Supergirl: Sanvers’ Breakup Illustrates the Need for Positive Queer Representation on TV
Well, it happened. The moment many Sanvers fans have been dreading finally played out Monday night on Supergirl as Alex (Chyler Leigh) and Maggie (Floriana Lima) officially called it quits. Although the seemingly perfect couple was busy making wedding plans for most of this season, a fissure in the relationship happened that they were never able to recover from. Alex realized she has always had a strong desire to have children, while Maggie’s version of their life together never included them. They were at an impasse, unable to get past this one issue, but it eventually led to the demise of their relationship.
The breakup was unlike many others on TV. From a strictly story point of view, it was unusual in that it happened out of love and ended with no hate, no hard feelings and no one really at fault. There was no blame to be doled out. Off-screen, of course, the breakup was caused by Lima’s decision to step down as a series regular this year and pursue other projects. While that’s something she has every right to do, and is not an atypical move for many actors, it has made fans more than aware that this breakup was coming, leaving many to dread this day for months.
Not only have fans been sad and fearful about losing one of their favorite couples, but the loss of Sanvers also means the loss of one of the very few successful, positive queer relationships on TV today. While the attention brought over the last two years to the harmful “Bury Your Gays” trope has resulted in fewer deaths for LGBTQ characters, overall representation numbers are still severely lacking. Because of this, Alex and Maggie’s relationship held significant weight to many Supergirl fans who are now feeling this loss harder than ever, and see it as just another instance where queer characters on television are denied a happy ending.
The breakup itself and reason behind it on screen felt realistic, relatable and heartbreaking, especially since there’s no real solution or someone to blame for making Alex, Maggie and all of us at home so sad. Both women have valid points of views and opinions here. Neither are being unreasonable or hurtful to the other. Sometimes love just isn’t enough. The question of whether or not to have kids is one that almost all relationships face at one point or another. Kids are a huge deal and having them drastically changes a relationship. While I wish we would’ve been privy to the actual conversation between Alex and Maggie that led them to call it quits, the fact that it happened off-screen saved us from some of the heartbreak.
Alex is always going to want kids. No matter how hard she tries, she can’t turn that off. It’s actually very mature and smart, even though it hurts a hell of a lot, for both women to realize that they shouldn’t push the other into any decision they may one day regret. Regrets are not a healthy thing to have, and if Maggie or Alex would’ve agreed to go against their true feelings it most likely would’ve led to them resenting each other down the road. Once resentment enters the equation, a relationship is pretty much doomed from there on out. Sacrifices must always be made in relationships, but here it felt like if either woman gave in it would’ve been too big and just led to trouble down the road.
The reasoning behind this breakup was further proof of the love that existed, and still does, between them and how much they truly meant to each other. They changed each other and made each other better people as a result. While difficult in the moment, I am still hopeful for the future given these two left one another on such a loving, respectful note.
Alex: “I didn’t know I had it in me to be happy. Or to be accepting of myself. I never would’ve gotten here without you.”
Maggie: “You made me deal with my own stuff. Confront my past. Look at the things I didn’t want to look at. I’m stronger for it. I’m really grateful for you.”
All of this is not to say that fans don’t have a right to feel upset or sad over Sanvers breaking up. They have every right to those feelings, especially when I struggle to think beyond just Wynonna Earp, The Shannara Chronicles and Carmilla for examples of successful, positive LGBTQ relationships happening on-screen at the moment. That was what Sanvers was for many: an on-screen representation of a loving, respectful, healthy relationship between two women. Because there are so few others like it, Sanvers held significant weight in the lives of many viewers, and the loss of this relationship is one that will be felt more than typical television breakups.
