mandarinastronaut

[mandarinastronaut]

young harry houdini was hot. ppl didn’t go to those shows to watch the illusions they went to watch a half naked guy chain himself up

[mandarinastronaut]

What animal looks like it would screm the loudest

the bare-throated bellbird is so loud that it can cause permanent damage to human hearing at close range!

and they absolutely look like it.

[mandarinastronaut]

hey do you think ronald mcdonald is a dom or sub. i sent this before but im not sure if you got it or not

yeah i got it last time

[mandarinastronaut]

Luca: Transgender Seamonster Boyfriends, a Queered Reading

This essay contains the word queer, discussions of trans- and homophobia, violence, brief mention of "female" genitalia, spoilers for the Pixar film Luca. I have written this explicitly for people who have seen the film, if you haven't I'm afraid it won't make much sense to you so I highly recommend you give it a watch before continuing.

I will be approaching this topic from my own perspective, and therefore I think it wise to elaborate on what exactly that is.

I am by no means an expert on queer studies, I'm only 20 years old and just started my study of queer subjects only a little over two years ago, so while I am more knowledgeable than your average gay person, I'm nothing but a beginner.

Besides the "academic lens", I will also be using my own personal experience as a transmasculine queer person to interpret this film.

It should be noted that most of this stuff intertwines, many of the scenes I’ll be discussing can be interpreted through a trans, as well as a gay lens. So if I focus on one aspect over the other, it doesn’t mean that the leftover one isn’t there. Queer-coding has a lot of overlap with all queer identities, due to it being a simplified version of complex real-life experiences.

So, with that out of the way, we can begin.

Fantasy has always resonated with the queer community. It's always been a part of our culture, and we have been a part of it in return. The fantasy movie empire Disney, specifically, has a long and complex history with queerness. For example, we have the queer-coded villains which seem to be most, if not all of Disney's villains altogether. Then there's Howard Ashman, a gay man who wrote some on the most famous Disney songs ever, before dying from AIDS in 1991. So it's complicated. We have a group of people, queers, who relate to the very nature of this specific genre, fantasy, and we have creators putting in these harmful stereotypes which will enevitably draw in even more queer people while simultaneously teaching queer kids that they're villains, and then there's the queer-coded music made by a member of the very community which only adds to the relatability of Disney movies for queer people. And Disney most certainly hasn't been kind to us even in recent years, we've yet to have queer characters in a major Disney Pixar film, but instead we've had countless cases of queerbaiting.

Pixar's Luca uses a fantasy trope that has been queered hundreds of times, the trope of a fantastical creature who has to hide from mainstream society in order to survive. It applies another queer-coded media trope as well, one of the misfits who miraculously find each other and become friends. Luca and Alberto are sea creatures, they literally do not fit in with the townspeople. They are like Giulia in that they're not like others, but Giulia doesn't just pass for human. No, she is human. And while she may fall outside the norms of society, her existence is not seen as a direct threat to the population. The majority, which includes her in this case, aren't being hunted and killed, unlike Luca and Alberto whose lives are constantly in danger.

This parralels the real world where being queer has only quite recently been decreminalized in some places, while others still imprison and kill their queer citizens. This is especially relevant to the trans experience, where being clocked can get you brutally murdered or at least in physical danger. I won't be pulling up any statistics of how many trans people were murdered this year, but that's because I'm writing this essay on the assumption that my reader base is queer and aware of a lot of the stuff I'm bringing up.

There’s a scene where Luca and Alberto are being harassed by the antagonist of the film. He and his friends corner them in an alley late at night, tell them that they don’t belong there, and proceed to physically assault Alberto, the more out-coded character of the two. And it unfortunately must hit home for a lot of trans people of today.

I'd like to argue that in the context of this film, Luca and Alberto aren't only trying to pass for straight, but for cis as well. They don't merely change their mannerisms or clothing, which is what you might do when trying to be perceived as straight, they fully transform into something entirely new, from fish to human beings. It feels too close to what being trans is like, to not be read as a metaphor. What adds to the transmasculine reading of Luca, is that Luca's and Alberto's fishy smell is commented on couple of times throughout the movie. This directly creates a mental link with drag and transfeminine slang, where being ”fishy”, serving fish, or smelling like fish, means you are passing so well that others can smell your vagina.

We should also consider the desire to avoid getting wet as part of these boys' transcoding. It is common for trans people, especially those at the start of their transition, to hate swimming and bathing for obvious reasons. They might do it with other trans folk who they feel safe with, but rarely in front of the cis public. Getting your clothes wet makes them stick right against your body therefore enhancing your undesired features, whereas having a wet face can cause makeup to smudge or run, and so getting wet, not just swimming and bathing, imposes the risk of being outed.

