#i have a lot of feelings about how people deal and perceive queer media | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

remusawoooo · 5 months ago

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anon here, excited to read the essay! i asked you because i really like your takes and i see people in the more canon-adjacent parts of the marauders fanbase to complain about the extremes of the fanon one, though personally ive never really seen anything Too extreme, tho thats probably just tantamount to how well i curate my spaces i suppose (ive seen people say that fanon makes remus really “alpha” or makes sirius “bimbofied” and while ive seen hints of those extremes here and there, mostly it looks like it varies from person to person. ive just seen remus be more assertive than he probably is in canon, or sirius being more dramatic and “fem” than he probably is in canon). from what i know people like exaggerating events (the prank, etc.) or shifting some personality traits, but i dont really think thats a bad thing - i personally enjoy it. as long as they dont completely turn characters into stereotypes (though its a pitfall of every fandom, i fear), then whatever its just camp.

people are allowed to criticize stuff like that though, not taking that away from anyone, i personally just dont really care enough to be totally accurate esp since this hyperfix is kind of the bottom of the barrel for me LMAO. but i ask mostly bc im just curious to see what other peoples opinions are, and bc i think - especially in a fanbase like this - that its incredibly important to be at least a little critical with your media experience and reflect on it. saying “oh fuck canon we’re just having fun” is fine and all, i dont think anyone is stopping you, i think the personalities people have made up for characters that have zero screen time are super fun and the little ships are not everyones tea but like its fine. but even still, people should be way more aware of what characters theyre dealing with and from what franchise, and like reflect on any biases you may have. if youre making shit up for a random DE character, or retconning some sutff, okay, whatever, but be sure to not defend or like suddenly turn to really weird rhetoric. idk i think its the bare minimum in a fanbase like this

i definitely rambled way too much here, super sorry op! i hope this doesnt bother you, feel free to reply or feel free to not. i just really like hearing peoples thoughts on things, and i like your takes and your blog so i hope i didnt catch you by surprise. i really am just an outsider trying to look in LOL

hello anon, I'm sorry I lost your ask. I was writing on my laptop and saved the draft (but apparently had to press on alt, and didn't do it) so I basically lost your question and half of my initial response. Ty for sending in another ask!! Not a bother at all, i find this very lovely :D

I was mortified to find that someone who isn't really a part of the fandom was perceiving me while I was complaining about fictional characters ahahaha. still, thank you for validating me and asking my thoughts on the mischaracterization of marauders!! I do talk about it daily, unfortunately, and without any prompt too. I'll try to gather all my thoughts here. I don't necessarily come across fanon as much as I did when I reentered the fandom and honestly, I can not be more with you about curating your space !! at the end of the day, I am just here to have fun, and really, pointing out these issues is not a good time at all! But I do post a lot about these, I can't be bothered to bottle up any thoughts lol.

I think the major issue I have with current interpretations is the underlying bigotry that comes along with it. There is a lot of unchecked problematic content that doesn't sit right with me.

Flanderizing characters in fandom interpretations is not limited to marauders fandom obviously. any popular media will face this because so many of us want to interact with one character so their traits are simplified for easier consumption and to find a common ground. this is also not limited to new marauders fandom. even in the older era, leather jacket-wearing, motorbike-driving quintessential bad boy siruis was a thing. so I won't nitpick on silly simplifications.

I just want to say that this isn't about me wanting everyone to have the same interpretations as I do about the canon. I follow so many lovely people and I don't agree with all of their posts. But, we all just simply share the love for these characters in the text and form an imaginary community. So, if we were to remove all the issues I will mention, it is still very well possible to have different personal takes.

Here are some of my issues:

Queerness, Gender roles, and misogyny:

My biggest problem is the representations of queer relationships. the fandom packages these couples in a strange and obvious heteronormative mold where the individuals fit into male and female gender roles. mlm and wlw are now an “f/m”* stereotype and characterization gets affected by the ships. Heterosexual relationships shouldn't have these limitations either, anyway. There is no one way to be a woman or a man. With queer relationships in particular, we have reclaimed the word queer now but it was used to describe the unconventional weirdness in the relationship. We didn't fit into the normal portrayal of a loving relationship. So, it really bothers me, even in fiction, that queer ships are popularly consumed in a way that represents a traditional template. (*this is not about gender itself but the gender roles! f/m can very well be queer!).

Let's take the biggest victim in this fandom: sirius.

Sirius’ portrayal concerning his gender and sexuality has heavily changed his characterization in the fanon. We have a character who is popularly headcanonned as trans and is it a coincidence that all their traits have changed from the og material? Sirius is suddenly vain, whiny, and dumb. Canon doesn't suggest this interpretation, it has to have stemmed from somewhere. It's the implicit bias. Sirius becomes a caricature of what a woman “should be”. When we focus on sexuality, there is the suddenly short twink sirius who has the same new traits- proving the point of fulfilling gender roles. These characteristics are a stand-in for the “female” role of the traditional relationship and it becomes more clear in the example of new age wolfstar. Remus is now the big alpha stoic manly man- the obvious stand-in for the “male” role. I could go on, it is apparent in the way you can see remus becomes a caretaker and sirius is taken care of.

The point I am trying to make is not to discourage gender/sexuality hc. I love them, keep them coming. But, why is female sirius not tall suddenly? It is not inherently bad at all to have a feminine and masculine pairing! But why do we need to change the constitutions of these characters to consume their relationship?

I'll keep dropping disclaimers because I hate being misinterpreted: I don't obviously mean every single person is doing this or that doing one of the things means doing the other too.

Race:

It is related to the point above. I was personally so excited to see the popular desi james hc. Even in fanon, I have never seen such a prevalent and encouraged brown rep, it was quite sweet to come back to that. But the problem is the change of characteristics that comes with race hc. Desi james is also a manly dude who is big and buff as opposed to the white petite and delicate regulus within jegulus ship. The melanin is directly proportional to the manliness here.

This is a propagation of race stereotypes. Maybe jegulus was a bad example because usually there are seen as blank templates. I will raise the argument that this can't be all we can come up with for blank canvases then. Either way, my point about race still stands when you repeatedly design interracial queer relationships so they fall into heteronormative roles. Anyway, same issue with wolfstar when there is a brown remus.

Canon, JKR, and hypocrisy:

Refusing to engage with source material is funny when we are picking characters out of it. the interpretations of the characters will be from their book. otherwise, they are just original characters with the same name. you can add onto the traits and a lot of the time fandom comes to a consensus regarding a few things! This is common in every fandom but I don't think I have seen such reluctance to not only critically engage with media but also shame others who do. We are surely in special circumstances with this fandom but I really do think jkr and how we navigate the fanon should be two different things.

Most of us don't condone jkr or even remotely agree with any nonsense she spews on the daily. Most of us can see the problematic nature of even consuming this media and staying in this fandom. It is one of the reasons I even left the fandom. Most of us are simply doing our best to engage carefully while distancing ourselves from her. So, it is quite laughable when some love to take the moral high ground for rejecting canon while still engaging with the same characters. (the rejection of canon in question being sirius’ height, lol)

(Sirius' height is quite a polarising fact apparently. Unfortunately, the point about height is also discussed so disingenuously. When I talk about sirius’ height, it is not really about him being 6 or 7 feet. It will not really impact my life. It is about what it represents. He is bimbofied as he becomes short. It's an issue of "WHY" again.)

Of course, this isn't an accusation of intentional bigotry from everyone here. The problem with this fandom is that the people in it tell themselves that it is progressive and to run away from the problematic creator as much as possible. We are not progressive if all we do is co-opt queer and racially diverse identities on such a superficial level. The bias manifests in subtle forms. I just wish we check ourselves from time to time, that's all.

There is a lot of hostility when we try to discuss issues in the fanon. Things are interpreted in the most misguided way to just win the argument. Like I said in the beginning, we all just want to have a good time. That also means creating a welcoming space for vulnerable groups (especially when the same identities are used to pat yourselves on the backs for inclusivity points). I didn't even cover everything btw, I just wrote about the issues that concern me. queer and poc also partake in biased representations, I also probably have some biases that I didn't identify yet. I just think it would be super neat if everyone tried to make an effort to unlearn and engage with media without hurting anyone.

I have other issues but they are all just super subjective opinions and smth I can ignore when others do. ex: I really don't like giving tragic backstories to bigots in the story. Not every supremacist loser has a trauma that forced them into oppressing people! There is also "tropeyfication" of all major ships. Just an overall issue in the reading world I think, though.

Anon, I didn't mean to make it preachy in any way btw. You probably asked for a silly little rant and I went full lecture mode, so I apologize for the tone shift!! I mentioned these because every other issue can be brought down to these imo. Like you said, I also don't have any fixation on everything being canon-compliant. I only complain by asking about the thought process behind certain kinds of changes, if that makes sense! I hope this wasn't a drag really and you can see where I am coming from. If I misspoke anywhere, pls lmk. Thanks for sharing your opinions too!!

This is a long long rant, anyone who read everything, you are wonderful and patient. Thank you for taking the time. This huge post and the content can make you think, “who cares this much?” or “it's not that serious” and yaa it really isn't that serious. The characters aren't real but we all are. the identities projected are real. so, it does matter to talk about this.

Everything said this is a fun place to be once you find your own corner in the playground.

#anti jkr #anti jegulus #anti marauders fandom #anti fanon #marauders fandom #gender and sexuality in fandom #race in fandom #canon wolfstar #fanon wolfstar #hp canon #canon vs fanon

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tomyo · 1 year ago

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Nimona and a Decade of the Queer Experience

To me one of the most anticipated aspects of the Nimona adaptation was to see how they changed the a lot of the queer themes from the original comic. Nimona was created in a time where it was still taboo to represent same sex relationships in anything trying to be marketable into an era where it is so commonplace that Nimona would have seemed regressive if it stayed true to the material.

Naturally the way Blackheart and Goldenloin are portrayed has greatly changed but also has a lot of the message from the original. Nimona is now about the trans experience.

This isn't to say transness was never at the core of Nimona but I don't think even baby nonbinary me would have been able to connect it directly to that.

Nimona the comic, to me, deals with similar but different issues from Nimona the movie. The comic was a story of trying to upheave an untrustworthy militarized state through the initially goofy lens of a budding father daughter relationship that ultimately fails.

