#not trying to wade into the waters of discourse here or anything i'm just kinda throwing spaghetti at the wall

[batemanofficial]

ok re: my last reblog about tumblr shows™ im not done complaining. i think a big problem with the way the tumblr populace interacts with television is that people on here don't watch media that's not produced to high heaven. good omens and our flag means death are very high budget projects that have a lot of big names attached, both in front of and behind the camera - which is fine; of course people are going to watch big budget shows, that's kind of the whole point of producing them - but they get treated like these underground hits produced by, for, and about marginalized groups and like...they're not. they're on prime video and hbo max, which aren't exactly obscure and certainly aren't known for their delicate and authentic handling of queer issues.

but these shows (and the ones that came before them, bbc sherlock comes to mind) get consumed by people on here looking for authentic representation, and through the game of cultural telephone that often gets played in online communities, become stripped for parts and re-molded into bodies of rhetoric that get interpreted as foundational texts for the queer politics of gen z. i'm not saying it's bad to want representation or identify with the representation you find in high-budget projects, i'm just saying that these shows aren't designed to cater to the tastes and wants of queer gen z-ers, they're designed to turn a profit by generating as much viewership as possible, and if that includes queer gen z-ers, then so be it.

the audience of a show is, in a studio's mind, really only a means to profit. i think that's also why a lot of these shows get torn to shreds for not handling representational issues quote-unquote "correctly" - the producers behind shows like stranger things, for instance, are only worried about how people might interpret a shipping dynamic insofar as it drives viewership. they've danced around will's sexuality as a plot point for four seasons because they know the "will-he-won't-he" dynamic is something that draws people to the show and keeps them coming back when new seasons drop. they're not concerned with how authentic or inauthentic their portrayals of the queer experience might be, no matter how that makes people who are looking for authenticity feel. producers want to make these shows appealing to as many potential viewers as possible, and that often unfortunately means toning down tangible queer subtext and making it more nebulous, so they can have plausible deniability if culture shifts to the point where on-screen queer representation isn't en vogue.

to that end, i think a lot of people who enjoy shows like gomens, ofmd, or stranger things but who become frustrated with how these shows handle queeer issues might benefit from watching lower-budget projects that prioritize story and earnestness over profit potential. even older films like fried green tomatoes or the birdcage do a better job, at least in my opinion, of portraying authentic queer experiences than lots of modern big-studio projects. even though the lesbian dynamics in fried green tomatoes aren't ever outright delineated as a queer story, it's clear that the element of queer subtext was important to the writers, which makes it resonate as that much more authentic.

anyway, what i'm trying to say is that there are queer writers out there who want to share their stories with you, but are pushed out in favor of larger-scale projects that are surer financial bets. but these stories are out there - it's just up to you to put in the effort to find them. putting in that effort can be incredibly rewarding, and it's really heartwarming to be able to know you're connecting with other people like you through honest portrayals of the lives you lead. and, inconvenient as it is, you're not going to get that from amazon.