. [[Word of Gay|It was revealed months after the episode aired that the gladiators weren't brothers or friends; they were all homosexual couples.]] [[What Do You Mean It's for Kids?|This is a kid's show.]]
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** Even tody, in many Islamic and African countries, homosexuality is a crime, sometimes even punishable by death.
* In Soviet Russia, homosexuality was deemed "antisocial behavior" and outlawed. Those who were found guilty of it were often sent to forced labor camps as punishment.
* The Motion Picture Production Code, or [[Hays Code]],
* The story of Emperor Ai of Han and his romantic affair with [[The Woobie|Dong Xian]] ... is quite the [[Downer Ending]].
* [[Older Than Feudalism]]: The [[wikipedia:Harmodius and Aristogeiton|Tyrannicides]]: Short version, Greek noble Aristogeiton is upset that the tyrant's brother Hipparchus keeps putting the moves on his boy toy (Harmodius), so the couple decide it's time for the tyrant (Hippias) and his brother to go. An elaborate assassination is plotted, but botched, killing Hipparchus but not Hippias, as well as Harmodius. Aristogeiton is of course captured, but manages to trick Hippias into [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|killing him during the interrogation]].
* After a typical yet fateful taping of
* [http://www.trevorspace.com Trevorspace] is a web community devoted to [[Averted Trope|averting this trope]] in [[Real Life]]. Closely tied to the [[It Gets Better Project]], with the same goal.
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