There is a glaring lack of representation on television and more than anything that is what this Sanvers breakup illustrates. How do we make the loss of queer relationships not hurt quite as bad? Simply put, have more of them! Relationships between male and female characters rarely elicit the same passionate and vocal response that queer on screen relationships do because there’s just so many of them for fans to choose from. “Oh, the guy and gal on Show A broke up? No big deal! I still have ‘ships sailing on Show B, C, D, etc., etc.” Queer fans don’t have that luxury. Their on screen losses are bigger, more impactful and have potential for more damage because there are just too few of them.
Sanvers was proof that queer stories matter and they are 100 per cent worth telling. The people they represent matter and deserve to have their stories told just as much as the next person. Both Leigh and Lima have been incredible allies during this journey, realizing the powerful voice that their characters can be for all the LGBTQ fans out there longing to hear their stories told. My hope is that this just proves we can’t stop here. Sanvers’ story may be (temporarily?) halted, but Alex’s journey continues on. Her story matters and should be told, just as each and every person matters and should see themselves represented on screen.
So if you’re hurting over Sanvers today, know that you are not alone. There are many others mourning the loss of this couple and what they represented. Hopefully they have helped illustrate the need for more and more LGBTQ characters and relationships on screen. These characters allow many to know they are not alone in their feelings, help to create better allies or even help someone who is intolerant have a little better understanding. Sanvers did that and I have hope there will be more to follow in their footsteps. Until then, remember to never be afraid of who you are and kiss the girls you want to kiss.
What did you think of Sanvers breakup? Share your thoughts below!
Supergirl airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on the CW and Showcase.
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About The Author
Bridget Liszewski
Editor in Chief Bridget Liszewski comes from a long line of TV Junkies who fostered her love of television from a very young age. She's channeled that passion into covering both US and Canadian television shows, and is thankful everyday for the invention of the DVR. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame, she loves college football and is a fan of sports in general. Bridget is always up for talking TV and you can follow her on twitter at @BridgetOnTV.
I thought the breakup was handled well, and considering one of the actresses was leaving by choice, rather than being written out, it was a good way to do it.
And I loved the scene where they drank and danced together for the last time.
I’m looking forward to seeing where they go next with Alex’s journey (and if that journey includes a brief stop in the arms of Sara Lance, I will not complain).
Thank you for this important and thoughtful piece, Bridget. The build-up of this relationship, combined with the commitment and acting of Chyler and Flo put Sanvers pretty high up on the list of best wlw romances I’ve seen portrayed, which made it that much more painful to know it was ending. But your right, it hurts to lose any decent LGBTQ relationships because there are never more than a few going on. Bianca and Maggie on All My Children was one of the first relationships I was really invested in and it still stings to think about them ending well over a decade ago. It shows how much progress is yet to be made that 10 years later there are still just a handful of wlw relationships that have been done well enough to make me care.
1/5 I appreciate this article as a measured piece that offers thoughtful consideration of fans affected badly by this break up. That said, I disagree a lot with your evaluation of the show’s handling of the break up. And I question your proposed solution to the problem of fans suffering loss of beloved LGBTQ representation.
(My following comments are broken up into sections because I’m afraid they’re really long.)
2/5 “While that’s something she has every right to do, and is not an atypical move for many actors, it has made fans more than aware that this breakup was coming, leaving many to dread this day for months.”
Many prepared themselves as best they could and dreaded this day for months, thanks to spoilers from unknown sources that leaked details of the break up storyline. I imagine many also were not prepared.
Executive producers Andrew Kreisberg, Jessica Queller, and Greg Berlanti used vague and contradictory language to answer what Floriana Lima’s recurring status meant for the Sanvers storyline. Their insistance on their ‘commitment’ to Sanvers and expressed hope for Lima’s future appearances on the show resulted in hopeful fans being left feeling baited and strung along.
The producers left it to the actresses, Lima and Chyler Leigh, to first acknowledge Lima’s one-year contract as a regular, and that there were no clear plans for continuing the Sanvers storyline beyond season two. They also left it to Lima to clearly acknowledge for the first time her exit from the show in an interview conducted 3 episodes into season three. On the day the break up aired, Leigh, aware of the damaging effect the episode would have on fans at risk, tweeted her support and retweeted the Trevor Project’s offer to support distraught fans.
