#biphobia in media

[dragynkeep]

Miles fucking Luna just admitted on Cameo bumbleby was made canon soley because of its popularity with shippers and "would have toned down the Black Sun moments" had they known beforehand! Ais, please bully this beta looking crackhead on Twitter for me because I don't have an account and I refuse to get one

i watched the video & 1. why does he look like that & 2. why is he so goddamn close to the camera. back tf up on this cameo you've owed someone for ages, maybe try & be a little professional & not look like you're recording this on your smoke break.

it's also interesting he doesn't mention why he had to turn cameo off for a bit when some of the last cameos he had included misusing the word genocide over a fictional character & then pimping out his own self insert as "bisexual" & having to walk it back when people, desperate for queer mlm representation in this homophobic ass show, were wondering if it was actually going to be canon when. nah. he just said it for money :))

"you asked if there was any behind the scenes info for bumblby, which is hard cause i don't think there's much to talk about" for a ship you've apparently had in the works for 10 years? since the beginning? kept so under wraps? whatever, miles.

ohhh my god miles bringing up that blake is the bisexual queen & "everyone wants to date her" as if he wasn't disgustingly biphobic & joked about getting off to women kissing in front of him as well as asking if bisexual women were "truly bisexual" or just "sipped from the fur cup" with his best friend who sexually harasses women.

it's also weird that this essentially confirms the reason she has the "blake harem" is because she's bisexual, as well as being "cute & pretty." which. fall into a hole, luna, you ugly fuck.

also positing sun & blake on their faunus relationship as the much smaller one while being deluded there was anything to yang & blake over the "much longer relationship" besides a shit ton of shared trauma & no in depth discussions, no romantic connection, nothing until the last two volumes where they were like "welp, better get this yuri train on the road" & invented moments for them out of nowhere that were out of character & did a disservice to their actual characters.

"they're finally in a place where they can admit their feelings to one another" but why? nothing has changed between them, they've actively ignored or pushed aside the so called "baggage & drama" that miles described them going through & in this volume they were essentially made by the environment to confess their feelings, not through any genuine connection. there was no reason that this confession couldn't have happened in all the life threatening situations last volume & i would've been spared yang fetishizing blake's racial features.

overall: this cameo just confirms the worst of what we knew about crwby in regards to sun / blake / yang. whatever was popular was going to be canon, they didn't care or understand their characters motivations & there is so much biphobia in their treatment of their main bisexual character in regards to both her love life & the confirmation of it only coming in a wlw relationship, downplaying all sides of her attraction.

they could've had blake be confirmed bisexual from day one. they could've done more with blake & yang in the early volumes instead of borderline pimping her out to the cast to have a harem because of said bisexuality & her "cuteness" when in what way does that fit the reserved & cautious blake we know?

this is five minutes of my time i'll never get back & i wish miles a very happy get [redacted] because your shitty voice sounds like razor blades in my ear, you unwashed biphobic fuck.

[colourfulgreyscales]

On Characters' Sexualities; Representation and Phobias.  The Case of Queer Representation in Strange Way of Life (and other films)

I was hesitant to do this essay for a long time.

On one level, we live in a very polarized world and my essay is going to be diplomatic.  Unfortunately, in polarized times like this, this means that I am going to be perceived as siding with the opposite side of your position rather than analyzing the whole thing from a neutral angle.

It also has to do with a queer (and the first draft seems to present them as gay.  Let's see if that changes as the story evolves, which will be impacted by now seeing the movie and interpretations) fanfiction where I pair Silva with another cowboy I have interpreted as queer through the years (Slow West's Silas Selleck.  More on him later).

OK, As you probably saw from the second paragraph, you probably know where I am headed with this.  There was one recent Tumblr entry that was posted as I was starting to write that nailed the same thesis of here.  Like the author, I do think Almodovar left the specifics of Silva and Jake's queer sexualities purposefully ambiguous and open to interpretation.  He never defined Strange Way of Life as a gay Western but a queer Western, and I do think that it is equally valid interpreting Jake and Silva as either gay or bisexual.

That unless one believes people can only be straight or gay and sexuality is that clear cut.

(I may argue that Almodovar has left some ambiguity in the nature of the queerness of some characters all along his, with many of his characters left free to identify as bisexual.  This is nothing new for him)

I also get that the gay fans of Pedro want a representation with his character that they hadn't been able to have before.  My bisexual bias make me think of Oberyn as possible queer representation, but I am not a gay man.   So I get they finally getting Pedro to have a character that represents them.   And based on historical facts, it is true that many gay men did get married to women and have children, and some had affairs with women to repress their desire for people of the same gender.  In fact, this is an argument I have made for Slow West's Silas Selleck, a character I read as gay. (*SPOILER ALERT*) I have had counterargued that Silas is "straight" because it was implied that he married Rose at the end and adopted the Swedish Children.  I made an analysis of it being a convenience arrangement and possibly the adoption of Children making Silas not obligated to sleep with Rose.  A similar argument could be said about Silva (except with him having a son).

