An Analysis on Minorities in the Media

There is hardly any Latinx rep in the media and even fewer queer Latinx rep. However, Rosa Diaz is a particularly special case as she is played by Stephanie Beatriz, a bisexual Latina woman as well. In the two episodes that dealt with Rosa’s sexuality this is extremely easy to tell in just the way that she plays out these scenes. The body language she has when she comes out to Boyle, the expression on her face when she confronts her parent’s biphobia, just the scene alone with her and her father on the roof. In the writing as well it’s very easy to tell her influence. It’s incredibly authentic.

It slips easily into the context of the show. Rosa is an inherently private person so it makes sense that she wouldn’t have brought this up or discussed it in the past. As well as that, it’s relatable—many people stay in the closet at their jobs or work. It’s simply easier that way.

They don’t beat around it, either. They say the word “bi” and “bisexual” right off the bat. There’s no vague explanations of the concept of bisexuality without using the word, there’s no “I don’t like labels” that is so prevalent in characters that like more than one gender. There’s no confusion around it—she’s bisexual, she’s known since she was young, she’s dating a woman. It’s such a simple thing yet it’s such an important one. The word “bisexual” is said more in these two episodes than I’ve heard in many other shows.

The story that Stephanie Beatriz and writers crafted was a beautiful one and a thoughtful one. However, that is only half of why Rosa coming out as bisexual was so important to me.

Queer fans are passionate people who find representation where they can and often interpret many characters as queer when they lack that representation. This comes with mixed results, yet mostly negative ones. The Supergirl cast at a recent con mocked their queer fan’s most popular ship—Kara Danvers and Lena Luthor—laughing and saying it was never going to happen. This was met with a wave of anger. We are aware that yes, it is never going to happen because queer woman don’t get to have stories like that. It was incredibly cruel to shove that in the face of a group that already has so little screen time. Thor Ragnarok had a canonically bisexual character. Despite Taika Waititi and Tessa Thompson’s insistence on keeping it, the scene where Valkyrie made this clear was cut out at the very last minute. They clearly valued their conservative fans more than their queer ones.

This is a reoccurring issue. Queer fans are either mocked for their theories, are dismissed of it, or they are only confirmed outside the bounds of the actual media while removing any proof from the actual story. They are not as important as the viewers they might lose and are pushed aside extremely often.

Rosa Diaz being bisexual isn’t something the writers just thought up of. It was an extremely common headcanon within the fans of Brooklyn-99. It’s been ongoing since season 1 when she called Tonya Harding “thick.” While a lot of us loved the idea of her being bisexual, we didn’t expect it to actually happen. At the very least, I didn’t expect it to actually happen.

Stephanie Beatriz and the writers both pitched the idea. They collaborated on it, worked together to make it meaningful, and validated their queer fans in the process. They listened and responded in kind and made a gorgeous coming out story that touched so many people, myself included. In a scene, they even included a nod to a popular ship: Gina and Rosa. They don’t mock the fans for having this ship, they simply acknowledge it and say that while it could’ve been, the writers are heading in another direction. It was such a sweet gesture, especially when they could’ve very easily not have done it.

Shows usually shy away from making their characters queer unless it’s at the very start of the show. Once a show passes its first or second season, most chances are gone. However, even though Brooklyn-99 is in its fifth season that didn’t stop them from introducing this. Why? Because they genuinely care about their fans and their passion for the show. Because they want their fans to feel represented in the shows they watch. Because they listen.

I was really shocked around the beginning of season 2 when they made Velma gay. Well, maybe that’s too strong a word. They didn’t say she was gay, nor did they “make” her anything. Velma, in any iteration of Scooby Doo, has been adopted by the lesbians. Out of all the characters in the gang, she’s the one most headcanoned as not straight. What I didn’t expect from Mystery Incorporated was the amount of subtext they put into her relationship with Marcie.

Marcie is Velma’s rival and monster of the week in season 1. She’s not a major character, nor would one expect her to be. Around season 2 is when that all changes. The entire gang falls apart and they all, caught up in their own problems, leave Velma completely alone. Daphne, the only other one in town, does so as well, blaming Velma for the events of the season finale.

So, Velma forms a tight bond with Marcie and spends the entire break from season 1 to 2 with her as they briefly work for Mr. E. The way they interact is very sweet. Velma is usually snarky and distant with most of the other members but one can see how she so genuinely cares for Marcie. They’re very affectionate with each other. Velma holds a deep excitement and joy for Marcie that she never seemed to show for anyone else in the show.

