I WISH I KNEW MORE ABOUT THE TROPE
Three weeks after the events of 307, Jason Rothenberg and several main cast members made their appearance at a panel for The 100 at Wondercon. This was watched with bated breath, as Jason had issued two—admittedly conflicting—statements the week before regarding his stance on the controversy surrounding Lexa’s death, so many onlookers were anticipating clarification with another public appearance.
When the panel began, Jason opened with a long statement reiterating his position from his earlier open letter addressing the issue. Unfortunately, fans looking for clarification were left disappointed; as with the statements made the previous week, there was no shortage of contradictions and conflicting facts. Specifically, Jason lamented his lack of knowledge about the lesbian death trope—though statements from the writers in the room when the episode was being planned say differently.
“ I was trying to make a different point. I was trying to make a point that life is fragile and that somebody even as powerful as Lexa, could die because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. That was the tragedy I was trying to underline. Again, I wish I knew more about this trope back then.”
Wondercon Panel
“I had lesbian/feminist/marxist literally rammed Laura Mulvey’s essay about the male gaze down my throat in college and then later in film school, and still that happened on my watch”
“You would think you would not have let that happen and we did”
“The dead lesbian trope got through this room of people ... and it's been a wake up call”
Javier Grillo-Marxuach at Wondercon (via @geekdawson)
Jason also confessed to having never seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer and therefore having no idea about the controversial lesbian death from 2002, which mirrored The 100 almost shot for shot. Previous social media comments from the writers, as well as Jason himself, mention BTVS often enough to throw doubt on his statement.
“I wish I knew more about this trope back then, because had I done my homework about it, I probably would’ve come upon the fact that in ‘Buffy,’ a character who was also a lesbian died by a stray bullet, and I was unaware of that because I didn’t watch that show.”
Wondercon Panel
The aforementioned inconsistencies in Jason’s statements also came up at WonderCon. Below are a collection of answers that demonstrate how his vision has changed since the March 3rd episode. The suggestion that “knowing what I know now, I would have done things differently” raises an interesting question. There is no clarification on what exactly Jason has learned, and what he would change in response to what he has learned. It also cannot be determined if he has learned these things from concerns raised by viewers, or from the media panning.
“Knowing what I know now, I would have done things differently.”
Wondercon Panel
“When I was answering that question, I was thinking that the question meant, certainly in my mind, ‘would you still follow through with killing this character’ and the answer is — and I know it’s not going to make everybody happy — but the answer is yes. But I would do things differently.”
Wondercon Panel
Given that the messy and possibly unethical use of social media to raise fans’ expectations had also become a major point of contention above and beyond just the use of the tired lesbian death cliché, Jason also addressed those issues, by eloquently explaining that people intentionally misunderstood his excitement about the show to be a positive thing for the LGBT+ community.
“My social media interaction with the fans in some way set up around this relationship an unrealistic expectation that Lexa would be okay, that she’d walk off into the sunset. I regret the way that I talked about the show on social- I was excited and sharing my excitement, and that was misinterpreted to mean that I was promising a happy ending.”
Wondercon Panel
Would you approach social media in a different way now?
“Unfortunately yes, I think I need to be careful. The excitement that I showed on twitter set up this expectation that we were going to do something different with Lexa and that she was going to walk off in the sunset.”
“Twitter is 140 characters and it’s like haiku, you can write essays on what people have said in 140 characters, which means that what I said is interpretive as you know, people deem it what they want it to be.”
Wondercon Panel
Although most reasonable people would assume that stating there is always hope for a romantic coupling would imply that both individuals in the romantic coupling are alive and breathing, obviously this was misinterpreted. So in retrospect, this perfectly aligns with his statement that LGBT+ fans who were also excited and happy about the show were “obnoxious.”
“And by the way, the people who are getting what they want are obnoxious to the people who aren’t getting what they want, so I’m not faulting any one side. I just think the whole phenomenon, it’s unusual. It’s a new thing for me to be observing. … [As a midseason show], if anybody doesn’t like the story, there’s nothing we can do about it anyway, [because] we wrote and shot the whole thing before anybody saw anything. On a production level, we’re not racing against an air date.”
