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hakasims · 4 years ago

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The Most Important Review of Every Single Marwan Kenzari Film

If you’ve seen this one about Luca, you know the drill.

Now, Marwan’s brand is a little less defined than Luca’s but I managed to find similar tropes in a lot of his films. Also, rather than copy myself and give you a redundant Marwanmeter, I decided instead to recommend which Luca character best pairs with each Marwan character for your crossover pleasure. Let’s see if we ship the same things! Some of them are crack. You’re welcome.

(all gifs again by the awesomely amazing @weardes who did not ask to be my gif factory but life’s a bitch)

Het zusje van Katia (2008)

Will you miss him if you blink? Kinda. They talk about him a lot but his actual screen time is like 43.7 seconds. Also can I just say... he’s supposed to be from Italy?? The boy says literally one (1) Italian word, and you’ll never guess what it is. (Obviously, it’s “bella” like there’s a chance he could’ve said anything else.)

Is he hot? Painfully hot.

Is he naked? There’s this one scene where he’s wearing the sluttiest pair of speedos I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

Does his hair look great? Actually, yes. Perfect hair, perfect beard, he looks amazing.

Does he fuck? Yes, a lot - off screen, including an M/M/F threesome he presumably, probably, most definitely initiated.

Best paired with? From what I’ve gathered, this hoe ain’t loyal, so the best course of action is to find him a Luca that would benefit from a one night stand with no strings attached and wouldn’t fall in love with him. The obvious choice here is Valerio from Slam - Tutto per una ragazza. They meet, they fuck, then Giac makes his 4-hour drive back to Pisa, and they don’t see each other again until the next time he’s in Rome. Everybody’s happy, especially the two sluts in question.

De laatste dagen van Emma Blank (2009)

Will you miss him if you blink? Yes, absolutely.

Is he hot? Very.

Is he naked? Almost constantly.

Does his hair look great? He’s got those cute short curls, he looks so good.

Does he fuck? That’s literally why he’s there: to fuck and to die.

Best paired with? Man, I wish I had something to work with here. The only thing we know about him besides his sexual prowess is his affinity for white suits and toy helicopters. And as far as I know, those might be the exact things Fabrizio from Nina finds hot in guys. So like, why not?

Loft (2010)

Will you miss him if you blink? He’s the fifth most important character.

Is he hot? Yeah, sure.

Is he naked? There’s a scene where he’s wearing underwear and a tank top but it somehow makes him look like a kindergartener.

Does his hair look great? It looks quite nice.

Does he fuck? Yes, though I wish he didn’t.

Best paired with? Tom is a very violent person and a drug addict. He does messed up stuff to his sexual partners I’d rather he didn’t do to any of Luca’s characters. Feel free to use him for your sadistic fantasies or as a villain or whatever.

Rabat (2011)

Will you miss him if you blink? No, he’s one of the three leads.

Is he hot? Oh yes! And cute!

Is he naked? He’s at the beach wearing nothing but boxer shorts.

Does his hair look great? He’s got this extreme undercut thing that would look ridiculous on anyone less pretty, so like no, he doesn’t have great hair, but also like it’s Marwan, you know what I mean?

Does he fuck? Before he embarks on a road trip with his friends, he has an offscreen threesome with two girls he picked up at a wedding. Slut.

Best paired with? Gabriele from Waves. They’re both sweet guys who could meet in some Tunisian port and decide to sail the Mediterranean Sea together.

Black Out (2012)

Will you miss him if you blink? Not unless your blinking is very deliberate.

Is he hot? Not really. He’s a dirty cop with a shitty moustache and oral fixation.

Is he naked? No, but I wish he was: his clothes are awful. Marwan is 29 in this movie and he looks 50!

Does his hair look great? Nope. They took Marwan’s usual short hair and made it not work somehow.

Does he fuck? No.

Best paired with? The one thing Luca’s characters all have in common is that none of them come off as bootlickers. All of them are either too soft for such a relationship or wouldn’t waste their spit on a cop.

Wolf (2013)

Will you miss him if you blink? No, he’s the protagonist.

Is he hot? *gestures wildly at the gif*

Is he naked? He’s got quite a few shirtless scenes.

Does his hair look great? It’s nothing special but suits his character well.

Does he fuck? Oh yes.

Best paired with? Hear me out. I know that some people ship him with Fabio, but in my opinion that pair, while hot, doesn’t work. Here’s my pitch: Cesare from Non essere cattivo. The drug connection is still there, but in this case Majid’s problem-solving skills won’t fall on deaf ears. Cesare needs a daddy, ok? Majid can be a daddy when he needs to, especially when he has a soft boyfriend to care for. And Majid needs soft, not psycho.

Hartenstraat (2014)

Will you miss him if you blink? No, he’s the protagonist once again.

Is he hot? Painfully.

Is he naked? There’s that iconic scene where he’s wearing nothing but black boxer briefs and boots while carrying a tray...

Does his hair look great? He’s got Joe-like curls and looks like what every male romantic lead should aspire to look like and then cry because they all fail.

Does he fuck? There’s one very unfortunate sex scene played for laughs. I’m pretty sure he’ll need therapy afterwards. I certainly do.

Best paired with? Paolo from Il padre d’Italia. Paolo deserves the best boyfriend, and who’s better than Daan, an extremely hot man who cooks? They both have daughters, so they can talk about that, I guess, and Paolo can finally have a family. Honestly, this is so wholesome I just made myself cry.

Lucia de B. (2014)

Will you miss him if you blink? For sure.

Is he hot? He’s a cop. Again. But he looks good.

Is he naked? Fully dressed, but man are his clothes ugly. Is that a cop thing?

Does his hair look great? He has slightly longer curls, which is fine and the best thing about this character.

Does he fuck? ACAB. (I know this doesn’t answer the question, I just wanted to make it clear.)

Best paired with? See my bootlicker comment from earlier. While Detective *checks notes* Ron Leeflang isn’t explicitly corrupt, he’s obviously a dick, so the best I can do here is recommend any Luca character that has ever been in trouble with the law for any fics about power imbalance you want to write but aren’t comfortable with a nice Marwan playing the villain.

Bloedlink (2014)

Will you miss him if you blink? Oh no, he’s there the entire time.

Is he hot? In a weird way, yes.

Is he naked? So, so, so naked. Like, leave nothing to the imagination naked.

Does his hair look great? I’d say that little rat tail is the exact opposite of great.

Does he fuck? Probably more than is good for him. I should also add that he’s canonically queer in this.

Best paired with? Rico is a pathetic loser in need of someone who’s got his life together and has a lot of experience dealing with fuckups. Enter Loris from Il mondo fino in fondo. He has a stable job and a savior complex, and with his little bro gaying it up in Chile and not needing him anymore, all he wants right now is someone to fix. I should be a fucking matchmaker in real life, for real.

Pak van mijn hart (2014)

Will you miss him if you blink? Undoubtedly.

Is he hot? No. The whole point of his character is to be the lesser choice compared to a guy who looks like a completely ordinary bland white dude...

Is he naked? ...so of course he isn’t naked! What, are they gonna take this poor woman, show her Marwan Kenzari’s post-Wolf body and expect her to choose her deeply mediocre ex? Please! They’re gonna dress him in the dorkiest clothes possible...

Does his hair look great? ...and make him wear the most awful wig that was clearly run over by a truck.

Does he fuck? No. As you can observe, they tried really hard to make him unfuckable, but honestly, he seems like a perfectly nice guy.

Best paired with? You know what? Mattia from La solitudine dei numeri primi is in desperate need of some sweetness and normalcy. I’m sure Richard will treat him with kindness and respect.

Collide (2016)

Will you miss him if you blink? He’s the fifth most important character. Out of five.

Is he hot? Very hot.

Is he naked? Not for a second! What’s up with American movies where people aren’t just casually walking around naked without any plot necessity???

Does his hair look great? His curls are so cute you guys! Look at them!

Does he fuck? Not explicitly.

Best paired with? Fabio from Lo chiamavano Jeeg Robot. Again, the drug connection is there, but Matthias is soft enough not to butt heads with Fabio and, by the end of the movie, rich enough to satisfy his cravings for good living and fame. Also look at how good their color coordination is with those dark wine red clothes! Sometimes planets just align, okay?

Ben-Hur (2016)

Will you miss him if you blink? Yes, especially if you aren’t watching the background.

Is he hot? Your usual Marwan hot.

Is he naked? No.

Does his hair look great? His typical short curls with a twist. I think the forehead area is supposed to invoke the Caesar cut? I don’t know. It looks fine when not hidden under that dumb helmet.

Does he fuck? No.

Best paired with? A better script and a much better director. (Seriously, what is this blocking?)

The Promise (2016)

Will you miss him if you blink? He’s there a decent amount in the first half of the movie and then almost completely disappears in the second half.

Is he hot? Very much, yes.

Is he naked? Unfortunately, no.

Does his hair look great? He’s got short curls again, but this time they’re fashionably styled, it’s magnificent.

Does he fuck? Oh yeah! And there’s no way he isn’t bi or pan in this. No way.

Best paired with? Roberta from L’ultimo terrestre. Listen, Emre Ogan may be a slut but he’s a gentleman, okay? He’d treat Roberta right and he’s got daddy’s cash to spare on hundreds of gorgeous white dresses for her.

The Mummy (2017)

Will you miss him if you blink? He’s there, but barely.

Is he hot? Dangerously hot.

Is he naked? Not once! Instead we get a naked Tom Cruise literally no one asked for.

Does his hair look great? It’s your basic professional short hairdo.

Does he fuck? No.

Best paired with? Malik is a member of an organization tracking and destroying various monsters and historical artefacts related to them. Guido from Tutti i santi giorni speaks four languages, including Latin, and is a literature and ancient history nerd which makes him a valuable asset. Malik can fight and protect; Guido is bumbling and in need of saving. Guys, this writes itself.

What Happened to Monday (2017)

Will you miss him if you blink? No, especially not in the third act.

Is he hot? He’s okay.

Is he naked? Very naked.

Does his hair look great? They shouldn’t have greased his curls back. He looks like another victim of Fabio Cannizzaro’s stylist. Also I wish he’d either shaved or finished growing out that beard.

Does he fuck? He fucks and he fucks good. He’ll go down on you, he’ll deflower you slowly and gently, he’ll choke you if you want him to, he’ll spoon you all night, he’ll give you emotional support, he’ll murder people for you - he’s down for whatever.

Best paired with? There’s one Luca character who needs a lot of sex and even more emotional support. Alright, most of them do, but I’m thinking of Ettore from Lasciate andare. He needs it, okay? Good dicking, good spooning, a good ear, a fine piece of ass to cry into - you get the gist. Most importantly: someone who’d love him for who he is and with whom he could relax and be himself. (Also, I see you, people comparing him to Fabio. Shame on you for sleeping on this soft boy and judging him based on his appearance.)

Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

Will you miss him if you blink? He’s kinda always present, being very French.

Is he hot? Very hot.

Is he naked? No, but I’m willing to forgive that because he looks so good in his conductor uniform.

Does his hair look great? He never takes off his hat.

Does he fuck? No.

Best paired with? Mickey Miranda. They’re both murderers morally dubious characters who would look hot together. What else do you need? (Again, I see you, people who want Pierre for Roberta because he’s a “nice guy”, and I know for a fact you didn’t watch the movie. Spoilers, I guess.)

The Angel (2018)

Will you miss him if you blink? No, he’s the protagonist.

Is he hot? Oh yes.

Is he naked? Not once, but you won’t regret it because he’s wearing excellently stylish 1970s clothes.

Does his hair look great? It looks fantastic. The sideburns (not yet seen here) are a good touch.

Does he fuck? He can definitely get it, but he’s loyal to his wife.

Best paired with? As the most aesthetically coherent and fashionably hot pair in this post, Ashraf and Primo are a no-brainer. Can you imagine Primo calling him “Angel” in different contexts? When he’s being intimidating, not realizing how palpable the sexual tension between them is, and later not even hiding his arousal? Sometimes things just work because they’re hot. That’s all, folks.

Aladdin (2019)

Will you miss him if you blink? No, he’s the main villain.

Is he hot? It’s not like he went viral for being the “hot Jafar” or anything.

Is he naked? No! Fucking thanks a lot, Disney.

Does his hair look great? He has a buzz cut under that turban but he looks good in the turban, so that’s something.

Does he fuck? It’s a Disney movie, so he doesn’t fuck - explicitly or otherwise - but he still comes off as a thirsty bitch.

Best paired with? Jafar ends the movie as a genie who’s obligated to grant his master three wishes but is enough of a petty bitch to exploit the hell out of the “gray area” and screw them over Wishmaster style. My unconventional pair for him is Lui from Ricordi? So many scenarios with distorted memories and magic-induced mindfuck. So many possibilities for awesome and messed up crossover gifsets! Don’t say I never give you guys anything.

Instinct (2019)

Will you miss him if you blink? No, he’s very prominent.

Is he hot? I hate myself for finding him hot but I do.

Is he naked? He’s playing basketball shirtless in one scene, shaking his sweaty boobs everywhere.

Does his hair look great? His weird mohawk-like thing is honestly terrible, but if anything can make it work, it’s Marwan’s bone structure.

Does he fuck? Um, I’m pleading the Fifth on this one for the sake of good taste.

Best paired with? Prison. A very lonely, Luca-less prison.

The Old Guard (2020)

Will you miss him if you blink? No, unless blinking in your case means sleeping through the gloriousness that is the first ever canonically gay couple in an American action film.

Is he hot? Painfully.

Is he naked? Shirtless in one scene.

Does his hair look great? Soft curls courtesy of Luca Marinelli’s tireless lobbying.

Does he fuck? Not on screen, but you can just tell by the way he looks at his husband and reads impromptu poetry right to his face. And everybody knows nothing kindles the fires of passion quite like murdering homophobes together.

Best paired with? If you have to ask, you’re clearly reading this by mistake. In which case, kudos for finishing such a long and confusing post, now go watch The Old Guard and cry at the beauty that is The Immortal Marriage.

#marwan kenzari #luca marinelli #the old guard #and other movies #i'm lazy #immortal husbands #and their parallel versions i guess #crossover ships galore

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potteresque-ire · 4 years ago

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More ask answer about Word of Honour (山河令, WoH) and the so-called “Dangai 101 phenomenon” under the cut ~ with all the M/M relationships shown on screen, does it mean improved acceptance / safety for the c-queer community?

Due to its length (sorry!), I’ve divided the answer into 3 parts: 1) Background 2) Excerpts from the op-eds 3) Thoughts This post is PART 1 ❤️. As usual, please consider the opinions expressed as your local friendly fandomer sharing what they’ve learned, and should, in no ways, be viewed as necessarily true. :)

(TW: homophobic, hateful speech quoted)

After WoH had started airing, I had waited for one of China’s state-controlled media to publish opinion pieces about the show. Specifically, I’d like to know ~ what is the administration’s current take on Dangai (耽改), as a genre? How does it characterise the closeness of the same-sex leads—the closeness that is suppressed when the original IP, of the genre Danmei (耽美) was converted for visual media presentation?

This is important, as China is a country where the government’s attitude becomes the official public attitude. The state opinion pieces will be quoted and parroted, especially if they come from heavy-weight sources (state-controlled media also have their importance/influence hierarchy). Production of the upcoming Dangai dramas will adjust their scripts accordingly. Marketing tactics will also adjust, make sure it doesn’t spread “the wrong message”; Dangai and Danmei dramas have both been pulled off shelves during or immediately after its airing before (Addicted 上癮 and Guardian 鎮魂, respectively), despite having already passing the censorship board.

If a heavy-weight state opinion piece pans the one-lead-fawning-over-the-other scenes in WoH (there are a few of them), for example, scenes / lines of such suggestive nature will likely disappear from the upcoming Dangai dramas for at least a year or two. If the critique spills over to a harsh stance against the presence of queers in Chinese media, all future Dangai dramas can become strict “socialist-brotherhood” stories, their “no homo” message reinforced by, for example, by inserting a female lead (or changing one of the leads to female).

Whether the official public opinion equates the true public opinion or not, public behaviour in China is quickly driven by the official public opinion. Example: the Xi regime’s conservative stance on queer issues has already translated to a quick deterioration of queer tolerance in China; open expressions that were tolerated, even welcomed, just several years ago are now met with significant hostility in the public.

This is a reflection of the nature of their government. A quick thought experiment may explain this. Take … jaywalking. It’s probably fair to say we’ve all committed this “crime” before?

Will you still jaywalk if your government declares it immoral to do so? Where I am, in the United States, the answer is definitely a no. The public will probably laugh at (and make memes about) the poor official who made the declaration, kindly ask the government to do something useful for once (f*** off), and keep jaywalking.

Now, what if the declaration comes with a law that includes a one-year prison term + lifelong criminal record for jaywalking? Let’s say this law is fully executable and irreversible, given this being a thought experiment—nothing you, or the public, can say or do can contest it.

Will you still jaywalk, even if you disagree with government’s stance that the act is immoral? You’ve got a neighbour who continues to defy the law. Will you think twice before letting your young loved ones go out with them?

Very soon, jaywalking becomes “bad”—even though such “badness” had little moral basis at its origin. It is bad because the government has “characterised” it to be so��an authoritarian government that doesn’t allow challenge of the characterisation.

The retention of queer elements in Dangai is the jaywalking in the example. The Chinese government stepping in to characterise (定性) an event, a phenomenon etc is common, and the people know the drill well that they fall in line quickly.

If a powerful state-controlled media publish a negative opinion piece on the queer elements in Dangai / Danmei, therefore, those elements can disappear overnight.

My question had been: will the state do it? The Xi regime has made its distaste for LGBT+ representation in visual media abundantly clear with its NRTA directives. However, while the Chinese government typically puts ideology (意識型態) as its Guiding Principle, exceptions have always been made for one reason. One word.

Money.

TU is a legendary financial success story every production company (Tencent itself included) wants to replicate. As a result, there are ~ 60 Danmei IPs (book canon) with their copyright sold for Dangai dramas; this long line of Danmei dramas in the horizon has been nicknamed “Dangai 101”, after the name of the show “Produce 101” Dd was dance instructor in. These dramas are all competing to be the next TU by profit.

Adoration from fans is nice, but money is what matters.

C-ent is currently in a financial bleak winter. The anti-corruption, anti-tax-fraud campaign started by the Xi regime in 2018, which cumulated to a sudden (and unofficial) collection of 3 years of back-taxes from studios and stars, has drained a significant amount of its capital; the number of new TV dramas being filmed fell 45% between 2018 and 2019, and production companies have been closing by the tens of thousands. The tightening of censorship rules also means production is associated with more risk. The commercial sector outside c-ent is also eager for replications of TU’s success—they need more “top traffic” (頂流) idols like Gg and Dd whose fans are sufficiently devoted to drive the sales of their products. Such “fan economy” would benefit the government, even if it doesn’t have direct stakes in the companies in and outside c-ent. People’s Daily, the Official State Newspaper, previously published a positive opinion piece on fan economy in 2019, estimating its worth at 90 billion RMB (~13.7 billion USD) per year.

But if the state allows the queer elements in Dangai’s to pass the censorship board (NRTA) for profit, how can it do so with the current “No homo” directive in place? From previous experience (scarce as it may be), the queerness has to be sufficiently obvious for the shows to make the profit everyone is wishing for. Dangai dramas in which the leads’ romantic relationship remains subtle have not sold the way TU does, even if they are well-reviewed and feature famous, skilled actors (as Winter Begonia 鬓边不是海棠红 last year.)

NRTA, and the government behind it, can’t just say I’m turning a blind eye to the flirting and touching for the money. What can it say then?

Here’s what I’d thought—what it can say, or do, is to “characterise” these Dangai dramas in a way that leave out its queerness. It did so for TU. TU’s review by the overseas version of People’s Daily devoted a grand total of two characters to describe WWX and LWJ’s relationship—摯友 (“close friend”). The rest of the article was devoted to the drama’s aesthetics, its cultural roots. (The title of the article: 《陳情令》：書寫國風之美 Chen Qing Ling: Writing the Beauty of National Customs).

How could it do that? The State’s power ensuring few questioning voices aside, I’ve been also thinking about the history and definition of Danmei (耽美)—Dangai’s parent genre as the causes. Based on the history and definition, I can think of 3 ways the queer elements in Danmei (耽美) can be characterised by the state, 2 of which provide it with the wiggle room, the movable goalposts it needs should it choose to want to overlook the queerness in Dangai.

The 3 characterisations I’ve thought of, based on the history and definition of Danmei (耽美) are:

1) The queer characterisation, which focuses on its homoerotic element. * Summary of the characterization: Danmei is gay.

2) The “traditional BL” characterisation, which focuses on BL’s historic origin as a “by women, for women” genre. The M/M setup is viewed as an escapist protest against the patriarchy, a rejection of traditional gender roles; displays of M/M closeness are often “candies” for the female gaze. * Summary of the characterization: Danmei is women’s fantasy.

3) The aesthetic characterisation, which focuses on beauty—from the beauty of the characters, the beauty of a world without harm to the romance. * Summary for the characterization: Danmei is pretty.

The queer characterisation (1) is well-understood, and likely the default characterisation if it is to be made by the fraction of i-fandom I’m familiar with. Most i-fans I’ve met, myself included, would likely and automatically associate the M/M relationships in The Untamed (TU) and WoH with queerness.