The subtext very much reminded me of Xena and Gabrielle’s relationship, though somewhat less explicit and in your face. Marcie is only in a few episodes of season 2 because once Daphne rejoins the group, Marcie gets kicked out. The entire scene after they let her know that with Velma and her plays like a dramatic breakup. When she returns in later episodes Velma is always so delighted to see her.

They share a dramatic moment at episode 8: Night on Haunted Mountain when Marcie gives up an important plot piece to Velma even though it could put her in danger. In the two-part series finale, Marcie is captured by Pericles as leverage and it very much works. Velma freaks out and is forced to leave Marcie behind to die. When she comes back in the alternate timeline ending, Velma and her are definitely still “close friends” (totally dating).  

However, the reason this subtext is so present also highlights one of the biggest flaws in the show: Velma’s relationship with the gang and the gang’s relationship with each other. The show puts a lot of focus on romantic relationships. Fred and Daphne have an on and off thing and the flaws in the way they deal with each other is only resolved at the very end. In season 1, Velma and Shaggy briefly date and it ends terribly and the rest of the season focuses on the effects of that. Yet, even so Daphne and Fred and Shaggy and Scooby are always paired up on mysteries, always interacting with each other. So the show only explores those relationships (or in the case of Scooby and Shaggy, close bonds).  

So, what ends up happening, is that the ending solution of power of friendship feels cheap. We don’t explore, say, Shaggy and Daphne’s friendship or Scooby and Fred or Velma and Daphne. It’s always just the same two people. The gang feels like a couple of close pairs loosely stringed together but we don’t explore what brings them together as a group.

There’s this one scene in season 2 episode “Dark Night of the Hunters” after they’d all learned that fate brought them together and not so much personal choice. They all question why they’re friends. So on the plane, Fred and Daphne are sitting together and talking over that. It pans back to Scooby and Shaggy sitting behind them, doing the same thing. Then to Velma sitting with her mother focused on the mystery and not having that deep intergroup question.

Why? Because Velma never belonged in the group.

Velma became the outlier the second she broke up with Shaggy. Her character is so linked to the plot because she has little interconnection with the group. They always favor each other over her, in the season 1 finale and in most of the mysteries. So when Velma does develop a close bond with another character and it is shown how viciously she cares for her, it’s really gay. Because that’s how the show has been prioritizing relationships.

While it makes sense why Velma would choose the group over Marcie in the first episodes of season 2—they have a long ass mystery to solve, after all—past that it doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel right how Velma leaves Marcie to die when she seems to be closer to her and cared for by her more than anyone in the gang. Especially since the gang would never leave, say, Daphne behind. Yet when it’s Velma’s closest friend, she’s collateral damage.

It feels wrong to have this triumphant finale where they say the heart of the jaguar is their bond with each other. Every other mystery group fell apart because the people fell apart but they didn’t…says the show. Yet, in my eyes, they had. We had nearly 50 episodes to explore how they fit together as a whole but all I saw was how they fit together as parts. Velma was always sidelined in the group so it didn’t make sense to me how she was so determined this would work when she was, relationship-wise, the weakest link in the chain and everyone treated her as such.

It certainly frustrated me in the ending when Velma left Marcie and her mother and the entire town of Crystal Cove to continue mystery solving with the gang. I’m mixed on the ending and the ideas it presents but I do get why they did that. The gang are the only ones who remember the old timeline. It’d make sense that they’d all go off into the distance together and leave behind a town they don’t really know anymore and family and friends that are practically strangers.

Yet, it really is so sad in the case of Velma. Because she’s still the outlier of the group. Marcie is still the person she shows the most love to throughout the show. Yet, due to the circumstances around everything, she still leaves. And while it makes narrative sense in the reality of how the entire group was portrayed, it comes off frustrating. They never did end up appreciating her. Though that could be said for the entire gang. They never ended up bonding as a whole.

The subtext with Marcie is so effective because the show has taken the time to show how fiercely Velma adores her while neglecting to show how Velma loves her friends or how they love her. They tell us this but they don’t show it, while they do instead show all the complexities in her and Marcie.  So every time she chooses the gang over Marcie it doesn’t feel right.  

In season two they kissed for the first time. There had been cheek kisses in the past, or ones that nearly hit the lips, but this was the first time they really kissed. The first time it could be interpreted as the two having a relationship. It was a huge thing at the time with gay representation being so little and there being no other way to interpret it. Their lips didn’t fully touch—it had cut away before it got to that point. But they got damn well near. The reactions at the time were incredibly varied and the show continued on. Gabrielle and Xena could be very well interpreted as a couple and the show seemed to encourage it. The 19th episode in that season, titled Ulysses, was the last time either one of them had a “boyfriend of the week” for nearly the rest of the show.