Blackheart at the start of the comic already is trying to defy the government and Nimona seeks him out because he's actually playing the role of the villain already. She herself felt like this mix of female and queer rage. It made believe somewhat in the idea that the little girl by the end of the story was truly her who had once tried to do better for her home and was rejected for becoming something *different*. Overall you can feel more presently that deafening dread that Blackheart and Goldenloin love each other and acknowledging that would ruin both of their lives. This is moreso due to that whole conflict of their ideologies and sides they are on interfering but the metaphor is there. We could read this easily as Blackheart being out of the closet and at odds with society where Goldenloin on in the closet and working on the name of oppression. By showing Blackheart looking visibly like a villain it harkens back to the queer coding of Disney villains and a feeling a lot of queer people had to experience at that time, being an enemy to the public simply for existing. Coming back to Nimona, she's the perfect example of a trans masc egg experience; punk in a way that isn't fully certain in embracing or trashing anything feminine. Not fully androgynous but butchy and an unfocused anger at everything around them. I can never speak for the entirety of the trans experience but I know the feeling being born in an afab body and violently hating the society that I want badly to accept me, the way we insist that we intend to fully express our being while also creating this weird mix of unconvincing conformity. Again I laugh so much at her design elements; shaved head, tomboyish in chainmail but with curves, and short dresses, and impractical belts. Her actions also read as someone who's greatest sore point is loss of her bodily autonomy which ultimately she's subjected to during the climax. The monster/power of Nimona to me tends to ultimately mirror more of an emotional state rather than transness itself. Both version of Nimona have people see it as something Nimona is inflicted with rather than a part of her existence as she reveals at the end. Even Blackheart believe he can cure her of it with the equivalence of a procedure or medication but it's because he only perceives Nimona as the little girl and not the little girl as a part of the whole that is the dragon. I think there is a lot of things we can read into the dragon being and even at the idea that queerness is something people seek to cure that doesn't need one in the first place. And ultimately that's why the story ends on the somber tone it does, the biggest focus of the story was how Blackheart became the parent to Nimona and misguidedly tried to 'fix' her. And like a lot of people, especially for the time period, Nimona had to leave behind the family and society that couldn't accept her as her.

And so we move forward through the years.

Media is not made in a vacuum, Nimona the comic is a critique of early 2010s ideologies and maybe doesn't even worry about them as serious in a pre 2016 world. Nimona 2023 however exists on the other side of that threshold. Like I said, I don't think the original comic was consciously trans mostly because the zeitgeist wasn't conscious of transness. 2012-2014 (the comic's creation period) encapsulated me personally going from no aware knowledge of gender to confusion at learning my friend's pronouns to fully identifying as nonbinary in a world few people knew what that meant. But not long after that we had Korra's ending, the reveal of Ruby and Sapphire, Kaitlynn Jenner, Menanists, and then the nightmare of the 2016 election and all that came with it. The truth is a contradiction occurred; queerness became a part of the in group so long as it followed the rules of heteronormativity. I think it is fair to say a lot of queer people became more eeeh conservative for lack of better terms. For once we finally had a chance to be out and so long as we followed the conditions set out, exist well. We can live comfortably, why rock the boat? In other words, respectability politics. We are then at odds with those who believe we should keep complacent for fear of being rejected.

That brings us to Nimona the movie.

Blackheart no longer is the guerilla activist he once was, we now are introduced to him as a part of the system; specifically the model minority. Movies only have so much time for you to build understanding of it's world themes and ideas and so it tends to need to be more punchy with getting the point across otherwise become less coherent. So rather on the nose "Knighting a non noble is against god" as very flatly stated in the begging. Since the time of the comic, being gay has been normalized and we now see Blackheart and Goldenloin start out as a couple (to be frank I couldn't fully tell if they were official or not but they were all but in writing together) and by in universe logic, Goldenloin is the golden child pastor's son with divisively accepted boyfriend. Blackheart is an inspiration for his common men while his noble classmates are disgusted at the idea of him being allowed the same rights as them, essentially being allowed to be an policeman. It's his role as the model minority that he still believes the system is right when he is framed for murder; it is the one bad actor who's at fault despite a whole society shunning him with little reasoning needed.

Nimona in the other hand is a bit more in control of the relationship. Nimona of the comic latched onto a spurned man who was more methodical than she was in her work but Nimona of the movie is pretty much what pushes Blackheart into the image of a villain. Movie Nimona's goal is more or less to find community and for reasons we will get to only believes she can find it with other cast aside from society. She is jaded enough to know that Blackheart will continue to be labeled as the way they do to her. This time the shape shifting is explicitly trans; Nimona now is no longer worried about experimentation or trying to be cured but of being called a monster, the fear of her, and eradication; words I feel like I've heard too much in lgbt spaces lately. She talks about wanting her own demise with her heard turned down and eyes somber in moments that hit too close to home. She is a worn down warrior for her own existence. On safer grounds with Blackheart she more wittingly challenges his transphobia. Blackheart cannot perceive her out of the binary that she is default a girl and her transformations are something else, he asks if her transitions hurt, and he tries to convince her to blend in with others for his own comfort. As he spends more time with her, he's able to view the world he was taught differently and doesn't view the less pretty sides of Nimona as scary. However, programming is hard to free yourself out of.

The Director is by definition, conservative. She believes is a religious like text that society should not change unless it all falls a part. Her belief in this runs so deep that she easily is willing to kill pseudo religious figures as her personal code of morals override any actual logic in faith(anyone remember how magas talk about Trump as being sent by God while also disavowing him for encouraging vaccinations?). Her rhetoric that non nobles with be a societal slip eminates classism and racism (commoner is somewhat of a race allegory). She denies her own words to hold power, criticizes Nimona of whispering deceipt into blackhearts ear while actually being the one doing so to Goldenloin, and justifies her actions through holy scripts. She holds a stern belief in cleansing the society of it's demons down to intending to kill a large part of her society to rid it of the tran metaphor Nimona is. She is the quintessential conservative power so bent on it staying that way that she will destroy everything in spite of any logic to why it's right. Goldenloin, as the champion of the institution, a head cop if you will, looks upon the chaos learning the director's intent to kill thousands and says "what are we doing here?" A lot of institutions (aah there's the naming for you) in our country are like this. I think to some like, there are people who entered religion or became a police officer because they wanted to do good. But the rhetoric in these spaces can skew that perspective exponentially. Some with better access out may find that point of "What are we doing her" The moment the logic of the system no longer makes sense. I would love to talk more a lot this an the comic institution at a later point.

Back to Nimona and the queer identity.

Nimona was searching for a group to accept her, changing her appearance to fit in. She thinks she has it with Gloreth until Gloreth is taught that Nimona's existence was monstrous and rejects her as well. The scene of the villagers attacking her is poinient as well; they endanger and threaten her with violence (which would likely have been more explicit if not for kids) and she first turns to something weaker to escape but they refuse and so she is forced to turn to something bigger ane vicious in order to live but it only sets up the narrative that there is a reason to fear her when she didnt attack first, she simply had to protect herself. Nimona in the present is ready for her death, the narrative so out of control that it breaks her.

Blackheart is able to bring her back from the brink by doing the important thing of truly apologizing, have humility for his mistrust and bigotry, and offer her support on equal terms. Nimona this time does not flee her friend that failed her but sacrifice herself for the hope of a better future beyond the walls.

The final part to mention; the walls. The walls are mad out as a big deal in this. No one leaves beyond them and the one small town of Gloreth fills to a big capitalist tech dystopia that markets dragons as both cute mascots and something to eradicate to as young as children. Society is a small shoebox not allowed to even see beyond the walls; see a new potential of this world. Simply put, the beyond is the beyond of heteronormative society. Even as society has become more accepting of LGBT identities, it has only liked to consume it in an easily interpreted manor. There are a lot of even just fringe identities that used to get lambasted for being weird simply for existing, trying to apply those same rules within their spaces as they've become socially acceptable. For every push forward we make, there is still presentation and identity that will get ostracized for being out of the box. We create these walls and only build them out further every so often rather than knocking them down. If there is anything to take from Nimona it's to embrace the beyond.

Morning edit; Hiii thank you for reading all of this. I kinda furiously typed this after watching the movie last night and there are certainly some flaws for it. Towards the end you can see a lot of typos because I was literally falling asleep and there are definitely some concepts I would've liked to flesh out better but kinda glossed over to focus on what the stories were saying about Nimona specifically. I think if anything, I'd want to reexamine Blackheart in both stories because I honestly forgot a lot of his actions in the comic, same with the institution because it took a while to even remember about the Director being a character from the comic. To be real, there's some really specific events on where Nimona was made that tend to hit me pretty hard so I rushed through the comic when I read it last year. I might try to take me time now because Nimona is so meaningful. I even want to talk about how it made sense Disney tried to shut it down (I'm certain there's a lot of business reasons but I don't think it was compatible with the Disney brand). For all the ways we have queer stories, I don't think we see a lot of trans stories yet. I'm hoping the series like Dead End Paranormal Park and Nimona are the start of a new era that focally represent that.

#nimona

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stormblessed95 · 1 year ago

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https://www.tumblr.com/stormblessed95/721486441973252096/i-know-a-lot-of-jikookers-are-absolutely-certain

I’m that person but isw I am not a taekooker. I’m jikook biased and have been for years. All I do is fight taekookers💀 n I didn’t mean to sound rude n ik I don’t know anything ab queer relationships hence my curiosity so I was kinda taken back by your response. All my social media is filled w jikook and my merch too. I’m not trying to troll. I am genuinely curious about how it would work if they were in a relationship and how I couldn’t imagine it for myself and how it’s obviously different for people including queer people, I would support love jikook the same if they were tgt and jm is obviously bi an assumption I made his photofolio and him tattooing the bigender flags. N I don’t think you understand the level of my love for them as individuals and together so I wasn’t trying to say they can’t be in a relationship at all bc I do think they are and I don’t at the same time and I don’t think that’s a bad thing or something to be like hated for. I wouldn’t have mentioned that I was straight if I wasn’t trying to perceive it from a perspective of someone who was part of the lgbtqia community and let you know that’s where my lack of knowledge came from. And ur right I didn’t check ur account I just saw that you reply to jikook posts n wanted ur opinion if I did check it my response wouldn’t have been the same. I do take u seriously otherwise i probably wouldn’t have asked for your opinion and I will read your posts ab everything I mentioned now that iknow you’ve responded to them all previously. I wasn’t trying to undermine u, kinda offensive being called a taekooker😭

I understand what you are saying. But you also have to understand how when your constant counter examples comes up as taekook examples, that's what it makes you sound like a little bit. And I just said that you sounded a little bit like one but I didn't say you were one for sure. I just expressed my own frustration at the assumption I would re answer things I've already answered before. But if you want to have a conversation about it, I would love to. I'm always very open to talk about jikook, regardless of who it's with as long as people are respectful about it. And if they are your biases, I'm sure you will be. To get you started, please check out the following posts.

Why I think Jikook are dating in a brief introduction:

Jikook exclusivity:

The difference in skinship and intimacy:

Honorifics and how Jikook use them, and introduction post as i have more too:

Boundaries In relationships and flirting platonically while in relationships:

Reasons why I think Jimin is queer:

Reasons why I think JK is queer:

LGBTQIA+ Posts that I think you should read regardless of the jikook conversation because as an ally, it's important to educate yourself on various topics 💜💜

And thats 10. To start with. And I *think* these posts answer all your questions from your first ask. If I missed a question. Let me know, I was working off of memory. So it's possible. But if you want to know my opinions over Jikook and my opinions over what you brought up, here they are. And for real, if you want to DM me to talk more about it and one to one and hopefully without the confusion of texting under anon making it harder to understand tones, please DM me. I can help direct you to various other posts after these too. Let me know if you read them! Good luck!

