#literally making shows about queer ppl while still employing homophobic tropes

[maggiecheungs]

i am OBSESSED with your tag essays and the symbolism you see in all sorts of media!!! the discussion of queer representation in rural/natural landscapes as a metaphor for permanence??? *chef's kiss*

DAWY ksajgfkjsdfdskjg the way you keep being exposed to my lengthy tag rambles 😩 if i were you i’d probably have blocked me by now

AND YET i'm about to put you through it again bc i was literally just listening to skyline and thinking about how itsay and ipytm kind of explored that link between nature and queerness too... the way teh and oh-aew were always most connected and understood each other best on their beach, in their ocean—and then in ltip their beach gets closed, and in ipytm they move to bangkok, and suddenly they don’t have a space to just exist out of others’ gazes and they have to renegotiate their entire relationship because of it.

and i think part of the reason both itsay and atots were so powerful was bc they really drove home just how important it is for queer people to a) have their own space that b) isn’t contigent on their being ‘socially accepted’ etc. and living in nature obviously doesn't magically solve all problems, but it almost represents.... a freedom from the constant performativity that accompanies being queer in a cishet-normative society?

which is i think part of the reason ipytm was so hard to watch. after the vast possibilities of itsay, ipytm felt so... heartbreakingly claustrophobic. teh and oh-aew didn’t necessarily have to face any blatant homophobia, but you could see them both struggling under the constant, low-level pressure of performing for... everyone, all the time. oh-aew manages to find refuge in a queer friendship group and some measure of self-assurance, but teh never fully manages to escape it. his *entire life* in bangkok is based around performing, being an actor, making himself agreeable to casting agents and audiences. he’s wearing that mask and feeling that pressure constantly, and he begins to lose sight of who he is when no-one is watching. (i mean, he literally starts to forget what it was like being alone on the beach with oh-aew for their first time, which still breaks my heart. just. fuck.) they’ve both spent so much time thinking of bangkok as the place where they will finally be free to take control of their lives and discover themselves, but when they get there.... it’s not :(  and in the end.... they just want to go back to their beach.