Season three seemed to continue this. It was stressed multiple times that Gabrielle was the most important thing in Xena’s life and vice versa. This also features The Rift arc, in which the two of them had to deal with their clashing ideologies and also one of their kids murdering the other. It got…dark. It was an entire arc focusing on the two of them, how much they loved each other, how much that could hurt, and how they reunited under uneasy terms at first and how that progressed. It was a serialized arc during a time where there wasn’t much of that. By the season finale, Gabrielle sacrificed herself to save Xena. It was a deeply dramatic moment and a deeply romantic one as well.

Season four was the best season in the show. It had an overarching plot and was very tight and well put together. It also featured Gabrielle trying to find her way as well as Xena realizing Gabrielle was her way. When they reunited it was deeply emotional and very much not platonic. This season was also the first time they introduced the concept of the two women being soulmates. From then on, it would be constantly repeated. The season finale was one of the best episodes in the entire show and my personal favorite.

Season five was the worst season in the show. Sure, it was still gay and fun but it was really not up to par with the previous seasons, especially following up season four. It held the worst episodes in the show and ripped tears in the canon of the show. It was also the season that Gabrielle became a dad.

Strap in, because this is going to be a wild ride.

So, Callisto used to be Xena’s nemesis but Xena killed her “for good” in season 3 when Gabrielle “died.” At the beginning of season 5 they introduced the concept of heaven and hell into the show and Callisto became an angel because of Xena. So then there was Eli, who was basically the Xenaverse version of Jesus who wanted to spread word of The Way. While this was going on Xena finds out that surprise, she’s pregnant! Everyone is deeply confused seeing as Xena is very much married to Gabrielle by this point. Gabrielle has a brief panic, thinking Xena had cheated on her, that is quickly assuaged. Ares stabs Eli through the chest and later in the ep Eli’s ghost/angel speaks to Xena as well as angel Callisto. Callisto reveals that she impregnated Xena as a gift for giving her salvation. Xena eventually gives birth, Gabrielle becomes Dadrielle in the eyes of the viewers, and then their child ends up becoming a Roman warlord through some time skips.

So that’s one way to deal with an actor’s pregnancy. It’s deeply convoluted but also deeply gay. This is a child born of two women, raised by two women.

Season six was definitely an improvement. It was also so deeply gay. Xena and Gabrielle have a whole sleeping beauty type two-parter, the title of soulmate becomes even more prominent, there are more kisses, and there’s an entire episode dedicated to their relationship in the style of a mock documentary. It’s one of my favorite for being genuinely hilarious and also superbly gay. The interviewer asks them for the “nature of their relationship” as to whether the two are a couple. Xena responds with a sly grin and Gabrielle giggles into the palm of her hand. As Xena begins to explain, the video begins fizzing out with static as the interviewer panics at losing such a good story.

This literal white slave owner’s name is Mon-El and his reception was rather terrible. Fans as well as critics relentlessly tore apart his behavior as abusive and the antithesis of a healthy relationship. How much truth is there to this? A fair bit.

Most of their relationship is based upon bickering. They hate each other and they make that much evident. Their first interaction is a violent and vicious battle as she attempts to subdue him. But after all, characters get introduced along those lines all the time. It’s not necessarily a terrible sign. After that it is more tame–almost a little brother relationship as she helps him navigate the city. As soon as they start setting up a relationship it gets rather…not good. 

Most of the time, he doesn’t respect or trust her. He may claim he does, but his actions are rarely of that ilk. In episode 9, “Supergirl Lives”, she instructs him to stay by the portal she is jumping through to try and get help. He ignores her, feeling as if he has to “protect” her, and then they are both stranded there with no one knowing that they are now on a different planet. And when they are captured and Kara is being attacked by the guards as she tries to protect the civilians there without her powers, he does nothing even while bystanders rush to her side. In episode 10 “We Can Be Heroes” he ignores her instructions to protect the officers and rushes into a fight that she was handling, leaving the unpowered people in danger. In episode 13, “Mr. & Mrs. Mxyzptlk” we see the worst of their relationship as he antagonizes her, ridicules her, and goes off to fight against the antagonist without telling her, putting them all in danger, as well as not trusting her with the solution as to how to defeat him. This is all as he says that he’ll do better and he’ll start respecting her…eventually.

