#don’t be calling this lesbian only friends wlw are not just copies of gay men <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[tiistirtipii]

Finally… toxic yuri

[binbrookfairqueen]

The Homoerotic Subtext In Victorious: Jade and Tori

I’ve done a lot of nothing during quarantine. The same old same old, wake up at noon, eat something, find the homoerotic subtext in every straight film/show/video game I come across. Isn’t that how we all spend our afternoons? 

It started with Taylor Swift, and the wlw undertones in all of her newest songs. Despite being in a long term relationship with a man, she penned lyrics like “those days turned into nights, slept next to her, but I dreamt of you all summer long” and “what would he do if he found us out? he’s gonna burn this house to the ground,” So of course I went from hating on all of this straight media, to searching for queer scraps in the background of these art pieces. From the new summer Disney flick, Luca, to the characters in my newest copy of Red Dead Redemption 2 on Xbox One. 

I always loved Victorious, it’s been one of my favorite shows since I was a child. The strange humor, the funny remarks. Always wondering why I liked the sassy, demanding Jade instead of the swoon-worthy womanizer Beck.

So, in quarantine, when I heard that Victorious was coming to Netflix, I re watched the entire show and couldn’t help but notice all of the queer innuendos, and rather flirty scenes between female actors. Of course- I’m not the first person to ever notice this. The homoerotic implied relationship between Tori Vega and Jade West had been shipped plenty of times and edited to oblivion by young, gay teens.

Since this is all news to me, I thought I’d go through every episode of Victorious and tell you what is gay about it, from a lesbian’s point of view. 

Pilot

I never noticed how queer coded Victorious is, especially this very first episode. The sexual tension between the girls is almost too much, I have to drink some water every few minutes.

It’s clear to me that Jade is taking advantage of new girl Tori, and trying to establish her superiority because of her own fears and insecurities.

[Tori bumps into Beck, spilling coffee all over him] Tori: Oh my gosh! Beck: Ah, it’s cool Tori: No, here- I think it’s coming out. [Tori attempts to rub the coffee stain out of Beck’s shirt] Beck: You might be making it worse, actually. [Jade enters] Jade: Dude, why are you rubbing my boyfriend? Tori: I-I just spilled coffee on- Jade: Get away from him. Beck: Relax. [Beck kisses a reluctant Jade on the cheek]

Our very first introduction to Jade West is her making sure everybody knows Beck is her boyfriend. Multiple times throughout the episode, she cuddles up to him, picks him as her partner, and kisses him in front of the whole class. There’s a straight explanation to this, but there’s also a queer one. Jade is insecure in her attraction to girls and feels as though she needs to prove herself and everyone else that she does, in fact, like men.

Sikowitz: Jade, you will captain the first group of the day. Choose your actors. Jade: Cat, Eli, Beck, and Tori. Tori, why don’t you go wait in the hall? Tori: Uh, okay. Jade: I have great news that’ll cheer up this whole family. I went to the animal shelter and got us a dog. [Pulls Tori into the classroom by the arm] Tori: Uh, yep! I’m the new family dog. Woof. Jade: Uh oh, looks like this dog has bugs in her fur. [Jade strokes Tori’s hair] Tori: Uh, woof? Jade: Oh, it’s okay! I read on the internet that coffee works great for getting rid of fur bugs. Beck: Maybe you shouldn’t- Andre: Jade- [Jade dramatically pours the coffee on Tori’s head] Jade: What’s the prob, dog? [Tori runs out of the room, contemplating quitting Hollywood Arts]

Jade not only wants everyone to know that she’s straight, but she also wants everyone to know that she possesses a dominant personality, and isn’t afraid to get dirty. In this case, she does all that she can to make Tori’s day a living hell, all because she touched her boyfriend.

I don’t recall this as normal straight girlfriend behavior, there’s gotta be a fear of being outed rooted down deep in Jade’s bones- right?

The episode leads to a scene whereas the two girls are arguing, and there are only a few notable lines:

Jade: Just where did you come from? Tori: Kangaroos. Jade: Lousy animals, Kangaroos, they're awkward and dirty. Tori: Maybe they learned from you. [The classroom tenses, the girls getting more and more angry] Jade: No one talks to me like that. Tori: Obviously someone should. Jade: Please run in front of a bus! Tori: Quite obnoxious of you to say.

Jade: Really? Tori: Sure was.

Jade: Thanks. [Sarcastically]

Scenes get tense as the girls grow closer to each other, getting more and more upset.