#jikook #kookmin

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itsbinghebitch · 1 year ago

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ok so here’s the tea

this is gonna be about build and the whole shitshow of last week. consider it more of a public diary entry on my part.

i want to preface this with saying i really regret my anger outburst. i think it’s a really complicated situation and it lacked a lot of tact on my part to insult other fans no matter how angry i was feeling in that moment. i consider myself a thoughtful person but idk sometimes i deal with severe mood swings that i can’t control which. yeah, that doesn’t excuse attacking other people. and yeah even if i perceived homophobia/bigoted attitudes in the fandom, i recognize that i there are fans who are really going through a hard time right now and painting their moral dilemma as ‘excusing homophobia’ is not helpful.

i totally get that. i believe there can be productive conversations in this fandom. on the other hand, i don’t believe it was right for people to outright block me and alienate me when i expressed that, as a queer person, i cannot tolerate emerging attitudes in the fandom that excuse what build has said as simply manipulation on poi’s part. it’s a very difficult issue, because on the one hand you have the toxic/abusive relationship he clearly was in, and on the other you have an individual that has an enormous amount of growth to do, and an individual we all don’t know personally at that. it is, at the end of the day, a projection. who you think build is depends on your own experiences and philosophy on abuse, rehabilitation, nature vs nurture... so on and so forth.

it’s really heartbreaking to say, i’ve had so much trouble writing any vegaspete fic for a while now because however much i want to stick to the characters and not the actors, a little voice in my brain always reminds me of the whole build dilemma. and while before there might have been plausible deniability, that build had been wronged on so many fronts, now i can’t help but think of the comments he made on bible’s appearance. like did he think bible was ugly when filming with him. did he have bigoted/homophobic views as he was making vegaspete a reality, etc.

so that’s where i’m at folks. i might be able to dispassionately discuss this issue, still engage with kpts for its narrative merits, love vegaspete for what it has meant to me for over a year. but at a gut level, i can’t help it. i am an INFJ cancer moon bitch which means i make judgments with my third eye or pussy or something and i believe that’s a feature rather than a moral flaw.

i will always find sympathy for other marginalized people in fandom. i really hope your time here has been a respite, however brief, from the general shittiness of everything (at least that’s what kpts fandom has been for me). but i think the moment fandom subsumes your identity in any way, the moment you start judging emerging fandom topics as ‘us vs. them,’ you really have to take a step back and ask yourself what the real issue is.

is the real underlying issue the fandom or is it the overall lack of transparency from the person we’re debating? is it some rando on the other side of the world in a forum of 200 people or is it celebrity culture, which is opaque by design? is it social media, meant to maintain your interest, endlessly tweet, endlessly consume, keep the money making machine going with just one small nudge? with just a few well-placed hashtags? with its slot game mechanism and gambling level addictiveness and constant abstraction of real people? what is that is *really* making me angry?

because i don’t believe it’s another fan who, just like me, is trying to make it through today. that’s what i think. and that’s why i choose to step back and redirect my anger to the people with real power in this world. and that’s what i urge everyone to do when the going gets too crazy.

#thots on fandom and celebrity culture

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zealoussy · 1 year ago

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Yellowface by R. F. Kuang

✨ Some sort of review

So, basically June (a white woman) is so jealous of her friend, Athena (a chinese american, queer), who seems to have it all, that when she suddenly dies, June steals her friend’s unfinished manuscript. She stole it, polished it so it aligned with her approach to writing, then published the story as hers.

Yes, she's insufferable. Yes, you have to deal with her for the whole book. So, make sure you prepare a snack, a tea, or anything that you can grab when things get frustrating.

As an unlikeable character, June is written too well, I think. When you read this, you will expect to hate everything that she says and does. Granted, there are a lot of things you can hate about June. But the thing is, RFK leaves enough room in the characterization of June for the readers to interpret what kind of character she is.

You see, in satire, usually you have this expectation that the characters will always talk in exaggeration, their behavior and worldview, you can’t help but expect the characters to be some sort of caricature. Yet often, in this book, the things that she says are the messages that RFK wants to deliver.

If you find yourself agreeing with this quote from June,

We’re just suggesting the right credentials, so that readers take me and my story seriously, so that nobody refuses to pick up my work because of some outdated preconceptions about who can write what. And if anyone makes assumptions, or connects the dots the wrong way, doesn’t that say far more about them than me?

may I remind you that in this context, June stole Athena’s manuscript about a WWI Chinese Laborers story? Well you’ll find more layers of irony like this in Yellowface.

That dissonance between how I perceive June and some things she said that I agree with, makes me reevaluate my thinking about what was said, who said, how it was said. (A lot of things said on the internet. It’s easy to lose my voice in the noise, sometimes I even forget to make my own judgment.)

Another thing about June is that she feels human in this book. Before you come at me, no, I am not a June defender. There are moments where you will see how June is slowly deteriorating. In those moments, you can see that June is capable of guilt and grief and fear. That, makes her human.

Although not for long you’ll be reminded again, how still unlikeable she is. What an asshole she is. Some people may not like this way of characterization where, after showing her vulnerability, you'll then be hit in the face with a reminder how bad she is.

For me personally, I like to be reminded that she is terrible simply because I’m an empath.

Aside from June's characterization, there's also the social commentary. Have you ever felt like you have so much in your head but it seems impossible to express what you think? Yeah, RFK spoke what I had in mind like how. This book is I think RFK's way to give words to the things that she has been observing. She's very thorough at that too.

Maybe it's because I'm chronically online. Or maybe it's because I'm always interested in media trends. But there are a lot of nuances in which RFK write the things that she wanted to show the readers.

For example, June thought that the way Athena approached historical fiction is "so hackneyed that they defy belief", although it was implied that Athena was trying to be as truthful as possible to the actual history.

For June, how Athena writes is not accessible, didactic, therefore makes it not a good craft. Meanwhile all this time the opposite has been said about Athena's books: brilliant, authentic, insightful.

Part of Athena's original draft that June's editor said to be "torture porn" was a literal story straight from historical record. That exchange between June and her editor is a good example of "the winner is the one who write the history" or whatever, that sentence, but in a bad way.

From this gaze, we get to see how power is an essential factor that builds the narrative. There's a big part in the story where white privilege plays a role in which they have more advantages over people of color.

SPOILER ALERT

June is misusing her influence towards a POC character which consequently ruin that person's life entirely.

SPOILER ENDS.

Talking about POC, RFK has got some humour in her. I love how Juniper is written being so delulu that it makes her look plain stupid.

"Diversity is what’s selling right now. Editors are hungry for marginalized voices. You’ll get plenty of opportunities for being different, Emmy. "

In booktwt specifically, it is not an uncommon occurrence where readers are debating about diversity. "Just because the book is diverse doesn't mean it's good," that saying is not unfamiliar among the readers. What is a good book, honestly? Pulling the thread from this scope, RFK tried to capture how twitter discourse looks like, what each sides are arguing about.

It's easy for people to dismiss the happenings on the twitter as, "It's just twitter", although in a lot of cases it's warranted that things are overblown in there, but there needs to be some consideration where people's life are depending on it. What does this mean is, it all comes down to the theme of white privilege again. June's career is depending on social media, mainly twitter. Being the June that she is, let's say, she's not nice to people, so there are consequences of her own actions, but knowing how deranged twitter can be, relying your career using that media can be debilitating. June is obviously overwhelmed by this. I like this part because this is where the social commentary shines light about the publishing industry.

But Twitter is real life; it’s realer than real life, because that is the realm that the social economy of publishing exists on, because the industry has no alternative.

I don't think I ever heard a book that tells a story about publishing industry this close. Readers are introduced to the behind the scenes of publishing industry with a sense of familiarity, using terms that readers use when they talk about the books they consume. Yellowface is an intriguing piece of literature that break the door to the source of the enjoyment itself and the way it is created in this profit-hungry society. Not only that, it also a neat composition of characterization, storyline, motif, worldbuilding, and a sprinkle of social commentary.

TLDR: Seriously, please read Yellowface! It's well-written, engaging, insightful, and overall an amazing book.

#book review #booklr #yellowface #yellowface rf kuang #rf kuang #white gaze #books #adablabbooks #sorry for any grammatical errors and incoherent sentences :')#i don't talk about athena liu because i want people to experience by themselves #the character of athena liu

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an-aura-about-you · 1 year ago

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i just saw your tags please tell me more about red white and royal blue

OKAY SO

Red White & Royal Blue is a queer romance novel by Casey McQuiston. It is the story of Alex, the 21 year old son of the President of the United States, and his enemies to lovers bromance turned romance with Prince Henry, the grandson of the current Queen of England.

And that bit of it is honestly mostly fine to me! I like that Alex is kind of a dumb boy baby bi who didn't realize the gay shit he got up to with his best friend was, indeed, gay shit. I like the part when Henry's older sister Bea tells Alex about how their father died when Henry was relatively young and how that grief just shoots down to the bottom of your soul, deeper than you thought yourself capable of feeling, and now when terrible things happen you automatically plummet to that same emotional low. I like the stuff going on with Rafael and how he was willing to tank his reputation in order to take down his potential abuser.

But hooooooooly shit the alternate reality this book exists in is so distracting.

First thing I should cover is that Alex's presidential parent is his mother Ellen Claremont, the first woman president elected in 2016.

Yes.

Claremont's reelection campaign in 2020 is a prominent part of the book, and Alex's secret romance with Henry is exposed by her Republican opponent via Alex and Henry's private emails.

*clicks tongue* Yeah.

Also, a lot of this does end up going down in 2019 and 2020, with not even a hint of pandemic, which, fair, I'll accept that. But it does feel really weird in the face of this other stuff.

And across the pond, Henry has to deal with his family finding out he's gay, specifically him coming out to his older brother Phillip and their grandmother Queen Mary. All of this feels so very weird to type out. The Queen and Phillip do not take it well at all, and at one point Henry does indeed threaten to abdicate, at least privately to Alex.

Soooooooo.

And this one's admittedly nitpicky, but Harry Potter references? Really? We do not need those, do we? Especially when you're indicating that you have people you care about that are indeed trans? (I've pulled up the Wikipedia article and have been informed that these references are removed from a later edition. On top of that, the author is nonbinary, so I imagine this might have been done not just because of readers commenting on it but them regretting writing in those references in the first place.)

And you know what, I don't know how much I've listed there is the problematic shit. Frankly, I sometimes have blinders on for this. I did not get involved in any of that "It's Totally Normal To Practice Kissing With Your Friends" shit, so idk how much of that is made up by media and how much of that really happens under the veil of wanting to actually kiss those of the same perceived gender. And since a lot of the stuff I read in this genre tends to be fanfiction (because I personally prefer having my blorbos at the ready to play Barbies with), I have no idea if the sex scenes are typical for this type of book compared to the wild-ass shit I read on the regular.

There's also the issue of Alex's race, which I am in no way qualified to talk about in depth but does merit mention: Alex is the child of an interracial marriage. His mother is white and his father is Latino. He is referred to as Alex, Alexander, Alejandro, Claremont (his mother's surname), and Diaz (his father's surname). The narration makes it clear that he is not perceived as white passing, that he is obviously Latino. And I have no idea what that might stir up. I didn't notice anything that made any alarm bells ring for me, but I am very white.

Overall, I was glad I listened to it. It hit the nice little niche it was aiming for, and I think there should be more stuff like it. But maybe put it in a universe not quite so close to ours like that.

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noahfandomstudies · 9 months ago

Text

Episode 1 Transcript

[00:00:00.870] - Speaker 1

All right. Welcome to the Wiseguy Wisdom podcast, I am Noah, I am one of your host.

[00:00:07.080] - Speaker 2

And we are here with Nicholas Capuano, soprano specialist.

