This story has a trigger warning for mentions of sexual abuse, suicide, and violence. If any of this material may distress you, please read with caution.
With the coming of the 21st century, it is undeniable that rights for LGBTQ+ individuals have made massive strides. Compared to the rampant homophobia and transphobia of the Roaring Twenties, queer individuals enjoy significantly more rights. In many countries, the law has finally extended to give queer individuals human rights, rights they have been denied for centuries. However, modern media still has progress to make – shows like Dead Boy Detectives exhibit a trope that has survived the test of time: Bury Your Gays.
“Bury Your Gays” is the name of a fiction trope where LGBTQ+ characters tend to die or meet a similarly tragic ending, often for shock value and typically with a higher frequency compared to their heterosexual counterparts. Queer characters are often viewed as more expendable, and commonly die after coming out or visibly expressing their queerness. This trope was initially used as a way for authors to write queer characters without coming under fire for breaking the law, since at the time LGBTQ+ individuals did not enjoy many rights. However, times have changed. While there are many possible intentions behind authors implementing this trope, a popular reason behind this is that authors simply want to have a gay character without actually writing them as real people, outside of their sexuality.
Dead Boy Detectives, a live-action Netflix TV series based on the Dead Boy Detectives comic books by Neil Gaiman and Matt Wagner, is a picture-perfect example of modern media utilizing this trope, intentionally or not. Released in April of 2024, Dead Boy Detectives follows the story of two ghosts, Charles Rowland and Edwin Payne, who are running from death. Their primary job is as detectives who investigate the cases of ghosts so they may peacefully pass on to the afterlife. The show, consisting of eight episodes, was an entertaining watch and kept the audience engaged with its fast-paced plot. Despite its pacing issues in the first two episodes, Dead Boy Detectives excelled in its ethnic representation while successfully depicting mental health struggles. However, many viewers can agree on one thing: although the show tried, Dead Boy Detectives’ queer representation was subpar.
Dead Boy Detectives is a prime example of the Bury Your Gays trope in modern media. It’s clear the directors attempted to create a series with quality queer representation, but ultimately, they came up short. A chief example of this is Edwin Payne. He is one of the two titular dead detectives, and the show depicts his internal struggle of exploring his sexuality. Edwin is a teenager; he was alive in the 1910s during a time when homosexuality was viewed as unacceptable and taboo. Dead Boy Detectives immediately implies romantic tension between Charles and Edwin, the best friends who go on cases together. The show later reveals that Edwin has an unrequited crush on Charles.
The second episode of Dead Boy Detectives is where the queer representation, simultaneously, is introduced and becomes problematic. Edwin is investigating a case in a town and uses magic on a cat; as it turns out, this cat is part of a kingdom of cats, and Edwin has angered the Cat King – a supernatural entity and shapeshifter who primarily shifts between a feline and human form. Played by Lukas Gage, the Cat King transports Edwin to a private room. In a moment of trickery, the Cat King places a caging spell on Edwin that imprisons him in the town. Unfortunately, viewers who continued watching after the scene were in for a nasty surprise: namely, the terms and conditions for removing the caging spell.
The Cat King tells Edwin that the only way to remove the caging spell is to engage in physical intimacy with him. Edwin is, very clearly, discovering himself and uncomfortable with the Cat King’s prior advances, yet the Cat King still bent these boundaries. The Cat King is another example of queer representation, but not a good one. The show portrays the second gay character as a morally gray character. The Cat King continues pressuring Edwin into physical intimacy with him. Upon Edwin’s rejection and apprehension due to his internalized homophobia, the Cat King is upset at his rejection, seemingly calling Edwin old-fashioned. While Dead Boy Detectives had their heart in the right place, portraying the second queer man as someone who coerces the first closeted and questioning gay man into physical intimacy portrays queer men as predatory, falling into harmful patterns of representation. Media has a long history of portraying queer men as predators, rooted in fetishization and heterosexual gender roles. In addition, punishing a questioning LGBTQ+ individual for being afraid pushes the harmful message to those questioning their sexuality, that one has to have everything about their identity figured out immediately or they are not valid.
