#THIS is queer media history

[whatohitsonfirewelp]

Guys can we please talk about how HUGE buck being bisexual is?

We have more people watching the show because a man was made bi and he hits NONE of the gay stereotypes.

People are doing it because this is so so so rare!!

People are doing it out of SPITE for the homophobic fans!!

People are watching the first season and are in SHOCK because oh?? There’s a lesbian black couple?? With a CHILD??? Oh there’s a gay 911 operator???

Guys it’s just

So many people are discovering this amazing beautiful show and the queer characters and now THEY get to see themselves as well!! THEY get to experience this joy with us!!

Because 911 is so much more than Evan Buckley. It’s so much more than Hen and Karen and Josh. It’s so much more because of them. It’s so much more because we have such a diverse and amazing cast. It’s so much more because they talk about topics of abuse, ptsd, family trauma (for SEVERAL characters), therapy for MEN, the grief of losing a partner or a parent or a child. It’s fully a found family show!!

And it’s so beautiful to see people hear about this show and watch it and feel seen. That Evan Buckley being bisexual opened a door for so many people that never knew it was ever there.

[k-wame]

George Villiers & Peter Carr MARY & GEORGE (2024) · S1·EP4

[renthony]

In Defense of Shitty Queer Art

Queer art has a long history of being censored and sidelined. In 1895, Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray was used as evidence in the author’s sodomy trials. From the 1930s to the 1960s, the American Hays Code prohibited depictions of queerness in film, defining it as “sex perversion.” In 2020, the book Steven Universe: End of an Era by Chris McDonnell confirmed that Rebecca Sugar’s insistence on including a sapphic wedding in the show is what triggered its cancellation by Cartoon Network. According to the American Library Association, of the top ten most challenged books in 2023, seven were targeted for their queer content. Across time, place, and medium, queer art has been ruthlessly targeted by censors and protesters, and at times it seems there might be no end in sight.

So why, then, are queer spaces so viciously critical of queer art?

Name any piece of moderately-well-known queer media, and you can find immense, vitriolic discourse surrounding it. Audiences debate whether queer media is good representation, bad representation, or whether it’s otherwise too problematic to engage with. Artists are picked apart under a microscope to make sure their morals are pure enough and their identities queer enough. Every minor fault—real or perceived—is compiled in discourse dossiers and spread around online. Lines are drawn, and callout posts are made against those who get too close to “problematic art.”

Modern examples abound, such as the TV show Steven Universe, the video game Dream Daddy, or the webcomic Boyfriends, but it’s far from a new phenomenon. In his book Hi Honey, I’m Homo!, queer pop culture analyst Matt Baume writes about an example from the 1970s, where the ABC sitcom titled Soap was protested by homophobes and queer audiences alike—before a single episode of the show ever aired. Audiences didn’t wait to actually watch the show before passing judgment and writing protest letters.

After so many years starved for positive representation, it’s understandable for queer audiences to crave depictions where we’re treated well. It’s exhausting to only ever see the same tired gay tropes and subtext, and queer audiences deserve more. Yet the way to more, better, varied representation is not to insist on perfection. The pursuit of perfection is poison in art, and it’s no different when that art happens to be queer.

When the pool of queer art is so limited, it feels horrible when a piece of queer art doesn’t live up to expectations. Even if the representation is technically good, it’s disappointing to get excited for a queer story only for that story to underwhelm and frustrate you.

But the world needs that disappointing art. It needs mediocre art. It even needs the bad art. The world needs to reach a point where queer artists can fearlessly make a mess, because if queer artists can only strive for perfection, the less art they can make. They may eventually produce a masterpiece, but a single masterpiece is still a drop in the bucket compared to the oceans of censorship. The only way to drown out bigotry and offensive stereotypes created by bigots is to allow queer artists the ability to experiment, learn through making mistakes, and represent their queer truth even if it clashes with someone else’s.

If queer artists aren’t allowed to make garbage, we can never make those masterpieces everyone craves. If queer artists are terrified at all times that their art will be targeted both by bigots and their own queer communities, queer art cannot thrive.

Let queer artists make shitty art. Let allies to queer people try their hand at representation, even if they miss the mark. Let queer art be messy, and let the artists screw up without fear of overblown retribution.

It’s the only way we’ll ever get more queer art.

_

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[maybe-boys-do-love]

Mix Sahaphap gets to perform (and has the performance chops to perform) in a style that I’ve never seen any other male actor get to embody. Mix gets to unironically play the #strongfemalecharacter. The Beatrice, the Elizabeth Bennett, the Jo March. Strong-willed, emotional, kind-hearted.

