Naya Rivera will be recalled in headlines as being a “former Glee celebrity, ” but to countless queer women just like me around the world, she’s been and can continually be much more. Her unexpected tragic death, verified Monday, has delivered a revolution of profound sadness across that which was when a captivating and vital fandom. And it is a reminder exactly how much it indicates if the those who portray LGBTQ characters become tough advocates for the really community that is same.
Rivera’s Glee character, Santana Lopez, had been constantly written become damaging — the smoking cheerleader that is hot the razor-sharp wit and bitch-with-pom-poms mindset. But over the course of the show’s six periods, she became a beacon to lesbian, bisexual and questioning fans, especially young Latinx and Ebony fans, nearly all whom had been seeing themselves onscreen for the very first time. Now her death devastates us yet again.
Her character’s development from the show had been additionally evidence of the energy of fandom during the early times of social networking. In reality, she might have never become this kind of icon that is queer it. Make no error, us fans willed the onscreen relationship into presence between Rivera’s Santana and her friend that is best and other cheerleader Brittany S. Pierce (played by Heather Morris).
Whenever Glee premiered in ’09, the series that is musical a sensation out of the choir space. And — like most all-singing, all-dancing show choir worth its jazz fingers — it possessed a cast of figures made from effortlessly recognizable and simple to determine with archetypes: the painful and sensitive jock, the singing Tracy Flick, the bullied homosexual teenager, the rowdy bad kid, the diva-in-training and much more. Continue reading “How Naya Rivera Became an Icon for the LGBTQ Community (Guest Column)”