The Casual Killing of Black Female Characters on Camera
This is a rant of sorts. An outcry, if you will, about the number of times that TV will find entertainment in the onscreen deaths of Black female characters, whether or not it makes sense.
And even at times when it does narratively, the fact that we have to see it, and the fact that she could be recurring, even a main character does not strike confidence within any Black female viewer who might want to use television as an escape from Black femicide and misogynoir.
It is literally inescapable.
Sometimes, you could say, "Well, its the nature of that show, to show us death onscreen. Seeing a Black female character die shouldn't effect you any more than any of the deaths in this fandom..." but... how many Black women were even there? How much representation was provided for them? Even in a show filled with them, seeing another Black woman killed, especially if done so brutally, can be hurtful to witness.
This is magnified when she was the only one present in the work, one of very few in the work, or in a series where there was not very satisfactory representation in the first place. And this is the truth for most fandoms, even your faves, even ones that get heralded as progressive or praised for having diversity.
So, whether or not the genre or the content had death and murder regularly, if there wasn’t enough Black female representation to pad the death of the Black female character, I’ma be offended and upset and often times traumatized by the shit. Let me make you a list of the ones that especially hurt me:
Dualla.
Anastasia Dualla, aka Dee, was the most prominent Black female character of Battlestar Galactica. She was a side character, having her only big storylines being a love interest, the wife of a cheater who was in love with somebody else, from an area that faced racism, never finding her family after the attacks, divorce... do you get the gist? Dee had about 3 times that we were allowed to see her happy. I know, times were tough for everybody, so I shouldn’t expect “special treatment” for Dee. God forbid that she be given any storyline that gave her actual joy sometimes.
But. She killed herself, on my screen, in my face, without any apparent provocation. As a suicidal person, I know that it can just hit you. I know that things can seem fine whenever it takes place. As a Black viewer who had been watching this show for years and happy to see one of Dee’s seldom smiles only moments before, it was crushing. The biggest problem is that it didn’t need to happen for the narrative and was unnecessarily hurtful, and for what? All these years later, what was the point of making us watch Dee kill herself? It didn’t advance the story, and it took away the only Black female character in the series before the ending. (The only others being a delegate that I don’t even remember really, played by Judith Maxie, and Elosha, played by Lorena Gale, who ALSO died on screen and was only used to further a white woman’s plot. - Something that I was willing to get over at the time, even though it was messed up, I was willing to get over it, because at least we had a regular and she was okay).
Until she wasn’t. And to this day (it’s been since 2009), and TO THIS DAY, whenever I have to endure another Black regular or main character die, I get thrown back into that scene, that hurt, that senselessness that the Battlestar Galactica writers inflicted on us for no good reason, over a decade ago.
So, whenever I saw the actress, Kandyse McClure a few years later on Hemlock Grove, I was glad to see that she appeared to be a main character and while I wasn’t really interested in much else about the show (the premise was okay, but it didn’t look like a great production from a glance), I decided that I’d put it on my watchlist to see Kandyse working again...
Clementine.
Dr. Clementine Chasseur was the only Black woman that I recall from Hemlock Grove, a show that was not good at all, and I only was watching for her, to be honest. This show took the one Black woman they had, had her skinned and flayed, then left in misery until another character came along and suffocated her to her death. It was horrifying. The show wasn’t even good. I wasted my time and got mentally and visually assaulted with one of the most ugly acts of violence I’ve seen in a show. I have a mental image of something genuinely disturbing from a show that I hated. Fuck Hemlock Grove. I wish it could get canceled twice.
Donna.
Donna was a mermaid and the sister of the main mermaid character in the series, Siren on Freeform. From the first moment we see Donna to her last breath, she was fucked over. They captured her, kidnapped her, enslaved her, researched her, and when she escaped and sought vengeance, she was murdered. So many other decisions could have been made. Later on, they brought in her lightskint daughter as a character, seeking vengeance for her mother... But. What happened to Donna was heartbreaking, through and through. Nobody else on that show went through worse in the time that I was watching it.