However...  My problem is that some of these gay people asking for gay representation, use biphobic language.  Let me get out of the way that I am not talking about people saying it is not biphobic to interpret Silva as gay (and just leave it at that).  I also get the not liking Silva with a female character if can't relate to that.  BUT saying that interpreting Silva as bisexual "cheapens" the queerness of his (and for that matter, Jake's) characters or "corrupts" their story, ignores bisexual men as queer people simply because bisexual men can also desire women.  It's as if the possibility of desire women taints them and negates their queerness.    As a bisexual woman, I have gone through that crap from Lesbians for years.

(There is also the issue of gay people not believing that bisexual men exist, but to be fair, I have not seen Silva's sexuality critiqued from this angle.  It would be also a case of bi erasure if it is).

GENERAL BI MEN REPRESENTATION

There is another fact.  This is not a matter of "homophobic heterosexual women against gay representation."  Let's face it, there is a lot less bisexual male representation than gay men representation in media.  Only now we have more with Alex Claremont-Diaz in Red White and Royal Blue and Nick Nelson in Heartstopper.  They are more unambiguous and the representation comes with more casual mentions of being bi (either by the characters or the narrative).  But even with these characters, I have seen tjings like "Nick Nelson was just an adolescent, too young to figure out his sexuality.  He has not shown interest in women during the story." 

As points of reference: We have Brokeback Mountain.  There is strong evidence (even stronger as SWOL) that both Ennis and Jack could very well be bisexual.  You could argue that in their time they were married to women because they should, but even in the movie (I haven't read the book) they look very much attracted to their wives and Ennis to the girlfriend he had after his wife.  Counterarguments have included Ennis preference for anal sex in the book (plenty of heterosexuals and bisexuals like anal) and the book written by a woman.  Call me by Your Name has this same dilemma of men showing attraction to women in the movie (again, I haven't had the chance to get the book).  Their relations with women are more on screen and there has been an argument that they were gay and just experimenting, particularly Elio.  And that's valid.  But I also wonder if referring to these characters as bi, gay people feel they are being "corrupted" and "straightwashed" and "cheapened."  I know some say that it's not valid because Call Me By Your Name was written by a straight(-identified?) man anyway.

In conclusion: the interpretation of Silva and Jake as any sexuality other than straight is pretty much valid.  That being said, it is also true that there are not as much bi male representation as gay representation, and there is no need to incur in biphobic language when you want to make the (again valid) point of seeing Silva as gay.  Having heteronormative attractions doesn't make a bisexual/pansexual man any less queer (especially when they have queer attractions as well) and similar arguments can be done for a plethora of characters showing multiple gender attractions, whether on-screen or casually mentioning them.

[voicesinmovement]

The Good Wife is hands down my favorite legal drama

But the Biphobia portrayed in that show is fucking unreal

It can sometimes be easy to ignore, but my God!

[prokopetz]

The evil opposite of folks bending over backwards to declare that Taylor Swift is secretly gay or an "honorary lesbian" or whatever in order to justify enjoying her music is folks expressing amazement that this or that obviously straight musical artist could produce work that's so resonant with the LGBT experience, and then you look up the "obviously straight" artist in question and they're openly bisexual.

[and-fishing-equipment]

the reason why so much lesbian media sucks is because it's not really about women loving women and more about women not loving men. i wish to live in a world where lesbian media can acknowledge that lesbianism exists as its own separate thing without any background ties to heterosexuality or lack thereof. it's not an "alternative" to heterosexuality, some people are just dykes because they think women are neat, not because men can't satisfy them.

[sapphic-bats]

Stu’s pretty sure there’s something wrong with Tatum.

He and Tate aren’t exactly the most celibate, and anyone with eyes or ears can detect that. They’re not exactly shy about their trysts.

It’s the same thing that’s amiss with him, that’s for sure.

Stu would never, not in a million years, admit that he likes guys. To anyone. Besides the obvious fact that Billy knows, they’ve been fucking around for a while now, and it’s really the only time fun felt serious. Permanent. It’s stupid, cliche, and fucking flowery, but he’s gotta at least be honest with himself, yeah?

He always liked it when girls got as zealous as guys did. When they peeked down shirts, ogled asses, and slept around. I mean, sure, Stu had slit a woman for being a slut, but he really couldn’t care less about why. It was for Billy, and that was the only reason he needed. He wasn’t paid to think, but he was compensated, needless to say. Just… not in the way most would pay a hitman, for example.

Stu knew about Bowie. He knew bisexuality was a thing. He knew all about San Fransisco, and who inhabited it as freely as they could. He really never gave a shit, until he started puberty, and boys looked about just as good as girls did, although Stu often explored the mystery of women and how they worked, rather than the familiar concepts of men.

But the weirdest thing was that, even if Billy seemed to shun the very prospect of girls, someone else didn’t. And it sort of made Stu feel idiotic that he didn’t realize it was possible.