The “traditional BL” characterisation (2), meanwhile, equates Danmei with BL as the genre of homoerotic works developed in 1970’s Japan for women comic readers, and has been widely interpreted from a feminist point of view.

Under such interpretation of “traditional BL” works, the double male lead setup wasn’t meant to be an accurate depiction of homosexuality. It wasn’t about homosexuality at all. Rather, it was about the removal of women and along with it, the rage, the eye-rolling, the unease women readers had often felt when attempting to interact with mainstream romance novels of the time, in which the female leads had mostly been confined to traditional women roles, and their virtue, their traditional feminine traits.

The M/M setup therefore acted as a “shell” for a het relationship that allowed removal of such social constraints placed on women. The lead with whom the woman audience identified was no longer bound to the traditional role of women, such as being the caregiver of the family. The lead could instead chase their dreams and roam the world, as many contemporary women already did or aspired to do; they were no longer limited to playing the passive party in life and in the relationship—and they enjoyed such freedom without risking the love, the respect the other male protagonist felt for them.

BL, in this traditional sense, has therefore been interpreted as an answer for, and a protest against the heteropatriarchal gender norm still dominant in societies deeply influenced by Confucianism, including Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China. The M/M setup is, at heart, (het) women’s fantasy. The inclusion of two young-and-beautiful male leads also satisfy “the female gaze” ~ the popularity of BL among het women has therefore been compared to the popularity of lesbian porn among het men. In both cases, the audience is drawn not for the homosexual element but by the presence of double doses of sexual attraction.

(Please forgive me if any of my wording comes as disrespectful! I’m not used to talking about these topics.)

The availability of the “traditional BL” characterisation (2) is key to bypassing queerness as a topic in the discussions of Danmei (耽美).

The aesthetic characterisation (3) is very closely related to 2) in origin, but deserves its own point as a characterisation that can stand on its own, and may be more obscure to the English-speaking fandom given the common English translation of Danmei (耽美) as Boy’s Love.

Boy’s Love, as a name, amplifies the queer characterisation (1) and de-emphasises the aesthetic characterisation (3); Danmei (耽美), meanwhile, does the reverse.

Where does the name Danmei come from?

When BL was first developed in Japan, it used to have a now out-of-fashion genre name: Tanbi. Tanbi was borrowed from same name describing a late 19th century / early 20th century Japanese literary movement, known as Tanbi-ha and was inspired by Aestheticism in England. Aestheticism “centered around the doctrine that art exists for the sake of its beauty alone, and that it need serve no political, didactic, or other purpose”. Along the same line, the core belief of authors of Tanbi-ha was that art should celebrate beauty and reject the portrayal of ugliness in human nature, the darkness of reality:

…Tanbi writers argued that the ideas of naturalism writers such as “objectivism,” “truth is more important than beauty” and so on would “oppress human beings’ desire” so as to “lose beauty and human nature.” Accordingly, they insisted on “acute mental and emotional sensibility” [Ye, 2009].

(Source, with more details on Tanbi.)

Neither romance nor homosexuality were requirements for works in the original Tanbi-ha genre. BL borrowed the name Tanbi because its early authors saw their work created under the same principles: the emphasis on the beauty of their characters, their love (romantic and platonic), in a world that was also beautiful and untouched by ugliness such as sexism and homophobia.

The stubborn persistence on keeping one’s eyes trained on the beautiful, the willingness to turn a blind eye to reality for the sake of the beauty is built-in in the genre’s name. Tanbi meant more than beauty, aesthetics; its kanji form was written as 耽美; 耽 = to sink, drown in, to over-indulge in; 美 = beauty.

Tanbi, therefore, literally means to drown in, to over-indulge in beauty.

Over time, as the genre expanded its writing style, Tanbi eventually fell out of favour as BL’s genre name in Japan. However, as it gained popularity in the Sinosphere in the 1990s, starting with Taiwan and Hong Kong, the kanji of Tanbi was retained as the Chinese name of the genre.

In Mandarin Chinese, 耽美 is pronounced Danmei. A hyperfocus on the aesthetics, the utopian aspects of traditional BL is therefore retained in Danmei by its name. People’s Daily could therefore devote its review of TU on its aesthetics. Realism, including politics and all discussions of social issues, can therefore be swept aside in the name of respecting the genre’s tradition.

I’ve mostly been reading about and observing c-fandom, and I believe these 3 characterisations have all attracted its own kind of fans. Fans who care and talk about queer issues even when it isn’t encouraged by their sociopolitical environment, who shine a light upon these issues in their fan works. Fans who treat the M/M leads as if they were a traditional cishet couple, such as calling one of the leads 老婆 (wife) and assigning him biologically female functions when needed (via, for example, the ABO trope). Fans who insist the works must meet their beauty standards, rejecting those that fail (for example, if the leads are not good looking enough) by claiming they’re there for Danmei, not Danchou (耽醜, “over-indulgence on ugliness”). Fans who are drawn to the genre by a combination of these characterisations.

By the history and definition of the genre, all the above reasons for fanning Danmei are as valid, as legitimate as one another.

I thought about this related question then: are c-fans of the second (traditional BL characterisation) and third (aesthetic characterisation) groups homophobic? When I first asked this question, I—a fan whose fandom experience had been entirely in English-speaking communities—assume the answer was yes. I thought, in particular, the insistence of treating Danmei’s M/M couples as cishet couples in a homosexual shell had to be conscious queer erasure. How can anyone ignore the same-sexness of the leads? How can anyone talk about Danmei without associating it with homosexuality?

However, as I read more—again, specifically about c-fandom, and in Chinese—I realised the answer may be a little more complex.

Previously, I had largely thought about homophobia in terms of individual attitudes. This has to do with my current environment (liberal parts of the United States), in which the choice to accept or reject the queer community has become a close to personal choice. Pride flags fly all over the city, including the city hall, every summer, and most churches welcome the LGBT+ community. I hadn’t considered how an environment in which queers have never enjoyed full social exposure, in which education of related topics is sorely lacking, would affect Danmei’s development as a genre.

In such an environment, it is difficult for Danmei to evolve and incorporate up-to-date understanding of RL queerness.

The consequence I can see is this: Danmei is more likely to be “stuck” in its historical characterisation as (het) women’s fantasy inside than outside the Great Firewall, with its queerness de-emphasised if not erased—and it draws fans who are attracted to this kind of characterisation accordingly. This is, perhaps, reflected by the fact that the (het) women-to-queer ratio of Danmei / BL fans is significantly higher in China than in the West (Table 1 in this article summarises how Danmei / BL fans have split between different genders and sexual orientation in the Sinosphere vs the West in different research studies).

Another driving force I can see for Danmei to retain BL’s traditional feminist and aesthetic characterisations: women in China are not free from the social pressure that led to the birth of BL in 1970’s Japan. While many of them have achieved financial freedom through work and have high education, the young and educated have been subjected to immense pressure to get married and have children especially in the past decade.

In 2007, the China’s state feminist agency, the All-China Women’s Federation (中華全國婦女聯合會), coined the term 剩女 (literally, “leftover women”) for unmarried, urban women over 27 years old. The government started a campaign that, among other things, associated women’s education level with ugliness, and their unmarried status with pickiness, moral degeneracy. The reason behind the campaign: birth rates are plummeting and the state wants educated women, in particular, to nurture a high quality, next generation workforce. More importantly, the government sees a threat in the M/F sex imbalance (high M, low F) that has commonly been attributed to the country’s “one child policy” between 1979-2015, which encouraged female infanticide / abortion of female foetuses in a culture that favours surname-carrying boys. The state fears the unmarried men will become violent and/or gay, leading to “social instability and insecurity”. Therefore, it wants all women, in particular those who are educated, to enter the “wife pool” for these unmarried men. (Source 1, Source 2: Source 2 is a short, recommended read).

For Chinese women, therefore, patriarchy and sexism is far from over. Escapist fantasies where sexism is removed—by removing women from the picture—are therefore here to stay.

Danmei is therefore not queer literature (同志文學). The difference between Danmei and queer literature is highlighted by this reportedly popular saying (and its similar variations) in some Danmei communities:

異性戀只是傳宗接代，同性戀才是真愛 Heterosexuality is only for reproduction. Only homosexuality is true love.

The attitude towards heterosexuality is one of distaste, viewed as a means to an end the speaker has no interest in. On the contrary, homosexuality is idealised, reflecting the disregard / lack of understanding of some Danmei fans have towards the RL hardships of c-queers. The ignorance may be further propagated by gate-keeping by some Danmei fans for safety reasons, keeping queer discussions away from their communities for fear that their favourite hangouts would meet the same uncertain fate of other communities that previously held open queer discussions, such as the Weibo gay and lesbian supertopics. Such gatekeeping can, again, be easily enforced using tradition as argument: the beauty 美 is Tanbi and Danmei (耽美), remember, includes the beauty of utopia, where ugly truths such as discrimination do not enter the picture. A Danmei that explores, for example, the difficulty of coming out of the closet is no longer Danmei, by its historical, aesthetic definition.

[I’ve therefore read about c-queers viewing Danmei with suspicion, if not downright hostility; they believe the genre, by ignoring their RL challenges and casting them as beautiful, even perfect individuals, and in some cases, by fetishising them and their relationships, only leads to more misconceptions about the queer community. Dangai, meanwhile, has been viewed with even more distaste as potential weapons by the state to keep gays in the closet; if the government can shove the Danmei characters into the “socialist brotherhood” closet, it can shove them as well.

I haven’t yet, however, been able to tease out the approximate fraction of c-queers whose views of Danmei and Dangai is negative. The opposing, positive view of the genres is this: they still provide LGBT+ visibility, which is better than none and it would’ve been close to none without Danmei and Dangai; while Danmei may skim over the hardships of being queer, fan works of Danmei are free to explore them—and they have.

This article provides insights on this issue. @peekbackstage’s conversation with a Chinese film/TV director in Clubhouse is also well worth a read.]

That said, Danmei can only be dissociated from the queer characterisation if there’s a way to talk about the genre without evoking words and phrases that suggest homosexuality—something that is difficult to do with English. Is there?

In Chinese, I’d venture to say … almost. There’s almost a way. Close enough to pass.

The fact that M/M in traditional BL has been developed and viewed not as queer but as a removal of F also means this: queerness isn’t “built-in” into the language of Danmei. The name Danmei itself already bypasses a major “queer checkpoint”: it’s impossible to refer to a genre called Boy’s Love and not think about homosexuality.

Here’s one more important example of such bypass. Please let me, as an excuse to put these beautiful smiles in my blog, show this classic moment from TU; this can be any gif in which the leads are performing such suggestive romantic gestures:

How can I describe this succinctly? In English?