The problem with this doesn’t lie in the sexual abuse – many queer men experience abuse, whether it be from strangers or close friends. The problem, something the showrunners seemed to have overlooked, is that the Cat King is portrayed as a good guy. He is portrayed as Edwin’s savior and a potential love interest who is simply encouraging Edwin to take risks and come out of his shell. At the end of the show, after the death of Monty, another potential love interest for Edwin, the Cat King is even portrayed as someone who was just guiding Edwin, and his harmful actions were simply because of his loneliness. The directors used loneliness to excuse a queer man’s attempted assault, but queer people can come to terms with their identity without experiencing external pressure.
Dead Boy Detectives is no stranger to dark topics; many of the cases Edwin and Charles investigate have sensitive topics. The show covers topics such as familial abuse, violence, bullying, suicide, and trauma incredibly well, approaching them with sensitivity, care, and accurately depicting both the victims and the perpetrators. All these issues are realistically and thoughtfully depicted – except for queer relationships.
Dead Boy Detectives’ queer representation is clearly flawed, but how does this show exemplify the Bury Your Gays trope? This trope is often seen as outdated, having a place in archaic beliefs and overturned laws. Contrary to popular belief, this trope is seen in numerous pieces of media released in the 21st century such as Supernatural, Killing Eve, They Both Die at the End, Call Me By Your Name, and now Dead Boy Detectives.
The Cat King dies; as a cat, he has nine lives, so he survives and stays as a potential love interest for Edwin. Unfortunately. Edwin, the main gay character, continues getting the short end of the stick. Monty is another one of Edwin’s love interests, but once again, Edwin can’t catch a break: Monty is a spy for the witch who wants to kill Edwin and he is planning to trap him. When Monty admits his true feelings for Edwin out loud, he dies. That’s two out of three gay characters dead.
There is also a huge problem with the lesbian representation in the show that, once again, heavily succumbs to the Bury Your Gays trope. Jenny, a butcher, is the first lesbian character. She dresses in all-black and frequently makes comments about how she consumes lots of murder documentaries. She is also obsessed with blood, which does relate to her role as a butcher; however, her fashion wardrobe and her interests are extremely stereotypical of lesbians. The other lesbian character is a librarian, Maxine. Both Jenny and Maxine embody lesbian stereotypes. Stereotypes exist for a reason, and sometimes they are true. Dead Boy Detectives’ overreliance on stereotypes compensates for their lack of character development. However, the problem doesn’t lie in their wardrobe, or their jobs. It lies in their storyline – and how quickly it ends.
Jenny begins receiving love letters from a secret admirer, whom detective sidekick Niko identifies as the local librarian, Maxine. Niko arranges a meet-cute between Jenny and Maxine, and it starts off picture-perfect and beautiful. Viewers are almost fooled into thinking that lesbians finally get proper representation in mainstream media, but it quickly takes a nasty turn. It’s important to consider that this is their first date, and Jenny and Maxine are having a good time together, talking about their shared interests and enjoying each other’s company. After a suspicious question from Maxine about two hours into the date, Jenny finds out that Maxine is actually a stalker who has been invading Jenny’s physical and emotional privacy through various methods including watching Jenny through the windows at nighttime.
Moreover, the second lesbian character is not just a creepy stalker; when Jenny establishes boundaries and asks Maxine to leave, Maxine grabs a meat cleaver and begins chasing Jenny, intending to murder her, making the second lesbian character a murderous stalker. Maxine slips on a piece of meat while chasing Jenny and impales her head, dying. Not only has another LGBTQ+ individual died, but the queer representation has continued to worsen. Both the Cat King and Maxine, queer love interests, are portrayed as predators at a significantly higher rate in comparison to their heterosexual counterparts. This is incredibly harmful to young queer individuals watching the show; Maxine is the only romantic love interest Jenny is introduced with in the show. Their characters’ relationship further the harmful message that all queer people will be either a victim or perpetrator of violence.
