I see it as lesbophobia is because society and media have for 100s of years turned lesbians into crazy villains by having the lesbian against heteronormative, reverse gender roles, and basically threaten straight men. It's ensured that gay women were always discriminated against and hated. So You say 'no one hates lexa bc she was a lesbian' I see 'we've been conditioned to hate lesbians bt I definitely don't- but I will stan a man for doing the same thing' - does that make sense?
What you’re saying makes plenty of sense. I’m a triple minority. I know all about the way society has been conditioned to fear/see as less than, etc, etc minorities. In fact the situation is even more obvious when youre a POC as well.
However, I don’t think The 100 fits into this particular mold and I’ll tell you why:
This is a show that’s strongly feminist and breaks the glass ceiling every time. Clarke, our female lead, is given a masculine name, makes the hard, logical decisions, doesn’t let her emotions prevent her from doing what must be done, is given the opportunity to have multiple sexual partners with no one implying that she is a whore, and has never had anyone question her sexuality.
The smartest person on the show is a disbaled, Latina woman. Raven is constantly lauded as being intelligent and fierce. She isn’t made less attractive because of her genius, but more so. She is proud of her intellect and does not try to shrink it or hide it to pander to the men in her life.
L/xa was the leader of her people, the highest ranking official. She was strong and imposing. She took no prisoners and kicked ass. She knew how to use men’s perciption of her as unassuming and young to their disadvantage and did so easily. She commanded entire armies and nations with just a few words.
Indra (although she falls dangerously into the “angry black woman” trope) and Octavia are both warrior women. They don’t whimper and whine about being hurt (emotionally or physically), they fight with men and don’t expect punches to be pulled because they are women. They are both proud and defiant.
Now let’s look at our men, one specific example actually:
Bellamy, who is given a traditionally female name, is emotionally driven, definitely lets his heart overrule his head sometimes, cries openly, is emotionally vulnerable and functions as “The Mom”, i.e., caring, supportice and a constant presence for “The kids.”, sacrificing over and over for the good of his “children”, Jasper/Octavia, checking on their emotional wellbeing (Monty), being a sounding ear (Miller).
And yet the audience still isn’t pleased. Women want female characters to be able to fit the mold that male characters are normally assigned, but when they do, we see constant cries of “When will the women be allowed to mourn?!”, “ Why does Clarke always have to be the one everyone looks to for answers?!”, etc, etc.
We want to see male characters being more emotionally vulnerable and open, to see them break gender roles usually assigned to women, but when they do, we see comments like: “Look at Bellboy being dependent on Clarke”, “Look at Jaspear and Beluga forcing their man pain on everyone.”, “They need to suck it up and deal like men.”
The problem with the way the audience interprets this show is exactly what you described anon, we are conditioned to see certain characters certain ways and when they don’t fit their proper molds some of us don’t know how to react. We don’t know how to say, “This is good!”
The show did not make L/xa “bad” because she was a lesbian. The show never painted L/xa as bad. The show gave us a morally grey character who will do what needs to be done to save her people, just like Clarke, just like Bellamy, just like Jaha, just like Becca, just like Monty, just like Raven, just like Finn, just like Pike.
The fandom (and, not to be rude, but most specifically the Cl/xa fandom) reduced L/xa to just her sexuality. The Crabpuffs decreed that if you disagreed with anything L/xa did, if you thought Cl/xa wasn’t given the proper development and felt rushed, if you thought Clarke would have struggled a bit longer to forgive L/xa (based on what we’d seen of her in the prior two seasons), you were a homophobe or a lesbophobe.
Take a look at how often the show features sexuality. The answer is literally never. Its not something that gets talked about, because its not something that MATTERS. That is literally the dream for the LGBTQA community. People ONLY seeing who YOU are, independent of your sexuality, because being gay, lesbian, bi, trans, ace or questioning don’t make us any different than straight people.
Clarke being bisexual isn’t a big deal on the show because it just IS. Miller and Bryan being gay isn’t a big deal on the show because it just IS (Literally no one cared when Bellamy said “Miller’s boyfriend is from farm station). L/xa being a lesbian wasn’t a big deal on the show because it just WAS (Clarke wasn’t shocked to learn about Costia, she didn’t care, Titus didn’t dislike Clarke as a partner for L/xa because they were both women, he disliked their relationship because Clarke inspired changes in L/xa that Titus was smart enough to see where dangerous to L/xa’s life and position as Commander). The AUDIENCE imposes our current world view on a show that is taking place over 100 years in the future.
If we want equal and fair treatment in the media (as minorities), we can not be upset when our representation is not “perfect”. I can’t be upset as a POC, that a lot of the “villains” are POC.(and honestly it’s really the FANDOM that makes characters like Pike and Jaha and Bellamy “villains”, not the narrative), when over half of the cast members are POC. I can’t be upset that sometimes, my bisexual rep will undergo literal torture, when this is a show about people being tortured, physically and emotionally (where was the outrage about tortured minorities when it was Lincoln being whipped, Bellamy being hung, Bellamy being tortured in Mt. Weather, Lincoln being forcibly turned into a drug addict, Lincoln being hit by his lover, Lincoln being chained up again, Lincoln being shot in the head and left to die in the mud, Bellamy being beaten by his sister?)
This show is not about “who’s wrong and who’s right.” This show is not about “who has it the worst” (although it seems like POC often get the brunt of it, because we make up the majority of the main cast.). This is a show where there IS no right or wrong. Where EVERYONE is tortured.
You do L/xa a disservice when you reduce her to just her sexuality. Maybe instead of telling everyone ELSE that we “instinctively dislike L/xa because she’s a lesbian and we just can’t tell because of conditioning” you take a look at why YOU think that’s the only reason people dislike her character, because I can guarantee the vast majority of this fandom (at least on Tumblr) dislike L/xa because of her ACTIONS, not because of who she chose to sleep with.
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