Let Us Be Villains
Sapphic characters should be evil!
We all crave representation. If you go into any discussion group, Discord server or any corner of the internet that is LGBTQIA+ focused, you will find people talking about the latest appearance of a queer character in this or that show.
Most times people are just excited to see any resemblance of queerness on screen. However, occasionally I will find some claims that look somewhat like this: “But why did they have to be evil? This is not good representation!”. Every time I encounter similar sentiments to that, an alarm bell rings in my head. I have this strange urge to disagree with the person, but I don’t really know why, so I do the least internet thing possible: shut up and go think about it in private.
After I did that — thinking, I mean — something became clear in my head. If we want representation, the good kind, we need to be villains as well. We need to be evil and wicked, we need to be feared by our heroes.
Alright, okay. Go ahead, be enraged. I understand: after a lifetime of evil queers, this statement feels backwards or unhelpful. Just let me plead for my case. If by the end you still don’t agree, that’s perfectly fine — go ahead and tell me why in the comments (helpfully driving up our engagement). This is just my opinion after all.
Without further ado, let’s dive into why we should be allowed to be villains.
Depictions of gay people on cinema is as old as the art itself. The film industry was packed with LGBTQIA+ people, especially women. People like Leotine Sagan — director of cult classic lesbian film Mädchen in Uniform [Girls in Uniform] (1931) — were on the forefront of a lot of innovation on film. The exploration of a sense of fluidity in both sexuality and gender were a common themes amongst those filmmakers.
Places like Germany were especially progressive, with films like Anders als die Andern [Different from the Others] (1919) portraying one of the first gay main characters in history which aided in pushing the agenda of decriminalizing homosexuality at the time (the 20s were indeed a roaring time!).
Perhaps, sadly, the roaring 20s roared a little too loudly and as a form of backlash, in the 1930s the Motion Picture Production Code (commonly known as Hays Code) was enforced in Hollywood. In the case of Germany, the rise of fascism and the Nazi party’s influence over all aspects of German life started to dictate what was permitted or not in films. Therefore, films like Mädchen in Uniform were hunted down and destroyed.
In places like Hollywood the implementation of the Hays Code — nicknamed after Will H. Hays — began as a push back after the film industry was scandalized by the murder and alleged rape of actress Virginia Rappe by her fellow actors. The code was a way they the found to try and rehabilitate Hollywood’s image.
The “rules” presented by the code weren’t really rules — you would find different books at different studios. However, some things were common to most books and the depiction of sex was one of them. Things like a passionate kiss or embrace was a no-no, and soon married couples were sleeping on separate beds. Another aspect regarding the depiction of sex in films that was censored, was the depiction on “abhorrent sexuality”, aka the gays.
That’s really where our story begings.
It is during this period when, what we now call Queer Coding, starts to take shape. Filmmakers will always find a way to talk about what they want and it is during the Hays period that some of the most iconic gay villains come to life. However, in order for these character to even be present on screen they needed to be shown as bad influences and, ultimately, be punished (ie. get killed). This inability to show gay relationships in a positive light was how tropes like “Kill Your Gays” were born.
It is during this period that the depiction of homosexual characters as villains or tragic figures, becomes a prevalent part of the cinematic landscape. Mrs. Danvers (Rebecca, 1940), Holly Golightly (Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 1958) and Martha and Karen (The Children’s Hour, 1961) are just some of the complicated examples of how sapphic women were talked about in media.
This trend in representation did not exist without backlash. A lot of these films were targeted by protest from the LGBTQ+ community, with theater boycots, protests in front of the production companies, etc.
With time, these demonstrations and more concrete social changes, like gay couples being able to get married — watch For My Wife to learn more on that subject — meant that more good queer representation started to pop up into our screens.
However, something was still lacking: were where the women?
For a long period of time, the only LGBTQ+ representation we were getting on mainstream media was targeted towards gay men. Unless you looked for especific sapphic films — on the likes of But I’m a Cheerleader (1999) — or filmmakers like John Waters, it was very unlikely that you would find any wlw representation.