[00:00:11.670] - Speaker 1

Awesome, awesome. So, um, today, um, in particular, we're going to be talking about queer theory and how it's kind of, you know, portrayed in The Sopranos since the a lot of The Sopranos deals with like, these kind of old school traditionalists, you know, mentalities and point of views. So like, personally, like, I think one of the big things that the show deals with, especially in season six, is the whole video storyline. And you know how he's this masculine, traditional, wise guy, but he also has a secret past of being, you know, a homosexual and how they all deal with that. Um, and this is really interesting because this is in the time this is like the early 2000 when, you know, gay acceptance was like still kind of getting up there, but like, it still wasn't there. So, yeah. What do you think about that?

[00:00:55.560] - Speaker 2

And like, I feel like especially in, in like an Italian culture, like, um, I feel like being a homosexual in, like an Italian culture is looked pretty down upon. Yeah. Like, um, and like, I feel like they kind of did that on purpose to kind of put something out of the norm in like, like with, like Italian culture in that show. Yeah.

[00:01:19.170] - Speaker 1

So do you think it was like also because, um, you know, they brought up like good plot points or like, oh, he was like a textbook closeted man. You know, he had a wife, he had kids. Um, so it's kind of interesting because, you know, they didn't make him just like some openly gay guy in the Mafia. They they kind of make it like, oh, he was ashamed of this, but, um, it's kind of also interesting that, like, this is a point in the media where, you know, like, gay people haven't been made in character. So by the surprise of him being out as gay, it's kind of, you know, I want to say a shock factor, but it's kind of just different to, like, the traditional mobster story. Yeah.

[00:01:58.410] - Speaker 2

Of course. And, um, I feel like, like we kind of got like, like as viewers, like. And, um, they definitely gave us some sort of just opening, like, like intro to Vito's, um, other life of being, um, like homosexual, um, like, especially at the construction scene, uh, when, like, um, you know, my boyfriend Finn saw him doing something with a guy, okay. And then, like, that was like a cliffhanger. I feel like for a few episodes, you know, that they didn't touch upon until season six. So.

[00:02:34.170] - Speaker 1

Yeah, I mean, I think it's also, like, important to point out that, um, you know, the whole thing about The Sopranos is like, their crew is all about these traditionalist ideas, right? So they're all about, you know, the old the old country, you know, everything, you know, has to stay the same way. And, you know, as, you know, as a fan and I've just noticed that they're not really, you know, accepting like modern times, you know, they're kind of like stuck in a time warp. Yeah. Um, and I think it's also, like, really important to point out that, um, you know, I don't think Vito was either, like, he was kind of, like, on edge about it, too. He's like, oh, you know, my medication's making me think all weird. So it's honestly like a really interesting, like, social commentary about, you know, like acceptance of your, like, of yourself and, um, you know, how others perceive you and how accepting others are because, I mean, as we know, he literally got killed because of his homosexual lifestyle.

[00:03:35.130] - Speaker 2

Yeah, exactly. And I feel like too. So, um, with the new Jersey, like, crime family in real life, um, this actually did happen in, like, in real life, but like, like, it wasn't like, um, like a capo, like Vito. I think this might have been a boss or an underboss or something where he was actually secretly gay and, um, yeah, like a bunch of, like, people in his family actually murdered him. And then. Yeah, like like I said, like like I feel that the show definitely kind of took that idea from real life, you know? But still, though, like, I feel that you definitely don't see that, like, like too many mobsters coming out as gay, you know, just because of the old school kind of old country, um, you know, morals.

[00:04:24.420] - Speaker 1

No, definitely. Um, I think another really, like, important thing, while we're also talking about queer theory is, um, the relevance and the significance of toxic, like, toxic masculinity, because, you know, the whole thing about Tony and most of his guys as characters is they're supposed to be these like, you know, alpha male, very every single like, masculine stereotype to. Q um, and how, you know, like, they got to be these big, tough guys smoking cigars, making tons of money, you know? But, um, the thing about The Sopranos is that a kind of like. Almost like romanticizes it. Like it makes it into this, like larger than life concept where, you know, and at the time where like because the show started in 99, ended in 2007. Um, so this was at the time where like, you know, especially in like young kids minds from, I would say like teenagers where it's like, this wasn't really a thing that was thought about.

[00:05:23.720] - Speaker 1

So I feel like it's very interesting to point out how Tony is literally like, almost like the human manifestation of what people would consider today talking about toxic masculinity.

[00:05:34.040] - Speaker 2

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. I can see where that all comes from. You know what I mean? Yeah.

[00:05:40.610] - Speaker 1

And it's just it's really like the thing that interests me about it is that, um, you know, he is like, so, like, defensive about it, right? He's literally, you know, he puts it on his kids. He's like, oh, listen, this is the way you gotta be. You know, you gotta be the breadwinner while the wife stays at home, you know, with clean cooks and cleans, you know, and while, you know, he's like, um, which is a very, like interesting subject within the show, mainly due to the fact that his daughter meadow is like, the polar opposite of his mother. You know, she. Yeah. She wants to, you know, go she goes to Columbia, an Ivy League school. She wants to be like a lawyer. Yeah. And she's also very against. She's very like pro like modern times, you know?

[00:06:24.710] - Speaker 2

Yeah, definitely. And like, I feel like. Like she actually, like, doesn't want to be, like, dependent on, like, a man or a gardener or whatever. I feel like she actually wants to pull her own way. Unlike Carmela from as quoted from Tony as where she just messed around with the, uh, air conditioning and and stuff. Right. You know what I mean?

[00:06:47.540] - Speaker 1

Yeah. No, it's, um, it's super interesting because I feel like in the show, like, meadow kind of represents this, um, you know, transition to modern ideals while at the same time being her daughter, the daughter of Tony, who is all about traditionalists. Right. So it's constantly this, you know, battling of mentalities. And we see it all throughout the show. I mean, I know it's like really present, um, and um, yeah, no, it's just really interesting because like I said before, this was at a time when, you know, like modern ideals that like we, you know, today, especially queer theory was not that present in, in media and television. Um, but I feel like, you know, she is kind of like, almost like the stepping point of, um, you know, like putting that in shows and, like, showing how it's normalized.

[00:07:38.960] - Speaker 2

Definitely, definitely. And I think, like, another thing that I would definitely like to touch on with toxic masculinity, um, like we see AJ and like, like how, like the show started and like, ended and I feel like, like he was the most opposite thing than what Tony wanted him to be. It. Absolutely. You know what I mean? Like, Tony was like the super hard dude. Like, like, um, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, it was super hard and stuff and, and wanted AJ to be just like him and his father before him and AJ like, like wind up, like not doing any of the stuff that his dad wanted to be, you know what I mean?

[00:08:21.110] - Speaker 1

And the thing that's really interesting is the AJ Tony relationship kind of goes full circle because Tony is a flawed character, like from the start, you know, he has these psychological problems and he sees a therapist. But then we later learned that AJ also gets those like psychological problems. So you know, Tony's whole like fatherhood leanness of AJ really goes full circle because as I said, he's like, oh, I passed down this gene of me being, you know, like having a mental problem. Yeah.

[00:08:49.730] - Speaker 2

Yeah for sure.

[00:08:50.690] - Speaker 1

So but yeah. All right. Well that was episode one. We will see you in the next episode.

#com255 #officeofdocmalone #fandomstudies

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transgenderteensurvivalguide · 4 years ago

Link

“Elliot Page doesn’t remember exactly how long he had been asking.

But he does remember the acute feeling of triumph when, around age 9, he was finally allowed to cut his hair short. “I felt like a boy,” Page says. “I wanted to be a boy. I would ask my mom if I could be someday.” Growing up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Page visualized himself as a boy in imaginary games, freed from the discomfort of how other people saw him: as a girl. After the haircut, strangers finally started perceiving him the way he saw himself, and it felt both right and exciting.

The joy was short-lived. Months later, Page got his first break, landing a part as a daughter in a Canadian mining family in the TV movie Pit Pony. He wore a wig for the film, and when Pit Pony became a TV show, he grew his hair out again. “I became a professional actor at the age of 10,” Page says. And pursuing that passion came with a difficult compromise. “Of course I had to look a certain way.”

We are speaking in late February. It is the first interview Page, 34, has given since disclosing in December that he is transgender, in a heartfelt letter posted to Instagram, and he is crying before I have even uttered a question. “Sorry, I’m going to be emotional, but that’s cool, right?” he says, smiling through his tears.

It’s hard for him to talk about the days that led up to that disclosure. When I ask how he was feeling, he looks away, his neck exposed by a new short haircut. After a pause, he presses his hand to his heart and closes his eyes. “This feeling of true excitement and deep gratitude to have made it to this point in my life,” he says, “mixed with a lot of fear and anxiety.”

It’s not hard to understand why a trans person would be dealing with conflicting feelings in this moment. Increased social acceptance has led to more young people describing themselves as trans—1.8% of Gen Z compared with 0.2% of boomers, according to a recent Gallup poll—yet this has fueled conservatives who are stoking fears about a “transgender craze.” President Joe Biden has restored the right of transgender military members to serve openly, and in Hollywood, trans people have never had more meaningful time onscreen. Meanwhile, J.K. Rowling is leveraging her cultural capital to oppose transgender equality in the name of feminism, and lawmakers are arguing in the halls of Congress over the validity of gender identities. “Sex has become a political football in the culture wars,” says Chase Strangio, deputy director for transgender justice at the ACLU.

(Full article with photos continued under the “read more”)

And so Page—who charmed America as a precocious pregnant teenager in Juno, constructed dreamscapes in Inception and now stars in Netflix’s hit superhero show The Umbrella Academy, the third season of which he’s filming in Toronto—expected that his news would be met with both applause and vitriol. “What I was anticipating was a lot of support and love and a massive amount of hatred and transphobia,” says Page. “That’s essentially what happened.” What he did not anticipate was just how big this story would be. Page’s announcement, which made him one of the most famous out trans people in the world, started trending on Twitter in more than 20 countries. He gained more than 400,000 new followers on Instagram on that day alone. Thousands of articles were published. Likes and shares reached the millions. Right-wing podcasters readied their rhetoric about “women in men’s locker rooms.” Casting directors reached out to Page’s manager saying it would be an honor to cast Page in their next big movie.

So, it was a lot. Over the course of two conversations, Page will say that understanding himself in all the specifics remains a work in progress. Fathoming one��s gender, an identity innate and performed, personal and social, fixed and evolving, is complicated enough without being under a spotlight that never seems to turn off. But having arrived at a critical juncture, Page feels a deep sense of responsibility to share his truth. “Extremely influential people are spreading these myths and damaging rhetoric—every day you’re seeing our existence debated,” Page says. “Transgender people are so very real.”

That role in Pit Pony led to other productions and eventually, when Page was 16, to a film called Mouth to Mouth. Playing a young anarchist, Page had a chance to cut his hair again. This time, he shaved it off completely. The kids at his high school teased him, but in photos he has posted from that time on social media he looks at ease. Page’s head was still shaved when he mailed in an audition tape for the 2005 thriller Hard Candy. The people in charge of casting asked him to audition again in a wig. Soon, the hair was back.

