Last Minute Gays?

Nov 3rd 2020: It is election day in the United States, Joe Biden and Donald Trump fight for the seat, as the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic ravages the world. An unprecedented number of mail-in ballots ensures that votes will take time to count.

Nov 4th: 2:30 AM: The votes still aren’t in. Trump tests declaring a false victory as the states Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada and Georgia remain in contention.

Nov 5th 8PM EST: Biden is soon to win Georgia and Pennsylvania, Trump continues to question democracy. It is reported that Vladimir Putin will step down as head of state in Russia. Supernatural airs episode 18 of its final season. Character Castiel declares his undying (likely homosexual) love for Dean Winchester and is immediately sent to super hell. 

What’s with the last-minute gays?

Were the writers just like: oh, but what if in the last season? We did... Gays?

And you know I'm not opposed to gays, in fact, I fully support gays. But why last-minute gays?

If you haven’t heard, Destiel kinda became canon in the most queerbaity, ambiguous terrible way. Castiel’s love confession is followed by his descent to super hell. The leaked script ensured Dean’s hardcore masculine inability to express emotions because, I’ll be damned if your characters grow! But whatever, I haven’t watched Supernatural since before our descent into open fascism, so what do I know? Is it better that Destiel went from queerbaiting to a questionable burying of the gays? I don’t know.

Supernatural always had a queerbaiting problem. They’ve hinted and implied for years that Dean and Castiel were disaster gays, but constantly mocked fans for thinking that their obvious bait was anything other than casual dudebroery. And last minute, they decide to wink, kill off their gays and piss off into the hellworld we call reality. This… is not the first time that gays have been last minute declared victors. Remember Hannibal and Will falling off the edge of heterosexuality and falling in love with each other in that last episode of Hannibal? Yeah, great TV, but why is it so hard to get a thorough exploration of sexuality throughout a show? Why did Bryan Fuller have to ambiguously state in interviews “who knows what would happen with a six pack of beer,” as if Hannibal’s sobriety somehow made his hunger-filled stares directed at Will any less homoerotic? And don’t even get me started on animation (Bubbline, Korrasami, Catradora). OK I’m getting started. 

What’s with all these last-minute lesbians?

From the beginning, everyone knew Princess Bubblegum and Marceline were in love, I mean from the shirt sniffing to the Sapphic Songwriting, it was obvious. And, don't tell me there wasn't a WLW out there who didn't pine over Marceline, ok? Basically, we had picture perfect signs that these ladies were “friends of ellen.” We could’ve had lesbian goth and prep solidarity here, but instead, we got a ten-season slow-burn rivaled only by overly ambitious Kirk and Spock fanfic writers, and THEN we finally got a romantic confirmation in the last episode, when most of the original fans were already old and crusty and disillusioned. Now, sure, I’m grateful for the kiss, I’m grateful for the miniseries we recently got. Of course those are wonderful things, and I’m happy for the rejoicing Sapphics out there. But the gap between ambiguity and confirmation, the YEARS of uncertainty fuelled the derision of thousands of derisive fans who asserted with certainty at queer people: “You’re just reading too much into this.”

It seems that for entire seasons, fans get made fun of for looking into the very real and obvious current-minute lesbians, up until the moment that they become last-minute lesbians. Like, thanks for acknowledging the queerosexuals at the last possible moment when your ad revenue wasn't at stake anymore. And it’s true. Adventure Time would’ve been censored in several places if they took that risk early on. Can I say with absolute certainty there was some sort of malice in their intentions? No. But it’s not about that. The structure of homophobia itself puts writers in difficult positions where they only see it possible to grant queerness in the last moments.

Lesbians don't deserve last minute. Lesbians aren't your undergrad essays for your early American history blow-off class. They deserve to be dissertations you spend 6 caffeinated years crying over. 

There's a few different types of LMLs. No, that does not stand for Lesbian Marxist Leninists, although I know plenty of them are. You got the last-minute lesbians that had to be fought for. Like poor old Catra and Adora: at first, thousands of fans believed this was gonna be another bait or DreamWorks gay blunder. Well, no! Noelle Stevenson fought their heart out to get the beautiful homosexuality we got in that last season. But the last season. Why do LGBTQ+ people have to be dragged incessantly through gay purgatory and back, stuck scrolling through Tumblr posts and drudging through Catra Stan accounts, only for some dudebro to say, "Oh, really, they're gay? OK. Weirdo, that'll never happen," only for it to totally happen 2 years after you've stopped watching the show anyways! Why do we and especially the lesbians have to go through that? 

And it's not Noelle’s fault. It's not your fault. It's not even the dudebros fault. And for most people, it’s not even a big deal. It's just another one of the small, taken-for-granted aspects of being a queer person. It’s a bunch of complex interactions that have placed queer people in a position where sometimes all they get is last-minute lesbians. 

It’s getting better though, as the PSAs promised us, last-minute lesbians have gotten bolder and better. Catra and Adora were a God-send (in the totally secular metaphorical way). In contrast, Korrasami from Legend of Korra in 2014, had to be confirmed through a headline, because the whole handholding and going off into the gay spirit world thing was a bit too ambiguous for those of us who don’t understand romance. But I guess we got the lesbians, at least! In the literal last minute… of the last episode… of the last season. Finally, all the hints that people mocked queer people for picking up were confirmed. Well, if you read the headlines.

Bubbline was better. we got a hug with a kiss sound thrown in by the showrunners at the last second, and you know what, good for them. Good for us. And then with She-Ra, we finally got last-minute lesbians with an explicit love confession, a beautiful kiss, and a happily ever after. 

Who do we have to blame for last minute lesbians? Was it Good Luck Charlie with their two moms in the last season of their show in 2014? Was it Korrasami becoming canon to everyone’s pleasant surprise? Honestly, does it matter? Who cares about representation when the world is down the toilet, right? Who cares if it’s last-minute, as long as the queers get their pigeon crumbs, right?

I don’t know, maybe it doesn’t matter. But sometimes these little things speak to structural, fundamental problems. Maybe if we work on things like employment discrimination or [insert radically underserved material problem], the things on the edges would slowly get fixed. But that doesn’t mean the things on the edges don’t hurt. Those small things on the periphery are a part of a larger mosaic. A tree isn’t just a trunk, but also large and smaller branches, invisible roots at the bottom, all in one constantly changing body. And if it really were that insignificant, why do advertisers pay so much for primetime? Why are queer stories safer at the end, in the back… or at the last minute?