issue 24 // volume 42

Women at war

> ‘Waiting for the Parade’ review

Cheryl Minns
Contributor

 

t’s a woman’s world in
Douglas College’s production
of John Murrell’s Waiting for
the Parade. Following the lives
of five Calgary women during
the Second World War, the
play explores the pain, loss,
and changing social dynamics
that women faced in that era
through 24 scenes featuring
drama, comedy, and music.
Waiting for the Parade
begins with Janet (Shannon
Lindsey) ordering the three
women in her group—housewife
Catherine (Rachel Fournier),
young teacher Eve (Pamela
Carolina Martinez), and older
mother Margaret (Lily Gillette)—
to perfectly and promptly roll
gauze for the first aid kits being

 

prepared. It is established that
Janet is an unkind, bossy leader
who has little compassion for
the women who work for her.
However, it eventually becomes
clear that her not-so-perfect
home life is what has driven her
to her current state. Lindsey
does an excellent job at making
the audience despise Janet
at some moments and then
sympathize with her in others,
especially in a later scene where
she confronts her husband
while playing the piano.
Catherine misses her
enlisted husband until she
realizes that she can live her life
without him. She gets a job at
a factory to provide for herself
and her daughter. She starts
seeing another man, despite
the fact that she is still married.
Fournier gives a particularly
passionate performance when

Bury Your Gays

> Gay characters the new Star Trek redshirts

Rebecca Peterson
Staff Writer

 

he Bury Your Gays trope has

come to the forefront of pop
media discussion once more
after the death of yet another
LGBTQ+ character in a popular
TV series (left unnamed here
so as not to spoil the show).
But what is this trope, and
exactly how prevalent is it?

The Bury Your Gays
phenomenon, so named by
the website TV Tropes, goes
back decades, and examines
the trend of LGBTQ+ people
dying in stories to serve the
narrative of the main characters,
or to prove a moral point. In
the past, LGBTQ+ characters
had a habit of dying as a direct
result of their lifestyle, either by
contracting AIDs or committing
suicide due to societal
pressures and expectations.
This could be viewed one of
two ways: that the LGBTQ+
people in question are being
punished for their existence,
or that the life of an LGBTQ+
person is inherently tragic.

The latter narrative seems
to have carried forward in

pop culture today. Most of
our prominent films featuring
LGBTQ+ people—movies like
Brokeback Mountain, or A Single
Man—are tragedies with a body
count at the end of them. The
recent Oscar nominee Carol was
lauded as being unusual as not
only did both lesbian women
survive to the end of the movie,
but they got a happy ending
together, thus subverting what’s
starting to be seen as inevitable.
One might argue, of course,
that this trope is a result of

Catherine gets her long-awaited
moment to tell off Janet and
criticize the woman’s rude
behaviour. The moment marks
Catherine’s change from a passive
housewife to an outspoken
individual, which Fournier
powerfully delivers. Catherine’s
evolution captures how women
of that era developed a level

of independence without

their husbands around and
were no longer bound to

their traditional roles.

“The play is really about the
change of the woman’s role in
Canadian society,” said Rebecca
Troock, who plays Marta. “This
was an interesting exploration in
noting the differences in going
from traditional, conservative
women into what we are today.”

Marta, a German-born
shopkeeper who immigrated to
Canada asa child, struggles to

   

hypersensitivity. After all,
heterosexual characters are
killed off with wild abandon
in show, movies, and books as
well, and we wouldn't see that
as a disturbing trend. People
do have a habit of dying, both
in fiction and in real life. Being
attracted to the same gender as
your own does not automatically
grant you immortality.

The reason this is considered
a trope is due to the fact that
there aren’t enough LGBTQ+
people in media to be killing

 

run her father’s clothing shop
after he is charged with being
a Nazi supporter and detained
in a Canadian prison camp.
Troock gives a heart-wrenching
performance when she argues
for her father’s release to the
point of tears, as well as when
she forcefully stands her ground
after Janet tells her not to play
German music in her own
shop. The discrimination that
Marta encounters is a harsh
reminder of the prejudice that
ethnic groups struggle with
when a country is at war.
Although Margaret and
Eve’s ages and personalities are
drastically different, they both
worry about their children—
Margaret’s two sons and Eve’s
students—and how the war
will affect them. Margaret is a
pessimist and assumes she’s lost
her sons forever when one goes

Image in Brokeback Mountain (2005)

N
%
)

them off with the frequency
that we murder heterosexual
people. A recent study found
that only four per cent of
primetime broadcast television
characters fell under the LGBTQ+
umbrella. When so few people
of a certain demographic are to
be found in media, it’s then very
noticeable when they disappear.
However, what’s considered
galling about this particular trope
is not just that gay characters
seem more at risk for catching

arts // no. 9

   

Photo by Cheryl Minns

to war and the other doesn’t
come home anymore. Eve is an
optimist who wants to persuade
her students out of joining
the war, despite her husband’s
disagreement that they belong
on the front lines. Gillette’s
behaviour and mannerisms make
her a convincing older woman on
stage, especially during scenes
where Margaret tries to hide how
ill she is becoming. Martinez’s
bubbly personality brings a burst
of energy to the play whenever
Eve is onstage, adding a lightness
to the darker scenes when
characters discuss war and death.
Waiting for the Parade
will be performed at Douglas
College’s Studio Theatre until
March 18. Tickets are $10 for
students and $20 for adults.
Tickets can be purchased
at WaitingForTheParade.
BrownPaperTickets.com

stray bullets than heterosexual
characters, it’s the manner in
which they die. Often these
characters meet their end not
by their own merits, granted
the heroism and agency of a
heterosexual character, but to
serve the plot of other characters.
In the most recent example
of this trope, the character in
question did not fall in battle,
as was a more likely and fitting
end for her character. Rather, she
was killed by accident during an
attempt on the main character’s
life, strictly to further the plot
of that character. Many felt this
did not do the character justice,
and made her death a forced
tragedy rather than a respectful
end to her arc on the show.
Characters die, heterosexual
and LGBTQ+ alike. However,
until our representation more
accurately reflects the realities
of our own diverse society,
perhaps it’s not too much to
ask that writers lay off the few
gay characters we have floating
around. Let’s endeavour to send
these beloved characters, who
mean so much toa marginalized
group of people, to retirement
homes, not their early graves.