Page’s tour de force performance in Hard Candy led, two years later, to Juno, a low-budget indie film that brought Page Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations and sudden megafame. The actor, then 21, struggled with the stresses of that ascension. The endless primping, red carpets and magazine spreads were all agonizing reminders of the disconnect between how the world saw Page and who he knew himself to be. “I just never recognized myself,” Page says. “For a long time I could not even look at a photo of myself.” It was difficult to watch the movies too, especially ones in which he played more feminine roles.

Page loved making movies, but he also felt alienated by Hollywood and its standards. Alia Shawkat, a close friend and co-star in 2009’s Whip It,describes all the attention from Juno as scarring. “He had a really hard time with the press and expectations,” Shawkat says. “‘Put this on! And look this way! And this is sexy!’”

By the time he appeared in blockbusters like X-Men: The Last Stand and Inception, Page was suffering from depression, anxiety and panic attacks. He didn’t know, he says, “how to explain to people that even though [I was] an actor, just putting on a T-shirt cut for a woman would make me so unwell.” Shawkat recalls Page’s struggles with clothes. “I’d be like, ‘Hey, look at all these nice outfits you’re getting,’ and he would say, ‘It’s not me. It feels like a costume,’” she says. Page tried to convince himself that he was fine, that someone who was fortunate enough to have made it shouldn’t have complaints. But he felt exhausted by the work required to “just exist,” and thought more than once about quitting acting.

In 2014, Page came out as gay, despite feeling for years that “being out was impossible” given his career. (Gender identity and sexual orientation are, of course, distinct, but one queer identity can coexist with another.) In an emotional speech at a Human Rights Campaign conference, Page talked about being part of an industry “that places crushing standards” on actors and viewers alike. “There are pervasive stereotypes about masculinity and femininity that define how we’re all supposed to act, dress and speak,” Page went on. “And they serve no one.”

The actor started wearing suits on the red carpet. He found love, marrying choreographer Emma Portner in 2018. He asserted more agency in his career, producing his own films with LGBTQ leads like Freeheld and My Days of Mercy. And he made a masculine wardrobe a condition of taking roles. Yet the daily discord was becoming unbearable. “The difference in how I felt before coming out as gay to after was massive,” says Page. “But did the discomfort in my body ever go away? No, no, no, no.”

In part, it was the isolation forced by the pandemic that brought to a head Page’s wrestling with gender. (Page and Portner separated last summer, and the two divorced in early 2021. “We’ve remained close friends,” Page says.) “I had a lot of time on my own to really focus on things that I think, in so many ways, unconsciously, I was avoiding,” he says. He was inspired by trailblazing trans icons like Janet Mock and Laverne Cox, who found success in Hollywood while living authentically. Trans writers helped him understand his feelings; Page saw himself reflected in P. Carl’s memoir Becoming a Man. Eventually “shame and discomfort” gave way to revelation. “I was finally able to embrace being transgender,” Page says, “and letting myself fully become who I am.”

This led to a series of decisions. One was asking the world to call him by a different name, Elliot, which he says he’s always liked. Page has a tattoo that says E.P. PHONE HOME, a reference to a movie about a young boy with that name. “I loved E.T. when I was a kid and always wanted to look like the boys in the movies, right?” he says. The other decision was to use different pronouns—for the record, both he/him and they/them are fine. (When I ask if he has a preference on pronouns for the purposes of this story, Page says, “He/him is great.”)

A day before we first speak, Page will talk to his mom about this interview and she will tell him, “I’m just so proud of my son.” He grows emotional relating this and tries to explain that his mom, the daughter of a minister, who was born in the 1950s, was always trying to do what she thought was best for her child, even if that meant encouraging young Page to act like a girl. “She wants me to be who I am and supports me fully,” Page says. “It is a testament to how people really change.”

Another decision was to get top surgery. Page volunteers this information early in our conversation; at the time he posted his disclosure on Instagram, he was recovering in Toronto. Like many trans people, Page emphasizes being trans isn’t all about surgery. For some people, it’s unnecessary. For others, it’s unaffordable. For the wider world, the media’s focus on it has sensationalized transgender bodies, inviting invasive and inappropriate questions. But Page describes surgery as something that, for him, has made it possible to finally recognize himself when he looks in the mirror, providing catharsis he’s been waiting for since the “total hell” of puberty. “It has completely transformed my life,” he says. So much of his energy was spent on being uncomfortable in his body, he says. Now he has that energy back.

For the transgender community at large, visibility does not automatically lead to acceptance. Around the globe, transgender people deal disproportionately with violence and discrimination. Anti-trans hate crimes are on the rise in the U.K. along with increasingly transphobic rhetoric in newspapers and tabloids. In the U.S., in addition to the perennial challenges trans people face with issues like poverty and homelessness, a flurry of bills in state legislatures would make it a crime to provide transition-related medical care to trans youth. And crass old jokes are still in circulation. When Biden lifted the ban on open service for transgender troops, Saturday Night Live’s Michael Che did a bit on Weekend Update about the policy being called “don’t ask, don’t tuck.”

Page says coming out as trans was “selfish” on one level: “It’s for me. I want to live and be who I am.” But he also felt a moral imperative to do so, given the times. Human identity is complicated and mysterious, but politics insists on fitting everything into boxes. In today’s culture wars, simplistic beliefs about gender—e.g., chromosomes = destiny—are so widespread and so deep-seated that many people who hold those beliefs don’t feel compelled to consider whether they might be incomplete or prejudiced. On Feb. 24, after a passionate debate on legislation that would ban discrimination against LGBTQ people, Representative Marie Newman, an Illinois Democrat, proudly displayed the pride flag in support of her daughter, who is trans. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, responded by hanging a poster outside her office that read: There are TWO genders: MALE & FEMALE.

The next day Dr. Rachel Levine, who stands to become the first openly transgender federal official confirmed by the Senate, endured a tirade from Senator Rand Paul about “genital mutilation” during her confirmation hearing. My second conversation with Page happens shortly after this. He brings it up almost immediately, and seems both heartbroken and determined. He wants to emphasize that top surgery, for him, was “not only life-changing but lifesaving.” He implores people to educate themselves about trans lives, to learn how crucial medical care can be, to understand that lack of access to it is one of the many reasons that an estimated 41% of transgender people have attempted suicide, according to one survey.

Page has been in the political trenches for a while, having leaned into progressive activism after coming out as queer in 2014. For two seasons, he and best friend Ian Daniel filmed Gaycation, a Viceland series that explored LGBTQ culture around the world and, at one point, showed Page grilling Senator Ted Cruz at the Iowa State Fair about discrimination against queer people. In 2019, Page made a documentary called There’s Something in the Water, which explores environmental hardships experienced by communities of color in Nova Scotia, with $350,000 of his own money. That activism extends to his own industry: in 2017, he published a Facebook post that, among other things, accused director Brett Ratner of forcibly outing him as gay on the set of an X-Men movie. (A representative for Ratner did not respond to a request for comment.)

As a trans person who is white, wealthy and famous, Page has a unique kind of privilege, and with it an opportunity to advocate for those with less. According to the U.S. Trans Survey, a large-scale report from 2015, transgender people of color are more likely to experience unemployment, harassment by police and refusals of medical care. Nearly half of all Black respondents reported being denied equal treatment, verbally harassed and/or physically attacked in the past year. Trans people as a group fare much worse on such stats than the general population. “My privilege has allowed me to have resources to get through and to be where I am today,” Page says, “and of course I want to use that privilege and platform to help in the ways I can.”

Since his disclosure, Page has been mostly quiet on social media. One exception has been to tweet on behalf of the ACLU, which is in the midst of fighting anti-trans bills and laws around the country, including those that ban transgender girls and women from participating in sports. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves says he will sign such a bill in the name of “protect[ing] young girls.” Page played competitive soccer and vividly recalls the agony of being told he would have to play on the girls’ team once he aged out of mixed-gender squads. After an appeal, Page was allowed to play with the boys for an additional year. Today, several bills list genitalia as a requirement for deciding who plays on which team. “I would have been in that position as a kid,” Page says. “It’s horrific.”

All this advocacy is unlikely to make life easier. “You can’t enter into certain spaces as a public trans person,” says the ACLU’s Strangio, “without being prepared to spend some percentage of your life being threatened and harassed.” Yet, while he seems overwhelmed at times, Page is also eager. Many of the political attacks on trans people—whether it is a mandate that bathroom use be determined by birth sex, a blanket ban on medical interventions for trans kids or the suggestion that trans men are simply wayward women beguiled by male privilege—carry the same subtext: that trans people are mistaken about who they are. “We know who we are,” Page says. “People cling to these firm ideas [about gender] because it makes people feel safe. But if we could just celebrate all the wonderful complexities of people, the world would be such a better place.”

Even if Page weren’t vocal, his public presence would communicate something powerful. That is in part because of what Paisley Currah, a professor of political science at Brooklyn College, calls “visibility gaps.” Historically, trans women have been more visible, in culture and in Hollywood, than trans men. There are many explanations: Our culture is obsessed with femininity. Men’s bodies are less policed and scrutinized. Patriarchal people tend to get more emotional about who is considered to be in the same category as their daughters. “And a lot of trans men don’t stand out as trans,” says Currah, who is a trans man himself. “I think we’ve taken up less of the public’s attention because masculinity is sort of the norm.”

During our interviews, Page will repeatedly refer to himself as a “transgender guy.” He also calls himself nonbinary and queer, but for him, transmasculinity is at the center of the conversation right now. “It’s a complicated journey,” he says, “and an ongoing process.”

While the visibility gap means that trans men have been spared some of the hate endured by trans women, it has also meant that people like Page have had fewer models. “There were no examples,” Page says of growing up in Halifax in the 1990s. There are many queer people who have felt “that how they feel deep inside isn’t a real thing because they never saw it reflected back to them,” says Tiq Milan, an activist, author and transgender man. Page offers a reflection: “They can see that and say, ‘You know what, that’s who I am too,’” Milan says. When there aren’t examples, he says, “people make monsters of us.”

For decades, that was something Hollywood did. As detailed in the 2020 Netflix documentary Disclosure, transgender people have been portrayed onscreen as villainous and deceitful, tragic subplots or the butt of jokes. In a sign of just how far the industry has come—spurred on by productions like Pose and trailblazers like Mock—Netflix offered to change the credits on The Umbrella Academy the same day that its star posted his statement on social media. Now when an episode ends, the first words viewers see are “Elliot Page.”

Today, there are many out trans and nonbinary actors, directors and producers. Storylines involving trans people are more common, more respectful. Sometimes that aspect of identity is even incidental, rather than the crux of a morality tale. And yet Hollywood can still seem a frightening place for LGBTQ people to come out. “It’s an industry that says, ‘Don’t do that,’” says director Silas Howard, who got his break on Amazon’s show Transparent, which made efforts to hire transgender crew members. “I wouldn’t have been hired if they didn’t have a trans initiative,” Howard says. “I’m always aware of that.”

So what will it mean for Page’s career? While Page has appeared in many projects, he also faced challenges landing female leads because he didn’t fit Hollywood’s narrow mold. Since Page’s Instagram post, his team is seeing more activity than they have in years. Many of the offers coming in—to direct, to produce, to act—are trans-related, but there are also some “dude roles.”

Downtime in quarantine helped Page accept his gender identity. “I was finally able to embrace being transgender,” he says.