Two men acting in love? Er. That’s… the definition of gay, almost.

Two men acting gay? Well. GAY.

Right. Fine. Let’s go negative. Queerbaiting? … Still gay, because the word “queer” is in there.

[Pie note: for the record, I don’t think TU or WoH is queer-baiting.]

Personally, I find it impossible to describe the GIF above in English that I do not automatically associate with RL romantic love between two men, with homosexuality. But can I do it in Chinese?

… Yes.

There’s a term, 賣腐 (pronounced “maifu”), literally, “selling 賣 the rot 腐”, derived from the term known among i-fans as fujoshi and written, in kanji, as 腐女. Fujoshi, or 腐 (“rot”) 女 (“women”), describes the largely (het) female audience of the Japanese BL genre (>80%, according to Wikipedia). Originated as a misogynistic insult towards female Japanese BL fans in the 2000s, fujoshi was later reclaimed by the same female BL fans who now use the self-depreciative term as acknowledgement of their interest being “rotten”, for BL’s disregard of the society’s traditional expectations on women.

賣腐 is therefore to “sell the rot” to the rotten women; ie. the suggestive romantic gestures, exemplified by the GIF above, between the M/M leads are catering, performing fan service to their target audience.

[賣腐 is also a term one will see in the state opinion pieces.]

There’s nothing gay about this term.

I’ve therefore found it possible to talk and think in Chinese about Danmei while giving little thought to queerness. The history and definition of Danmei allow that.

Again, I’m not saying any of this to excuse homophobia among in Danmei and Dangai fandoms. The point I’m trying to make is this — given that Danmei has three potential characterisations, two of which can be discussed without abundantly evoking queer concepts and vocabularies, given that history of Danmei, as a genre, already favoured characterisation 2 (traditional BL), the government addressing homosexuality in its opinions on Danmei and Dangai is far from a given.

By extension, the popularity of Dangai may mean a lot or little to c-queers; by extension, the state can approve / disapprove of Danmei and Dangai in a manner independent of its stance on homosexuality, which is itself inconsistent and at times, logic-deying (example to come…).

This is both good and bad, from the perspective of both the government and the c-queer community.

For the government: as discussed, the “triality” of Danmei allows the state to “move the goalpost” depending on what it tries to achieve. It has characterisations 2 (the traditional BL characterisation) and 3 (the aesthetic characterisation) as excuses to let Dangai dramas pass the censorship board should it want their profit and also, their promise of expanding the country’s soft power overseas by drawing an international audience. These characterisations also allow the state to throw cold water on the popularity of Danmei / Dangai should it desire, for reasons other than its queer suggestions—despite the Xi regime’s push against open expressions of queerness (including by activism, in media), it has also been careful about not demonising c-queers in words, and has countered other people’s attempts to do so.

Why may the government want to throw cold water on Danmei and Dangai? They are still subculture, which the state has also viewed with suspicion. In 2018, a NRTA directive explicitly requested that “c-ent programmes should not use entertainers with tattoos; (those associated with) hip-hop culture, sub-cultures (non-mainstream cultures), decadent cultures.” (”另外，总局明确要求节目中纹身艺人、嘻哈文化、亚文化（非主流文化）、丧文化（颓废文化）不用。”).

Subculture isn’t “core socialist values”. More importantly, it’s difficult to keep up with and control subculture. 環球網, the website co-owned by People’s Daily and Global Times (環球時報), ie, The State Newspaper and The State Tabloid, famously said this on its Weibo, on 2020/03/04, re: 227:

老了，没看懂为什么战。晚安。 Getting old. Can’t figure out what the war is about. Good night.

The State also cannot stop subculture from happening. It doesn’t have the resources to quell every single thing that become popular among its population of 1.4 billion. What it can do to make sure these subcultures stay subcultures, kept out of sight and mind of the general public.

Characterisation 1 (the queer characterisation), meanwhile, remains available to the state should it wish to drop the axe on Dangai for its queer elements. I’m including, as “queer elements”, presentation of men as too “feminine” for the state—which has remained a sore point for the government. This axe have a reason to drop in the upcoming months: July 23rd, 2021 will be the 100th birthday of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and the state may desire to have only uniformed forces and muscled, gun-toting “masculine” men gracing the screens.

What about for c-queers and their supporters (including group I fans)? What good and bad can the multiple characterisations of the genres do for them?

For c-queers and their supporters (including group I fans), their acceptance and safety are helped by the Dangai genre, by the Dangai 101 phenomenon, if and only if the state both characterises the queer elements in these dramas as queer (characterisation 1) AND their opinions of them are positive.

Personally, I had viewed this to be unlikely from the start, because a queer characterisation would mean the censorship board has failed to do its job, which is embarrassing for the Chinese government.

Characterisations 2) and 3) are not bad for c-queers and their supporters, however, and definitely not “enemies” of Characterisation 1); they can not only serve as covers for the queer elements in Dangai to reach their audience, but also, they can act as protective padding for the LGBT+ community if the content or (very aggressive) marketing of the Dangai dramas displease the government — with the understanding, again, that the “traditional BL” arm of the Danmei community is itself also highly vulnerable by being a subculture, and so its padding effect is limited and it also deserves protection.

The downside to achieving LGBT+ visibility through Dangai is, of course and as mentioned, that these dramas are, ultimately, deeply unrealistic depictions of the c-queers. The promotion of these dramas, which has focused on physical interactions between the male leads for “candies”, can encourage even more fetishising of queers and queer relationships. The associated (character) CP culture that makes and breaks CPs based on the dramas’ airing cycle may also fuel negative perception of queer relationships as attention-seeking behaviour, something that can be initiated and terminated at will and for the right price.

Finally, with all this said, which characterisation(s) have the government taken re: Dangai and/or WOH? And what opinions has it given to its characterisations?

PART 1 <-- YOU ARE HERE PART 2 PART 3

#pie metas #yizhan #bjyx

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vampish-glamour · 3 years ago

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I never watched G*od Om*ns, so it was fandom again with the "they're gay"???

At least Star Trek did this right, you know, not lying to please someone. Spock and Kirk was never a thing and also was never meant to be a thing. But the creator himself said, if you wanna see them like that, it's fine. Do what you want. But in canon it's not that way.

But really, somehow fandom seems to make it easy for creators to just bait, but never commit and they're happy, wtf.

And IF they get actual lgbt rep, they're upset because it's not the character they WANTED to be lgbt....

Actually, the fandom is largely against them being gay because they claim it’s “nonbinary and asexual representation”.

Which bothers me just because they’re basically applauding homophobic tropes simply because they benefit from homophobic tropes.

I want to make it clear that my problem isn’t “why aren’t you making the characters canonically gay?!!?!!? This is homophobic!!!11!1!1”. I’m fine with the relationship remaining a close friendship canonically. And canonically speaking, I think I might prefer that tbh.

My problem is with how the original homophobia in the book sort of goes ignored, and how the writer teases and hints and in this case I would actually say baits… and then receives praise from the fandom for doing what everyone else does when it comes to gay pairings.

Basic overview of the situation from my POV:

Book establishes a character as a gay stereotype

Immediately goes “but he isn’t gay because angels are sexless unless they make an effort” (IMO the sexless thing could’ve been established in many other ways. Did it really have to be done in a “don’t worry he’s not gay” way?)

Book proceeds to make the gay stereotype thing a running joke, with the character being called various homophobic slurs (but see, it’s funny because it’s misplaced homophobia. He doesn’t actually deserve the homophobia he experiences like an actual gay person would /s)

Show comes out, includes romantic music, lots of subtext, and the writer confirming that it’s a “love story”, as well as the actors confirming they acted “in love”. Except… it’s done vaguely enough that anyone can come away with their own interpretation. Which is nothing new. There’s literally nothing revolutionary about leaving a same sex relationship “up for interpretation”.

All the “representation” actually comes from what the writer says on Twitter. He goes on about how they’re sexless and therefore cannot possibly be gay but are also inherently “queer”… but doesn’t actually add this into canon. So casual viewers are not experiencing any sort of “representation”.

IMO this is a homophobic media trope. Give two men or two women scenes that would be explicitly romantic if it were a man and a woman, tease the audience with “maybeee~”, but still make sure that ultimately, homophobes won’t be offended and can come away from the material thinking “what good friends!”. Say “it’s up for interpretation”, which is something I hardly see with M/F pairings. Especially with the virtue signalling on social media.

Keep in mind, something isn’t “representation” if everyone comes away with different ideas of what was represented. If one person can think “they’re gay and married” and another can think “they’re aspec and in a QPR”, that’s not representation. Representation only happens when something is undeniable. For example, a character who is undeniably bisexual because they are shown to be interested in both men and women (biphobic pannies coming to their own conclusions don’t count here lol, since bi = pan and pan = bi, so even if they claim the character is pansexual, they’re still getting the same outcome)

Now here’s where my issue comes in.

Instead of calling this out, the fandom runs with it and benefits from it. A vague relationship on screen allows them to claim representation for themselves, usually for made up labels like aspec, SAM type asexuality, queerplatonic, etc.

They praise the writer for being “inclusive”, and for “representing” them… when really this “inclusivity” is a result of homophobic tropes, and there’s actually no representation at all. Keep in mind, all the clues for what could be going on come from social media. A casual viewer is either going to see two gay men, or two good friends. They have no way of knowing about the woke “queer” bullshit unless they’re heavily involved in fandom.

The writer has a habit of teasing things and being intentionally misleading. Here’s an example

Not telling what’s going to happen and not giving spoilers, is very different from intentionally baiting. “Wait and see” sounds like a “yes”… because it would be incredibly shitty to lead people on when the answer is a solid “no”.

However, considering he’s only half of the writers, and establishing a relationship other than what he and the other writer discussed would be disrespectful… the answer is very likely “no”.

So just say “no”. It’s okay to say “no, they’re not getting together”. But he knows that people are more likely to watch if they’re waiting for the two to get together the whole time…so he has to keep it vague and mysterious and he has to keep baiting.

Of course the answer could very well be “yes” and that’s what he’s hinting at. But I highly doubt it, mostly because of the “only one author around” issue. So until I’m proven wrong, I will maintain that this is him being intentionally misleading, as he admitted to.

So that’s where I have the issue—I wouldn’t have an issue if he just straight up said “no, they’re not going to hook up, they’re good friends”. What is an issue, is perpetuating classic homophobic media tropes, of giving just enough but not too much…and then saying “it’s up for interpretation”. Which roughly translates to “here’s some crumbs for the gays”. What’s especially an issue, is then disguising this under woke kweer language and lapping up all the praise you can get for being such an “Ally” to “queers”.

