Hulu’s “Woke” & Cancelled ‘Y: The Last Man’ Will Not be Revived

Anyone holding out hope that Y: The Last Man might get a new home is not going to like this news, but anyone who was a fan of the original comic series and were bewildered by Hulu’s odd decision to alter the basic premise of the book, should be very pleased with this news. That original premise of the comic was that all species with a Y chromosome suddenly die, except for one many and his pet monkey. But in an era where transgender people and their allies cannot abide by any kind of “discrimination” against transgender people that identify by a sex other than how they were biologically born, activists seemingly coerced the Hulu adaptation’s showrunners into tweaking the story to be sensitive to transgender people.

Showrunner Eliza Clark and FX chairman John Landgraf talked to The Hollywood Reporter about the book series’ problems with transphobia and how it would be handled differently in the TV show. “A lot has changed since the graphic novel,” Landgraf said. “One of the things the show will make clear is that there are women with two X chromosomes and men with an X and Y chromosome — but there are also women with two Y chromosomes and men with two X chromosomes.” He then doubled-down, “there are numerous men in the show that had two X chromosomes, and they’re important characters. It’s also made clear that a number of women died that day who had a Y chromosome and probably didn’t even know it.”

Huh?

And when Emily VanDerWerff, their resident transgender reviewer at VOX weighed in, I knew the show wasn’t going to be anything like the classic series. 

“[…]the main reason the show has raised so many questions is that the source comic’s premise, as it stood, left little room for trans people. Trans men are briefly mentioned as existing in said comic, and trans women are assumed to have all died, because we bore Y chromosomes that led to our (fictional) deaths. Nonbinary people are not mentioned at all, and the comic doesn’t include any trans people as major characters. We just sort of exist off to the side somewhere. So: As America’s foremost trans television critic, I’ve encountered a lot of people wanting to know if, uh, Y: The Last Man would be horribly transphobic and gender essentialist.”

The FX series that aired on Hulu was canceled a few weeks prior to it’s season one finale and at the time, show runner Eliza Clark was determined to keep things going, saying “I have never in my life been more committed to a story, and there is so much left to tell… We don’t want it to end.” But determination alone wasn’t enough for the series based on the comics of Brian K. Vaughn and Pia Guerra to find a new home.

Even though the original DC / Vertigo comic book series was fairly “woke” for its day, even including a woman President, and dealing with cleverness and wry with what a world without men would be like, the TV adaptation had to go even more “woke” and make it a story about the bigotry and struggles of trans men. The result did not connect with fans. And now we are getting confirmation that no other network or streaming platform is interested in a second season. So, alas for poor Yorick, this sounds like a fitting end.