Page was attracted to the role of Vanya in The Umbrella Academy because—in the first season, released in 2019—Vanya is crushed by self-loathing, believing herself to be the only ordinary sibling in an extraordinary family. The character can barely summon the courage to move through the world. “I related to how much Vanya was closed off,” Page says. Now on set filming the third season, co-workers have seen a change in the actor. “It seems like there’s a tremendous weight off his shoulders, a feeling of comfort,” says showrunner Steve Blackman. “There’s a lightness, a lot more smiling.” For Page, returning to set has been validating, if awkward at times. Yes, people accidentally use the wrong pronouns—“It’s going to be an adjustment,” Page says—but co-workers also see and acknowledge him.

The debate over whether cisgender people, who have repeatedly collected awards for playing trans characters, should continue to do so has largely been settled. However, trans actors have rarely been considered for cisgender parts. Whatever challenges might lie ahead, Page seems exuberant about playing a new spectrum of roles. “I’m really excited to act, now that I’m fully who I am, in this body,” Page says. “No matter the challenges and difficult moments of this, nothing amounts to getting to feel how I feel now.”

This includes having short hair again. During our interview, Page keeps rearranging strands on his forehead. It took a long time for him to return to the barber’s chair and ask to cut it short, but he got there. And how did that haircut feel?

Page tears up again, then smiles. “I just could not have enjoyed it more,” he says.”

#suicide m #transphobia m #Elliot Page #transgender #representation #celebrities #actors #tv #movies #rep #trans #transmasculine #nonbinary #queer #long post

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radiosandrecordings · 4 years ago

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Something I really like in the interpersonal dynamics of TMA is the portrayal of ex’s. There are a few mentions scattered throughout the statements but I wanna talk specifically about Jon and Georgie, and Tim and Sasha.

Jon and Georgie. Oh boy, where do I even start here. I have so many feelings about their relationship in general so it’s kind of difficult to untangle how I feel about them as a whole and the role they serve within the whole show’s examination of dynamics from their actual former romantic relationship. But, along with TimSasha, I think the thing I like about it is how little it’s brought up? I think it’s possibly only mentioned once, in 106, with Melanie telling Basira about it. At that stage we’d known Georgie for 26 episodes, and had Jon living with her, and they never mention it. I mean, we only get glimpses of their conversation on tape, maybe they did, but we don’t know for certain. The important thing is our experience as an audience and how they’re portrayed to us.

They have this extremely fraught and complicated dynamic and it’s my favourite in the whole show, because each believes themselves to be right in the actions they’re taking, because they each are very stubborn and have these deep-seated mindsets, plus Georgie is working with imperfect information about what exactly is happening in Jon’s life. And it would be so easy, expected even for a lesser show, to have this culminate in a conflict where one of them yells “This is exactly why we broke up!” or “This is just like you, you’ve always been like this” or “This is just like (x y z time)!”.

But that never happens! I don’t think we ever get any references to what they were like as a couple. We just have to take their dynamic as it is, because whatever they were like in the past is something they’ve put behind them. It ended on bad terms, but for regular Young Adult Break-Up reasons. They’re adults now, they have new problems like Being Framed For Murder, and The Apocalypse. And it’s just really refreshing to see them deal with new problems and not stale ones from the past that they’ve buried.

This extends to how Martin interacts with Georgie as well. When they first meet, Georgie is aware that Jon is in love with him, and Martin clearly knows they were staying together, if not that they used to be together from him calling her “Jon’s Georgie”. And yet they conflict for how the other treats Jon, not because of any dating based tension, especially surprising considering Martin has a whole list of people he’s been jealous of in regards to Jon. Which means it’s allowed to become a trait which, while not good, never leads to any actual conflict. I really like that because that would just feel out of place in the narrative, to have all this massive complicated web of dynamics and grievances going on and then have “You dated the guy I like 10ish years ago, and that’s why I hate you” as one of them. It would feel a little immature in a story about people closing in on 30 if it was allowed to grow beyond something brought up in minor scenes as flavour text and become a whole dynamic definer, especially in a show where each dynamic is supposed to be a specific type of exploration of relationships.

The same could be said of Jon and Melanie. The two famously don’t get on, finding any reason really to go for each other’s throats a lot of the time, even when it can be taken more literally as ‘scalpel to the shoulder’. I’ve made jokes about this scenario’s hilarity before, but in actual fact I’m glad that there’s never anything made of “The girl who hates me stole my girlfriend”. Because Georgie doesn’t belong to either of them, she’s not a pawn in any of their fights. She’s a woman who can make her own decisions and form opinions independent from who she’s dating.

And then there’s Tim and Sasha. Something they were so chill about, we, the audience, didn’t know about it for 162 episodes. It’s a lovely little scene really, it tells us so little but also so much. They have an “Ill-advised hook-up” and Tim is convinced something more will come of it. Sasha laughs and tells him that she doesn’t agree. And then the conversation continues on. He doesn’t push her on it, doesn’t even ask her why, just lets it go. From Sasha referencing that she’s “pretty sure we already established it’s a ‘wont they” it might hint that this is a conversation they’d had before, but honestly from the light tone I want to give Tim the benefit of the doubt and say Sasha is just referencing the general fallout of their fling that made it, to Tim’s own description, ‘ill-advised’. And unlike Jongeorgie, after this breakup, Tim and Sasha remain close friends and co-workers. Tim continues to care about Sasha even when it’s clear she doesn’t have any romantic interest in him and no longer any sexual interest, because he genuinely cares about her as his friend. He jokes around with her and curses out both Jon and Elias and they’re just good to each other. They platonically care so much that Sasha is literally willing to risk her life to save Tim when he doesn’t notice Prentiss in episode 39.

And again, jealousy never comes into play. When the Not!Sasha starts going out with ‘Tom’ - Literally one letter away from his own name! - It would be so easy to have some of Tim’s anger in season two manifest in jealousy about that. About wondering what this guy has that he clearly doesn’t when Sasha has moved on to someone else. But that never happens, at least as it’s presented to the audience, because Tim is genuinely a nice guy and respects her decisions (Aside from the fact that isn’t Sasha but y’know. He thinks it is).

Overall it’s just very, very good to see a show where characters are allowed to have (had) romantic/sexual relationships but these not define their dynamics or for this to extend to how other character’s perceive them. A lot of media will often introduce the ‘evil ex’ because for some reason I feel like people tend to forget sometimes that whatever happens later, we date people because in the first place there was something there that we liked? And not every breakup has to ruin our ability to see that. It’s also maybe a little reflective of the fact that every relationship I analysed there involved at least one queer person? (Well, every person I mentioned is queer except canon Sasha. Sorry love) Because just from my experience and my friend groups that’s how it can often be. It’s just another way in which TMA has my favourite character dynamic writing and really knows how to give it’s characters complex connections without letting them fall into stereotypes.

#My Post #The Magnus Archives #Jonathan Sims #Georgie Barker #Tim Stoker #Sasha James #Martin Blackwood #Jongeorgie #Timsasha

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bloody-f4g · 4 years ago

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queer themes in discovery season 3, part one here

spoilers, obviously.

One of the most common aspects of the queer experience is the struggle of visibility within a hetero- and cisnormative society. Feeling invisible with straight and cis being assumed as default, feeling seen by other queer people, feeling invisible without seeing yourself in those around you and the media around you.

Throughout almost the entire season, Gray has been literally invisible to everyone but Adira, and in turn Adira had only been out to Gray until about halfway through the season. We can see Gray’s invisibility as a metaphor for being seen as yourself as a queer person (as cliche as it is). Literally not being seen by anyone but the one other trans person in the show parallels how as a queer -- and especially trans -- person, there is a level of understanding and solidarity one has with other queer and trans people by virtue of that similarity.

In the season finale, due to some scifi shenanigans, Gray becomes visible to Hugh, Saru, and Su’kal (and Adira still).

Gray gaining visibility to these characters was a very good choice, with Hugh being another queer person and Saru a person of authority. When gaining visibility as an individual or a group, these are the the groups that visibility is granted to most commonly. Because of an ability to understand each other’s experiences, other queer people are easier to come out to, and Gray being literally visible to Hugh was a natural extension of him being visible to Adira. (This is similar to when Adira does come out to someone (other than Gray), it is first to Stamets, another queer person.) On the other hand, Saru, as captain of the Discovery (at the time), serves as an authority figure in this situation. Those with power over oneself are also common to become visible to (come out to), often in a far more violent way than with other queer people.

I really don’t think this was intentional, but I love that Gray being finally visible to people other than Adira somewhere safe. This holodeck was created specifically for Su’kal’s childhood as a safe place. I think there’s something comforting knowing that being perceived as a trans person in the future is something you can do safely.

Before the holodeck is shut down, Hugh says something along the lines of “We'll find a way that you’ll be seen by everyone." This makes me hope next season Gray being trans will be more explicit next season. I was pretty disappointed about Gray not being explicitly trans, and Adira’s non binary identity presenting itself in them telling Stamets their pronouns and that they “never felt like a she.” Adira and Gray weren’t the main focus of this season by far, and I understand them not having a lot of screentime, but Blu and Ian have been confirmed for the next season, so I can hope for more explicit trans representation next season.

Queer people have valued found family over biological nuclear family for decades, maybe centuries. This is from being physically kicked out of the nuclear family one was born into by virtue of homophobia and/or transphobia, or because of a feeling of isolation and separation from one’s nuclear family if they weren’t kicked out of their parents’ house due to an inability to relate to the hetero/cisnormative standards of development. Thus, queer people search out other queer people they can relate to better than their biological family, and those that support them more. This idea of found family has taken many forms within the queer community, most famously in the houses in urban black and brown ballroom culture.

The found family trope has long been prevalent within Star Trek, and I love the form it has taken in Discovery. Everyone has already talked about this (me too, we’re all emotionally invested in this) but i have to talk about it it: Paul and Hugh essentially adopted Adira. This is straight-up text, with Hugh telling Georgiou that he wishes he had children at the beginning of an episode that ends with Paul and Adira bonding over their scientific project, Adira telling Paul their pronouns (again, something very intimate that they had only told Gray). In the second-to-last episode of the season, Paul directly calls Adira his child, Hugh and Adira his “whole life.”

Adira has a close connection with Hugh because they both love(d) someone who was (dead/presumed dead but actually in a mushroom dimension?). They’ve emphasized multiple times that they are the only ones who know what this experience is like... just like how their queer experiences makes them able to understand each other’s point of views. Because of their jobs on the ship, we see Paul and Adira together more, but, as Paul said at Georgiou’s memorium, they’re “kind of a package deal.” Further than that, Gray’s hug with Hugh in the finale was so beautiful, and Paul taking a father-in-law type of position telling Gray off for disappearing for a few days.

(Kind of a sidenote, but some people have taken Hugh and Paul’s interactions with Gray as “that’s kinda weird that Adira’s dads have also taken in their boyfriend, does that make them like siblings?” and I really think that the dynamic is better because of this: it’s a reaffirmation of the rejection of the nuclear family model; found families are never as cut-and-dry as biological ones because they aren’t formed under the same oppressive framework.)

The thing I love about Discovery’s queer rep is that these characters aren’t just stated to be queer, and then fit into the assimilationist standards of the cishets around them, but they go through queer experiences that queer viewers can relate to on a level above “kisses someone of same gender, bye.”