But it’s also a lot like playing cat and mouse.

Day 1, Jade picks Tori for her team, day 2, Tori picks Jade for her team just to spite her. The submissive trying to declare dominance, whilst the real dom notices the attention seeking. When Jade says that no one speaks to her like that, and Tori proceeds to comment that someone should, a sexual tension is cast into the air. It’s obvious to any viewer. 

The condescending flirtatious “Really?” Followed up by the bold “Sure was.” Is very queer coded. No one talks like that to someone they don’t find attractive. C’mon.

Author’s Conclusion: Jade feels the need to be angry and rude to anyone who threatens her heterosexuality. She possesses a fear of being outed, and does whatever she can to maintain a normal relationship with a man. But even her attraction to girls and her dominant personality can’t hide, as her actions reveal the closet to be made of glass.

Tori Goes Platinum

Tori: “Everyone else was coming to cheer you on, so... Figured I would, too. And you look way better in that than I would have.”

Jade: “This isn’t right. This was supposed to be your night. I can’t do that to a friend.”

- Jade is the most concerned person in the room when Tori begins acting differently after landing a gig at the Platinum Music Awards. Leading a class wide discussion, Jade discusses Tori’s change in behavior and provides her own evidence and proof to back up her statements. When Tori enters the classroom, Jade confronts her without hesitation, and seems to be the only person who cares enough about the pop stars well being. (Authors note: Only someone who truly cared about another would notice when they’re acting different and confront them to try and fix the problem...)

- When Tori refuses to wear the ridiculous outfits the record label provides, her opportunity to perform at the Platinum Music Awards is stripped away. Jade is asked to fill her place, and despite saying yes, she hesitates for a moment. These matter of seconds prove Jade has some kind of moral in her mind telling her that doing this would hurt Tori, and hurt their relationship.

- Beck and Tori don’t realize that they are still on video call with Jade, and the two almost kiss. Tori backs away, the following conversation takes place.

Beck: “Then why can’t we kiss?”

Tori: “Kissing your friends ex boyfriend...”

Beck: “Since when are you and Jade friends?”

Tori: “We’re kind of friends, I think. And kissing her ex boyfriend... I can’t do that to a friend.”

Despite the overuse of the word friend, this is still a sweet moment, and when Jade overhears this exchange, she realizes taking this opportunity away from Tori isn’t the right thing to do.

- 

[cuntess-carmilla]

The thing about the toothpaste flag (that shitty recolor of the lesbian flag) that some mostly white gay men are claiming as their own, is white gay men act like they're the most creative and innovative people in the world and then pull shit like that, always on the backs of wlw, trans women, and gay moc.

(Almost?) all the actually innovative and amazing things coming from "gay culture" (quote marks because there’s no UNIVERSAL gay culture; race, ethnicity and location change things) either comes from gays of color, or actually comes from trans women (also often trans woc at that, especially Black ones), and tbh many times also Jewish gays and trans women regardless of their race.

Then there's how much these white (and often gentile) gay men straight up steal the creative efforts of wlw or demand that the creative efforts by us include THEM, as if they ever did the same for us and as if we ever demanded the same from them. Such as the dudes who DEMAND angrily that things created by wlw MUST include them too. Like, these dudes demand from independent online wlw artists (such as my friend @orquidia) to draw mlm content when they're artists who've expressed, time and time again, that they make SAPPHIC art. Like, my friend Iv is bi, drawing m/f romance art is more personally relevant to them than content about only dudes lol.

But no, we must ALWAYS cater to them. When have they catered to us, though? Imagine if we went around behaving the same way.

The male entitlement is so bad that when wlw started making fucking moodboards for fun FOR OURSELVES dudes were ENRAGED that WE weren't making moodboards for THEM as if it was so fucking hard to just fucking copy our ideas themselves as they always do. But no, WE somehow were responsible that there weren’t fucking moodboards for them! Because they still see women as owing our labor to them! Incredible.

Same with shit like when the reclamation of "sapphic" became more popular and they were like QUICK, WE NEED OUR VERSION OF THAT and made up "achillean" which makes no fucking sense since it lacks the historical value of "sapphic" and Achilles wasn't even a real person. "Sapphic" was originally used to medicalize and brutalize wlw. WE didn't make up "sapphic", cishets made it up to insult and marginalize us and we reclaimed it centuries after it stopped being commonly used in that way. Not to mention, Sappho was an actual real fucking person. "Achillean" is literally QUICK, WE NEED A NEW SLUR THAT MIRRORS THE GIRLS'.