For every perverted glance Stu shot down a girl’s shirt, Tatum had done the same. Tate, however, didn’t seem as blatantly disrespectful as most guys acted. She seemed to recognize that people had feelings, and as long as she was discreet and kept her words and hands to herself, she wouldn’t make a girl uncomfortable.

Tatum slapped Stu when he ogled a girl, but it wasn’t in the girlfriend way it should have been. She didn’t seem the jealous type, Tate was just… what’s the word? Right, a feminist.

But it should have been in the girlfriend way, feminist or not! Shouldn’t it have been?

So, when Stu keeps catching Tatum glancing Sidney Prescott up and down, and picks up on the weird, almost ex-like tension between her and Courtney Blanchett, he says nothing.

In turn, Tatum never mentions the fact that she knew what a stab-slash-knife wound looked like, being the sister of an officer, after all. She never mentions that she knows that Stu’s spent his free time with Billy on the days that he comes about those injuries. She never talks about that one time, on New Year’s Eve, when Stu and Billy changed their clothes on a whim before midnight.

So they don’t talk about it. They don’t, and the secrets die with them.

I’m finally reading Debaser by @sharpth1ng and I had this idea while reading Chapter 8.

[theprinceandthewitch]

The biphobia coolaide never fails to smooth out peoples brains...

[choices-binglebonkus]

So I’ll be rolling my eyes throughout All of Us and thinking it’s annoying and lazily written and plays up a lot of queer stereotypes but then we’ll get commentary like this:

Like I’m actually in awe that Pixelberry dared to speak about biphobia and bi erasure, with a bisexual male character. One of the reasons I vastly prefer His Story to Her Story.

[isa-ghost]

I am in disbelief I have so much more ace rep than I do pan rep in canon media.

Enough bisexuals, MAKE THEM 🩷💛🩵

[bisexualfagdyke]

People only care about character's implied sexualities if they're implied to be lesbian / gay . As soon as a character is implied to be bisexual (e.g. explicitly attracted to / involved with both men and women) suddenly they're "lesbian / gay with comphet" .... what if I killed you with a rock 🩷

[alexwilltellyouthings]

Today I'm thinking about biphobia.

It started with an interviewer assuming a character's sexuality to be straight, which is not the first nor last time this will happen.

But it reminded me of how I have been seeing bisexuality in media over the years. It reminded me of watching Queer as Folk (the old US one) when I was young, how it impacted me, how it was important to have that on television. I mean, I was too young at the time it was airing (2000-2005), but even watching it years later at 2010/2011, it was still something I had never seen.

And do you know how they treated bisexuality in it? Bad. It was bad.

For the most part, bi just wasn't a thing. Five seasons and everyone was either gay or straight. A character started showing signs they was into a different gender? Oh my god they were straight all along!

But there were two moments where bi was a thing, and it was even worse. Once, a very quick scene where a major character finds out he slept with a bi man and feels disgusted. He says it out loud, he's disgusted. Yeah.

Then very later on in the series, a woman cheats on her wife with a man, and it's terrible, because it's cheating, but can you guess what the wife focused on? Yeah. How could she do it with a man? And the woman cried and desperately didn't know how to explain why she felt the attraction and it broke my heart. I'm not even saying she was bi, but the whole way it was treated was terrible.

Now, for the most part, that show was still very important and it discussed so many big topics. I still hold it very dearly in my heart. But you see, a major queer show, and it treated bi people like that. It was a long time ago, at least, so things are definitely better.

But I still need more bisexuality to be nicely represented on screen. I still crave it, even while I love the gay stories we're getting, and I do love them so so much. I'll just love it more when bi folks are also a big part of this, and explicitly so. We're getting there, for sure, but we still have to keep it running, we still have to be annoying about it.

Because people will assume a character is either straight or gay and we need to shut them up more.

[meggie-moo]

one of my biggest fic pet peeves is when they make a canon bi character gay, like?? there’s no need, they are already attracted to the same gender? literally what is the point of erasing their bisexuality, when it literally does not change the possibility of your ship happening? 😭 idk, it just does not sit well with me, lol

[paperairplanesopenwindows]

Prayer circle for me, Sara, if Ag*tha H*rkness is revealed to b*s*xual and a bunch of people flip out because they’ve been headcanoning her as l*sb*an.

[poetryincostume]

Oil and water. Wasn’t meant to be

Violet von Arcane Jacket, 2021-23

Pigskin suede, lamb nappa, silk, brass

[musical-chick-13]

Regarding the whole "Fandom Is An Escape, so why should I have to care this much about misogyny/racism/ableism/transphobia/etc." thing. Idk about the rest of you, but it gets kind of hard for me to "escape" when I keep seeing people say the same vile things about characters who share aspects of my identity that I hear all the time in real life.

[theprinceandthewitch]

It's so funny when people call Lunter/Huntceda controversial bc the only thing controversial about it is that Hunter isn't a girl.

Because Hunter is not a girl it's "homophobic" to pair Luz, the bisexual girl, off with him... especially if she had a girlfriend prior to dating him...