At this point, three out of the five queer characters in the show have died. Dead Boy Detectives views their LGBTQ+ characters as infinitely more expendable than the heterosexual characters. Maxine is secretly a murderous stalker, Monty is secretly plotting to kill Edwin, and the Cat King tricks Edwin into placing a caging spell on him and repeatedly crosses his boundaries. Whether it be Monty, Maxine, or the Cat King, there’s no doubt that the showrunners could have altered these storylines to still provide substance to the plot while not constantly portraying queer people as tricksters and then killing them off, leaving Edwin – another gay character – with a consistently tragic ending in every subplot.
There are extremely well-done aspects of the show. The racial and ethnic representation was diverse and the mental health representation was well-done. The show attempted to cover characters’ experiences with different forms of abuse, whether it be within families, friendships, or romantic relationships, as well as their various trauma responses. Where many shows struggle, Dead Boy Detectives succeeded in depicting both Charles’ and Edwin’s different but painful experiences with abuse. There is also much needed representation of healthy male friendship on screen. Deep platonic male friendships with an emotional connection is vastly underrepresented in mainstream media, so Dead Boy Detectives was refreshing in that manner.
Despite the positive aspects of the show, the Bury Your Gays trope is infinitely harmful to the queer community. It contributes to the all-too-popular narrative in media that LGBTQ+ individuals will always experience a tragic ending, in some form or another, because their lives are inherently sad. Not only is this flawed representation, but it sends a message to the queer community that people don’t value their role in society. In Dead Boy Detectives, many of the queer characters’ subplots revolve entirely around their romantic interest. The show fails to give the majority of their queer characters dimension, apart from their sexuality.
In the modern era, society’s understanding of LGBTQ+ individuals is enough that queer representation can be done well. While many believe the Bury Your Gays trope has been eradicated from media, it’s still prevalent in mainstream media, no matter how subtle. Ultimately, Dead Boy Detectives may have been revolutionary in its mental health representation, but it still falls into the same age-old tropes, exemplifying Bury Your Gays from the beginning to the end.
Synne • Feb 13, 2025 at 7:58 pm
I respectfully disagree with this article. I don’t see the show as being Bury Your Gay orientated or having bad things happening to them just because they are Gay.
Monty doesn’t immediately die after confessing his Love to Edwin. Instead he tries to come to terms with the fact that he is in love for the first time ever after living as a crow for his entire life. It is something he doesn’t understand as he can’t understand human emotions fully. But even once he is transformed back into a crow, he isn’t completely a crow anymore or her familiar as he shows he can think for himself when he helps Charles escape in Esther’s home.
Edwin’s own death was tragic but it was also at the hands of a classmate who couldn’t come to terms with his own feelings. When Edwin finds him in Hell, Simon asks if it has to be torture being the way they are. And while Edwin doesn’t forgive him, he finally understands why he was sacrificed that night as it wasn’t because of him but Simon’s own demons. His kindness and wanting to help Simon is even what ultimately allows Simon to move on.
Finally, I feel The show was careful with how they handled the characters being part of the LBGT community. Unlike in a lot of shows, none of the characters are their sexuality. Instead, each character has a unique personality and the show focuses on them over coming their pasts to grow in the future. They all learn through out the series and by the end are more confident in themselves and ready to face whatever hardships life might bring
C • Feb 13, 2025 at 7:23 pm
So while there is a lot to unpack in this entire thing, I’m going to focus on one thing, your characterization of the Cat King. Mainly because you are leaving major parts of that scene out to fit your narrative here, which is just bad journalism.
