The main purpose of this site? To give readers a sense of the source of the anger from fans. It’s not just about a character death. It’s not just about a “ship.” We deserved better. LGBT fans deserve better.
If you are unfamiliar with The 100 and its controversy – we recommend you start here for a little background information before delving into the timeline of events listed below.
Following the events of episode 307 of The 100, the outcry from the LGBT viewers of the show has been angry, focused, and loud. The problem LGBT viewers have with the show is the blatant, callous manipulation we experienced at the hands of the creators, for over ten months.
Marketing, social media interaction, and promotion are, obviously, essential for TV, especially on a smaller network like The CW. When a large chunk of your audience is of a younger demographic, social media promotion is an innovative and helpful — and most importantly, free — tool for the industry. The powers that be need eyes on screens, they need buzz for the show, in order to keep producing content. No one is criticizing the writers/producers/creators of this content for using social media and interacting with fans, or promoting the popular aspects of the show, in order to pull in more viewers. That’s a necessary marketing move, and it always has been.
But there should always be lines that shouldn’t be crossed.
The creative minds of The 100 realized that LGBT viewers were a powerful, loud group, with a strong social media presence. Naturally, they wanted to tap into that presence. As you will be able to follow on the site, over the course of ten months of hiatus, LGBT viewers were courted, reassured, engaged with, supported. LGBT viewers brought up their fears; those fears were assuaged multiple times. Straight writers went into a lesbian fan board (a safe place specifically for lesbian viewers to interact with one another) to do the same, quell fears and engage with fans. The 100 created an environment of safety, of progressive storytelling — it gave fans hope. It gave young queer individuals something to believe in, something to see themselves in and feel comfortable and included. In turn, LGBT fans trumpeted the wonderful new show they had found.
And then it ripped the rug out.
There are storyline criticisms to be made, certainly, but we are not making them here. Instead, we are specifically addressing the fact that a vulnerable minority group was used for promotion, for ratings, for numbers, and then discarded. Marketing centers on finding focus groups and finding ways to appeal to them specifically, as The 100 did, but there are responsibilities that come along with using queer youth for promotion and marketing. The 100 ignored those social responsibilities and ignored the effect that their actions would have on the group it used for promotion. That action alone straddles the line between ethical and unethical media presentation, but the complete lack of action in the wake of 307 has pushed it over the line into unethical territory.
LGBT viewers of the show were catered to, reassured, protected, and encouraged to watch and share by people in positions of power over them. And when it came down to it, the creators who had spent so much time building up this group revealed their callousness and lack of social awareness and responsibility they had so prided themselves on for months beforehand.
Let this be a lesson to creators everywhere: if you are going to engage with and represent minority groups of which you are not a part, you have a responsibility to understand your actions and the effect they have on the minority groups you claim to represent. Don’t undertake responsibilities that you have no intention of seeing through.
A Timeline of the Lexa Mess
We Deserved Better 