Now, reading the bond between Luca and Alberto as romantic is easy. The seamonster allegory aside, they share a lot of looks that can hardly be anything but loving, they are constantly touching each other whether it be a hand on the other's shoulder, grabbing a hand to lead the other somewhere, or most notably, holding onto the other's waist and/or chest while riding a bike or vespa. The last one is familiar to anyone who's ever seen any romantic film ever. And there are multiple scenes like that in this movie, all of them quite important to the characters' development.

The boys dream of running away together on a Vespa, no one else, just the two of them. It's all they want, and while Luca finds other interests too, it's all that Alberto wants all the way up to the point where he realizes that he truly just wants Luca to be happy, even if that means he'll be happy someplace else.

At the 20, or so, minute mark of the film there's dialogue that feels incredibly romantic, there's sentimental music playing in the bakground and Luca's face while looking at Alberto is like the face of anyone who’s just found the love of their lives. Alberto speaks of the stars in that quote, and there are two scenes where the boys lay under the night sky, looking up at the stars, another trope used frequently in the romance genre.

Alberto, to Luca: ”Every day, we'll ride someplace new, and every night, we'll sleep under the fish (stars). No one to tell us what to do. Just you and me out there. Free.”

It reminds me of a quote from another queer-coded text, The Goldfinch, which I just so happen to have a fixation on, so I simply must quote it here. It happens right before the main character confesses his love for another boy.

”Why hadn't I grabbed his arm and begged him one last time to get in the car, come on, fuck it Boris, just like skipping school, we'll be eating breakfast over cornfields when the sun comes up?” (p.395)

There’s something intrinsic to the queer experience in the dream of running away together with someone special. And so, the reason why Luca and Alberto are planning to run away should also be taken into consideration. Luca's situation reads like a kid’s who’s being sent to a conversion camp, and Alberto's abandonment can certainly be read as him having been disowned because of his queerness. They want to be free. Free to love each other and free to be of the gender that they really are.

Luca and The Goldfinch share another plot device, one specifically used to show that character X has romantic feelings for character Y. Due to it being extremely recognisable as romantic, it is also quite often used in queer-coded texts. This device is that of the jealous third wheel. Usually it is employed by having character Y become friends with a new character B, while character X is shown to grow increasingly jealous. And this happens with Luca and Alberto, when Luca starts spending more time with their friend Giulia, even going as far as wanting to go to school with her.

Alberto becomes jealous immediately when Giulia joins their group, but his fear of abandonment is what ultimately creates the climax. Luca asks Giulia if they can go to school with her, and when Alberto sees them shaking hands like he and Luca would before they met Giulia, he becomes so furious that he outs himself as a sea monster by throwing himself into the ocean. And when Giulia stumbles back in terror, Luca points to Alberto exclaiming ”sea monster!”, and we see Alberto’s heart being absolutely decimated by this betrayal.

This very type of climax is regularly used in queer-coded, as well as explicitly queer texts. Characters X and Y are both queer, but due to their fear of being ostracized, character X does anything they can to stay in the closet. To move attention away from themselves, they either out character Y, or don’t stand up for them when they’re outed by someone else.

The resolution involves character X outing themselves to make up for their previous mistake. And this is what happens in Luca as well.

During the race, it begins to rain and Luca must take cover, preventing him from continuing. This is when Alberto appears running with an umbrella, like a hero in a romantic film, but as he’s approaching Luca, he falls and his true form is revealed to the town’s people. Luca is about to join him, but Alberto tells him to stay. Luca decides to disobey though, and so he drives his bike to Alberto, picks him up, and together they win the race.

Luca sacrifices everything for Alberto here. His safety, his future in a human school, absolutely everything only so that he could win the Vespa for Alberto. And later Alberto does the same for Luca, he sells his Vespa and convinces Luca’s parents to let him go to school with Giulia.

After Luca and Alberto are more or less accepted by the town, two older ladies drop their umbrellas and turn into seamonsters as well. What really caught my eye in this scene, was the fact that these ladies were both indeed ladies, and how they’d been shown only together throughout the film, as if they were a couple. Sometimes the courage of younger generations can encourage queer elders to be more open about their identities, it can show them that the world has changed for the better. Later Luca’s mother has a conversation with her own mother;

Luca’s grandma: ”Some people, they’ll never accept him. But some will. And he seems to know how to find the good ones.”

He’s found his chosen family, and the amount of sea monster-accepting people has clearly grown since Luca’s parents’ youth.

So Alberto is able to convince them to let Luca go. And at the train station Luca says he can’t do it without him, he’s heartbroken, but Alberto says he’ll always be with him even when they’re apart, and they cry and hold hands until the train takes Luca away and it’s very obviously a romance-coded scene. I mean this trope has been used so many times in romantic texts, the goodbye at the train station, that everyone watching must make the subconcious connection at least briefly. And the movie ends with Alberto waving goodbye to Luca in the rain, openly a sea monster, and Luca on the train also openly a sea monster looking back at Alberto, then Alberto’s island, and lastly the horizon, all whilst tearing up.