1. The Cat King is an obvious Trickster Fae archetype, and was written as such. A shapeshifter that has their own kingdom of dalliances. He proclaims it to be of want and pleasure. Which is laughable, because it’s a deserted fish cannery, but to a cat, that’s a true kingdom. He can also speed up and slow down time in his kingdom, showing again that it is a world apart from the normal human realm. Trying to impose human morality onto that type of archetype is about as effective as it would be to try and impose it on Norse Gods like Loki. Edwin even proclaims as such as he’s smashing the unbreakable bracelet against a pole in Crystal’s room, that the cat king is “A trickster”
2. Edwin is confused by the blatant come on by the Cat King, but it was seemingly more because he was unused to such advances because in his day, such a thing was a jailable offense to be gay in public. And while he may have been nervous about them, it was not that he was uninterested as noted by his horny daydream about the Cat King a few scenes later in the middle of Tragic Mick’s. That features things that did not happen in their actual meeting that Edwin’s interested mind is providing. (Yet something else you neglected to include)
3. As soon as he steps back and the Cat King sees it’s too much, he offers an alternative, counting cats. And states yes that Edwin has “Old fashioned sensibilities” But he also states that he is a “Fair and consensual Cat King” meaning he wouldn’t do anything that Edwin was not okay with, and he doesn’t. The punishment of wristband and counting cats was never because Edwin snubbed advances. The whole point of the punishment was for Edwin to know how it feels to be leashed and not be able to travel of his own free will, which was an eye for an eye punishment for what he did by leashing the cat Meatball, in the first episode.
4. You also neglected to mention any of the follow up meetings between them where the Cat King speaks with Edwin. Does he tease and flirt? Yes. But he also gives Edwin valuable information along the way. He tells Edwin he doesn’t have to hide who he is. He warns him that Monty is trying to lure him into a trap, (a warning that leads to his death for helping Edwin), when Edwin is taken back to Hell, he is seen looking forlornly looking at the bracelet in his hand. And after Esther beats him to death and tells him of her plan, he looks truly contrite that he let too much information slip that put Edwin in even more danger. At the end he shows true empathy when he gives Edwin the lilly for Niko’s passing. (Lilies are highly deadly to cats, so even the choice of flower is symbolic.)
In conclusion, the Cat King was created by Steve Yockey for two reasons.
1. To be Edwin’s gay awakening, which he is.
2. To be the reason they are stuck in town so the rest of the plot can happen.
So to say that he isn’t a good representation of gay men and that he is predatory is untrue. He is a gay man that is comfortable in his own skin, where Edwin is repressed and is not. He is used to show Edwin that he doesn’t have to stay in the closet, and what he feels isn’t wrong or dirty as he was taught. All of which frees Edwin up to confess to Charles and Hell, and free Simon from his own torment because he tells him that it doesn’t have to be torture to be gay.
If all you saw in the Cat King was a predatory man, that says so much more about you and your mindset than what the actual show intended. Maybe you should do some introspective deep diving.
Kaela • Feb 13, 2025 at 6:58 pm
I love that you’re taking the time to be critical of queer representation in today’s media, but I’m afraid you’ve missed some nuance here. I myself found Dead Boy Detectives to be the most refreshingly diverse, queer show I’ve seen in years. To start off with, the writer’s room itself was very diverse, with writers with different genders, races, and sexualities all working together on the scripts, and it clearly shows in the final product (did you notice that not a single one of the main characters was a straight white male!?)
The characters were well rounded, and none of them were a ‘token’ character. No one was there just to be The Gay Guy or The Lesbian. They all had personalities, motivations, and storylines outside of their sexualities- it was just another aspect of what makes them, them. They just… were. And yes, bad things happened to queer characters throughout the show, and some of them did die, but not specifically because they were queer– with the exception of Edwin’s accidental death in 1916. Bad stuff happened to pretty much every character, (I think the Ghost Postman is the only reoccurring character who doesn’t have a tragic backstory and emerges fully unscathed, lol) and because there’s a much higher than average number of queer characters in the show, at first glance it seems like there’s a bias.
I did want to offer a bit of correction on a couple details you might have missed, specifically about Monty and the Cat King.
First off, Monty: he doesn’t die, at all. When Esther finds out he let Edwin and Charles escape, she doesn’t kill him- she turns him back into a crow. We see him flying away immediately after she violently undoes the spell that had turned him into a human in the first place. We also see him as a crow multiple times before the season ends, and during his last appearance he even redeems himself by helping Charles escape from the witch.