And of course, I have an issue with how the fandom receives this. Because instead of calling the bullshit out for what it is, they actually call gay people talking about homophobia “aphobic discourse”, and say things like “gay men have enough representation!!”, and try to argue that actually, the homophobic trope of vague same sex relationships that are left up to interpretation, is actually super inclusive and amazing and progressive because it represents asexuals, aromantics, nonbinary people, queerplatonic relationships, etc.

Or they put down gay people for wanting more explicit representation, because “uhh… some people are aro!!! Some people are ace!!”. Despite missing that non romantic or non sexual relationships between men can be found in pretty much every single piece of media ever, and is 100% socially acceptable. Explicit gay relationships however, are still looked down upon.

And then they act like the religious homophobes, by taking “explicit gay representation” to mean “explicit hardcore sex scene”. Like I’ve seen nobody demand a sex scene when they’re talking about gay representation in G O. I’m certainly not. Yet the kweers always manage to interpret gay people wanting proper representation as “you want sex!!! You want porn!!!”. To me, it really seems no different from religious homophobes seeing an advertisement with two men and immediately talking about how it promotes “deviant gay sex”.

What worries me is that these types of fandoms—who applaud creators for giving gay people crumbs—set a precedent for other creators. They make it known that gay representation actually isn’t needed for media to be praised. They give creators a safe way to get out of representing gay couples—while keeping both the queers and homophobes happy at the same time. Now they can hop on social media and say “no, they’re not gay, but it’s up for interpretation!” And the queers will think this is top tier representation, and praise the creators for it.

As always, this turned into a long spiel lmao. But that’s an explanation of my thoughts and why I’m frustrated. Again—I’m not mad that a romantic relationship isn’t canon. That in itself isn’t homophobic. But the way that the writer and fandom are handling it, is.

I’m not familiar with Star Trek (I do want to watch it, mostly to understand the Star Trek vs Star Wars stuff lmao.), but it sounds like that’s a good way to handle it. If you don’t want to make a relationship canon—that’s fine. But be honest about it, don’t drag fans along with teasing and baiting.

#sorry for the ramble again lol #I have nowhere else to rant about this because the fandom would absolutely crucify me for being ‘aphobic’ or ‘enbyphobic’#as if that holds any weight compared to the homophobia they cheer on lmao #can’t make it clearer that my problem isn’t not having canon gay rep #I’m happy having the two dudes be friends. I like their friendship.#I’m not happy with the fandom and the writer’s bullshit.#asks #anon #q slur

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phoenixfire-thewizardgoddess · 4 years ago

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What is your opinion on straight passing privilege? I (bi) don’t think it exists, but a close (lesbian) friend of mine insists that it does bc “You can hold hands with your SO (nb cis passing man) in public without risking being the victim of a hate crime.” I have been researching but keep seeing this same argument coming up, and I’m unsure and don’t want to be making anyone upset if I’m being ignorant here.

I think that there's a lot of fucked up internet politics around who is and isn't allowed in the community. Which is ridiculous.

Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Pan, Poly, Ace, Aro, Trans, Intersex, etc.

The only people who shouldn't be in the community are cishets, and pedos, none of that 'it's a sexuality' nonsense, it's predation.

The concept of straight-passing is ridiculous, primarily because it's all based on assumptions. If you're in an m/f relationship, and you are both cis and heterosexual, it's straight.

But here's the catch, if you identify as any LGBPT+ then it's not straight.

Two trans people in an m/f relationship is not straight passing.

Two bi people in an m/f is not straight passing, it's queer babes, it's in the name. If you're bi and your partner is like, straight, it's still queer from your side of the fence.

It's the 'pick a side' argument from another direction, this straight passing nonsense. Where you are villified by the straights if you have a same-sex relationship (or fetishised, let's be real, every part of the acronymn has it's own p*rn category aimed at straight people with a kink), and if you have a relationship with the opposite gendered person, the queer community gets cranky.

Two things:

1) Is this friend between 13 and 25? Bc they could still be working this out or being mentored by t*rfs, or had some bad info. IT could be jealousy or fear of being open where you live. Perhaps you could question what makes her say that; has she had a bad experience, or did someone say this to her. where are you Are you in america? are there snake wielding jesus warriors near you? Blink SOS if you need an escape route, child

2) Who wins when everyone in the queer community is divided and policing one another? Telling everyone off for dating this person or that person or not at all

I didn't get an invite to the big queer conference to make these decisions, so like, they're not valid. It's some pocket of internet active idiots who think they can speak for everyone.

What we need to do is stop pulling this bullshit on one another and get back to asking just why the fuck it's not okay for people who are perceived as not-straight or cis etc to hold hands in public.

There's a problem for every facet of the acronym, babes and dudes and theys. Lesbians are heavily sexualised by straight cis dudes. Gays are heavly fetisihed by straight cis women. to the point where even saying 'I'm gay' is considered to be an obscene, sexual act that you should not let children be exposed to.

And there's always someone from the opposite gender who thinks they 'are confused' or 'haven't met the right (gender) person yet', or 'they could fix them with their magic genitals' or mumbled religious nonsense. There's such intense stereotypes that people can't stand women who look butch, but also you can't 'really' be a lesbian unless you are' or gay men can't just be, like, a normal dude, instead of some flamboyant in-your-face charicature.

Of course people who match the stereotype exist, too. And they get no respect for fitting into the stereptypes either, it's just another reason for disrespect. There's no winning.

Bi's can't talk to anyone without hearing a question of a threesome come up or being attacked from either side for coice of partner.

Pans, same, but also kitchenware jokes. Both Bi and Pan are considered sluts and whores and can't decide or are going to cheat, etc. Or the 'you're being special snowflakes', 'choose a side', 'you're secretly gay and won't admit / you're secretly straight and want attention' etc.

Ace/Aro - everyone under this banner gets the whole 'you just haen't found the right person' or 'when you're older/you're a late bloomer' or 'how do you know?' or 'maybe you're straight/gay and haven't worked it out yet?' invalidating them completely and trying to push sex onto them. The queer community has always let Ace and Aro in under the Bi banner, and they are welcome. But the internet community, usually young people, are tearing each other to shreds over it lmao.

Chill.

Non-binary, trans, intersex. They have been here for ages, but people from one community try to destroy their credibility, despite them existing since humanity has. It's big on p*rn and fetish sites too, lot of straight dudes think these things are hot and sexy, but would spit on trans people in the street. Hypocrites (I mean, every second low-brow comedy movie out there makes a thai-l*dyb*y joke, and how it 'doesn't count' like yikes).

Nb has only just been recognised, which is funny bc society literally made up gender and the rules and pretended that was how its encoded in DNA lmao.

Transpeople have it bad though. Between the cis straights, the cis queer community (primarily t*rfs and those who fall for misinformation) and the fetishists, and the medical community who treats them like an illness rather than people. Like, they are afforded respect if they 'pass', but even then it's still an EW factor.

Transwomen are seen as 'men in dresses who want to break into women's spaces' and treated horrifically; assaults are very high. Transmen are seen as butch women, and 'gender tr*itors' by the Crazy Motherfuckers we mentioned before; their assaults are high. They're not considered Real People unless they meet the ridiculously high standards for each gender; unless they perform Right.

I remember, but did not understand at the time bc I recall i was little, that there was a gameshpw bachelorette style and there was a big twist. You know what the twist was? That the bachelorette they'd been dating and trying to win over... was trans. I don't think that she knew it would be the big twist, either; of the two men remaining, bother were angry and one might have been sick. Might be on youtube.

But like, that's funny to the non-queer community. They put a huge fucking target on this woman's back, put her in danger of being hurt, abused, killed, by anyone who watched it. By the men who she had 'lied to' as they chose to frame it, of their weird white american families who could have sought revenge. Like yikes.

And intersex people (called h*rmaphrodites for a long time even by medical personnel) were also a p*rn category and/or medical curiosity for centuries. Not to mention all the cases of parents who just went with 'make them a (specific gender)' if there was mixed presentation, at birth, and got mad at the kids for being like "Hey so, you flipped the coin wrong and I'm ___" even thought the potential for this was always on the cards.

And the parents often make a big messa bout how their baby ___ is dead and gone, even if they DO accept the person/child as who they really are. It's like, I get it they have changed but you didn't mourn their first haircut or lost baby tooth like this and that was change too, chill.

Straight-passing is a projection and a weapon. Like, is it the people in the relationship's fault that society looks at the pair and decides they are m/f, straight and cis? Nah, it's what people are conditioned assume and that's on them.

We can't bring it into the queer spaces and keep perpetuating that shit, because it's nonsense. Queer people are dying in other countries and your friend wants to being smart-assed about the fact you hold hands with your nb datemate in public?

Nonsense. That's right up there with t*rfs and the gold-star bullshit that was going on for a few years there. Probs still is among the younger people lmaoooo.

'Passing priviledge' is a myth, and it is used to hurt people. Vulnerable people and those who need support / guidance and assistance from their queer communities more than ever. So try to talk to your friend or try The Whole Friend disposal services, either way, chill.

The real issue here is that any of us are at risk of a hate crime for daring to even show affection in public. That even in safe spaces, 'allies' and those wise enough not to be openly homo/trans/bi/pan/ace/aro/other phobic are still side-eyeing you and wanting to talk 'for you' without listening to the community itself.

We have bigger issues than this, and your friend (and some others on the internet) need to get a grip and prioritise.

[Insert strained analogy about being pro-child but childfree in a suburb where everyone got married out of high school and anticipates you and your partner will too, no matter how often you remind them No Thanks. But you babysat the other day and people thought you and your partner looked like 'naturals' when you took child to the park and played with them. And you remind them, hey, chill, we like kids too but it's not for us. And they get pissy and pushy.]

---------

I can only point it out from my perspective, I'm certain there other queer people from the above acronymn community who can present their thoughts on the matter to and what it means to them.

Thanks for the question, good-bi.

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nerdygaymormon · 4 years ago

Text

Pride Flags

1979 – Pride flag

At the request of Harvey Milk, Gilbert Baker designed a symbol of pride for the gay community to debut at the 1979 San Francisco Gay Freedom Day (at the time, gay was an umbrella term that included what we now would call the queer community). The original flag included 8 colors.

When Harvey Milk was assassinated, many wanted the Pride flag he commissioned as a symbol of the community. Demand was so great that there wasn’t enough hot pink fabric, and then to keep the design balanced, turquoise was also dropped.

This 6-color striped flag is recognized as a symbol by queer people around the world no matter who they are, how they define, or who they love.

Here are the meanings behind the colors in the Pride flag:

Red = Life

Orange = Healing

Yellow = Sunlight

Green = Nature

Blue = Harmony

Violet = Spirit

1995 – Polyamory Pride flag

Blue : representing openness and honesty among all partners

Red : representing love and passion

Black : representing solidarity with those who must hide their polyamorous relationships from the outside world

In the center of the flag is a gold Greek lowercase letter "pi", as the first letter of "polyamory". Gold represents "the value that we place on the emotional attachment to others... as opposed to merely primarily physical relationships".

