Ok, so let’s talk about this meme, cuz it’s gone around my feed several times and I need to get something off my chest. This isn’t the queer representation you’re looking for. If you aren’t aware, the three characters depicted are Entrapta from She-Ra, Evelyn Deavor from Incredibles 2, and Olivia Octavius (Doc Ock) from Inter the Spider-verse.

First of all, Entrapta isn’t a lesbian, she’s clearly meant to be asexual. I mean, it’s right there in her outfit, she’s the embodiment of the asexual pride flag colors. The other two, however, are definitely meant to be read as gay. Evelyn spends a good portion of The Incredible 2 hitting on Helen pretty aggressively (and in typical gay fashion, Helen is oblivious).

Olivia’s lesbian headcanon also comes from the way she says only her friends call her Liv, and then Aunt May later calls her Liv, establishing that the two of them previous had a relationship that clearly had animosity, and alternate Spiderman universes had May and the male Doc Ock romantically involved.

However, all of these are villains (tho Entrapta doesn’t quite fit that mold), and the queer coded female villain is a LONG standing trope. It’s called the “Psycho Lesbian” trope and is rooted in the censorship of queer identities on television and film. (Curiously, none of these three characters are listed on this tvtropes page, possibly because they’re not canonically gay.)

Now, as I said, Entrapta isn’t actually a villain, she’s morally neutral. She works for whoever has the best science, which falls under several tropes:

• “Above Good and Evil”
• “Blue and Orange Morality”
• “Skewed Priorities”
• “Obliviously Evil”.

Additionally, Entrapta is coded as being autistic, and hollywood has a frustrating history of using ASD traits with villains or just unlikable characters.

See also:

• Hollywood Autism
• Insufferable Genius
• Literal Minded

Now, I love Noelle Stevenson, and I love what she’s done with She-Ra and don’t think she deliberately meant to use any of these things with Entrapta, and the character has clearly been trying to buck these tropes through the show, but it’s hard to get away from such archetypes.

I love the idea of having Science Lesbian be a trope, Cosima Niehaus on Orphan Black is an amazing demonstration of this done right, as is Princess Bubblegum from Adventure Time (tho she also got a bit morally gray at times). Sadly, however, that’s not what these three represent.