Why Representation In Media Matters
Warrior Nun, First Kill, The Wilds, Paper Girls, I Am Not Okay With This, Motherland: Fort Salem, Gentleman Jack, Killing Eve, Wynona Earp, Genera+ion, Teenage Bounty Hunters, Get Even, Dead To Me, Legends of Tomorrow.
I opened Twitter on my lunch break between clients. “I’ve just found out that Netflix will not be renewing #WarriorNun,” Simon Barry’s Tweet sat at the top of my timeline.
My heart sank, my stomach bottomed out, “Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.” I muttered into my empty kitchen, “not this again.”
I am a therapist that specializes in working with LGBTQIA+ folks. In my work with clients I often lean into finding representation that resonates with them. We read books together, watch TV shows and discuss plot lines as a means to putting a voice to personal experiences and trauma. It is beyond powerful to see your story, or a story like yours, played out on page or screen. To be able to zoom out and see the story being told through someone else’s experience. To look at a screen and have a character and an actor looking back and saying “your story matters…you matter.”
There has been a recent rampage of canceling women-led queer TV shows by streaming services. Streaming service execs are pointing to any number of reasons for these cancelations — not enough views, not enough budget, metrics weren’t reaching target goals — the list goes on and on. What they are failing to admit to is homophobic, sexist, and racist undertones of their decision making.
What the execs see are canceled TV shows. Every story must end, right? It’s all about numbers and money. People will get over their favorite shows being canceled because they are just shows, right? What they are failing to see is the people behind and in front of the show. They are, time and time again, delivering the message “your story doesn’t matter…you don’t matter.” A narrative that is already ingrained enough.
This isn’t about canceled TV shows. This isn’t about passionate fan bases wanting to see how stories end. This is about a group of people getting canceled from being represented in media. This is about the perpetuation of some people, and their stories, mattering less than others.
Streaming Services — let’s be better. Let’s do better. Let’s stop canceling TV shows the mean so much more than a weekend spent on the couch under a blanket. Let’s give voices and space to stories that deserve and need to be told.
If you so choose, you can support the fight to save Warrior Nun by signing the petition here.