There have been a number of alternative flags developed by the polyamory community since 1995 that incorporate both the original colors and the infinity heart sign, which represents the infinite love for multiple partners at the same time. The heart represents love and the lemniscate represents openness rather than infinity/ eternity.

1998 – Bisexual Pride flag

Michael Page designed this flag in order to raise the visibility of bisexuals, both in and out of the LGBT community. Page said the message of the flag was the idea that the purple blends into both the blue and pink in the same way that bisexual people often blend unnoticed into both gay and straight communities. The flag is inspired from the “biangles,” which are two overlapping triangles in the stereotypical colors for boys and girls.

Michael wanted to avoid pink triangles as they were used by Nazi Germany to brand gay men. He also slightly changed the shades of the colors.

Page describes the meaning of the colors in the flag as:

Pink : represents sexual attraction to the same sex only (gay and lesbian)

Blue : sexual attraction to the opposite sex only (straight)

Purple : the resultant overlap color represents sexual attraction to both sexes (bi)

2000 – Transgender Pride flag

Monica Helms, a trans woman, designed this flag and it was first flown at the 2000 Pride Parade in Phoenix.

Monica explains, “The pattern is such that no matter which way you fly it, it will always be correct. This symbolizes us trying to find correctness in our own lives.”

Light blue is the traditional color for baby boys

Pink is for girls

White in the middle is for those who are transitioning, those who feel they have a neutral gender or no gender, and those who are intersex

Late 2000’s – Ally Pride flag

The “A” represents allies & activism and it’s in the rainbow colors that represents the queer community.

The black and white bars represent opposites, since allies are cis & attracted to opposite sex/gender on the binary

2010 – Pansexual Pride flag

This flag is used to increase visibility and recognition of the pansexual community, and to distinguish it from bisexuality. The pansexual flag consists of three colored horizontal bars.

Pink : represents those who identify within the female spectrum (regardless of biological sex)

Blue : represents those who identify within the male spectrum (regardless of biological sex)

Yellow : represents non-binary attraction, such as androgynous, agender, bigender and genderfluid people.

2010 – Asexual Pride flag

A contest was held to create an Asexual Flag. A flag of striped colors was chosen as it fits with the designs of most other Pride flags and avoids controversy that could be had if symbols were included.

Black: Asexuality.

Grey: Grey-Asexuality and Demisexuality.

White: Non-asexual partners and allies.

Purple: Community

2011 – Genderqueer Pride flag

Created by Marilyn Roxie. For people who are uncomfortable with the word “queer,” they refer to this as a nonbinary flag

Lavender – androgyny

White – agender

Green – nonbinary

2012 – Genderfluid Pride flag

JJ Poole created this flag.

Pink : feminity

Blue : masculinity

Purple : both masculinity & feminity

Black : lack of gender

White : for all genders

2012 – Polysexual Pride flag

A Tumblr user who is a poly individual with the signature “Samlin” submitted this design. He made it similar to the bi and pan flags, since they’re all in under the multisexual umbrella.

Samlin felt it important distinguish polysexuals from the others--Bi who are attracted to people from 2 genders, and Pan who are attracted to people regardless of gender. Poly is someone who is sexually attracted to multiple, but not all, genders.

The flag uses the blue and pink, as does the bi & pan flags, but replaces the purple and yellow stripes with a green one.

Pink: attraction to female-identified people.

Green: attraction to people who identify outside the traditional male-female binary.

Blue: attraction to male-identified people

2013 – Demisexual Pride flag

Similar colors to the Asexual Pride flag, the Demisexual Pride flag was created specifically to represent those with “a sexual orientation in which someone feels sexual attraction only to people with whom they have an emotional bond”

Black stands for asexuality

Grey represents Gray-Ace and demisexuality

White represents sexuality

Purple represents community

2013 – Intersex Pride flag

The intersex flag was created by Morgan Carpenter of Intersex Human Rights Australia.

The flag features nongendered colors that celebrate living outside the binary. The circle means unbroken, whole, complete.

2014 – Agender Pride flag

Created by Salem X, this flag has seven horizontal stripes.

The black and white stripes represent an absence of gender (instead of being blue & pink)

The gray represents semi-genderlessness

The central green stripe represents nonbinary genders because it is the inverse of purple and purple is a mix of blue & red which often are used to identify m/f binary.

2014 – Nonbinary Pride flag

Created by activist Kye Rowan, it is intended to go alongside Marilyn Roxie’s genderqueer flag, not to replace it. Each stripe color represents different types of non-binary identities:

Yellow is for those whose gender exists outside or without reference to the gender binary, because yellow is often seen to distinguish something as its own

White is for those with many or multiple genders as white represents the presence of color or light

Purple for those who feel their gender is a mixture of both male and female genders as purple is the mix of traditional boy & girl colors. The purple also could be seen as representing the fluidity and uniqueness of nonbinary people.

Black is for individuals who feel they are without gender, as black is the absence of color or light

2014 – Aromantic Pride flag

The Aro community worked together to create a flag and redesigned it several times before eventually landing on this 5-striped flag. Here’s the meaning of the stripes:

Green – Aromantic. This color chosen because it’s the opposite of red, which is commonly used to indicate romance

Light Green – represents that there is an aro spectrum, not everyone is 100% aro

White – Platonic relationships

Gray – represents gray-romantic (experiences romantic attraction, but not often) and demiromantic (can experience romantic attraction after forming an emotional connection with a person)

Black – represents the sexuality spectrum (aro people can have any sexual orientation)

2017 – Philadelphia People of Color Inclusive Flag

Noting that people of color are often not fully included in the queer community, Philadelphia added the black and brown stripes and flew the flag outside City Hall for Pride Month.

While the impulse to be more inclusionary is good, this flag sparked controversy as the traditional flag already was meant to include all LGBTQ people and none of the other colored stripes represent skin color. And some people argued additional stripes should be added, such a white stripe for white people.

In times when people of color need to be lifted & highlighted, this flag does a good job.

2018 – Lesbian Pride flag

You’ll find a lesbian flag from 2010 included in the list of flags for gender and sexual minorities, however it’s not common for lesbians to use that flag. The reason is that pink flag was seen as representing those who have a more feminine gender expression (lipstick lesbians), which means it didn’t feel inclusive to much of the lesbian community.

A new flag for the lesbian community was introduced in 2018, one with much less pink and meant to represent all lesbians, not just a subset. It seems to be on its way to being better accepted, but we’ll see. Each color represents key aspects of lesbianism:

Transgressive Womanhood

Community

Gender Nonconformity

Freedom

Love

2018 - Progress Pride Flag

Inspired by the Philadelphia People of Color Inclusive Flag, Daniel Quasar added a 5-color chevron to the traditional LGBT Rainbow Flag as a way to emphasize greater inclusion and progress.

The traditional 6 color stripes are retained so as not to take away from their original meanings.

The additional stripes added to the left side of the flag are meant to look like an arrow to represent forward movement because more progress is needed.

The pink, light blue and white are from the Transgender Pride Flag.

The black & brown stripes represent LGBT communities of color and those living with & who’ve been lost to AIDS.

#pride #pride flags

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raayllum · 4 years ago

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but, doesnt hc'ing amaya or janai as bi or pan somehow invalidates the fact that they are lesbian and dont feel attraction to men?

there’s a few things to unpack here

1) not all bi or pan women (or femme aligned people) even feel attraction to men. each just mean attraction to more than one gender, and there’s loads of genders out there

2) up until the 1970s, a hard distinction between bi and lesbian as sexualities didn’t exist. women with an attraction to women were all cloistered under a similar umbrella term until the late 1880s, earliest. a lot of ace, aro, bi, and pan people also fell under the term of lesbian by extension during those periods bc they were living their lives in a non cis-heterosexual manner. it’s because a lot of those experiences have a lot in common. bi, pan, and lesbian, ace, and aro spec women can all know what it’s like to like women. but to act like only lesbians know what it’s like to live being “unavailable” to men with zero attraction to them... is incorrect (hi ace and aro people and bi/pan women in committed relationships with other women).

it is also not surprising that an emphasis on lesbian identity as separate from these other experiences / identities arose during the 1970s as well during the lesbian sex wars up through the 1990s that also led to a rise of lesbian sanctioned transphobia (hi terfs).

3) janai and amaya are only lesbians if you follow the twitter account of tdp’s head writer who’s name is only in the credits of the show and if you happened to see that tweet and if you choose to accept a word of god twitter statement (not even in an interview) as canon fact. i’ve seen word of god statements be the most disingenuous shit on occasion, so as a general rule i don’t really take them into account. someone else can, of course - but you can’t force anyone else to.

4) the tumblr obsession with exact labelled identities to project on characters or to have confirmed contributes to “you have one (1) identity and cannot change it” which is a very toxic mindset to have. people’s identities change all the time as we grow to understand ourselves better.

like every popularly HC’d fanon bi could also be HC’d as pan and could not have a queer identity read onto them by fans often for the express purpose of shipping them with a same sex only / as their Best Possible endgame bc bi characters in m/f relationships aren’t “as good,” obviously (sarcasm), and yet...

someone could headcanon amaya as thinking she’s bi and later realizing she’s a lesbian or vice versa. someone could headcanon gren as being a trans woman later in life who still uses he/him pronouns. fandom is an inherently transformative space.

5) lesbians are the most represented queer group after gay men. biphobia and bi erasure is one of the most prevalent experiences in fandom and in real life based on visibility politics.

6) speaking of visibility: there are four ‘mainstream’ ace characters in fiction right now. raphael from shadowhunters tv show, todd chavez from bojack horseman, a girl from sex education, and jughead jones from the archie comics who’s also aromantic. jughead’s asexuality was erased in the riverdale tv show in the mainstream content people consume. and even then, i’m not shitting all over the writers, people who like riverdale, people who ship jughead with characters, or the canon ships with him in the show.

if someone watches TDP, all they’re gonna see that is janai and amaya like women and are with each other. i cannot understate how few people actually read fanfiction. 90% of tdp’s audience are not going to see the what, 20 fics of people like gren/amaya or gren/amaya/janai. unless a person doesn’t ship what you ship specifically because it’s gay, it’s not homophobic - get over yourself.

7) making shipping or a ship an identity piece related to your sexuality is the fastest way to fuck yourself over. don’t do it.