It’s hard to tell if the people working on Luca were intending it to be read this way and perhaps were prevented from making it explicit by the higher-ups, but that’s what seems likeliest to me. Either way, it’s a very rare case of a positive queer-coded narrative, and I think we should appreciate it as such.

[mandarinastronaut]

will be returning to this blog so hi hello uhhh missed y’all

[mandarinastronaut]

bro hobie bringing theo and boris to pride and at first they're like lmao fuck off we're not like those other people but it really gets to them to be in a place where they're supported and seen and see other people like them...... there's a very good picture of the three of them beaming in the crowd that's on the wall at hobie's, pippa's, and boris and theo's

[mandarinastronaut]

So first off I love your blog, and second I just had a thought. What if Boris and Theo had stayed in touch when Theo moved back to nyc, do you think it would have changed anything at all??

thank you :))) and yes i do!! my heart literally hurts thinking of how much things would have changed. if boris hadn't taken the painting and feared Theo despised him and thus ignored and distanced himself to avoid the pain of their "breakup" it would have been SO DIFFERENT. unfortunately Boris thought Theo "confirmed" that he hated him by also not keeping in touch.... which only happened bc Theo was traumatized again bc of his second parent's death. He was also self-consciously unsure why Boris wasn't responding to him. Jeez fellas the DRAMA.

anyway can you imagine the late night texts??? the breathless long distance telephone convos, their cacophony of laughter?? falling asleep to each other breathing on the other end of the line?? hand written letters (Boris would totally do this). their hearts sore, their hands empty, Boris hearing all about New York, Theo happier and trying harder at school, staying up late so Boris could help him with Conversational Russian? Boris hearing about Theo's new classmates maybe only a tiny inkling jealous of this boy Theo has to work with for a mandatory science requirement class... and then suddenly he starts talking about hey, I've been making a little money, yes on the side, yes maybe I come to visit you? see Popchyk?

and when Boris finally comes he never leaves again.

[mandarinastronaut]

In Stand By Me when Chris said "Kids lose everything unless there's someone there to look out for them. And if your parents are too fucked up to do it, then maybe I should." He really captured exactly the gay adolescent experience in a way that I can't believe was written by Stephen King.

[mandarinastronaut]

boris: kotku and i dropped acid together and it made us realize how in love we are and how much we need each other

also boris: hey potter we should also drop acid together ha ha :^)

[mandarinastronaut]

you know those parts in the goldfinch when theo is so worried people will think he is gay for telling the barbours he loves them or for owning a small dog? like i'd be more worried about all the gay sex he is having but who's to say

[mandarinastronaut]

TGF THEORY

Theo and Boris are gay. Ha ha I no it’s hard to belive but trust me I’m right .

[mandarinastronaut]

funnee how theo repeatedly describes kitsey as cold, icy, or a snowflake and how boris tells theo that astrid is a skier and is always up in the snowy mountains, yet both of them fell in love in a scalding hot desert

[mandarinastronaut]

goldfinch au where everything is the same, except when proving that he has the Goldfinch Boris shows Theo a bunch of trashy bathroom mirror nudes with the Goldfinch either in the background or covering his junk

[mandarinastronaut]

rules: list ten songs you’ve been listening to a lot lately and tag ten people!

I was tagged by @sensualthoughtsofstevebuscemi (love u man)

The Foolish Things by Thelonious Monk

How to Murder Your Wife by Aretha Franklin

The Piccolino by Fred Astaire

The Shoop Shoop Song by Cher

Somewhere by Leonard Bernstein, performed by Marni Nixon and James Howard Bryant

Happiness is A Warm Gun by The Beatles

Rêverie, L. 68: Rêverie by Claude Debussy

J’ai Deux Amours by Madeleine Peyroux

I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm by Billie Holiday

Get Down With It by Little Richard

(extra: Lintu and Kappeli both by the Finnish artist Yona)

tagging @pavlikovskysdecker @nightowlfury @anothersecretoftheuniverse @dionysuswhines

[mandarinastronaut]

listen to me. boris has at least 1 ear pierced and regularly wears chokers and has minimum 3 nails w chipped black polish and unironically wears those May I Speak To A Manager sunglasses he stole. i know this in my heart

[mandarinastronaut]

boris: it's JUST for show

the news:

[mandarinastronaut]

as an adult theo keeps getting into relationships with already married or engaged women so that he doesn't have to commit or make himself emotionally available just like boris encouraged kotku to maintain her relationship with her other boyfriend in vegas haha. wow they both have a pattern of making themselves the outside force to give themselves continuous proof that a stable happy relationship isn't possible to make themselves feel better about not being able to have one lmao. damn they might also specifically get off on being in a clandestine relationship because the only really happy romantic experience they've had wasn't one they could talk about and they consider the self they present to the rest of the world so fake that the only way they can imagine themselves being happy is if it's an absolute secret that they never share with anyone. go to therapy you bitches.