Statement from Sherry White

I had only become aware of the whole “bury your gays” trope when I saw my dear friend Noelle Carbone’s posts on Facebook. Within one week, she posted at least three articles, about three different shows that killed off lesbian characters. By the time she posted about Empire, I was really getting the point – this is out of control and ridiculous and damaging.

THAT’S when I realized The Catch was also guilty of doing the same thing. We had recently chosen to kill a bisexual character. Strangely, The Catch writing room has a lot of LGBTQ representation – more than any writing room I’ve ever been in. The choice to kill Felicity had a story function in the bigger picture, but we failed to realize how we were also feeding into this trope. Had we been aware, we surely would have chosen not to do this. Or if showing how dangerous Rhys is required a death, we might have chosen to kill a different character.

When I realized my show was guilty of this, I sent Noelle a text immediately and told her as much. It was too late to do anything about it, but I made a promise to Noelle that I would never again allow this to happen in a story room without putting up an epic fight. I apologized to her, and I apologize to all of you.

It was after that that Noelle approached me to sign the pledge. And I signed it wholeheartedly. I mean it and I stand by it. I promise that I will dig deeper, be truer, and be much more mindful when telling stories; my stories, your stories, our stories.

Sherry White