8) shipping is still never a reason to harass people. ever. i don’t care what you think a ship invalidates or perpetuates. block and move on. that’s what the block button is there for.

more on varying levels of canonicity here and how sexual orientations are ascribed to characters that reinforce gold star gay hierarchy here

#thanks for asking #anonymous #dragons gets salty #y'all are gonna turn me into a queer elder sooner rather than later i swear

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sometimesrosy · 5 years ago

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Hi, Rosy! I read an interesting article about queer narratives and accepting/valuing analysis of those narratives and the relationships they feature... even when they don't contain a Big Reveal or Big Confession, since that can happen for so many reasons. The point of the article was that the lack of an explicitly-stated "this is romantic" shouldn't diminish the realness of the romance, if the evidence is there. I thought you'd like it and I will link in a second ask bc I have more words (1/2)

(2/2) I hesitated to link this to Bellarke at first, because my instinct was to feel bad using queer rhetoric to shore up a straight romance AND THEN MY BRAIN WENT OH. B/C isn't a straight romance. It is queer. It has a queer narrative because of the way it's told, & Clarke is canonically bi, & bc both Clarke and Bellamy inhabit the opposite gender roles from what many would expect. It won't let me link but name is: Be Gay Do Crimes: The mystery story model of implicit queer storytelling

+++

That is fascinating. It’s probably a controversial opinion, because a lot of people don’t see bellarke as queer and don’t see m/f relationships where one or both people are bi/pan as queer, but as hetero. But Clarke is definitely bi so one of the members of that ship, at least, is not straight.

I’m not so sure their stories not conforming to gender roles is the same as being queer or non binary or what have you. I think it might more be a question of society, rather than identity? But I am not sure. This is a story where gender roles are more flexible...or rather it is a non-misogynist society that doesn’t have toxic masculinity anymore. But I am not sure how that is defined.

I’m not sure, as humans, a story that can be used to help define queer people couldn’t also define non queer people, since all people are human, and if it’s a truth about relationships, or love or even the revelation of such love, then it wouldn’t matter the gender or sexuality of the participants, right? The rules of love aren’t different for queer people than they are for straight people. The rules of SOCIETY are, but human to human? I don’t think so.

So if you tell a STORY of a love, and show the evidence of that love, for whatever reason, whether politics, or social bias or you don’t get to the end of the story, or taboo or external pressure or what have you, then that love should be seen as real, right? whether there is canon statement of romance or not. We can find the evidence throughout the story.

To be honest. That’s what I’ve been saying about bellarke for at least two years now. It’s what I’ve been saying about love stories. If you are showing the journey of two people’s feelings for each other, love feelings, romantic feelings, intimate interactions, and you can see that on screen, then that is a canon romance.

You don’t require that explicitly stated “this is romance” to make it so. There are many kinds of romance stories that don’t have the explicit statement in the beginning and there are some that don’t have it until the end.

I think this theory is especially true for queer stories because of the long standing taboo. These stories have been SILENCED, the people who tell them have been persecuted. So in order to tell their truths, they could hide them in the text, in the subtext, in symbolism, in contrast, in poetry, in art. And people who were looking for that could find it.

In this way, the queer subtext, never overtly stated as romance, but able to be read as subtext, is an act of resistance.

It’s empowering and revolutionary.

A standard literary technique or way to tell a love story is being utilized to subvert cultural expectations.

But the standard literary technique is still a way to tell a love story. And it doesn’t have to be queer or otherwise subversive to do so.

I don’t think the queer narrative of The 100 is subtext. It’s right on the top. They aren’t implying it. They’re telling the story and many of the people in the story are queer. They don’t STATE them as lesbians or bi or pan or whatever, and that’s a choice, right? Based probably in the genre and worldbuilding and how they created a world where homophobia no longer exists so isn’t need to be stated. And sometimes they end up with stories that don’t work for a large portion of the queer community. I can’t tell you if it’s a GOOD queer narrative, but they are creating a queer story, not the only queer story, not a definitive one, not a happy one, but it’s kind of “well, we’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.”

In this case, I think that queer rhetoric is transferable to Bellarke, and it would have been even if the show did not explore same sex relationships. If you use that queer rhetoric on Bellarke, it is so BLATANTLY a romance there would never be any doubt. And I’ve actually wondered about that with this fandom. Because it seems like they’re taking the way the homophobic audience has invalidated queer stories and using the same tactics to invalidate Bellarke.

I think sometimes, sadly, people who have been oppressed, can take lessons from the oppressors and then turn around and use the tactics of oppression on other people. Not just in this case, but in many. Those who are bullied sometimes become bullies themselves. (it is part of the cycle of violence and abuse.) So when CL fans wanted to invalidate the ship that threatened theirs, they did what the homophobes did to them. Called them delusional. Called them sick. Harassed them. Erased everything they saw as love and refused its existence. Because the thing is, if Clarke and Bellamy had been a same sex couple (both male or both female... you wouldn’t even need to change the names, or roles or personalities or behaviors, just the actor [i do believe this is the thought that had me realizing that they were taking on roles that had opposite gender expectations]) then the same people who say there is no proof of canon Bellarke, would be calling them canon, and married.

If they were mlm or wlw, then people would SEE that the way they look at each other, touch each other and talk to each other is not platonic. And this might be because of internalized homophobia, where seeing intimacy between same sex people is unexpected and seeing it between opposite sex people is expected, but it’s still true. The same behavior with a same sex couple would be shockingly and blatantly romantic, while with a man and woman, it is seen as PART of how they are supposed to interact, with an undercurrent of sexuality because, well, our society says that women are mean to be an object for men’s sexual objectification. Mlm would stand out because men are not “supposed” to be the object. and wlw would stand out because women are not “supposed” to objectify. And it doesn’t matter how much our conscious brains don’t agree with this, what we’re used to seeing in media is the woman as the object and the men as the objectifier. Another way we can see this is how every time Clarke has sex with someone who is not the correct endgame (CL or BC depending upon the speaker) she is called a slut by a lot of people. While Bellamy was allowed all sorts of slutty slutty behavior and not given a bit of trouble over it.

I feel like I’m going to get in trouble for this post. But I am interested in what you are saying and I have ALWAYS been interested in narratives of oppression and empowerment, in regards to gender, race, sexuality, culture, class or whatever. And to tell the truth, it’s all a part of our society. Our gender roles, our expectations of men and women, our concept of sexuality and identity. Who is allowed to love and be loved. Who is in power. Who is silenced.

Okay so it’s an interesting topic. And I’m gonna share it.

#the 100 #queer narrative #love story #show don't tell #kiss/confess/sex #subversive #gender #misogyny #literary analysis

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gettin-bi-bi-bi · 5 years ago

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I know the topic of terms has already mentioned by many people but can I just say that I’m kinda disappointed in the lgbtq community? I know you guys are a bit older so you may not see this but gen z(and I’m gen z) is MAJORLY ignorant. One of the most common things now is that all teen wlws think “switch” is a queer term. I’ve even seen someone say that “vers” is for straight people. And this is ONLY wlw and they’re so confused!! Idk why tho it’s ridiculous. Why can’t people look up definitions

Sorry but I fear I won't be able to give you the answer you want to hear.

I mean, yes, sometimes there's confusion and conflict that could easily be dissolved if people were looking up definitions - or rather: explain to others about how they define The Subject Of Discussion so everyone's on the same page.

Especially when it comes to queer terminology there usually isn't a dictionary definition. Also, everyone is allowed to interpret labels for themselves so you'll always find definitions that are a bit different and individual. This isn't science. But every linguist who's worth their degree would tell you that language changes. It's not stagnant.

Also you won't find me agreeing that the two examples you've brought are somehow bad or harmful to the LGBTQIA+ community and proof of some overarching problem caused by "ignorant" young queers.

It may have very well been this blog where you've seen someone say that straight people can use "top/bottom/vers" terminology. We've recently had an ask about exactly that [link here]. In short my opinion is that there's no harm done to queers when cis straight people find our terminology useful, too. Let them have it! Why shouldn't it be useful to them? After all, we shouldn't assume there's only one type of sex that cis straight people (can) have. Plus: some m/f couples include bi/pan/trans/queer people and restricting queer language against "the straights" always negatively affects queer people in "straight-looking" relationships. If I'm allowed to call myself a top then why isn't my straight partner allowed to be a bottom?

Next topic: you don't seem to like "switch" being a queer term. Well... it kinda is though and there's nothing you can do about that. Kinky people are above average queer and queer people are above average kinky. There's a huge overlap, historically and currently, in these two communities. So much so that in certain parts you cannot really separate them from one another. There's queer kinksters like myself for whom both these things are so integral to their sexual identity and inseparable from one another that kink terminology is in the same mental dictionary as queer terminology. So you cannot argue that things like "switch" cannot possibly be a queer term when there's queers out there who proudly use it as part of their queer identity. Saying things like "switch isn't a queer term" is you policing queer peoples language and identities. [Here's another post you should have a look at, I guess.]

See, the thing is... just because there's words that are also uses by cis straight people doesn't mean they cannot also be queer terms. Language doesn't belong to anyone. It's a fluid and ever-changing entity and instead of restricting who can use which word and which exact definition they have to use we should have open conversations so we can build a mutual understanding of the terms we use.

Everybody gets something wrong sometimes and I agree that sometimes people should just look up a word to make sure they understand what it means and what implications it might have. But you don't get to decide who is allowed to use a certain term or which terms are queer and which are not. That's nobody's prerogative.

Maddie

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agnesgoesadventuring-blog · 6 years ago

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Honestly as a bi person the C/R fandom’s attitude towards bi people can be very frustrating. There was debate over whether Tary was gay or bi and the moment he was confirmed gay there were some mean spirited posts going “fuck you for thinking he was bi”. And Molly is confirmed bi/pan but I have yet to see him shipped with a woman and if he was I worry people might start sending anons like “wow you’re a homophobe for not shipping these other popular Molly ships.” Seen it happen in other fandoms.

(Part 2 of biphobia anon) Also, Yasha. While I absolutely agree with the collective fandom headcanon that Beau is a lesbian, this rush to claim Yasha as a lesbian and ignore any possibility of being bi rubs me the wrong way. In the first ep, obviously she and Beau had a bigger moment, but she and Fjord were kinda flirting. I mean, that shaving Caleb moment was potentially shippy, and yet I think people are afraid to ship her with anyone but other women, even though nothing is confirmed by Ashley(Biphobia anon, part 3) I realize all this might come off as “waaahhh but what about the het ships” but that’s my point that those ships wouldn’t be het. If people started h/cing Yasha as bi or pan and shipping her with dudes, there would 100% be comments saying they’re only doing it bc they don’t want to ship a gay ship or bc they have het goggles on to deny B/Y, never mind that Beau gets shipped with other women despite all the B/Y. And I love B/Y, but I worry about the possessive attitude.(Biphobia anon, last part hopefully) or Allura- she’s confirmed bi but I would be shocked if anyone accepted a crackship between her and a man even though they’d accept crackships of her and women. Because she’s in a big f/f ship, her bisexuality is ignored/erased by fandom. Keyleth & Vax never stopped anyone from shipping Vax with dudes, but popular gay ships w bi characters stops people from shipping the bi characters with other genders bc it somehow erases their sexuality (it really doesn’t).