And then there’s the Cat King. I’ll not deny that he’s a divisive character- there are a lot of different opinions on him in the fandom, for sure! But while you were correct in that he initially tells Edwin can ‘make him happy’ and implies he can sleep with him to do so, that’s not the only way to remove the caging spell. As soon as Edwin shows hesitation, he gives another option- calling himself a ‘Fair and consensual Cat King’ he tells Edwin the bracelet will come off if he counts all the cats in the town– which Edwin does manage to do by the end of the show! He holds his ground, stands up to the Cat King in the forest, and eventually meets the requirement on his own terms, even when he didn’t have to- and even beats the Cat King at his own game when he points out that he forgot to count himself! Though the dynamic between the two definitely starts out rocky, there’s a truce and even mutual respect by the end of last episode.
There’s a lot more I could say about the show and the characters, but this is already getting super long and I’m starting to get hungry. So I’ll leave you with a few final lines that show just how far Edwin has come on his own journey of self-acceptance- one of the most powerful exchanges in the show and one that many queer viewers (including myself!) have found incredibly freeing and reassuring:
Simon: “Do you think it has to be torture, being the way we are?”
Edwin: “Listen to me. No, it does not.”
and then, less than a minute later:
Simon: “I think this is what I deserve”
Edwin: “Simon, if you punish yourself, everywhere becomes Hell”
The show tells us here that there’s nothing wrong with being queer, with being the way you are. And that’s pretty much the exact opposite of what Bury Your Gays is all about.
Sammy Davis • Feb 13, 2025 at 6:38 pm
Thank you for posting this, it is incredibly important that we queers learn about the harmful prevalence of the Bury Your Gays trope. For decades-maybe even centuries, it was used to queer bait us, and to convince us that we were not meant to live long, happy lives. However, the assumption that the Netflix Dead Boy Detectives is doing that, is incorrect.
Again, based on what I said above, the Bury Your Gays trope served two main purposes
1) Queer baiting (convincing queer audiences that there was queer representation, even though the character may only show up for a few minutes)
2) To show audiences that queer people could not have happy endings
Let’s address the first one. Because Edwin is a main character, and never leaves the show, this clearly couldn’t have been true. Whilst it could be said that the trailer made it seem like Edwin was in a queer relationship with Charles, the show made true to all of its promises concerning queer representation. At the end of the final episode we even got a kiss between Edwin and the Cat King!
Next, let’s address the second one, to show audiences that queer people cannot have happy endings. This is even more false than the previous one. A big plot point of this show is that Edwin is supposed to be in Hell because he was sacrificed to a demon (not because of his sexuality). However, what I didn’t mention was the main person doing this; Simon. Simon is *very* heavily implied to have had a crush on Edwin, but because Edwin never reciprocates, he gets extremely embarrassed and then starts lashing out
However, during a scene in episode 7, when Edwin goes back to Hell, he meets Simon who says “Do you think it has to be torture? Being the way we are?” To which Edwin says no. The show and its writers made sure that it was said that the homophobic attitudes of the past should stay there, in the past. In fact, this is the very scene that makes Edwin realize that he could be openly himself, and what gives him the confidence to admit his feelings towards
Finally, assuming that Dead Boy Detectives is doing the Bury Your Gays trope just because Edwin is gay and dead, is like assuming that the CBS show Ghosts is doing the same because Issac is both dead and a ghost. It’s simply incorrect. They both live fulfilling lives (or well, afterlives) even though they’re ghosts, and their narrative never makes it seem like they are wrong or lesser because of their sexuality. Thank you for your time, and again, thank you for writing this and telling us about the harm in this trope!
Ecchima • Feb 13, 2025 at 2:23 pm
English is not my first language so apologies if anything sonds a little off.
While I agree with some aspects of the article, I have to strongly disagree that Dead Boy Detectives is subpar in its queer representation. Being queer myself, I think it’s actually very well handled and it leaves enough breathing room for each character to have their own little queer arc. In what is slowly becoming an essay as I write it, I’ll focus on Edwin and Charle’s relationship since.. well they’re dead.
