#as is heteronormativity

[hildegardladyofbones]

Existing in a class of 24 students has once again reminded me that allos are real and not made up by the Internet

[shiverandqueeef]

if you aren't best friends with your lover and a little bit in love with all your friends than what's the fucking point

[squishy-min-mochi]

It’s important to recognise that Barbie (2023) criticises both the patriarchy AND the matriarchy. Yes, the Ken’s are just accessories to the Barbies. Yes, they don’t have any say in the government they live under. That’s the point, you’re supposed to feel awful, you’re supposed to want the Kens to have their own agency, you’re supposed to want equality. The Barbie movie explicitly states that the way Barbie treats Ken is wrong, so much so that once he finds a safe space for his masculinity and individual identity he’s so excited to share it with the other Kens.

But they go overboard and replace a matriarchy with a patriarchy and now the same issue exists but in reverse. That’s the POINT!! THATS THE POINT!!! Barbie is not anti-men it’s pro equality PLEASE understand this

13th Aug 2023 UPDATE:

Heeeeey howdy!!

Due to the IMMENSE comments and discussion on this post (thanks ya’ll!!) I’ve decided to update my post with my recent opinions and hopefully clearer explanations!!

First, my original post only considers a very small and very vague analysis of the film!!

Since making this I've read all your comments and learned quite a bit about the matriarchy as it appears in human civilisation. Originally, I was pitting the patriarchy and the matriarchy against each other as though the results of their implementation were equal in the film.

They were not!! Below is the definition of matriarchy I’ll be working off of.

Matriarchy Simple Definition;

Matriarchy is a social system in which women hold the primary power positions in roles of authority. In a broader sense it can also extend to moral authority, social privilege and control of property.

There's a lot to talk about in the Barbie film that would fit better in an essay, so I'll try and condense it into this;

To me, Barbie (2023) is a film about the female experience and the shared connection between women that persists through childhood and adulthood, support and harassment, suffering and joy, mother and daughter.

It uses Barbie as its figurehead because of the immense societal and political impact the doll has had on women, both good and bad (as explained in the film).

The male experience as seen in Barbie (2023) is not the sole focus of the film- rather, it's an accessory (as the Kens are) to Barbie's story, and a necessary aspect of exploration to truly highlight the importance of individualism and healthy personal exploration.

I want to make clear that I in no way think the treatment of the Kens was just as bad as the treatment of the Barbies. I also still agree that the matriarchy fostered by the Barbies wasn’t good for the Kens.

Additionally, I’m aware that this take on Barbie (2023) works strictly within the assumed heteronormative boundaries of gender. There is a lot of nuance in the Barbie film and I don’t think everything can be covered or explained in on Tumblr post— but I hope this clarification helps!!

I hope you're all coming to your own conclusions and analysis of the film in a way that makes sense to you. And for those of you engaging in online conversations and discourse about it, I hope you're keeping yourself and others happy and safe!!!

Much love to you all!! < 3

[animentality]

[squaloropera]

”Hua Cheng would never bottom” are you high. Are you on drugs. What is it you smoke. Is it crack? Weed? Coke? Are you huffing glue? Are you on mushrooms? Xie Lian could politely go ‘I think I wanna top tonight’ in passing conversation and that man (ghost?) would go ‘Ok Gege :D I love you’ and then he’d happily get his back blown out, and he’d be arching the whole time. I know him personally so I can vouch. Get your act together.

[blvddyvvalentine]

I’m sorry if I see one more piece of butchfemme media that’s an insanely ripped 6’12 butch and a tiny dainty thin little femme I will actually start pulling the bars off my enclosure and whatever happens is between y’all and god. You did this. Like I’m sorry have you met most butches? Or most femmes? What are these insane unachievable expectations we’re putting out there for eachother???

[cherrytea556]

Heteronormativity and Amatonormativity go hand in hand. You give the opposite sex one compliment then somehow people think you have a crush on them. Talk about complimentless ig.

[heistcinema]

"These two women, they’re trapped in this secret life. And being trapped in these apartments was such a great metaphor that we just mined the hell out of it. So we did all these overheads of them trapped in it, which is standard noir stuff – these overheads of “rats in a box.” People walking down a hallway? Let’s just shoot it from above so we can see the rats in the maze. They cannot break out of this thing. The wallpaper was made of squares within squares within squares. So you’re constantly – subliminally – reminded that these people are trapped in their lives."