There's a reason most of the dudes using it are white. This obsession modern and usually younger AND WHITE gay and bi dudes have with being a perfect "male reflection" of lesbians and bi women is soooooo white gender binary.

You don't have to be! You can and SHOULD develop your own cultural elements independent from us, or if you’re gonna create things that have relation to us, it should be an organic result of you BEING IN COMMUNITY WITH US, like femme/butch was (which regarding its use in the ballroom scene, happened in Black and Latine LGBT communities, which isn’t surprising as LGBT poc tend to be less stupidly separatist).

But so many of you refuse to even consider us wlw as Actually Gay, even those of us who're lesbians (by the way, you shouldn't do it to bi women either), let alone to consider us as a valuable and important part of your communities. If you bitches thought of us as Actually Gay you wouldn’t constantly accuse wlw who so much as accidentally glance upon mlm media, of fetishizing you EVEN WHEN IT COMES TO LESBIANS LIKE COME ON, WE DON’T WANT YOU (let me repeat, still not ok and still stupid regarding bi women, they can and do relate to gay content in general because they’re a type of gay woman!).

You go so far to not consider us Actually Gay that you act like we face no violence, like corrective rape is "just" because we're women and has nothing to do with homophobia and thus it doesn't count as homophobic violence so wlw are still “privileged”, as if misogyny wasn't an INTENSIFIER of homophobia. Don’t get me started on how you all act regarding ~representation~, or, ykw? I will start.

You all act like there's more wlw representation in media than mlm representation when 1) that's verifyingly false, and ours mostly happens in fucking cartoons only, 2) the wlw rep in mainstream media is MOSTLY CREATED BY WLW OURSELVES after fighting for DECADES for our content to not be censored, both as creators and as fans. And you act like it's a privilege? We fought so hard to get scraps, and that’s a privilege to you. You disregard even our most defanged activism and believe we were gifted wlw rep because society loves us THAT MUCH in your eyes! We didn’t FIGHT for it, it was handed to us on a silver plate.

Did you see how much we campaigned for Harley Quinn (questionable a show as it is) to get a 3rd season just so we could actually see Harley and Ivy be an established couple, after the comics 100% erased their relationship, and you call that we got it PRIVILEGED? HQ is one of DC’s most successful pieces of media and according to the creators themselves it’s actually very fucking cheap to make, and it was still not certain that we were going to get a 3rd fucking season when, had it been a show just as profitable with a straight main couple you KNOW that would’ve been a given.

Even you boys' "analysis" of why we get to see wlw in cartoons is so stupid and exemplifies how much you refuse to understand our realities and struggles. It almost only happens in cartoons because love between women is never taken seriously and neither is animation, as it’s associated with kids.

You think we get it in animation because straight men get horny for us (which, by the way, they don’t when our love and lust are portrayed in a SERIOUS humane way, only when it’s a performance for men), when it happens in media that's mostly aimed at KIDS. Korrasami and HQ are the only examples I can think of that weren’t intended for a super young audience, but you fix your mouths saying it’s because we’re sexy to straight men. Do you REALLY think it happens in mostly children’s media because of our sexualization by men? Do you realize that would mean we’re being shown to children as a sexual product? Don’t be stupid. Other than Harlivy in HQ, none of them are shown doing more than kissing and holding hands.

If it were true that we get wlw in cartoons because of our fetishization by straight men, it would also mean that our fetishization IS A PRIVILEGE, because it'd be getting us humane and complex representation. Do you hear yourselves? Our fetishization gets us RAPED AND BATTERED. Gee, for people who got so passionate about being fetishized only after wlw talking about our own fetishization that also has way more dire material repercussions than annoying fujoshis started to get traction you sure do seem to think that when fetishization happens to YOU it’s a crime against humanity but when it happens to wlw it’s a fucking privilege.

Only reason we've gotten that representation is, again, because we've campaigned for DECADES to get ANYTHING, and some of us made the work of basically infiltrating the creative field and made + pushed for our content to be published/released with tooth and nail. It wasn't GIVEN to us, we FOUGHT for it.

Anyway, back to how white gay men (often the gentile ones) constantly take from us (gays of color, wlw, trans women, Jewish gays) but then turn around and think they’re the pinnacle of culture; I'd just fucking like it if you could at least treat us with basic respect and recognize our amazing creativity if you're gonna steal our creative labor constantly, OR if you refuse to do that, THEN MAKE YOUR OWN FFS.

Pick ONE struggle!