(That isn’t stating it’s perfect by any degree: I’ve already stated my hopes for Gray and Adira’s identities in the next season; I want to see more of Reno; out of these five characters, it’s disappointing that all but one are white.)

//these are just my interpretations, feel free to add on and/or disagree, in fact please do//

#this post: i AM GAY AND RTANS AND SO IS GRAY #this is long af im sorry #HHHH this took forever bc my computer had a hissy fit halfway thru typing it and i had to start over again #so just take that as me loving u that much that i rewrote it #trek tag #look i love book and michael in the finale !!! badass duo i just dont have a page long analysis for them lmaoo #AND OWOSHEKUN #mine #disco #discovery #adiray #culmets #adira tal #gray tal #culmets family #analysis

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guardianofscrewingup · 2 years ago

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I really don't think it's great rep to file all the personality and quirkiness off a character and reduce his role and personality to "perfect boyfriend that doesn't call his boyfriend on ditching him all the time."

It's also boring writing. Relationships don't need to be fraught to be interesting, but a character can have a strong personality and assert their own needs (and call their boyfriend out on things like "called AFTER the date started to tell me he wasn't coming") without it being a drag out fight or toxic.

It feels like DC is so scared of anyone perceiving it to be problematic they decided to make Bernard more boring rather than actually try to write two characters with strong personalities in a relationship. It treats queer readership like a ticking time bomb, like they're afraid people will get angry over the tiniest whiff of things not being pure fluff, which is insulting.

I think it would've been fine to keep him a little more oddball and whacky - Tim is an oddball himself. Tim's a total freakin' weirdo, with weirdo interests.

And it'd be fine if there was a little conflict, like if he was like "hey if you're going to ditch me on a date, calling after the date starts when I'm already lacing up my skates is kinda uncool." Tim can take a little criticism and it'd probably be good for him to figure out how to do the hero thing and still show a love interest some consideration in how he has to work around the complications. Especially with the emphasis on on him growing up, getting more independent, and hopefully getting more mature.

RL relationships require negotiation, compromise, and a willingness to keep things constructive even if one person or both are frustrated. But the narrative deals with that by just being like "it's fine bc he's just entirely cool with being walked over and not having his time valued!"

It's all even more striking by virtue of the fact Bernard was a stronger and more interesting character in the past, so it's no wonder people think he could be replaced by a cardboard standee and no one would know the difference.

It didn't have to be that way. He used to have more personality. And removing it isn't about "modernizing" him because they didn't just remove the cringy sexist kinda stuff they also removed some of how his personality just seemed stronger, quirkier, and downright weirder.

Also "DC are professionals ergo they know what they're doing"...I don't see where that factors in? Like I don't get why it's being brought up? I don't see why that should affect people's opinions or them expressing them. You can be a hired pro and still crank out crappy writing, plenty of comics writers have. Critiquing writing is part of the nature of interacting with media and some also do it because they're writers and it makes them think about their own writing choices.

tl;dr I totally agree nobody should bully people over it (and using the Bernard panel is ridiculous when Kon was completely girl-crazy in the past too) but you admitted yourself they basically simplified Bernard's character while also knocking that people would think that he was boring when that's a pretty natural response to that.

Personally I think Kon, as the more overall developed character, has a lot more to work with. Plus he doesn't let himself get walked over and is willing to call Tim on his shit. But I also think they could make Bernard be that way if they wanted. They could start by making him more offbeat like he used to be and not letting Tim walk over his time and feelings. He deserves more than that.

Sorry this got long but man I am so tired of an emphasis on purely fluffy queer ships at this point. Esp from the standpoint as someone who also writes YA I think healthy relationships are also a good thing to model for actual Tim-age readers rather than pure fluff wish fulfillment, esp since Tim isn't a young teen anymore. Tim's at the perfect age to capture the point where people irl start to have to learn how to navigate more serious relationships.

I don't think it matters whether they write it with Tim or Kon bc I'm nowhere near as invested in characters so young as I was when I was that age, but it really rankles me as a writer basic quality-wise for any writing to go a conflict-free route, and also from a "what is useful for this age demo to see" standpoint, especially when a lot of fairly impressionable queer teens have no clue what a healthy queer relationship even looks like. It feels such a wasted opportunity here to do that with the writing, even with the character they're currently using.

Like a lot of my feelings are also fueled by the fact I'm starting to whole scale rail at the whole "no conflict! only fluff!!!" trends for queer ships in general, too. It feels like people responded to the never-ending painful trend of "bury your gays" by going too far in the other direction. Especially looking back at when I was younger and started dating the same gender and realizing how useful it would've been to me to see a functional queer relationship at a younger age.

Young people deserve to see two characters with minds of their own who assert their needs, and need to work at things, but still find harmony, more than they currently see them.

I saw this tweet abt people complaining about Tim dating Bernard and not Kon, they used that one step mom panel

(This)

(Also just to make some stuff clear if we really want to dig into old comics, Kon did say some cringe weird shit as well, especially in the first issues of yj)

Honestly idc whether you ship TimKon or TimBer or whatever I really don’t care but c’mon, this panel is as old as shit (and it’s part of Bernard’s character to say some unhinged shit quite so often). More than that i was upset about people complaining about Bernard’s character being plain and boring and not having a fun personality anymore when he actually does, maybe he’s not as “quirky” as he was years ago but honestly that’s the point: the character was changed a bit, modernised while still trying to keep his fun personality and his weird conspiracy theories.

He’s really a good character, nice,bubbly, funny and a good, understanding, boyfriend for Tim. Also (this is more of a personal opinion) I think he’s good for Tim’s development as a character; Tim now (in his own solo run) living by his own, being his own hero, having a sidekick and in a nice healthy relationship, a relationship that also kind of gives him a pause from all that hero stuff —not that I would mind having Bernard find out that Tim is robin but that’s not the point— something detached from all of that.

(Also, unfortunately we are only fans, we are not DC’s official writers, and even tho sometimes they do mess up and write some bad stuff for god’s sake they’re still professionals and sometimes know what they’re doing. If they made Tim date Bernard that was their choice and we really can’t do anything about it.)

That being said ship what u want but don’t shit on people or good characters just because you don’t like the idea of two characters dating, it may not hurt anyone but it’s sure as hell annoying as shit and makes you look like a jerk.

#dc comics

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talenlee · 3 years ago

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The Johnlock Conspiracy Conspiracy

First of all this is going to be building off a point first cast into relief for me by Sarah Z’s video on The Johnlock Conspiracy. She is both directly connected with the experience of this space and did the research into the actual history of the people involved, a sort of on-the-spot observer recounting her experiences ethnographically. If you want a longer form deep dive on what The Johnlock Conspiracy is, check out that video. I will be providing a quick summary.

I’m also going to talk about fanagement, which I wrote about last year, which is about the way that fan engagement was seen as being a thing that corporate entities could deliberately engage for commercial ends. Fanagement isn’t necessarily an inherently evil or corrupting thing, but it’s something to know about as something that exists, and knowing it exists can colour your relationship to the media created in response to fanagement.

There’s this idea of ‘The Johnlock conspiracy.’

In the agonisingly mediocre BBC mystery drama Sherlock that ran from who cares to also who cares, starring in the loosest sense of the word Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman (a man ‘renowned’ for this, The Office and the Hobbit trilogy, on a scale of poisonous influence to actual outright evil), as a modern day re-imagining of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson that has some interesting ideas that it absolutely does not use well, mysteries that are not interesting and a relationship tension that was making itself up as it went along. Much ink has been spilled about how this series is not very good, and that’s good, because it’s a very expensively made bad series that banks on the reliable draw of the same fistful of boring privilege.

Part of what made it popular, sort of, was the tension of the relationship between John and Sherlock. See, they were both men, you see, and what if they kissed.

Now, tumblr is, by volume, mostly connections to other parts of tumblr. If you make something popular, it becomes amplified and exploded and brought to the attention of others and curated into lists. Content that gets shared is the very sinew of what Tumblr is, which means that doing things people share around is a strange form of primacy on the site. Making content is powerful, heady, druglike. Commanding curation where you determine what does and does not get shared is even moreso. It is a space for an audience that is engaged deeply with the concept of being engaged, and in this space, fandom happened.

There’s not a lot of Sherlock. There were big gaps between the seasons. When a season came out, it did not explain itself or deliver on its promise at all. It is, as I’ve said, bad. But it was well made and used actors you’d heard of and was treated as being prestigious and so, when the show came out, and because people liked the idea of what it could be, fandom struck on a conspiracy:

What if this terrible show is secretly great?

And I understand the impulse. It’s heart to a lot of fandom. I can’t possibly have spent this time and energy on something I don’t like, it must be that the thing I like is secretly this thing I really like. And so scaffolding comes out to buttress the idea. We’re not taught that fandom is right – we’re taught that fandom is something that justifies itself by being right. If you have a story in your heart about a Dark Fuckprince and his soft bean injured Watson, that story is real and right, and doesn’t need the official endorsement of the BBC to be good.

Without that armour of love, though, instead the fandom turned into this endless oroborous of hostility centered around three people, who seem to just be total dickheads, great job you. This resulted in the blossoming of what was known as ‘the Johnlock Conspiracy,’ where through thousands of pages of well intentioned fumes, these fans huffed themselves into believing that Steven Moffat and Mark Gattis were secretly building up to exactly what they wanted, and they were the smartest people ever for noticing it. The lack of payoff of their beliefs and the active hostility Moffat had to their ideas and positions in person, that was all part of the conspiracy.

Oh, by the way, that idea – conspiracy – is when you have an unfalsifiable conjecture. If you can’t prove it false, no matter what, that’s when you’re dealing with a conspiracy theory.

The dramatic conclusion to all this was the series ended, their conspiracy was wrong, they theorycrafted themselves a few more months of content, and then most people let it drop.

But what if I told you there was a conspiracy?

Because there was. It just wasn’t the conspiracy they thought.

See, a conspiracy is a real thing: it’s a secret plan to do something harmful. And the BBC, since they published the work that Matt Hill described in Torchwoods Trans-Transmedia: Media Tie-Ins and Brand Fanagement, worked with the parameters of their experiment aggressively.

The idea, as I outlined in my article about Fanagement was that making the program so it could engage fans directly, and give fans feelings of creative ownership over the work would drive viewership and the kinds of engagement they liked (like, paying for things). Fanagement sought to make media ‘gifable’ – low saturation backgrounds with cuts of under a second so you could break a scene apart easily and conveniently. It wanted to make fan media easy to make, and to minimise hard declarative statements.

The lessons learned from this paper included things like ship teasing as a deliberate task – and I do mean teasing, with the idea that you had to do it in deniable and ambiguous ways. Making things definite wouldn’t get you as much fan engagement as keeping things ambiguous, because fans would make an inference based on what you show them, talk about it, then other fans would watch it again to make sure they could argue with you about it.

A mystery show like Sherlock was perfect for this kind of treatment. Treating the series as if there was some really deep, thoughtful question at the heart of it meant that there was always a reason to keep from ‘revealing’ the secret of the story, to string the audience along, like they’d believe or tolerate it, if it was all in service of a clever explanation. You get it, right? After all, we gave you all the clues.

The toxic fandom of Sherlock did not form as much as it was fostered.