— Bill Pope, Director of Photography

[one-time-i-dreamt]

Timothée Chalamet offered me crystal meth and when I said no, he told me I had a very heteronormative way of thinking about meth.

[steviesbicrisis]

Thinking about YouTuber Steve who’s gaining a lot of popularity with his weekly vlogs. The routine is very similar: he goes to work, hangs out with friends, acts silly for the camera, cooks for his roommate, watches movies with his roommate, goes out with his roommate.

His roommate is there a lot.

His new growing fanbase doesn’t take long to divide into factions regarding Steve’s dating life and sexuality; There are ships, OTPs, people who want him single so they can date him, and a surprisingly small portion which questions his heterosexuality, which gets always shut up by the following compelling arguments:

“stop assuming he’s gay.”

“Steve doesn’t look gay. He’s just a guy, a former jock, who loves to cook and hangs out with friends. A friend more than the others, but it’s his roommate so it makes sense, right?”

“And yes, they do cuddle while watching movies, but who doesn’t love a cuddle? You don’t have to be gay for that.”

“Sure, they hold hands when they go out but the city is crowded and they might lose each other.”

“Since when two male friends can’t be close without assuming that they’re gay?”

“Have you ever seen them kiss in ten minutes of weekly vlog? No, so drop your gay agenda already.”

And Steve Harrington, who started the whole vlog thing in the first place because he wanted to update his friends who live miles away and still doesn’t know how he got this much heteronormative bullcrap in his comments, has had enough.

One day, Steve Just-A-Guy Harrington, wakes up and chooses violence.

He replies to a tiktok comment that says “stop assuming he’s gay” with another video.

It begins with Steve glaring at the camera “oh yes please, stop assuming I’m gay.”

Then there’s a quick motion and Steve is pulling a curly haired guy into frame: Eddie, his roommate/platonic friend/totally not his boyfriend of 5+ years.

Eddie yawns, looking sleepily at the camera “are you vlogging?”

“I’m proving a point” Steve replies, then kisses him. They almost get lost into it, but Steve is a man on a mission, so he pulls back and turns to the camera.

“This is Eddie, my boyfriend. Not a friend who’s a boy, you delusional homophobes, we are together, a couple, in a relationship. We haven’t been just friends for over 5 years. We live together, he isn’t just a roommate.

And even if he was just my roommate, do you think I would live with this” he squeezes Eddie’s cheeks between his fingers and zooms in to show his face up close. Eddie blinks a couple of times, but let’s Steve do whatever he wants.

“Do you seriously think that I would live with this 24/7 and stay straight? Like, are you insane?” He gives Eddie a quick smack on the lips, leaving him blushing and more confused than ever.

Usually, it’s Eddie the one getting almost feral over Steve, not the other way around.

He doesn’t complain.

“So yeah, stop assuming I’m gay. Because I’m bi, you homophobic little shits.”

The video ends with Eddie pulling Steve for more than a quick peck on the lips, and Steve throwing the phone on their couch, face down.

Somehow, under Steve’s video, there’s still someone that comments “I mean, this doesn’t mean anything. It’s just bros helping bros, right?”

Steve is too busy making out with his “bro” to read it.

[deancasforcutie]

"Now you live in a secret bunker with an angel and Lucifer’s kid", AKA queering domesticity par excellence

[bedupolker]

When two crabs are in love the male will hold the female and carry her around (like/comment/subscribe if you agree)

[kidovna]

if i hear the word delusional one more time in context to byler i’ll start redrawing the season 4 byler/mileven scenes as season 1 jancy/stancy

[looking-for-wisdom]

this episode was so good for the laois & marcille sibling in-law agenda. marcille teaching laois magic and having him try healing her, in almost any other show, would absolutely have some sort of romantic subtext.

instead we get laois having to cradle her face to heal her, with this fucking face the whole time: o_o

man does NOT want to be doing this meanwhile marcille is like shut the fuck up don’t be a baby. the most sibling interaction ever. equivalent to the awkward hug you give a sibling when you’re both teenagers but ur parents are expecting it. no one is doing in-laws like them.

[shmaroace]

amatonormativity isn't something that affects only aro people. it affects all people, aspec or not, queer or not. you can be cishetallo and still be affected by amatonormativity because you're told that being single is bad. amatonormativity isn't a new queer buzzword made for a select few people, it's an actual societal assumption that affects everyone.

[knifearo]

"asexual discourse" is so funny cause dude that's not discourse and it's never been discourse. it's not an argument and it's not a conversation bitches are just yelling at us unprompted and then making up people to get mad at 😭