In an effort to build a space for queer people like myself, every Sunday I’ll be posting interviews, opinion pieces, listicles, reviews, and more focused on the LGBT community (and occasionally about the Latinx community since I am Latinx.) Welcome to Queerly Not Straight! Enjoy and leave a comment below if you have a suggestion for what I should cover next.
l know I should be grateful that Motherland: Fort Salem ended the way it did. The LGBTQ+ characters, Raelle and Scylla, didn’t die in a flashy Bury Your Gays trope. That should be enough to have me waving my Pride flag around, right? That and the fact that my babies Abigail and Tally are still kicking and proving that they are some of the strongest characters on TV. But there’s something about this all that is rubbing me the wrong way and making me seriously contemplate whether I’m settling?
Personally, I’m used to folding like a house of cards and accepting what comes my way. Not all the time. But sometimes. It makes it easier to not make waves and I just want to hold onto the good without souring it with my need for more. But what if I keep going like that? What if I keep accepting shows like Motherland: Fort Salem, enjoying them, and then sitting idly by as they get canceled after three seasons? Because, sure, they gave us three amazing seasons and made us fall in love with a lovely cast. But it simply isn’t enough.
It all ultimately comes down to a balancing act; one that no one ever taught me and that maybe I have to teach myself. Because I loved what we got in Motherland: Fort Salem. I’m truly grateful for the relationships that were born on this show (romantic and familial), the adventures we went on, and the world that was built. But I have to learn that I can appreciate something, love it to the moon and back, and still think that an ambiguous/open ending is a bad way to go for a show with so much potential when it comes to LGBTQ+ representation and its empowering messages for women.
Three seasons isn’t enough. Not even remotely enough. And it feels like a disservice to Motherland: Fort Salem fans and the people behind this great show, to give us a taste and then snatch it away. We deserve more. They deserve more. *looks over at Talder specifically* And it’s not a bad thing to look at a network like Freeform and ask them to give us more of this show about brilliant women, complicated love, and the witchy troubles they face framed in such a way that we as fans can understand and then apply to our own lives.
So, I’m not bitter that Motherland: Fort Salem ended. I’m disappointed that this is all we got. Because it’s not enough to give us a taste of what representation feels like through a show like this. We want a full meal with dessert and a goodie bag to take home with us and show our friends. Because this show, it’s a gem that wasn’t given an opportunity to truly blossom. And I don’t want to sit back and just watch a new pattern emerge where we are given small nibbles of greatness, looking at you First Kill on Netflix, before it’s snatched away.
It’s time to ask for more while celebrating what we have and keeping those in power accountable for snatching things away when things were just getting good. And for me, it starts with Motherland: Fort Salem.
Queerly Not Straight posts every Sunday with opinion pieces, listicals, reviews, and more focused on the LGBT community (and occasionally about the Latinx community since I am Latinx.)