The fanbaiting issue was brought to a head when an attendee addressed Jason directly with the accusations of poor social media use. This fan also brought up the unethical, well-documented actions of Shawna Benson, one of Jason’s staff writers. Jason answered by apologizing for the fact that fans intentionally misunderstood his excitement about the show to be a positive thing for the LGBT+ community.
“Why was the decision made to integrate the creative team in the fanbase online and specifically in the LGBT group which was so vulnerable and voiced their concerns and fears so frequently and specifically not just answering twitter questions or tumblr but specific staff members going into LGBT safe zones and going into discussions and saying things like "if you guys don't trust us by now that we're not gonna kill Lexa, then you guys need counselling”, things like that specifically?”
“As for what you’re talking about, I’m not really aware of it? I don’t really get it. I wasn’t aware of the conspiracy that we’re trying to hurt people. We were just excited about a show that we were writing for. And I realize now that, you know, sort of a perfect storm of a case against me and against others on our show.”
Wondercon Panel
Read the story of how Shawna Benson, a staff writer on The 100, specifically sought out a LGBT safe zone in order to reassure fans, despite already being aware of Lexa’s death.
On a more positive note, The Trevor Project, the charity supported by LGBT Fans Deserve Better ™ , got a mention when a fan asked Jason about it. At this point, the fundraiser driven by the alienated LGBT+ fanbase had raised almost 80 thousand dollars, and Jason announced his full support and prided himself on having a part in a positive social movement as a result of his stories and actions.
“My question is mainly for Jason and Eliza but maybe someone else can give feedback. I wanted to know if you guys are aware of The Trevor Project and the fact that 80 thousand dollars were raised in honor of Lexa. So my question for you is, are you aware of the positive influence that the LGBT community has and how will that influence you in moving forward?”
“Absolutely, I am aware of that and I do think that’s an incredible silver lining in all of this, for sure. Warner Brothers by the way, supports The Trevor Project, as do I. Believe it or not but looking at this whole thing that happened, although it has been hard for me personally, boohoo me, the truth is that it’s a positive. It has really opened my eyes in a lot of ways to the power that stories have in the world and the responsibility that I have as a storyteller. Both in the way I communicate via social media of course and promises, implicit or not, that I might make and the stories themselves.”
“I feel like in this case, the train jumped off the tracks a little. I didn’t really understand enough, I don’t think. Now I do and I’m grateful for the experience, at the end of the day. The Trevor Project is amazing and everyone should give some money to The Trevor Project, please.”
In what is becoming a running theme, this sentiment was decidedly different from the one that he demonstrated on social media two weeks before WonderCon. The night of the airing of 308, the LGBT Fans Deserve Better ™ trending topic was launched and became center stage on twitter with over a quarter of a million tweets. Fundraising for the project was also promoted, and at this stage the fundraiser had only amassed 30 thousand dollars, with hundreds of people donating as it was promoted via the popular trending topic during the airing of 308.
That night, Jason perceived the promotion of The Trevor Project and the popular trending topic about LGBT+ equality to be an attack on him and his show: he retweeted a message from a fan that read “To the bullies, the cowards, and the trolls. You lose. #RenewThe100” and went on to state things such as “do not pretend that because the cause you champion is noble, that you—and how you behave, when you are a bully—are noble” and asked “what are you doing, bully, to be different to those who you say bully you in what they have created?”
The message was heavily coded to be in direct response to the LGBT+ community who were promoting The Trevor Project and the topic “LGBT+ Fans Deserve Better,” so it begs the question whether it was the two week’s time or the 50 thousand additional dollars raised in those two weeks that changed Jason’s perception of the cause and it’s supporters. There was also no clarification on why he found the project and the movement offensive in the first place to warrant this response.
“At first I was obviously offensive; I retweeted some stupid things that I shouldn’t have retweeted and took down pretty quickly.”
Wondercon Panel