All this while the producers did nothing to acknowledge or mitigate the emotional turmoil their decisions were causing. In fact, the show’s promotion going into season three still showcased Sanvers as an engaged couple, furthering the fans’ anger at feeling baited by the seeming promise of a wedding that was not to happen. What I saw in the showrunners’ actions was an appalling lack of care in how their decisions could affect a vulnerable audience.
And yes, Lima’s decision was something she has every right to do. Not only that, it awoke fans to how poorly this show has handled her character and the Sanvers storyline, and how they need to make their opinions and feelings about this poor treatment known. In my eyes, Lima has done great service to the fans and for LGBTQ representation through her work in portraying Maggie Sawyer and through her decisions and actions.
Given that Lima has clearly expressed her willingness to return to the show, I’m waiting for the producers will make good on their word and make the effort to bring Maggie back as a better written character. That would demonstrate their so-called commitment and ameliorate the damage they’ve caused through their poor handling of Lima’s exit and Sanvers’ closure.
3/5 “While I wish we would’ve been privy to the actual conversation between Alex and Maggie that led them to call it quits, the fact that it happened off-screen saved us from some of the heartbreak.”
The fact that the actual conversation “happened” off-screen added to the heartbreak for me. It was heartbreaking to see this already sad storyline being reduced to a one-sided drama of Alex “realizing” her suddenly revealed deep-seated desire for children while Maggie’s struggle was pushed off-screen. Then finally Maggie herself was pushed off-screen, because she couldn’t change herself for Alex’s sake. Just as she couldn’t change herself to be what her parents wanted, Maggie once again had to leave her home and family because that family didn’t want her for who she was.
That was what fans who saw themselves in Maggie got to see on screen. That was what they got in place of actual conversation through which Maggie and Alex struggled together to hold on and finally reached a mutual decision to let each other go. Fans were deprived of the chance to see this important struggle. They were denied the chance to process their loss of a beloved couple together with Maggie and Alex, by watching that couple processing their loss of each other through actual conversation presented on screen.
None of this is Alex’s fault or Maggie’s. It’s the fault of writers who failed to give due consideration to how their storytelling presented the break up. The show failed to present this story in the mature and considerate way it required.
4/5 “That was what Sanvers was for many: an on-screen representation of a loving, respectful, healthy relationship between two women.”
That representation was always flawed, because while the relationship was supposed to be a loving, respectful one between two women, the show always cared far more about showing Alex’s side of the story than Maggie’s. Maggie was not accorded respectful treatment by the show’s writers as a part of the regular cast, as a character deserving of a fleshed-out and integrated existence in Supergirl’s world. She was treated as no more than Alex’s “love interest”, a marginalized and insubstantial character, sloppily written to serve the whims of Alex’s storyline. Maggie Sawyer was the show’s token lesbian girlfriend.
Thanks to Lima’s performance, Maggie transcended the show’s poor writing and come alive as a character who resonated with many. Thanks to two talented actreses working in partnership, Sanvers transcended poorly written, one-sided representation and became a relationship loved by many.
Fans are not only mourning the loss of a ship or a happy ending. Many are also mourning the loss of a character held dear in their hearts as a representation of themselves.
5/5 “How do we make the loss of queer relationships not hurt quite as bad? Simply put, have more of them!”
The answer to the problem of representation is not as simple as “hav[ing] more of them.” Because that answer only raises another question: Have more of what? More queer relationships that end in loss and heartbreak? More queer relationships where one character is treated as little more than another character’s “love interest”? Quantity is important, but it cannot replace quality. A profusion of Sanvers cannot make loss hurt less, if they are all written and handled as poorly as the Sanvers that just ended.