According to GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Allience Against Defamation) even though there was some increase in lesbian representation in 2021, bisexual characters dropped up to 14 percent when analysing the 5 main LGBTQ+ friendly releases of 2021.
The reasons for this are many. Perhaps it is due the lack of social acceptance or even the fact that men have out numbered women in the film industry for the last 20 years, with a 5:1 ratio when compiling producers, writers and directors.
Regardless of why, it is true that it was only recently that sapphic characters have started to be more present in our mainstream media. That’s all good and fun, but one thing that I noticed when comparing all of these characters was that pretty much all of them were nice, hero-esque types.
Look, there is nothing wrong with a good old heroine. When you only see one side of someone, however, they soon become cricatures. A one note song that annoys more then delights. Just like representing us only as villians, when we become “the nice ones”, it reduces queer characters to the “gay friend” or the “overly attatched lesbian”. It allows media to side line queer characters and transform us in props for their white, straight, cis lead.
I would rather have truly diverse representation, be it messy, then boring straight-washed versions of us.
You might be wondering how to write villanous queer characters without falling into tropes like “Kill Your Gays”. The answer is so obvious it will make me sound stupid: don’t make being queer the reason why your character is evil. You don’t think that The Joker or Darth Vader are evil because they like boys, but you are absoluteley sure Mrs. Danvers is wicked due to her obssession with Rebecca.
An example is the two main leads in I Care a Lot (2021). Are they completely wicked and mean? Yes! Are they like this because they are suppressing their queerness? Absolutely not! The couple is completely open about their sexuality and the fact that they are evil is simply due to their greed or — in a nicer way of putting it — their ambitions.
It’s a simple matter of allowing sapphic characters to have similarly complex motivations to their straight counterparts — or at least ones which extend beyond their queerness.
As you can see, this is not an over the top proposition. All I am arguing, reader, is that sapphic women should be allowed to be heroic and funy, but also villainous and mean. We should be given a chance to explore all the different facets of humanity because, guess what: we are humans, just like our straight counterparts.
Alright, I rest my case. What do you think about only having heroique representation of queer characters? Do you agree with my wicked propositions?
Bibliography
ADEBOWALE, Temi. How the Hays Code — as Seen in Hollywood — Censored Hollywood. May 8, 2020 — Find at: https://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/a32290089/hollywood-hays-code/
CLEGHORN, Sophie. Film: The Hollywood Production Code of 1930 and LGBT Characters. Nov 6, 2017 — Find at: https://medium.com/@sophiecleg/how-did-the-hollywood-production-code-of-1930-shape-the-representation-of-lgbt-characters-in-film-93e92a4fec62
FRIEDMAN, Lyle/ DANIELS, Matt/ BLINDERMAN, Ilia. Hollywood’s Gender Divide And Its Eeffect on Films: Examining the Gender of Writers, Producers and Directors Who Make Filmas That Fail The Bechdel Test. March 2017 — Find at: https://pudding.cool/2017/03/bechdel/
Gay & Lesbian Allience Against Defamation (GLAAD). Overview of Findings. 2021 — Find at: https://www.glaad.org/sri/2021/overview
HENERY, Molly. GAYLY DREADFUL: The Lesbian Villain. June 26, 2019 — Find at: https://www.gaylydreadful.com/blog/2019/6/26/the-lesbian-villain
LEWIS, Maria. Early Hollywood and the Hays Code. Jan 14, 2021. Find at: https://www.acmi.net.au/stories-and-ideas/early-hollywood-and-hays-code/
MONTEIL, Abby. STACKER: A history of LGBTQ+ representation in film. May 3, 2022 — Find at: https://stacker.com/stories/4331/history-lgbtq-representation-film
SANDEL, Adam. ADVOCATE: 21 Best (and Worst) Queer Movie Villains. June 30, 2015, 3:30 AM EDT — Find at: https://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/2015/06/30/21-best-and-worst-queer-movie-villains
The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930. Find at: http://www.umsl.edu/~gradyf/theory/1930code.pdf
365 Days Of Lesbians. 2019 — Find at: https://365daysoflesbians.tumblr.com/tagged/film%20history