Does he? Not really. 

This is a character that we are supposed to receive with open arms and accept without qualms. This is a character who was royalty in his old planet and owned slaves and generally was a terrible person. This is a character who we should not have had all of the characters accept without argument. This is a character that needed to be questioned, to be shunned, to be set up for a redemptive arc. However, the show tells us that he’s a better person now but it doesn’t show us, making it ring rather hollow. 

This is all compared to the old love interest James Olson, who was a kind and supporting character who had a very healthy relationship with Kara last season. They took care of each other, they talked through their problems, and when she first kissed him while he was mind-controlled the next day she apologized because he didn’t technically consent. This is compared to Mon-El’s first kiss, in which he manipulated her into because he was dying. To replace a kind, caring black man with an abusive slave owning white man is absolutely abhorrent.

This is compared to M’gann M’orzz as well–played by a black women–who is a White Martian who was present during the genocide of the Green Martians from Mars. Despite her being a much better person than Mon-El, after this discovery she is shunned and imprisoned. We later find out she is in danger for her own people because she betrayed them to save a few Green Martians. She is still riddled with self-loathing and a feeling as if she should’ve done more. She doesn’t try to justify herself or excuse her actions. At the end of her arc, she decides to go back to continue fighting her people. This is a much better done “redemptive” arc, despite the fact that she is generally a better person than Mon-El who never once put the amount of effort she did. 

Two black characters who are far more interesting and kind and often have to make up for their mistakes with far more effort than this new white character none of them really know.

So what about Kara Danvers? What does this do to her? 

The show is called Supergirl. It’s about Kara Danver’s arc and development, yet season 2 preferred to refocus the attention of the show on a man. This completely contradicts and backpedals on so many of the feminist messages set up in season 1. Even if Mon-El had been a kind, supportive man who treated her with respect the show isn’t supposed to be about him. 

Nevertheless, they kept him on for the 3rd season which, hopefully, won’t go as terribly. However, it does not look promising so far. They’ve decided to replace the often cheerful, hopeful tone with a more gritty and dark one akin to a lot of other CW shows. Kara, who was loving and kind even though she had lost her entire family and planet, is now saying that “Kara Danvers was a mistake” all over a boy? They seem insistent on bringing him up and bringing him back, which is deeply disappointing.

From there, the story becomes a quest to find out what happened with Rachel, a “friend” of Chloe’s that went missing. There’s a mystery with why Nathan is drugging other girls and with Frank the drug dealer and his relationship to Rachel. Chloe and Max work together as partners in time as Max saves Chloe’s life over and over again. It’s all fine and fun—until Episode 4 and 5.

We find out Nathan killed Rachel, that the photography professor Jefferson has been posing the drugged girls in some sick photo session and that he’s been using Nathan, and in Episode 5 things get really intense as we find out the major plot twist of the game: the powers Max has been using has been causing the storm and to save the town of Arcadia Bay, you have to let Chloe die in the bathroom.

You have two choices: sacrifice Arcadia Bay or sacrifice Chloe.

So the ending is a mess. It received backlash from both critics and fans. Even just attempting to look up the ending I didn’t play ended up in dozens of results that were venting their displeasure. Why? The idea of the storm being caused by Max’s own power and messing with the time stream is an interesting idea enough. Maybe this could work in a different story. However, this is not that story.

From the set-up, we are given a few questions besides those of the main plot: Where did these powers come from? Why did Max receive them? What are they for? What is Rachel’s goal as she shows up in repeated symbolism? What is causing the storm?

The problem with the ending is not only that it’s an unnecessary and rather frustrating example of the “bury your gays” trope but also that it leads to more questions than it answers.

What is causing the storm? Max’s powers.

Where did these powers come from? Rachel? A butterfly? If so, then that leads to

What are they for? If they are connected to Rachel, and they were given to Max at a time where Chloe’s life is in danger, then it’s to protect Chloe.

 But if those two are correct, then why does the ending insist that that is the wrong path to take? Why is it so adamant that Max should’ve never used her powers? Because if she should’ve never saved Chloe, why did she get those powers in the first place?

I would like to return to a previous point: the fact that this story is one of two girls falling in love.

Chloe and Max grow closer and closer throughout the course of the game. By Episode 5, Max is utterly obsessed with saving Chloe so much so that she throws away an ideal reality just to get another shot at saving her. Throughout the entire game, her one priority is Chloe’s happiness and survival. And even though the player has the option to romance Warren, why would they? They barely get any time together in the game and the two women are a much more interesting story and dynamic.

