#a lot of this crosses over into my specific love of bottom!Louis as a trope

[queerofcups]

Ah! Love a respectful disagreement. This is gonna be a longer response, probably!

So I think Louis' femininity comes up explicitly a few times. The little "its chiffon, it has movement" and Madame Pointe du Lac's observations about his changed appearance post-changing and of course, my favorite, the "be in the coffin, i'll fuck you while i read etc etc" wherein we see Louis decide he needs to be the "man" again and the show explicitly references Louis topping (possibly the only time show says anything explict about what position anyone is fucking in??). Now of course we know that the act of topping isn't inherently feminine/masculine etc but that's a narrative that has to be pushed back again. Being the penetrating partner has been casted as the "masculine" roll for uhhhh centuries, even if that isn't necessarily true practically.

But more than that, the show can't help but be in a conversation about Louis' femininity implicitly. Some of the very first scenes we see of Louis is of this hard, violent man who literally controls women's bodies. He's The Patriarch -- literally, as the oldest in the family and the one who runs the businesses. And its all an act, one that drains and depresses him -- I think you and I are in agreement there. But to me, and this is maybe where we diverge? I'm really interested in what Louis is repressing. The mask he pulls on is The Patriarch, and what's left when the mask is put down is a man who loves art for arts sake and dresses softly and has lofty philosophical discussions (all things that, in our modern age are coded as feminine [and to Louis' in universe as effete]). And the mask is put down when Louis feels free and safe and empowered -- I'm arguing that the show is associating a more feminine-ly coded Louis with the "good times" of Paris. Also, something something, queer theory, pleasure in the abject and in rejection of hegemony etc etc that's not my ministry but i know enough to know that there's something going on there.

Also, I don't think you can make a show about gay men in the modern age and not immediately entire into a conversation about gender--identity, presentation, etc. Particularly gay men who are participating in things like art/fashion/music. Even if they weren't femininely coded at the time (which, even if they weren't -- these guys are having sex which means we are, again, in a conversation about perceptions of femininity and how they feel about it), these codings mean something to the way the viewer is watching the show and processing these characters actions.

To me, the way Louis is involved in that conversation is really interesting! I'm really excited to see how Jacob plays Louis in the modern age and if they dig into what it means to be a many centuries old gay man! Does he flip when someone refers to him as "girl"? Does he take a deep, relieved breath when he realizes no one is going to bash Lestat for prancing around getting glitter on everything? Is he clocking the intricacies of the ways Black queer men and Black women are mimicking and borrowing and sharing culture (I won't hold my breath for this one, lol)?

Ultimately, god i'm sorry this is so long, I really disagree with the idea that investigating Louis' femininity isn't investing in the nuances of his character. I...don't love every way this shows up in fanworks and its not like this, like anything else, can't take on racist or homophobic vibes but I do think that is an aspect of his character, a big one tbh, and being curious about it is actually really really good--for the show and for depictions of queer Black men in the media on the whole.

Re: rockstar girlfriend Louis. The trend of feminizing Louis is just irking in general. Especially as it's more often than not a way to make him helpless than be critical about it.

He didn't like being compared to a tradwife or a woman back then and he definitely doesn't like it now. I just think it's a little in bad taste that this is so rampant.

Yeah, I mean, the bits I've seen of it have been pretty fascinating to me, but I have heavily curated my fandom experience, so I'm very aware I'm probably seeing broader conversations pretty minimally. It seems to spread across different aspects of the fandom too, from the ratio of mpreg fic on ao3 to meta about him as embodying the gothic heroine trope, which like - - I'm not going to get all into this, but as someone who studied gothic literature at university for years, I just don't agree with it at all - like, in terms of character archetypes within gothic literature, Louis is a Byronic hero through and through:

Historian and critic Lord Macaulay described the [Byronic Hero] as "a man proud, moody, cynical, with defiance on his brow, and misery in his heart, a scorner of his kind, implacable in revenge, yet capable of deep and strong affection"

The show is interested in gender, and I can't wait to see what they do with Gabrielle in terms of that thread given Gabrielle is very much gender non-confirming and can be read arguably as trans-masc, but right now, I don't think any of the characters we've seen are anything other than cis (including Lestat) and I think to reject that is to ignore the complexity of their relationships with their own gender. Which is important! There's a reason Claudia is the one who's been robbed of choice, controlled and coerced by both her fathers, not just Lestat, the one who doesn't get to be heard at the trial, or in her life, the one who's infantilised, stuck in dresses she's too old for, the one who's killed. That's important, y'know?

I do think a lot of Louis' issues around his gender are tied pretty specifically to his sexuality, and I don't think he relates to or understands women at all. Like you could make a pretty concise argument that Louis has a virgin/mother/whore complex when it comes to women, which you see in Claudia and Grace/Florence/Antoinette + in his role as a pimp. And I think people take that dual insult of Claudia calling him a housewife and Grace calling Lestat Louis' 'white daddy' as literal, when like - - in both instances they are deliberately insulting / emasculating him either for the sake of it or to goad him into action? They're tender spots for him not because he relates, but because he knows that's how its perceived and he hates that he/it is perceived that way. He's always been an ambitious businessman, so the housewife insult stings on its own, but the white daddy thing taps into what even Daniel Hart was saying about the fact that there is a transactional element to Louis and Lestat's relationship, which is why I find it super interesting that heading into s3, Louis is not only successful, but completely financially independent.

But yes, I think feminising Louis in general just completely shoots over the nuance of his character and honestly, a lot of what makes him so interesting.