RETROSPECTIVE: ‘Dead Boy Detectives’ and the Danger of the Bury Your Gays Trope

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.