Too Many Gay Stories Are Sad

I wrote a thesis on this back in 2008. Almost twenty years later, not enough has changed, and so I propose the Steppenwolf test for gay media.

Perhaps because LGBTQ history is heavy with struggle, rejection, and persecution, there is this propensity to make our stories—novels, short stories, miniseries, films—tragic at their core. This makes more sense if the piece is both historical and aiming for historical accuracy, but it makes less sense otherwise, yet there it is as the standard. Why is that?

Well, there is a compounding issue that I think tilts the scales, and that is the bias in the world of art criticism for drama and darkness. Creatives read that bias and produce to it. You want to make a critically-acclaimed film or miniseries? Make it hard-hitting and dark. Now there are exceptions to every rule of course, but generally, that is the rule: Taste-making critics prefer explorations in "gritty realism" (even if that so-called realism does not align with common experience) over those more buoyant or, dare I propose, upbeat. Think about it: How many Oscar-winning films are upbeat? How many Emmy- or Golden Globe-winning limited series are "feel good?" The same rule applies to literature, perhaps even more so. How many mainstream literary prizes go to happy books? One in a hundred? One in two hundred?

So it starts to make sense: Gay history is hard history, and the arbiters of "good" art pedestal sad stories. So we're stuck, right?

Not necessarily. Alison Bechdel came up with a test for representation of women in film that started as a joke but is now taken somewhat seriously—seriously enough that it is referred to simply as the Bechdel test, and it goes like this: Does the movie (1) have at least two women in it who (2) talk to each other (3) about something other than a man? In order to pass the Bechdel test, a film must meet all three conditions.

I propose a similar test for gay media but focused on disrupting the prevailing sadness standard. We can call it the Steppenwolf test. It can go like this: Does the story (1) have at least two openly gay characters who (2) don't one or both die nor (3) face physical violence?

How many gay media would pass? What if the Steppenwolf test is used not to suppress or discourage the production of faithful representations of gay history but simply as a reminder of the need to balance our depictions, to push beyond the "easy"-but-problematic conflicts of one being closeted, of identity suppressing, of self loathing; being consumed by disease, killed, or murdered; or the victim of physical abuse, assault, or a hate crime? What if we told—and were told—more stories of gay power, happiness, and hope?

Could a change in the stories we tell change the stories we live? We can't change cruel history. We can't change how people outside our identity markers play with our rights—debate whether we deserve them, block them, grant them, rescind them—but we can tell more stories about how gay people get on in spite of it. For millennia, gay people have gotten on in spite of it by burning brighter, loving harder, learning the rules of the game in order to navigate it, fight it, break it, by outwitting, outsmarting, outlasting. We can go through it but still find happiness. We can live this life authentically and still get our happily ever after. Two things can be true, and at the end of the day, we are—all of us—so much more than others' tragic figures.

Looking for a story that passes the Steppenwolf test? Why not start with my novel The Lows, the Lewd, and the Light! (Yes, this is totally a shameless plug, but this is my blog, after all!)