I never finished, because it went down the drain after a while, but whenever I WAS watching it, I had to see one of the only two dark skinned women on the show have the most miserable experience on land, and then get shot and killed. (The other dark skinned woman was an unstable drug addict who abandoned her family). Sidenote: Whenever you find a show and the Black women are written with garbage skills, divest. Because it is almost a guarantee that the fandom will be racist pieces of shit, something that we learned early in the Siren existence. They literally harassed the main Black female actress (not the one who played Donna, but Maddie, the one who was in a relationship with the main characters) so much that she fled social media during the show’s run.
*Try not to get attached to shows and characters with poor writing for their Black female characters. They will be unsafe places eventually.*
Tara.
Tara Thornton was a True Blood regular for 6 full seasons. Not the only Black woman in the show, but the one with the most writing. She unfortunately was under the influence of a popular trope of being the best friend to a white magical girl and having to bear the brunt of a bunch of bad shit because of it. (Like Bonnie Bennett but without magic)
At first, it was indirect. Having to see shit go down and be exposed to danger because of her best friend’s proximity to vampires and shit. Then, it was direct. Being targeted because of her proximity to vampires and shit.
She’s been kidnapped, taken as a hostage and sex slave, and even killed, yes, shot down dead because of a friendship with someone who wasn’t any good for her.
Then, she was turned into a vampire, at her friend’s request. She didn’t want to be a vampire or ask to be a vampire, but her selfish ass friend, who she died for had her turned into one because SHE didn’t want to lose her...
And after all that, they turned Tara into a pile of vampire goo at the opening of the last season, and added insult to injury, insult to memory, by having her spirit take a journey to make amends with the people who abused her in her childhood. It was the most disrespectful send off for one of the most disrespected characters that I had ever seen in my life. I wish I would have followed my first mind and not even tried to watch the final season, because I had been stopped watching it by the time that it aired, and I think I found out that Tara died, so I wasn’t that interested anyways. But then to actually see their final decision? Insulting. Revolting. Among the worst pieces of television of my life.
I say all of this to get to my most recent reason to rant...
Anacostia.
She deserved better. First of all, the fact that they continued the Salem Accords instead of freeing witches from the bondage of the military, especially after how easy it had been for human terrorists to overthrow it and gain control from the inside. They should have done away with the obligation.
Then. They should have either killed off someone else or brought Anacostia back to life or let us see her peacefully on the other side. War took another good witch, and the rest of us had to not only see it, but BARELY had the chance to process it, and DIDN'T get any real closure. The way that we had to see the decoy of a dead Kelly Wade, the murdered, dismembered body of Charvel Bellweather at her own wedding, and the Sacrificial Negro Trope in action with Anacostia's death scene, they could have at least given her a last image of light and love.
The least, the VERY LEAST that they could have done for us was to let her be seated next to Alder as the Mother gives our girls their final words, and to grant us the image of her moving on peacefully. The last time we get to see this beautiful soul is crushed, pinned against something as her love has to walk away from her dead body.
Her mother, her daughters, didn't get to properly send her off. They cried and kept fighting and I GET that that's war. But, why so much for these types of things does one of the few Black women have to be offered up. Even in a show like this, with diversity and representation?
Easily one of the worse finales of my life, and it could have been salvaged by just not doing this one grossly disrespectful thing to a brilliant and beautiful character. Fuck Motherland: Fort Salem's ending. Suck dicks in hell for doing that to Anacostia Quartermain.
Other onscreen unnecessary/pointless Black women’s deaths:
Jordan Gladwell on iZombie. She was the only Black girl and she died for no good reason. It sort of promoted a white man’s story, but... not to the point where it was justified. (That show did miserably with Black women).
Abbie Mills (I didn’t see it, but I heard from the fans that were still there when it happened and WOOO, they was PISSED!) I had stopped watching the show by then.