Not only do the plot points line up, but Mix, more than any BL actor I’ve seen, fully leans into the embodiment of this archetype. In his roles, he rolls his eyes, pouts, banters flirtatiously, softens his posture and expression at small details. He doesn’t over-exaggerate and imposition other characters but his face also doesn’t hold back his character’s thoughts and judgments. And when the moments arrive, he lets all the hurt and anguish pour out in shatters of tears and visible heartbreak—the star-counting scene, anyone????—in a way that harkens to the operatic emotionality of well-done melodramas, soap-operas, and their contemporary Thai equivalent of Lakorn. It’s only that these have never been men’s roles in those.

It’s no surprise that one of Mix’s roles—Cupid’s Last Wish—is explicitly a gender body-swap, and Tian in A Tale of Thousand Stars is (albeit explicitly denied within the show) heavily connected to gender body-swapping. What Mix specializes in as an actor, and does exceptionally well, has been defined as feminine. To depict a kind of queer expression in this style is novel because it’s not camp, it’s not okama, it’s not a soft or femboy, it’s not a BL twink (Mix has been mostly excluded from the schoolyards and quads of the BL universe except for a role as a senior crush in Fish Upon the Sky). It’s too sincere and too adult for any of that.

In Moonlight Chicken we get to see, without the pretense of gendered mysticism, this performance style’s seduction, warmth, wit, and explosiveness within the framework of a general gay form of expression. It says that this kind of femininity might just be a gay thing. Not all gay men exhibit it, obviously—queer men aren’t a monolith. Still, it gives us something to consider about how we observe performance of queerness on screen, especially in front of an audience that puts so much more emphasis on ships, heat, and pairing chemistry to assess how well they perform a BL role. Could we look for other features to judge performance of queerness instead of how well they kiss?

Seme and uke roles would be the major performance style categories loyal BL fans assess actors with, yet even within the archetype his character’s fill within BL narratives, Mix’s performances differ from the typical uke depiction in BL because he really doesn’t perform them as passive. Rather, Mix’s characters and his portrayal of them are dynamic and demanding. It certainly fits certain stereotypes of ukes (Gilbert!) and their gay stereotype equivalent of bottoms as pillow princesses and brats. Mix’s characters, though, have more drive, agency, and compassion than that, and he plays them with all of those currents running underneath.

We certainly have openly gay writer/director Aof Noppharnach to thank for writing this kind of queer character for Mix to play in Tian and Wen. But for Mix’s specific commitment to the performance starting off with his (debut!?) role in ATOTS, we first have Earth to thank for believing in Mix’s ability and recommending him to portray the role of Tian, and then Aof’s acceptance despite his differing initial expectations for the character. Mix, Earth, and Aof have all been open about how Mix in his personal life and nature holds a lot of similarities to both his role as Tian in ATOTS and Wen in Moonlight Chicken. Some people might knock points off his performances because he’s like them. But his relationship to the characters, rather than dampening my enthusiasm for Mix’s performances, helps me appreciate his willingness to give an authentic performance in a style that hasn’t been encouraged on screens previously. It’s made more impactful that he chose to risk vulnerability to bring something personal that had previously been excluded from screens because of its gender deviance (and in broader society explicitly condemned). This doesn’t make a claim on Mix’s actual identity, but simply shows his willingness to understand and perform the expressions of his queer characters with an effort at empathy that many other actors would feel challenged to bring.

Some actors are chameleons, but some actors have a gift of a type within which they can explore depths and range that no one else can best. For me, that’s what Mix does in his work when directors and casting understands his talent. There’s a BTS video of Mix actually fainting during a scene while in Earth/Phupa’s embrace on the mountain that immediately brought to mind the wildly famous final scene in the film Camille where Greta Garbo as Marguerite dies in her lover’s arms.

For Mix, it was a serious incident due to regrettably extreme conditions and requiring the on-set paramedics, but these levels of theatrics, for me, are emblematic of what Mix is capable of as a performer, as well. After all, he had to faint in Phupa’s arms multiple times on purpose. It’s the kinds of Old Hollywood and heightened sentimental romance realms Mix takes his performances to! Then he can turn around and make it look easy to take that same character into grounded quips or dedicated everyday tasks. It only takes writers, directors, and audiences willing to see that men can feel this way and act this way. Mix has paved the way.

[the-mechanica]

my problem really deeply is how shallow a tolerance younger people have for old queer media. like yes, it's dated and some of the politics don't hold water anymore, but to ignore older media simply based on that is to loose EVERYTHING we have bc we don't have a lot. just because queer themes caught up more recently doesn't mean we should rehash everything to fit into a more "presentable" format that is only considered modern bc of the puritanical blacklash of the last several years and sanitization of queer themes.

