How Agatha All Along cleverly avoids the Bury Your Gays trap

The Marvel Cinematic Universe came back in a big way in 2024, and after complaints that superhero fatigue was tanking the world’s highest-grossing franchise, it seems all we needed was a bit of camp to bring things back around. Despite the lauded legacy of Jac Schaeffer’s WandaVision, the idea of focusing an entire spinoff on Kathryn Hahn’s Agatha Harkness seemed like a gamble. Boasting a diverse cast of LGBTQ+ actors and promises from Aubrey Plaza (Aubrey Plaza) that it would be a "gay explosion" meant that fans had to deal with the usual cries that the MCU has gone ‘woke.’

Thankfully, while The Marvels felt the wrath of those unable to handle a movie led by women, Agatha All Along has defied expectations. From debuting one of the most important gay characters from Marvel Comics to giving us the MCU’s first lesbian kiss, Agatha All Along did more than we could've hoped for in terms of queer representations. Come on, though, any show boasting a gay icon like Patti LuPone was always going to be waving its pride flag. While there’s plenty to love, some are worried Agatha All Along falls into the deadly trope of ‘Bury Your Gays’. But, “That’s not the truth, Ellen.”

An LGBTQuestionable History

For those unfamiliar, Bury Your Gays is an unfortunate trope that afflicts many movies but is mainly a problem in the world of television. Similar to ‘fridging’ where a female character is killed off to catapult a male lead’s story forward, the Bury Your Gays refers to the habit of shows and movies killing off their gay characters. With gay couples largely being a rarity onscreen compared to their straight counterparts, their mortality rate seems pretty alarming.

Some notable examples of Bury Your Gays include the death of Tara in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Lost revealing that M. C. Gainey’s Tom was gay after it had already killed him off, and The 100 kickstarting the modern movement with the uncerimonial death of Lexa in 2016. Both The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones frequently buryed their gays. The Walking Dead notably killed Dr. Denise Cloyd, Tara, and Jesus, with the latter two deaths coming in season 9. To be fair to showrunner Angela Kang, she defended the deaths of Tara and Jesus to The Hollywood Reporter, explaining that she didn’t want to treat LGBTQ+ characters differently or engage in tokenism.

Game of Thrones has one of the worst rates for LGBTQ+ deaths out there. Oberyn and Elia Martell, Renley Baratheon, Loras Tyrell, and Lord Varys were just some of the LGBTQ+ characters that met a brutal end, while Olyvar was quietly sidelined after he betrayed the Tyrells. When things ended in season 8, Gemma Whelan’s Yara Greyjoy was the only openly LGBTQ+ character who survived the whole sordid saga. House of the Dragon looked like it was going to be tarred with the same brush, as season 1 quickly offed Ser Joffrey Lonmouth. Things get more awkward when you remember the same episode cut a scene that seemingly confirmed Matt Smith’s Daemon Targaryen is bisexual.

On the reverse of this, there’s also the Preserve Your Gays trope, seen in shows like Star Wars: Andor, where Cinta and Vel become the only Aldahni rebels to survive, The Boys’ Queen Maeve lives through a 50-story drop, and "San Junipero" is remembered as one of the few episodes of Black Mirror that has a ‘happy’ ending. Righting Game of Thrones’ wrongs, House of the Dragon season 1 memorably saved Laenor Velaryon (John Macmillian) from his character’s fate in the books. In a world that's so full of death, it was a genuine shock that the show allowed Laenor to sail off into the unknown for his own happy ending. Let’s just hope the writers don’t decide to bring him back to be unceremoniously killed off.

Don’t cry for me Agatha Harkness

As for Agatha All Along, Wiccan (aka Billy Maximoff, played by Joe Locke) has been given some heavy LGBTQ+ plot armor; he's a prominent member of the Young Avengers, the son of the Scarlet Witch, and his romance with Hulkling in Marvel Comics makes him one of the most iconic gay characters in the medium. Agatha All Along made great headway in branching out from the heterosexual-dominated early days of the franchise. For one, it set Billy on his path towards becoming a queer Young Avenger. There was also the surprise reveal that Agatha and Rio Vidal were former lovers. This takes on a batsh*t layer when we learn that Rio is actually Death, meaning Agatha had once dated the personification of Death.

Things came to a head in the Agatha All Along finale, when Agatha’s card is finally punched when she gets a literal kiss of death from her ex. Although some might argue that a series so noted for breaking from convention has fallen for one of the oldest TV traps, that’s not the case. Agatha’s ‘death’ means Bury Your Gays doesn’t work here because we aren’t ready to say goodbye to her yet. Following a showdown with Plaza’s Death, a ghostly version of Agatha reunites with Billy and sets out to find his MIA brother in what could become Agatha All Along season 2. After giving the finale a rewatch, I’d argue that Agatha’s death is clever way to circumnavigate the Bury Your Gays trope while still giving us the landmark lesbian kiss. 

The MCU has faced plenty of rightful flack for its handling of LGBTQ+ characters, notably having Joe Russo (a straight man) play the franchise’s first openly gay character. That happened as recently as in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame. Same-sex romances were cut from Thor: Ragnarok and Wakanda: Forever, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was censored in some territories due to a throwaway line about America Chavez having two moms. As far back as Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the MCU was accused of fueling the Hide Your Lesbians trope by refusing to honor Victoria Hand and Isabelle Hartley’s romance from the comics. Caught between a rock and a hard place, showrunners Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon admitted to Entertainment Weekly that they didn’t want to be "known as the people who killed off two lesbians on the show."

Even if time has moved on, some attitudes sadly haven’t. You only have to look at the backlash and review-bombing of The Last of Us’ Emmy-winning "Long, Long Time" to make it feel like we’re still in the dark ages. Maybe Agatha All Along was simply too gay to warrant review-bombing, as at the time of writing it’s currently rated higher than Loki season 2 on Rotten Tomatoes. A new era of the MCU is here, and while the Stars and Stripes of something like Captain America: Brave New World will appeal to the old guard, it’s refreshing that other projects are trying to diversify. It’s a careful balance between fair representation and box-ticking, but Agatha All Along just about has it all. Who knew all it took was Aubrey Plaza playing an unhinged depiction of Death for the LGBTQ+ community to finally feel accepted by the MCU?

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