And is having more quality queer relationships enough to make the loss of one hurt less for fans who love that one ship? Does the loss of something loved and treasured hurt less simply because there are more things like it? There seems to me an underlying assumption behind this proposal, that representations of relationships are reducible to interchangeable objects of consumption, that the loss of one ship can be compensated by filling its place with another. I question the validity of this assumption.
It seems to me that the hurt of losing any instance of representation is at once communal and yet very personal and individual. That hurt cannot be always be lessened by the availability of something that may replace what was lost. Sometimes the only thing to be done when suffering loss is to grieve, and the only thing that aids this process of grieving is the giving and receiving of care. The showrunners showed no care for the hurt that can be caused by their decisions and actions, and I feel this lack of care is what lies at the heart of the problem of loss and hurt so often experienced by the LGBTQ audience. In that respect, I feel your thoughtful acknowledgement of the hurt fans are feeling goes more toward an effective remedy than to simply have more queer relationships.
Good article and good point on the “but we still have ships A B C” etc . but I think you didn’t need to just recap how everyone knows how everyone feels which is sad and the point of break up is really true and valid and it makes sense. Some of your articles on Sanvers I think could critique more rather than just recapping what we’ve already seen…we feel emotional enough to be honest… I appreciate the support though Bridget … I’d check out TV after dark’s one (http://tvafterdark.com/farewell-detective-maggie-sawyer/) where it validates us but actually gets their hands dirty critiquing a show which I guess is what all journalist pages like these aim to do.
wow it was a beautiful text that I have a lot of pleasure to read with Google translate.. just a little bit lol (I am a French-speaking Quebecer). Here is a text that I would have liked to write … it explains all that I feel and my opinion on the under representation of positive LGBT characters. I would have liked to have the equivalent in French in order to understand my vision around me …
To Autorymous: I agree with points in your third part, it definitely would have been nice to see why Maggie doesn’t want kids beyond she just doesn’t want them. This one sided POV isn’t new though as in S2 we were shown how Mon supposedly felt about Kara but we never really were shown why Kara cared for him so much and it added to the issues with that pairing for myself. “Then finally Maggie herself was pushed off-screen, because she couldn’t change herself for Alex’s sake.” – to be fair had she stayed she would have been sad because Alex wasn’t going to change how she feels either; I feel the child plot was just a sure fire way to split them up for now because with any other plot they probably would have still been together and for me I want see Alex’s romances just as much as the straight characters so while I like Maggie I didn’t want to see her be Lyla Diggle-d thus I’m okay with this exit.
“the show always cared far more about showing Alex’s side of the story than Maggie’s” – I definitely understand how this can be frustrating as sometimes the date of the character can be just as interesting if not more than the main character but never see them as anything but the love interest. I chalk this up to Alex being a main character – stuff is going to be shown from her side mostly as we see her more; we learned things on Maggie but arguably no more than we’ve learned on M’gann or Lyra (are she and Winn even still together). “Supergirl” isn’t the only show to ever do this. “Maggie Sawyer was the show’s token lesbian girlfriend.” – I think she got more to do than just be the token girlfriend/boyfriend; it definitely would have been nice to see her mix with the group more in scenes but that could be said about M’gann as well and even Mon who had a fun dynamic with Winn until he hooked up with Kara and it disappeared.
“Quantity is important, but it cannot replace quality.” – I definitely agree with this statement; even in guest characters quality is important. We need to see imitate moments on screen for queer couples as much as straight couples; I realize with two women it’s a bit trickier to show some stuff in timeslots as they have boobs which can’t be shown but it can be done – I would have liked to have seen Alex’s top shirt come all the way off before the wall blocked them but it’s a start. We need more realistic feeling characters, not every queer person owns a cat – some love dogs and some may not even like pets. I thought Sanvers was handled well overall, was their room for improvement – sure but compared to other plots I’ve seen (even on the show itself comparing Sanvers to Karamel) it was overall a solid B; more handling like WayHaught and Cophine along with Sanvers, more Fosters – they may not all end in happiness but they also can and again quality matters along with quantity.