[whereserpentswalk]

Just saw a "feminist" video essay (by someone who just happens to only talk about feminism in relation to cishet white able bodied women) say that the Hays Code was good for women because it "prevented them from sexualizing women by preventing onscreen depictions of sex". Never before has a video said something that made me vocalize my disgust of it's takes, but this did it.

I didn't think I would have to say this but if you defend the Hays code you are horrible and not in any way progressive. And if you don't know what it is please look it up because it's probably the most important piece of history when it comes to all media analysis in the western world.

[the-bar-sinister]

What I love about brudick (the ship of Bruce Wayne/Dick Grayson, aka the original Batman and Robin) is that it is the original father of all toxic yaoi problematic parings in a way.

There was literally a book written about it. (Seduction of the Innocent). There were political hearings.

There were people literally trying to censor batman comics and stop them from being published.

But not because of the age gap elements, etc.

Because they were convinced that Batman and Robin's relationship in the comics was so compelling, the comics were turning your sons gay.

[scarletdreamers]

It's so hilarious to me how in queer media that actually accurately represents queer people (adults) there's always some kind of murder or other unforgivable mistakes involved??? Like, yeah that's my favourite genre, but why is queer cinema always some kind of psychological thriller/horror, especially the old stuff. Give us a minute to BREATHE please. Someone always DIES. I can name so many examples on this I'm actually going to write a paper on it asap, because I just think it's both so funny and interesting but also disturbing.

[plutotimeslot]

[zombie-bait]

Listen I could spend forever writing an essay on why Rocky Horror Picture Show works so well but I think it comes down to the movie just being unapologetically horny and queer. It’s a film that says it’s ok to let go of everything dragging you down, it’s ok to be monstrous and strange in all the ways normal society just can’t understand. You should go and be the person you are because you just might end up really enjoying it.

And above all that you can be desirable. You can be sexy and free and fucked up with everyone else who’s just like you.

Why be normal when you can be extraordinary?

[grntaire]

i NEED corners of the internet to familiarize itself with camp PLEASE i am tired. weak. malnourished. “it’s bad/cringey/over the top” yeah. it was meant to be. hope this helps

[k-wame]

NICHOLAS GALITZINE as George Villiers MARY & GEORGE (2024) · S1·EP4

[i-wish-i-were-softer]

So my friend recently finished Babel and they said creating homoerotic tension between robin and ramy only to kill them afterwards was a weak move.

What does that even mean? If you wanted to a read a happy queer novel why did you choose Babel? Why are you looking for a fairytale ending in a book that deals with heavy topics like colonialism, racism, sexism, poverty, slavery, war and whatnot. Death was always upon them. Being gay doesn't magically give characters plot armour. War doesn't care about anyone's sexuality.

[bodythieves]

“the story of daniel, the devil’s minion, or the boy from interview with the vampire”

—

Interview with the Vampire S2E5 (2024) x The Vampire Lestat (1985) x Dante and Virgil (1850)

[a-gay-a-day]

Haus Der Kunst queer archives photographs

Picture taken by me (the security guard said I could take pictures. He was very nice about how bad my German was)

Aids Demo, 1987, Horst Middelhoft

Sister Lucretia of the Schwestern der Perpetuellen Indulgenz, 2018,Sabrina Berndt

Christopher street day, 1998, Horst Middelhoff

Tuntenball at Zirkus Knie, 1957, Munich queer archives

Schwul Na und-Stand in the Munich pedestrian zone, 1989, Munich queer archives

[deramin2]

I don't know how to really express this except to come across as a "kids these days" scold, but so much of the criticism of queerness in Good Omens would simply not be a thing if kids these days watched more 20th century queer media. Or more complex indie queer media in general.

People seem to want a show that's like the straight stories they grew up with but gay. Or the gay fanfiction they grew up with. But that's not really the tradition it's coming from. First off the novel was released in 1990. Queer film classics of the time are Dead Poet's Society (1989) and Torch Song Trilogy (1988). The TV miniseries Tales of the City (1993) wasn't made until 3 years later and it was so far out there it never had a huge audience. Philadelphia (1993) is also 3 years out and was basically the first big studio queer film. The first fluffy queer Hallmark-style romcom wasn't until Big Eden in 2000, a full 10 years after publication.

Queer stories from the time it was written were about complex and often fraught relationships between people who the world was trying to force apart. There is an incredibly strong tradition in queer films of relationships with no guarantees they will work out both in the face of their personal baggage and the weight of the world. Take a film like Torch Song Trilogy that's about the two great loves of Arnold Beckoff's life over 9 years and how homophobia shapes them. Both externally (especially Allen) and internally like Ed struggling with his bisexuality and being terrified of being publicly out. Written and starred in by Harvey Fierstein, who identified as a gay man at the time and only came out as nonbinary last year.