It seems like there's been a sort of over correction, the pendulum swinging too far to the other side.

As I've said so many times before, the discussion about the heteronomative culture we live in leading to m/f ships in general being the most represented and m/f bi ships being less effective as queer representation in general is an important one that needs to be had. It's a problem that needs to be acknowledged and remembered.

But a lot of behavior toward bi characters and their ships ended up swinging way past that and into this area where bi characters in m/f ships, whether those ships are canon or fanon, are dismissed at best and blatantly attacked as "not good enough" or characterized as being bigoted or hateful at worst. It's led to this fandom culture where so many people (and I specify, not everyone, because clearly people flip out and try to misrepresent your words if you allow it to merely be implied) treat the only valid queer ships, or the only valid ships for queer characters, are same gender ships.

And that really ignores a lot of the nuance of the discussion around bisexual representation. Because while the over representation of m/f ships in general and the heteronormative culture making m/f ships less effective as queer representation less effective is something that needs to be recognized, it also needs to be recognized that there are a lot of problems in a great deal of the way m/f bisexual relationships are presented that lead to some negative and problematic cultural perceptions of bisexual people in relationships with a different gender. Things like a character being labeled as being bi, but then never actually demonstrating attraction to characters of the same gender when they're in a m/f relationship, or treating past relationships with people of the same gender as a phase and erasing their bisexuality. Among other things. That's something that needs to be acknowledged as well. And it needs to be recognized that positive portrayals of bisexual characters in m/f relationships that don't do the above things can be really important in that regard.

Thankfully, we live in a world where more than one thing can be important at a time. The importance of one thing doesn't remove the importance of another thing.

That's especially true when it comes to people identifying personally with characters and ships, being drawn to ships that represent what they most feel matches their experiences and identity and being happy to have something that represents that. It's possible to be disappointed that a certain kind of representation didn't happen without ignoring the fact that another kind of representation can be incredibly important to other people.

And that goes for people's headcanons and fanon ships as well. Wanting a character to be a certain sexuality, wanting them to have a certain kind of relationship, hoping for and feeling that it's important doesn't mean you have to dismiss and attempt to invalidate those things for another person. As long as they're not erasing the fact that a character is queer, they're perfectly valid in wanting those things that appeal to and connect to them personally. And shipping a bi character or a potentially bi character with a character of a different gender is not erasing their sexuality.

We're still at the point in season 2 where none of the characters' sexual identities have been definitively confirmed. We know that Beau is interested in women and that Molly enjoys sex with both men and women. Beyond that, nothing for any of the characters is confirmed. Beau could be gay, bi, pan, aromantic, demisexual, etc. Molly could be bi, pan, asexual, aromantic, etc. And most of the other characters could be pretty much anything at this point. There might be some people who have to reassess their ships, or the way they frame their ships, once definitive confirmation for these characters is provided. But right now, most of this stuff we just don't know. In general, people insisting that others adhere to what they think the characters are and how they think they should be shipped just isn't okay. That's especially true of treating people like they can't ship potentially bi character in m/f relationships, or acting like doing so is bigoted and hateful.

Acting like there is something inherently wrong with shipping bi characters in m/f relationships really is erasure. And gatekeeping. And just awful behavior overall.

In general, this fandom isn't great when it comes to non-monosexual identities. I've experienced first hand the way asexual people and people with aroace headcanons are treated, and I'm sure most people who follow me have seen it as well. So much ignorance about asexual and aromanticism, so much hostility toward ace/aro headcanons (that usually demonstrate ignorance as well). It's hard to find people who discuss the possibility of characters being pansexual, and really the same issue that exists with the treatment of bi characters, ships, and headcanons would exist there as well. Erasure, exclusion, and gatekeeping happens a great deal, and it's incredibly disappointing, especially considering how open and inclusive the cast of the show is. It's a shame that so many people don't follow their example.

#critical role #my metas #Anonymous

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fandompitfalls · 3 years ago

Text

Ew, Het!

Originally posted: 6/18/2021

Today we’re going to discuss a hidden secret in the fandom community; queerphobia.

Now you might be thinking, Fandom Pitfalls, you’re absolutely wrong on this one, the fandom community is utterly inclusive! And you’d be partly correct. Fandom is inclusive, so long as you fit specific rules. One of those rules is: “all characters are gay” (or at least, the important ones).

If there are two hot guys*, it stands to reason that they will get shipped. (*the nature of the two hot guys have been mention in other posts). And that is valid. Shipping is personal. You ship who you love, ship what you like, and all ships are valid. Fandom is inherently queer, it had been for centuries, as long as there have been stories, there have been people secretly (or not so secretly) rearraigning characters to fit their personal head canons. As far back as Conan Doyle, Wilde, Shelley, Stoker, the Bible, readers have taken characters and fit them in their own image. If that image was two men living together in secret domestic bliss in a set of rooms in London or a vampire having a lascivious affair with both the woman of his dreams and her fiancée, fandom has always prospered.

And until recently, everyone has stayed in their corners and lived and let live. The invention of the internet and the ease and availability in which people from all over the world can share now share their own thoughts and theories had brought rise to not only the positive aspects of fandom, but the negative as well. And one of those negatives is queerphobia.

Let’s just put this out there. Characters that identify as opposite sex can have a relationship and it not be a heterosexual relationship. Let me repeat that. Not all opposite sex relationships are heterosexual relationships.

This new knee jerk response of “Ew het!” invalidates queer and gender fluid relationships, making it sound as if the only valid relationships are gay relationships. (When I say gay, I mean the aforementioned two hot men as wlw relationships, unless specified in the canon series, are usually ignored.)

This time around I’m going to be daring and use examples. The most godforsaken, dumpster fire triumvirate of fandom shows ever; SuperWhoLock.

The first in this fandom dumpster fire is Supernatural. On the air for fifteen seasons, there have been many minor queer characters on the show. Some were the victim of the week, some were there to show that some couples can get out of the hunting business intact. Some, like Charlie, were major minor characters. The popular ship of Destiel ships an angel in a male body with one of the main male characters. There is also gatekeeping in the fandom regarding a romantic relationship between Castiel and any character identifying as female. This is one of the fandoms where “Ew het” is automatically thrown around. Many of the women that are shipped with Castiel in fandom are immortal beings that are genderless and are merely taking on a female form. Meg, a demon and part of another of the well-known ships in the fandom, is a demon and therefore has no form. They have taken the form of a female host over the years, but at one time possessed the body of another of the male lead characters. Hannah, an angel that has also been shipped with Castiel, is also genderless and while they have taken the body of a female host, they have also inhabited a male host, that was received positively by Castiel in both forms. While Jimmy Novak, the body that Castiel originally inhabited and then just took the form of in later seasons, was heterosexual, it’s been noted that the angel Castiel, having no preference to gender, could be seen as pansexual or omnisexual.

The actual characters that are gay or lesbian in the shows are often forgotten or pushed aside in favor of a fan favorite ship. All ships are valid, but automatically insisting that a male/female presenting relationship is automatically heterosexual, especially in this scope of the fandom, is erasing genderfluid queer relationships, making it inherently queerphobic. Seeing Dean Winchester as bisexual but invalidating his romantic relationships with the women in his life is biphobic. Bisexual people have relationships with people of the opposite sex. It doesn’t make them less bisexual and it is gatekeeping at its worse to insist that only the same sex relationships count.

Continuing with the gender fluidity is Doctor Who. The last two years have brought this fandom its first female Doctor. A year or two before, Moffat paved the way by not only showing that Time Lords can willing change genders in their regenerations in the 50th anniversary episode, but also introducing Missy, the Master’s latest regeneration. The Thirteenth Doctor canonically makes the Doctor gender fluid thereby making any relationship they’ve had a queer relationship. Their canon second wife, River Song has been acknowledged to be bisexual, making their marriage a queer relationship, despite seeing River only with the male versions of the Doctor so far.

Even other previous relationships with the Doctor, for example, the fan favorite of Ten/Rose, would be in actuality a queer relationship because Time Lords are canonically gender fluid. Even before Ten, Nine actively kissed Captain Jack Harkness, a canonical omnisexual man. The new incarnation of the show has never shied from the Doctor kissing anyone which is refreshing.

The final example in the disaster shows is Sherlock. As mentioned earlier, Conan Doyle’s beloved characters have been the subject of study since the late Nineteenth Century. Now, with the incarnations of BBC’s Sherlock, Robert Downey Jr.’s Sherlock Holmes and even Netflix’s The Irregulars, the subject of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson’s sexuality is a hot button topic for many.

At least 95% of the fandom, the Sherlock fandom, not the literary fandom, would agree that Sherlock Holmes is not 100% heterosexual. But neither is he 100% homosexual. Most of the consensus will agree that the great detective is queer, whether it be bisexual, demisexual, ace, grey. His relationship with Irene Adler, a dominatrix who said she was gay but also was attracted to men, making her (allegedly) a bi/pan lesbian, as well as his relationship with Jim Moriarty, canonically gay, showed that Sherlock could be attracted to people, perhaps not for the attractiveness but because who they are (as also shown in the relationship between he and Molly Hooper, another gatekept ship). The popular ship, Johnlock, has Sherlock in a relationship with his roommate/friend John Watson. Watson, who was married and has a child, would at most be bisexual. Erasing the canonical women John Watson dated, slept with, and married is again bi erasure at best.

Gay, as defined in the Oxford Dictionary, is: “a homosexual person (typically referring to a man)” (Oxford.com). By this definition, women and nonbinary people cannot be gay as they are not men. Using it as a “catch-all” in fandom is not only incorrect but queerphobic to the rest of the LGBTQ fans who also identify with these characters.

Shipping is fun. Fandom is supposed to be fun. All ships are valid, and one person’s ship does not invalidate another person’s ship. Even canonical ships don’t have to ruin other people’s ships. But to use “canon” as a trophy, a sort of “we won, you can’t ever ship your ship anymore because it’s not canon” is horrible gatekeeping. To insist that a person who ships a m/f relationship is “gross” or “promoting heterosexuality” or “heteronormativity” is also gatekeeping. Not all m/f ships are heterosexual. Jumping immediately to that conclusion about both the ship and the person shipping it is not only the worst type of gatekeeping, but it is also extremely queerphobic. Don't turn into the people other's hate, this universe is large enough for all of us.

#FPBlog #queerphobia #toxic fandom #fandom wank #fandom bullshit #blog post

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