The message is clear: Lesbianism causes pain, suffering, and death. Heterosexuality wins.

Vito Russo, in his excellent work The Celluloid Closet, notes that lesbian couples on film and television are generally divided into two categories. You have the Irredeemable Lesbian-generally the “butch” one. It goes without saying that she is the seducer and the predator. Her target is the Innocent. That would be the feminine one, who has been sucked into the sinful glamour of lesbianism.

There are two endings to this story: Irredeemable is killed off or suffers some other tragic fate, while Innocent goes into a murderous rage or fall into the arms of a tall and swarthy man. It’s either rage against heterosexuality or heterosexuality being the rage. Such endings ignore the existence of bisexuality, which is of course just a plot device to crank up ratings. This week on the WB: A female lead kisses a girl and then goes back to boys after a full ten minutes of confusion. Tune in!

The evil, dead, and suffering lesbian cliche is a traditional subset of the generic minority cliche, best summed up by “the black guy always dies.” For variation, he is also permitted to be a drug dealer or best friend once in awhile.

Why are minorities evil beings who are made to suffer? Hatred. We’re being put in our place. We can scream until we are blue in the face about how virtually every minority character is a ridiculous cliché without a meaningful role. The traditional response from the powers that be is, “But they are there! What more do you uppity people want?”

We’d like to live, for starters.

The disturbing impression that I was left with after watching The Children’s Hour is that decades later little has changed. Exhibit A: The television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer which just last week killed off lesbian witch Tara (Irredeemable), sending her lover Willow (who has dated men, making her the Innocent) to go on a murderous rampage. So much for innocence. This was, incidentally, the episode where the two characters were shown in bed naked together and kissed throughout the episode. For those of you in the back that missed the point, here it is: lesbian sex is a cardinal sin that leads to death. In the interest of being inclusive, I should mention that gay men are hardly excluded from this misery-my personal favorite homo boy offing was Sal Mineo in Rebel Without A Cause, who spent the entire movie moony-eyed at James Dean. Men, take note: crushes on James Dean will kill you.

Consider a few other recent films. Lost and Delirious ends with the Irredeemable attempting to do a falcon impression off of a building. Mullholland Drive has a lesbian killing off her ex that left her for a man. Kissing Jessica Stein, currently in theaters, does an admirable job of avoiding stereotypes up until the very end of the movie, where a character says that the breakup of her relationship with a woman was caused by her inability to be “gay enough.”

There you have it, folks-an invalidation of bisexuality where the innocent jumps back to the boys.

Aside from Buffy other television shows that have featured lesbian death and/or misery as of late include 24, ER, All My Children, and Boston Public. The list of both television and movie evil, dead, and suffering lesbians could go on for pages.

Those of you with a little free time can have great (okay, it’s depressing) fun with a marathon of lesbian death scenes. I would recommend starting off with Basic Instinct, where Sharon Stone’s girlfriend is killed in a car crash and her ex-girlfriend is shot to death. Stone herself is a cold-blooded killer who also ends up with a man. This provides a nice two-in-one cliché combo, with the added bonus that every single queer woman in the film is deeply psychotic.

The marathon should end with a screening of The Fox, where the Irredeemable lesbian is killed. By a tree. That falls between her legs. With a death like that, how could her lover not go back to boys?

Researching this column has been a revelation. I realize now that I can never be happy, nor will any of my relationships work out. I am a weak, sick, and pathetic predator who deserves the pity of the heterosexual world, which should make every effort to save and redeem me. The same goes for all gay people.

Lesbianism causes pain, suffering, and death. We get it.