The Boys In The Band (1968 play, filmed 1970 and 2020) was a monumental moment in Broadway history where finally there was a play about gay men in their own words where no one died and very strongly showed that homosexuality doesn't make people miserable but homophobia sure does. But that homophobia also throws their personal lives into constant turmoil and none of them are in happy relationships, although Hank and Larry are devoted to each other in their own fucked up way.

"Relationships are complicated and hard to make work and sometimes a struggle against the odds" is an aesthetic of classic queer film making. Partly it was influenced by the Hays Code (although independent films were not bound to it), partly influenced by the rampant queerphobia in society at the time that was inescapable. But it's also an aesthetic choice to resist the banal and unrealistic relationship depictions of straight media. There are actual stakes to the relationship. Queer people were actively resisting a world that said "Romance is seeing someone across the room and instantly falling in love with each other and little conflicts happen along the way but ultimately they're destined to be together and everything is happily ever after." Recall that "stalking as romance" was a completely inescapable trope in 1980s straight romance films, and every goddamn movie was being turned into a romance film.

So queer people in film and television when they can make what they please have a long tradition of saying instead "People don't always realize the feelings they've developed for a queer partner right away. They may have reasons for denying those feelings that are both a reflection of the cruelty in society and of their own insecurities. People struggle with where they belong and their relationships reflect that. Loving someone doesn't mean they don't also drive you crazy and you might fight with them constantly. But that doesn't negate the love or that feeling that even if things aren't okay, they're better with that person around. But maybe that person can't stay around. The world may be against you. And also maybe you don't just want that one person in your life. Soulmates is a very flawed model. Sometimes the strongest love is a struggle with yourself and the world and your person. You have to overcome yourself first. Happily ever after is a lie. You may be happy for a while, and hopefully for a long while, but everything ends. And you have to be ready to love again. Also your platonic bonds are just as important and life-altering as your romantic ones. Sometimes those platonic bonds include fucking if you want them to. Real life isn't a bunch of platitudes and world-altering moments, it's daily work to better yourself and the world around you. Especially when things just fucking suck. But also remember to have fun and fuck the haters. People who don't support you can eat rocks and you should yell at them more to shut the fuck up."

That is a fundamentally different outlook on what a "good relationship depiction" looks like. Personally, I thought I hated romance movies and then I started watching queer romance movies and discovered I love them and watch them all the time. Because it turns out what I hated was relationships being shown that had nothing at all to do with reality and privileged incredibly toxic ideals. Finally there was complexity, there were stakes, and there were people who had to truly want to be together enough to fight the world for it and not because they happened to be there. There were people actually talking out their problems and looking for resolutions. (And sometimes that resolutions was "I can't fucking deal with this bullshit anymore and I'm out.") For the first time it felt real.

I'm an aroace trans gay man. Nothing about relationships or being in relationships has come easy to me, and the whole paradigm of straight patriarchal romance depictions makes absolutely no sense to me. It's completely alien. Queer romance stories actually feel human.

And that's the tradition Good Omens is coming from, even as it's being retold in 2019-2023 and hopefully beyond. Gaiman's work has always been based in that queer media paradigm. (I've been remiss and daunted and haven't read Pratchett but from what I do know his work also seems to sit more in that world view.) It's a beautiful cinematic tradition and it's baffling to me that people would resist it instead of embracing it for being honest.

And that's when I turn into a crotchety old man complaining about the youth not connecting with the history of their beautiful culture and instead begging for assimilation into a shithole allocishet media landscape that doesn't actually want them except for their money and has nothing at all interesting or valuable to say. But it's very funny (annoying) to me when people claim Good Omens is someone against queer culture when it's so thoroughly bathed in the best of queer media's storytelling traditions and what people are asking for is straight media with the serial numbers filed off. Like, stop being boring please and know literally anything about the culture the adults in the room lived through and were influenced by. The world didn't begin in 2015.

EDIT: I also want to add that in straight media arcs are linear. Traditionally in queer media arcs are cyclical. Queer media very often depicts people going around in circles relearning the same lesson over and over as they inch towards it sinking in. But every time they go through the cycle they gain just a little bit more enlightenment and slowly move towards a better place. From the comments this is an immensely important distinction. People don't actually have cathartic moments where suddenly all their past bad programming is shed and they saunter forward a new person with none of their old baggage. In reality people fall into the same patterns over and over even though they have had every opportunity to learn better. "People magically get better" is a trope of straight media that's an outright and frankly dangerous lie. Again, Good Omens follows the queer tradition not the straight one and it's depicted 6,000 years of that cycle. The world didn't end, and the wheel keeps turning, as it always has and always will. That's so fundamental to queer storytelling traditions I forgot to even mention it.