Haunting Our Narrative

Portraits of a beautiful woman plated in gold rest upon the walls of a twenty year old cinephile. Her smile is unbroken, eyes remaining as clear as the day she was brought into this world in a cold, dark writers room. For she has known such turmoil that she must be made permanent in a place that cannot hurt her. She is pure.

Portraits of a young girl are scattered on the streets of Lake Elsinore, California, surrounded by half burnt candles and flowers. Short messages written in multicolored Sharpie display the grief of a small, tight knit community. Here, she can rest easy without the constant speculation of netizens. Here and only here, she is free. 

If you have existed on the internet for some time, you may have come across the concept of a fictional character “haunting the narrative”. A concept derived from stories where a character's death embeds itself into the lives and actions of the remaining characters. It’s a quite romantic idea, granting these characters a level of permanence; allowing their existence to be known forever. Notable characters falling under this trope include Jackie Taylor (Yellowjackets) and Laura Palmer (Twin Peaks), two characters often turned into novelties atoned on shirts and photographs in viewers home. 

These characters are often described as the image of perfection, a delicate flower wilted by the cruelty of society. The growing obsession with these characters is partially in nature to the brutality of their deaths in juxtaposition to their physical beauty. These characters are often interpreted through a parasocial lens, putting them on an almost God-like pedestal. Viewers disregard character depth and instead transform them into caricatures of trauma, allowing them to cosplay empaths to justify their obsessions. 

This kind of blind obsession however finds itself conditional. Consumers treat this type of deep trauma as a commodity, reserving it only for those in fiction stories. Most notably, white beautiful         cicgender women. When a real life victim shows flaws (as any person does), they break the expectation of the “perfect victim”, and are not met with a fraction of the support. 

A large topic on social media at the moment is the death of Celeste Rivas Hernandez, a fourteen year old hispanic girl found dead in the trunk of  a famous singer’s Tesla. The narrative of this story has remained almost entirely around her alleged celebrity killer, instead of honoring the life of a child. Netizens have dug up every aspect of her life with willing critique. They dig into her family, rip apart her behavior in any leaked video, and place a lot of blame on this young child. Her tragedy is not treated as a tragedy but instead as a mere piece of internet drama. 

Venus Xtraveganza, a trans patron in the 90s ballroom scene, has held a bold legacy on her community. She was one of the trailblazers of the New York queer scene, inspiring trans youth today. She achieved so much in her life, and was murdered relentlessly by one of her escort clients. She had dreams of being a star; she was a star. People of this time period took this as just a risk of the “lifestyle” she was living, in contrast to a growing pattern of violence against her community. Stories like this are often pushed under the rug, as the life and struggle experienced are difficult to romanticize despite the impact their legacies left. The bravery of these women is only recognized to their impacted communities, with society viewing their tragedy as a mere casualty to those they deem lesser than them. 

Society has a very capitalistic viewpoint of women’s suffering. If one cannot monetize these traumatic events, what is even the point? By refusing to acknowledge the suffering of the forgotten, consumers are unknowingly upholding this prejudice. The lives of those gone impact every aspect of our being even without our knowledge, and the choice to forget reinforces that violence against women is not a cause to be taken seriously. Creating these impossible standards for what makes a “good life” worth celebrating only divides us as a society, creating further rifts between communities. For there is nothing wrong with enjoying these characters, but to break free of these prejudices we must challenge our own ideas on the double standards upheld by racism and ignorance. We must view these hardships on a level playing field to truly fuel empathy toward all women, regardless of gender or race. 

Strike Out,

Lillian McLemore, Writer

Strike Magazine Chattanooga