A lesson from this experience, a lesson easily escaping notice, is that it’s not that ‘fandoms are all the same.’ They really aren’t. They are wildly varying in the terms of their problems and those problems root causes. What they tend to have in common is dynamics, but those dynamics are expressed in a lot of different ways. It’s not that ‘fandoms’ naturally become toxic and awful. There are fandoms that are generally, quite nice, and they tend to be that way because of the values of the central movers and shakers and the conscious willingness of people who perceive themselves as part of the fandom as taking care of it. The dynamic is the same – you have common nexuses of community that people interact with – and the kind of behaviour that’s acceptable and reasonable is filtered through them. If the idea of asking people to modify their behaviour or respect people’s boundaries is seen as unreasonable, then you can get a toxic space.

Also, as I talk about ‘toxic fandoms,’ understand toxicity is relative. There is, after all, a very real, very unironic Hitler Fandom, and they are probably one of the worst fandoms out there. Being a mean lawyer on the internet is bad, and I’ve no doubt the fandom curators known now as the Powerpuff Girls absolutely wrecked some teenagers’ lives – like, there are definitely people with, I am not joking or being hyperbolic, some PTSD triggers about (say) Tumblr or whatnot, based on the kind of social force these people were leveraging.

And then remember that holding that lever at the high end, right at the top with the most power over it was a company that made TV shows that was trying to make sure you watched their shows.

Also: The tools for doing this are available to all the companies that read the paper.

My advice? Exhort and uplift queer creators. Be positive about it, not negative. Don’t make your time about attacking other people’s dark fuckprince. Bring what you like to life, and bring that life into the light. Share and love each other, rather than find reasons to be mad at one another for how you’re all playing with toys a corporation wants you to treat with respect and only play properly. And as always, the standard you walk past is the standard you accept – so make sure your fandom circles aren’t putting up with some Powerpuff Girls.

Originally posted on my Blog.

#Sherlock #Johnlock #Fanagement #Conspiracy

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credulouscanidae · 3 years ago

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a real big reason im scared to ask for things, or post opinions or...anything really, is that theres been this real conflation of “asking=expecting” and “one mistake or doing something someone out there doesnt perceive as morally okay = a reflection on your personality as a whole and that youre entirely Bad”

i get so scared of p much saying anything (even tho im very left-leaning, queer, and consider myself progressive or at least always open to learning, improving, and being holistic and understanding of everyone and developing and curating my language to make ppl comfortable) because i feel like having a couple thousand followers suddenly makes me an “influencer” in the eyes of people

i think it goes into the whole recent crituque of “the internet has been commercialised and commodified and we all have to present ourselves as a brand and less of a real person” and that really strikes a chord with me. im literally not an influencer, especially because this self-fulfilling cycle of hating the current internet culture and not posting much anymore.

its honestly ridiculous and i shoulnt be feeling these ways, and its fucking hard too because a lot of the shit i see is also very american-centric, so for example the c0vid stuff (and the morals about public safety etc) like the general consensus and societal cultures differs from country to country, how australia deals w it differs to how america does, so its hard hearing ppl from america talk in a way thats not reflective of how things operate here, but its treated like thinkign otherwise to them means we’re bad as a whole

im extremely c0vid safe for example (was even moreso before my immuno-compromised housemate was vaxxed) but for about 6 months we literally had NO active cases. so we had no lockdowns, and we did a c0vid-safe continuation of our normal-lives pre-c0vid. this was around the time where america wasnt at all vaccinated and unfortunately a lot of cases and deaths were occuring. so my social media was full of ppl being very aggressive about “if u dont stay home ur a bad person” essentially. and while i knew back then it didnt apply to “me” specifically, its bloody fucking hard to feel like i could even talk about going out and having fun in australia bc the general consensus was “there are ppl dying overseas how dare u have fun” when in reality we were just bloody lucky to have a government that shut us down and acted a lot better compared to other countries, which lead to us having no cases. and at that point we had been in lockdown for like 7 months or some shit. who knows. time is weird. but basically what im saying is that in context of australia, it was safe to, and im allowed to have gone out and do things.

of course, this is all earlier this year, bc now we have an opposite thing where our vaccine rollout was so botched and we have a shitton of cases and are opened out of lockdown again, and it fucking sucks. and now of COURSE im being safe (especially only being half vaxxed) with it all, and it bloody sucks too bc now the americans are acting all “c0vid is over :)”

maybe this is more of a rant about american centricism and all but...idk. i know i could “curb” this issue by following more australians, and its not necessarily peoples fault bc theyre just posting about “their” experiences etc, but it just sucks like how theres a general assumption that youre from america, and that u should be doign thigns the way their culture is.

idk anymore.

#life of doge #idk c0vid rant under the read more #kinda went off topic but regardless #sIGHS

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pega-chan · 3 years ago

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i relate a lot to Kusuo Saiki, actually, and not only bc i'm a dry-witted aroace. i get it, wanting to just be at the very least perceived as ordinary. i don't have godly psychic powers but i've spent my whole childhood standing out as The Foreigner New Kid at school bc i moved around so much as an immigrant, when i finally moved to my native country i was pretty much already a third culture kid (TKC). every single time i moved it was in the middle of the school year, or during third grade or something, and i stood out bc my experiences and the customs i practiced were so different from everyone else's, and once i tell people about it they're always quick to have different, often negative, expectations of me. i got too much attention for being unique. and it sucks bc sometimes they baby me for not knowing much of local culture or assuming i don't know how to speak the local language, "you're not used to things around here so we'll speak in something you understand," and i hated it immensely. i just wanted to be treated as a regular kid instead of something exotic.

the moment i got into a public high school (which is a big deal bc i've only ever been to private ones, public schools had never been an option before), regularly, like any other student, instead of moving in at 11th grade or the second semester or something, i took the chance to try and be as normal as possible. yes, i'm totally someone who grew up in this town and spoke the language fluently and can socialise properly, not some foreign kid, haha! /s. and it worked, for the most part; it was great to have nobody expect more, less, or differently from me, i can just blend into the background. i hid my history as well as i could. i wasn't the Kid Who Lived Abroad, just someone you would pass in the hallway and who spoke unnaturally good english (compared to the average public school student who learnt english in school and maybe the internet). they were the most peaceful school years i've ever had, and as disastrous as his life becomes, that's all i'm hoping Saiki could get.

i haven't ever come across a piece of media where they brought up and continually pressed the issue of specialty being bothersome and the struggle of leading an ordinary life like The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. has. i felt really seen, and i rooted for Saiki to have ordinary outings with his friends, average test scores, etc. everything regular kids get to do that i haven't ever got to do bc of my upbringing. some of the plot points are stuff i had to deal with; i accidentally became a focal point in a love triangle where i liked neither party involved, too! it was so uncanny. like i related to Aren as well, bc being a transfer student with an unpleasant past can be tough (being treated differently made me bitter and cynical and an awful person, and i started to clean up my act in high school, like Aren did). him trying his best to be civil and nice and socialise normally when it's just easier to lash out and be nasty after you're just so used to doing it resonated with me.

which is why i guess when Saiki first comes across Satou and marvels at how plain he is i'm just,,,YEAH i totally get it, it's amazing that you got to have a boring life. that's such a privilige! /srs. especially since i'm highly aware i'm still different than people my age anyway, what with being brought up in a household more conservative than most, being queer, being a TKC. i'd protect anyone who has a nondescript life, too. standing out is exhausting.

anyway this got really long but TL;DR, this show resonated a lot with me and i feel validated watching it.

#the disastrous life of saiki k.#pegapersonal

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potatopossums · 4 years ago

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Just a weird observation from today:

I love attention. I mean, I'm sure everyone does to a certain degree, or in a certain way. Everyone has their favorite sort of attention that makes them feel special or fulfilled, or whatever it does. And that doesn't have to really mean anything about them. Attention is just attention, positive, negative, or neutral.

I'm getting some attention at work. Here and there, not overwhelmingly so. I'd say objectively, it's positive attention. How do I feel about it personally? I'm not totally sure. I'd say I'm neutral, but it is a bit strange, and on the edge of potentially being a bit uncomfortable.

I'm nonbinary, specifically agender. Before starting this job, I thought my genderlessness was kind of obvious. I mean, people mistake me for a boy sometimes, I'm out to basically everyone on all social media, and it's not like I dress feminine. But apparently, plenty of people at my work code me as female. It bothers me a bit because that's not really what I'm going for, but I usually go about my job with little to no fuss. Misgendering doesn't always come up, and when it does, I usually just try to shrug it off. I'm not very confrontational, although I wish my workplace made room for pronouns to be a regular inquiry upon hire.

Still, being perceived as female makes me... uh... nervous.

I was perceived as female for a vast majority of my life. The fruits of that perception are not always sweet. Certainly, there's nothing wrong with being female, and it's not femaleness that causes or invites poor behavior from others (particularly men). But femaleness tends to be a state onto which onlookers project a great many things. (Gender as a whole is very much like this.)

I don't like to be pigeonholed. I don't like even the potentiality of being pigeonholed. Sure, maybe if I was a bit more confrontational (or merely honest) about how I felt, I wouldn't suffer as much from other people's opinions of me. I do have some say in this equation.

But as someone who is not only sexually queer but a questioning aromantic, I really don't know how to approach men who perceive me as female, and due to that assumption, they then are overly friendly with me and might potentially be wanting to view me romantically.

I hope it's obvious how much of a mixed bag this is. And, I hope it's clear why I'm having trouble categorizing it.

Like, male romantic attention was, for a long time, positive to me. As I've talked about on previous posts, I didn't have a lot of emotional safety or support growing up, and I turned to the one thing society deemed infallible: romantic love. I wanted to fill a void, and I thought this was the way.

Now, I don't feel that way. I'm cultivating better relationships with friends and family. Sure, romance is exciting (mainly in fiction, not so much in real life). I'm even here for some minor "flirting" irl all day, especially with women and afabs.

But men... are more complicated than that.

Sure, the attention feels nice. I mean, belonging, being wanted—those only make sense for me and my insecurities and my past. Of course that would feel at least initially good.

But then, when I realize that a man has shifted from "unnamed coworker" to "acquaintance with similar interests who also knows my name now," a feeling is born within me, and that feeling is "I hate this."

Yes, I want to talk about breath of the wild and video games and shit. Yes, I want to hang out casually potentially. Yes, I want to be friends if we happen to get along well.

But no, I do not want you to get feelings for me. I find that suffocating.

I know in real life I would deal with it better if it happened, most likely. My anxiety is making this bigger than it is. But the mere thought just has me so dysphoric and avoidant. I seriously hope that no man sees me this way. Because it doesn't matter how nice you are, how lovely and attractive and whatever you are. I will not be romantically involved with a man, I won't be monogamous, and I won't be perceived as a woman.

I literally "flirt" just to goof around and joke with people. It's a form of intimacy that I don't really relate to romance, even though it's what I used to think romance was! I literally don't want a romantic relationship from anyone, amab or afab. Queerplatonic relationships? Hell yeah. I'll hold your hand and call you babe and cuddle. But we are not dating.

All this was a very long way to beg the universe to not let any of the men in my life start catching fucking feelings for me. Please don't. I'm flattered and charmed, but I won't date you.

#enby lesbian #lesbian #aromantic #questioning #queer #qpr #polyaffectionate #polyamory #misgendering #flirting #friendship #romance #agender #platonic #intimacy #afab

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