I have been wrong about lots of things lately.
Like, hilariously, complete 180 incorrect. Unable to read the room. Not gifted by the dodgeball of Apollo.
Examples: I told myself this was the year I would stop buying so many damn books. (That resolution lasted about, hm, two days.) I was convinced that Our Flag Means Death’s standout season two performance by Con O’Neill’s Izzy Hands meant that character would live forever. (Spoiler: he famously did not.) And I was reasonably sure that, following a hugely successful first season and a pretty impressive second—especially considering the drastic budget cuts—Our Flag had a third season in the bag. You can imagine my reaction, Pikachu-like, as I heard the news.
Showrunner David Jenkins had always said he envisioned a three-part story arc for the hit pirate comedy, and I saw no point in anyone denying him. Yet, as the official statement from streamer Max said, they have declined to go forward with more high-seas adventures. For a show as groundbreaking, diverse, and full of queer joy as Our Flag, this leaves a lot of fans shocked and disappointed.
I’ve been around the fandom block a few times; I am no stranger to the slings and arrows of TV cancellations. (Still not over the one-season wonder that was Almost Human, the exquisite sci-fi vehicle starring Michael Ealy and New Zealand’s own Karl Urban, as the promo on NZ Air positioned it when I first saw it on a redeye to Auckland back in 2013). The original Star Trek series struggled to remain on the air for three seasons, and only then with the unprecedented support of fans, most of whom were women. That franchise later grew into a run of movies and spin-offs, but that feels like a fairytale ending compared to today’s media landscape. When you fall in love with a piece of serialized media, there is always the risk of never getting the intended ending. (This is probably why so many people avoid WIP fanfiction. We’ve all been burned before.) But some cancellations feel personal, and for me, this is one of them.
My wife and I have a running gag that any tiny inconvenience in our lives can be blamed on homophobia or transphobia. Hangnail? Homophobic. Need to make an appointment that requires a phone call? The transphobia is back again. We’re out of milk? The bigotry will never cease. It takes our mind off the True Horrors for a bit (much like silly TV shows). And yet, for all my clowning, I can’t help but think there is something to the pattern of canceling queer TV series before their time.
Networks and streamers usually do not have to give reasons for their decisions to the public, but they do to their shareholders, which means cancellations are often treated with a catch-all impression of “I suppose this wasn’t profitable.” The opaque nature of streaming data has made it difficult to confirm these impressions, although hopefully new contracts with various unions secured in the last year will improve that. Lots of creative industries, in fact, are in a state of flux that I, one little guy, could not possibly get into here. Suffice to say, for writers and artists telling stories by and for marginalized communities, it feels like there are plenty of excuses for doing away with our stuff in the name of growing pains.
Maybe I’m wearing rose-colored glasses here, but surely there was a time when TV networks and media companies had a theoretical deal with creatives: you tell the story, we’ll do the boring, technical work of getting it out there. Now it’s: you tell the story, maybe, with as little expense as possible, and we might never release it because a tax break is better for us, or cancel it because we plan to sell off bits and pieces of our corporate corpse until all the shareholding funeral-goers are happy and contractually this isn’t working for us, the corpse, anymore. What I’m getting at here is, it’s easy for companies to drop even their most impressive shows for “business reasons” when under it all, once you strip the Scooby Doo villain mask off the capitalism, is more bigotry.
I write books. In the last few years in the US, homophobic, transphobic, and racist sentiment has led to all kinds of books being banned from libraries due to a very small number of people making it their mission to erase those stories (and people) from public life. Every month there seems to be another big article about how many books are being taken out of schools and libraries, or how restricted free speech has become in certain states. Although a small number of titles get coverage as The Most Banned Books in America, the vast majority of authors whose work is banned suffer lost sales and canceled events. Even more insidious is the “soft banning” of books—when stores or libraries decline to stock a title that MIGHT become the target of book banning, citing business reasons or lack of budget … reasons which could be valid! Valid enough that complaining vocally about this cowardice makes you look like an old man shouting at clouds. Can’t I see they’re trying to run a business here? Don’t I know that hard decisions have to be made?
Yeah, but why’s it always the stuff I like that’s on the chopping block? I can’t help but draw a throughline from what’s happening here to what’s happening on my TV screen.
Look, I’m not a journalist so I don’t have hard numbers for you. I can only tell you that as someone desperate for queer stories, I have lived through decades of my shows being cut down before their natural conclusion while other shows are allowed to stagger ahead as soulless zombies with a dozen ridiculous spin-offs and reboots that no one asked for. I’ve sometimes wondered if the answer is creating a new industry, one where the creatives own the means of production. But where would we even begin, and with what money? I don’t want to own and operate my own publishing house just as, I’m sure, most showrunners don’t want to run a network. I want to write stories, not do all the other million jobs required to produce it and put it into the world.
What’s the point, when that sword of Damocles is always dangling? I don’t know, but I keep writing.
(featured image: Max)
—
TJ Alexander is the author of several acclaimed trans and nonbinary romance novels. Their next book, a polyamorous romcom called Triple Sec, is now available for preorder.
