Pro tip for TV executives: when you cancel a show about queer outlaws, you should probably expect some gay brigands on your doorstep in short order.
Less than two weeks after HBO officially canceled their hit series Our Flag Means Death, fans of the LGBTQ+ rom-pirate-com have rallied with a massive campaign to save the show and produce a third and final season. The campaign’s biggest component — physically, at least — is a rented billboard in Times Square, which organizers say is set to display the message “Save Our Flag Means Death” seven times an hour from January 19 to 20.
Created by executive producer David Jenkins, Our Flag Means Death stars Rhys Darby (Flight of the Conchords) and Taika Waititi (Thor: Love and Thunder) as actual historical figures Stede Bonnet and Edward “Blackbeard” Teach, as they embark on swashbuckling pirate adventures and fall deeply in love with each other. Their romance may put the “fiction” in “historical fiction,” but Our Flag Means Death gathered a deeply devoted LGBTQ+ fanbase since its 2022 premiere, none of whom were pleased to see it end prematurely. On social media, many fans began using the term “gravy basket” to describe their current situation, referencing one of the show’s more fantastical elements, a limbo realm between life and death.
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The fandom’s outrage has been funneled into “Renew as a Crew,” a fan collective formed in late 2022 to advocate for the show’s renewal. In an emailed press release, organizers said a GoFundMe to purchase Times Square ad space reached its $10,000 goal in 40 minutes, and eventually raised over $21,000. That money has since paid for the billboard, plus rentals for a flyover plane and truck, which will carry the same message around HBO’s corporate office in Culver City, CA. The group also planned in-person Times Square meetups on both days the billboard is running.
“Fans have made it clear that, much like Ed and Stede, they are willing to fight for what they love,” organizers wrote in the release.
From the outside looking in, it’s natural to wonder if this is where all that energy can best be directed; surely there are one or two events happening in the world that could also use a bit of the ol’ activism? But the Renew as a Crew campaign isn't only focusing on TV; the group is also raising money for RainbowYOUTH, a New Zealand-based community organization that provides social and housing services for LGBTQ+ young people. That fundraiser has separately raised more than $15,000 at the time of writing.
This is also far from the only time a plucky band of queer TV fans have banded together over the internet to save their favorite LGBTQ+ show by making it Times Square’s problem. Renew as a Crew’s tactics evoke past fan campaigns like the Wynonna Earp fandom, whose members also rented a Times Square billboard to demand a fourth season, and then rented it again months later to celebrate their victory. Last year, fans of Netflix’s Warrior Nun found some success after a campaign of their own, with a forthcoming film trilogy picking up where the canceled series left off, but without its original showrunner.
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