First of all, Edwin, the character with the biggest queer arc this season, is a 16 year old boy who died in 1916. At the time, being gay was very problematic we can briefly see Edwin feeling out of place amongst the people of his time (it’s cinematographic language, the way he’s shot in the hallway, alone in a sea of people which I thought was very tasteful and a nice touch). The internalised homophobia of the time is what gets him killed: his classmates found out about it and their bullying got too far which led to all of them dying and Edwin being in hell. This moment, is maybe 5min of an episode (out of 8) and arguably the most “bury your gays” as it’s 1) tragic and 2) at the time we only know that Edwin is gay and he died because of it.
Fast forward 30 years, Edwin gets out of Hell, just as repressed, if not more, as when he died. He stumbles upon another 16 years old boy, dying in the same stupid school (sorry St Hilarion’s) that he did. Charles, is slowly dying alone in an attic, no one is looking for him, no seems to even care. The reason Charles is dying is because he saw a pakistani kid being bullied and tried to help, becoming the target. this is denoncing another issue from another time: racism. Edwin even tells Charles “back in my day, the people being bullied were all white. Very clever line to let the viewer know that their deaths have been chosen to depict issues from different time periods.
The moment Charles dies, the first thing Edwin tells him is that he knew all along that he was going to die but he didn’t want to tell Charles, so that he would not be afraid. That’s the moment Jayden Revri (Charles) gives us all an acting masterclass because you can see Charles making up his mind and telling Edwin that he will follow him anywhere and that they are now stuck together.
From then on, they run away from Death together… to stay together. Which is the opposite of “bury your gays” in my opinion. Sure they are dead, but their characters are in the show, making dopey eyes at each other at every turn and the moment there is any risk that they get separated, they put up a fight. Death didn’t do them apart, it brought them together. I will even add that the one character who was most actively trying to separate them through Death was shown the scene of Charles’ death and was moved to tears, thus deciding to leave them alone and find a better solution.
A great counter example to their relationship is Castiel from supernatural. Castiel could never tell Dean that he loved him, or he would go to a place worse than Hell. They could very much have stayed together, there was no reason to make that happen. But they did and they got separated for being gay, which I think is what “bury your gays” is about.
I would happily write about the crazy librarian and the crow turned boy turned crow (he’s not dead, he actually helps Charles in the last episode, having fallen in love with Edwin and no longer wanting to aid Esther) but I feel my comment is already long enough as it is haha.
Long story short: I love love love this show, it means so much to me and I felt really bad reading this article because I think the author wasn’t paying attention to all the subtleties present in it.
Asidian • Feb 13, 2025 at 1:31 pm
I don’t often comment on articles, but I have to be frank: I felt compelled to comment on this one because of how blisteringly bad the takes were. I’m left wondering if we even watched the same show.
Bury your gays is a trope that deals with LGBTQ characters being more expendable than their heterosexual counterparts. Just because the titular characters are already dead at the start of the show doesn’t make them qualify; they are plainly not being expended, as they go on to star throughout the rest of the season.
The Cat King, who contrary to what this article claims is depicted from the outset as an antagonist who prevents the boys from returning home, also does not fit this trope. He dies and gets right back up again, because this is a fantasy series operating under fantasy rules.
Monty, too, doesn’t actually die. Or rather, he dies twice, and it’s just a means of him switching forms. He goes from crow to boy and back again, in neither case staying truly dead.
The only queer character who actually dies is Maxine, and she is a clear-cut villain. Like all of the heterosexual villains on the show, she gets her just desserts.
Jenny’s dark outlook on life reflects her cynical view of people and her growth as a character as she struggles to open up and learn to trust again – not, as the writer seems to think, any kind of glorification of violence.
Charles is heavily implied by the narrative undertones to be bi.
The show’s creators are themselves queer.
The boys, despite being ghosts from the outset, don’t have tragic endings. We leave them together, safe and happy, having faced their internal struggles and trauma with one another and come out stronger for it.
I agree that the show does a beautiful job with representation and heavy topics like abuse, but that’s where my agreement ends, frankly. This entire write-up, top to bottom, seems to lack an understanding of the trope it addresses.