So could this story be one of the hubris of not being able to accept fate, not being able to accept death? Completely. There’s just one big problem—the beginning of the game starts out with Max seeing a vision of the tornado and then receiving her powers. So the audience is convinced the powers are supposed to be used to prevent this and it being linked to Rachel reinforces this. So the plot twist that the powers caused the tornado is shocking, but less in that “Oh man, the foreshadowing makes so much sense! How did I not see that coming?” but more in a “…Wait, what?” way.

You see, if the powers were the cause of the storm, then why did she have the vision before she got them? What was the purpose of receiving of them? To save Chloe? Then why does the game seem to be disappointed in you if you do? What about Rachel?

What was the point of this game? With the reveal of this plot twist, it seems the point was that you shouldn’t have played the game at all.

Endings should wrap things up in a satisfying enough way. There’s something to be said about leaving some plot threads loose and up to the audience’s imagination. Instead Life is Strange gives its players a half-woven sweater and says “Here, you fill in the holes we didn’t.”

It’s, plot wise, the inferior ending. Yet, the ending where you save Chloe isn’t nearly as long. They show about 20 seconds of them driving through town where everyone seems dead, which is insane, because surely they’ve faced storms before. They’re clearly upset. They don’t show any snapshot of a hopeful future like the other ending does, which is better done and at least tries to give a sense of closure. It’s infuriating. The game seems to want one to take the ending where Chloe dies and Arcadia Bay survives yet it’s essentially the ending that goes against everything the game has been setting up.

It also seems to imply that Chloe has to die for the storm to not come. Yet, Chloe dies in Episode 4 briefly and the storm is still coming. In the Save Arcadia Bay ending Max still uses her knowledge of the future to prevent Jefferson from hurting any more girls. So why can’t she just save Chloe? It doesn’t make sense. It’s a contrived mess just so that the player has to choose between an entire town and Chloe. It’s “bury your gays” at its worse.

This was supposed to be the hardest choice of the game. As a player, I agonized over every decision, no matter how small. I would sit there, mapping out consequences and reactions. Yet, with the big conclusion that was supposed to elicit that reaction I found that it was, in fact, the easiest choice of the game. Max wouldn’t let Chloe die and neither would I. The writers failed in that.

Alright, with a few changes and rearranging we can make this a game where the protagonist gets powers and abuses them to save their loved one yet has to eventually accept that they must die. However, should we make this that game?

This is a game, at its core, about two women falling in love. Yet, one of the endings results in Chloe dying on the bathroom floor, alone, never knowing that she would come to find such a friend and lover in Max. It is a miserable, depressing ending that makes no sense in the context of what the game has established.

Putting aside the narrative mess, it’s cruel and disturbing that the game insists that these two were drawn together by fate yet cannot be together. Rachel is discovered to be dead, who was in a previous relationship with Chloe, and then Chloe is dead as well? How many gays will they bury?

It’s unfair that the heterosexual relationship that was only added for what? Options? is allowed to have a happy ending. Max repeatedly establishes she isn’t interested in him throughout the course of the game. Yet, this beautiful set-up with the two leading ladies must end in tragedy.

It becomes even more infuriating that only in the ending where Chloe dies do they actually kiss and confess their feelings. In the other ending it is left more ambiguous as to what that relationship is which is horribly unfair seeing as the straight couple got their kiss regardless of whatever decision one makes. So after all that build-up, one either gets a tragic kiss as Max leads Chloe to her death or a silent and ambiguous ending as they drive out of what used to be Arcadia Bay.

Their queer audience deserves better and Max and Chloe deserve better.

 It would be bad even if it made sense within the narrative. However, it sticking out like a sore thumb in terms of not making sense is a lot worse. She didn’t die because she had to but because the writers attempted oh so desperately to shove it in. They wanted a dark, edgy twist on the ending which could’ve been accomplished without this. Episode 5, while being the most interesting on a game-play level, was the worse on a narrative level.

It could’ve been a game focused around the fact that no one is expendable. No one should be sacrificed. It should’ve had those two endings, each with Chloe surviving.

This is a blog about representation. Life is Strange is so difficult and heart-wrenching because of the fact that it had the potential to be so much more. I can only recommend it with a huge asterisk regarding the ending and how Episode 5 played out. There’s something to be said about giving the audience a choice but it’s really hard to overlook the narrative crumbling around each choice. Before the Storm is a prequel to this that seems to be focused around Rachel and Chloe’s relationship, which we already know ends terribly. Let’s hope they’re somewhat smarter about that.