Is Empire Contributing to the 'Bury Your Gays' Trope?
Empire did its part to keep the Bury YourGays/Dead Lesbian Syndrome trope going this week by killing off Mimi Whiteman (Marisa Tomei) and her wife Camilla Marks-Whiteman (Naomi Campbell)--the power lesbians who were bent on usurping Lucious' (Terrence Howard) Empire from the inside out.
The problem, critics say, is that gay people, particularly women, are being killed in a way that reduces their humanity and presents them as inconsequential or comical clichés to be snuffed out like flies.
[...] both Lee Daniels and executive producer Ilene Chaiken, co-creator/writer of The L Word, are both smart, influential gay pioneers, so we can safely assume that Mimi and Camilla's deaths aren't reflective of some deep-seated gay angst in the Empire writer's room.
Otherwise though, she's pretty much an evil ice queen using gay and hetero sex to bring down a family: basically, the religious right's shining example of gay perversion in a great wig and, ironically, a loathsome stereotype to LGBT activists too.
When Jamal is ambushed by gay fans wielding multi-colored flip-flops, and bastardizing his brother's song "Drip Drop" to call him a "flip-flop" sell-out, it feels poignant.
[...] we are left respecting the idea that there's no "right" way to be a gay man, yet apparently still clueless about how to best extend that same respect to gay women.