TV & FILM
The Queer Review
just changes schools and is never seen again. Other dead characters include Shana, a lesbian of colour in love with Jenna; Sara Harvey, a girl who pretends to have feelings for Emily to keep an eye on her; Yvonne, a black woman later married to Toby, whose death has no further purpose than to make him fragile and bring him closer to Spencer again; Lyndon, a black man who is revealed to have murdered Maya; and Emily’s father. Then, of course, there is the infamous Charlotte.
accepted as ‘cured’. Charlotte, however, goes one step further, and is represented as sadistic, getting enjoyment out of the physical pain of others. This shift to physical torture, as opposed to the mental and psychological war that Mona was waging, is uncomfortable when paired with the fact that Charlotte is revealed to be transgender, and that her entire revenge plot is based on her identity. The physicality of Charlotte’s torture is uncomfortably reminiscent of the sexualisation of queerness.
When I first watched Pretty Little Liars, I thought the inclusion of a trans character was brilliant. There are very few transgender people on TV, especially teenagers and young adults. The addition of one to a show that already had queer Asian representation could only be a good thing then, right? Unfortunately, the writing of Charlotte, her negative portrayal, her mental illness, and her pointless death ultimately do more harm than good. She is the absolute evil of the show, a mentally disturbed girl who obsessively tortures the main characters to the point of locking them in a real-life dollhouse. Mona, who was the first stalker, and terrorised the girls throughout seasons one and two, is ultimately forgiven and
Charlotte is not good representation. The portrayal of the only transgender character in a teen TV show as mentally ill and dangerous is not a step forward. Moreover, while Emily gets to date Alison in the end, her high school crush of many years, and, technically, a queer woman returned from the dead, it does not make up for the killing of her first love, and of the various queer people and people of colour. As the main lesbian of the show, the constant death surrounding her is troublesome, and when paired with Charlotte’s ending, it feels like a terror on queerness. What is an enjoyable, interesting show is shamefully dampened by the failed attempt at good reprsentation. - YAIZA CANOPOLI
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© Artwork by Miles Atkinson. Lettering by Beverly A. Devakishen