Goddamn near EVERY Black woman that appeared in The Vampire Diaries. And from what I am told (I stopped watching that mess too) the one that lived was the person who had to save everybody else. BUT, whenever I WAS watching it, she actually DID die (and came back later), so I will include Bonnie Bennett in all the Black women TVD killed in front of our faces.
Which reminds me Amanda Fisher of Ash VS Evil Dead. I am reminded, because that show, too, killed every last Black woman in the characters.
The Fairy Godmother on OUAT, The Faerie Elder on True Blood, that fairy on Shadowhunters (Lanaia), tbh... Shadowhunters is one of those shows that don’t get the slander it deserved for the antiblackness/misogynoir in the writing while under the shield of a diverse cast, but that’s a whole nother post entirely)
Nikki on Misfits (and Tulip on Preacher - I DO NOT CARE if they brought her back. You made me see this woman get shot and die and the people who saw her return only did so because they weren’t so scarred that they had to cut ties with the show. They knew what the fuck they was doing ending that like that, making us see that)
Breeze Clair Browne’s mom in The Good Doctor
Jean in The Oval. Look. I know that’s a Black show, but that was a terrible death for a good person and it hurt like hell.
Angela in Mortel... and here’s the thing about Mortel... you don’t get a lot of death scenes. You have some death scenes and you have a lot of deaths spoken of, and there are grim portrayals of violence. But it was not lost on me that the dark skinned Black woman died gruesomely. Mortel will really play in your face. Somebody down there is colorist and somebody down there love some whites. That’s a very different conversation, for another rant, if I feel like it some time.
Missandei - I’ma be honest, I ain’t watch that show, so idk how important it was to plot or nothing, but I know that I remember saying, “Whoa, the Black girl on that show lived the whole way through?” and like, the next week or that week, she was getting her damn head lopped off. Shame. They got all the way to the end and swiped her ass outta there. Smh.
Ol’ girl from Charmed... I didn’t watch that either, but the girls was really upset about it... Macy?
Candy from Pose. WHY DID THEY SHOW US HER DEAD BODY? WHAT WAS THE REASON?? WE WERE ALREADY FUCKING SAD ABOUT THE SHIT!!!
POUSSEY. I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO FUCKING EXPLAIN.
Honorable Mentions for Hannah Grose and Rebecca Jessell, Because since so many people died in that story, them dying in bad ways and onscreen were unfair and hurtful, but not outside of the scope of the material. HOWEVER, them being murdered, and then having to STILL somehow be sacrificial negroes for the kids and them... THAT was just extra misogynoir and I ain’t like it. Of the ones that did survive, you didn’t get the two important Black characters. Not even one? And then they both had to give more to protect the others? Y’all gave me Ghost Mammies? FOH.
Not completely pointless, but unnecessary or unfair, to say the least:
Alisha in Misfits. The way that I had to watch this was troubling. Like. Yes, it was that kinda genre, but I didn’t wanna see it. Like... I’m upset every time.
Jaden in Nikita. She was doing right, doing what they were supposed to and after all that animosity they had her throw out, she seemed like she was getting to not be the bitchy Black girl, and they killed her right in front of me. Then they killed Emily Robinson, who was killed specifically to further a white man’s character arc.
Joss Carter could have easily been written out of Person of Interest peacefully if Taraji was moving on to other things. Characters CAN just leave. People do this in real life. Sometimes, they just leave.
Diana Tilton in The Shannara Chronicles... They so unceremoniously killed her off, and it was like... not on screen, if I recall, so you didn’t really know and then if they mentioned it later, it was very casually.
And Because This Also Happens in Cartoons:
THE SUNFIRE QUEEN, KHESSA From The Dragon Prince. That. Was. Horrifying. Hated it.
And a friend said Allura, which reminded me of all the times I saw people mourning Allura, even though I know nothing about that media. I don’t even know the name... Voltron Action Adventurer or whatever.
I am SICK of stories having death scenes be a quiet ending where a character accepts the fate so easily. Make them grip and claw at desperate attempts for their life, make them *fear* whatever is waiting on the other side. Make their death feel more alive then they ever could be.
