Fans revolt after gay character killed on popular TV show
Fans of a popular TV show are outraged after a gay character was unexpectedly killed off.
Beware ā spoilers ahead!
Fans of The 100, an American teen drama set post apocalypse, tweeted the phrase āLGBT fans deserve betterā over 280,000 times.
The tweets and campaign were in response to the last episode of the programme, during which the character Lexa was killed.
This comes soon after she found romance with the character Clarke shared a passionate kiss.
Just moments after the kiss, which was celebrated by fans, devastation struck as Lexa was shot dead.
Fans organised the Twitter campaign to coincide with the latest episode of the programme on Thursday ā Lexa died last week.
Campaigners accuse the producers of bringing the character to a stereotypically tragic end, which they say is typical of LGBT characters of bygone times.
As well as the nearly 300k tweets, fans also coordinated to not watch the latest episode, in an attempt to bring ratings down.
Another hashtag calling for the show to be cancelled was retweeted 10,000 times.
Fans also donated more than Ā£21,000 to the Trevor Project over a few hours.
āThis is not something āsorryā can fix. Anyone with any creative control and a literary background has a responsibility to the audience they are so carefully trying to reach,ā a fundraising page for the Trevor Project read.
āThere is not much we can do in the way of changing whatās already been written. What we can do however, is unite to help those who are hurting and despondent through this.ā
The actor who plays Lexa, Alycia Debnam-Carey , tweeted her goodbye to the fans but has not commented yet on the controversy.
