A harrowing marriage-death moment ... Kate and Rana say their vows in Coronation Street. Photograph: ITV
I grew up watching Coronation Street with my family, breathing in sharply whenever Sophie Webster came on screen. This was 2014, and as the romance between do-gooder Sophie and her runaway love-interest Maddie grew, I’d plan in my head how to say that I was like them. Then, on the night of a mammoth fire, Maddie was hit by a huge explosion from the Builder’s Yard on her way to meet Sophie. Sophie watched on from the other side of the road, screaming Maddie’s name. Maddie died. I didn’t come out to my family any time soon.
Why am I telling you about the death of a character years ago? Because this week, history repeated itself. On the wedding day of Kate Connor and Rana Nazir, the Corrie producers dumped the factory roof on Rana in her wedding dress . The falling roof rocked the factory like an explosion, trapping Rana under beams and debris. Kate and Rana have been the soap’s only lesbian couple since Sophie and Maddie – they had plans to have a baby, which would have been the show’s first depiction of same-sex parenting. Instead, she and Kate said their vows in the rubble. Stroking Rana’s shaking head, Kate read aloud: “You’re everything to me … love is one soul in two bodies and that’s us. I can’t exist without you.” Rana could barely speak from crying – “We can’t leave each other because we’re the same person,” she just about managed to say – and then she died. It was devastating.
Why does Coronation Street keep deploying violent lesbian deaths? It’s five years since same-sex marriage became legal in the UK, but the closest Corrie has come to giving viewers a gay wedding is this harrowing marriage-death moment.
Bhavna Limbachia, who plays Rana, has said she wanted to leave the show and that this was the only fitting end to her story – but it is not excuse enough to detonate yet another lesbian. We shouldn’t underestimate how corrosive it is for LGBT people to see themselves die on screen. Watching Rana die in Kate’s arms brought back all the feelings of shame, anger and frustration I felt when I was keeping my sexuality a secret and saw my only representation on screen fly into pieces.
Soaps are tragic by nature, but must they be particularly grim for gay people? Whether torn apart by death, homophobia or relationship breakups, I’m too used to seeing LGBT soap characters destined for misery. Hayley Cropper, the first transgender character in a UK soap, died a few years ago after a cancer diagnosis led her to take her own life. The show’s gay characters have little success when it comes to life, never mind love – Sean Tully became homeless last year, and it emerged that Billy Mayhew had become a heroin addict. And ever since the death of Maddie, Sophie’s dalliances have been doomed.
Gay people meet the same fate in other soaps. EastEnders killed off Paul Coker in a devastating homophobic attack in 2016, leaving boyfriend Ben to pick up the pieces. In 2015, Emmerdale’s lesbian character Ruby was killed in a helicopter crash (because that’s relatable, apparently). Long-time gay character Aaron Sugden-Dingle’s storylines have revolved mostly around his struggle to come to terms with his sexuality.
For years, it’s been a given that gay characters not just in soaps but across TV and film wind up dead. Why are we still talking about it in 2019? The problem is that we are used to television that essentially programs straight shows with gay characters. Mainstream TV often places LGBT people within an ‘acceptable’ heteronormative framework – following narratives which address LGBT people coming out or transitioning, fighting for survival and struggling for acceptance or straight privileges like the right to marry. In this way, mainstream TV shows straight audiences a world they are comfortable with, even luring them in with the use of ‘hot’ actors or dramatic storylines. This is why so many LGBT characters end up dead.
It is important to share real stories on soaps like Coronation Street, and shed light on important and heart-wrenching LGBT issues. But these tragedies needn’t make up the entirety of narratives about LGBT people. It’s equally important to see survival and hope, trivial romance and fun. LGBT people are still too invisible on soaps, and their happiness so often absent from storylines. I just want to see a stable gay relationship last for once.
For many LGBT people searching for representation and validation on screen, it’s important not to see a character you thought you saw yourself in explode into pieces and die. How about another gay wedding, Coronation Street – one that’s not in the rubble this time?