#something something intentionally gay media somehow coming across as less gay than queerbait

[sarah-fandom-account]

the new Wicked movie’s portrayal of Elphaba and Glinda and Arcane’s portrayal of Jayce and Viktor’s relationship are about the same amount queer coded, and I really don’t know how to feel about that considering Wicked was very Intentionally queercoded. They have a gay relationship in the books. The actresses did portray it pretty well but at the end of the day it’s all subtext that can be dismissed as being because they are ‘best friends.’ Meanwhile Jayce and Viktor hold hands and touch foreheads as the power they created and allowed into the world destroys everything. And the creators, for some unknown reason, find it necessary to emphasize that this is a purely platonic connection.

Idk, I just find it all very weird. In the Wicked movie, we have queer media created for queer people by queer people that is… decidedly tame; created to be palatable, for all of its merits, it’s hard to deny that.

And then in Arcane we have sapphic queer representation already with Caitlyn and Vi, but the (heterosexual) co creator of the show is on record saying that their relationship is brotherly. Which… Viktor confesses he has visited every reality and only Jayce can ever show him the power of the arcane. Jayce resurrects him from the dead. Jayce tells him that at the end of the day all he wants is his partner back… at the end of it all, they outright state that they care about each other way more than their research or inventions or anything else. In the end, it’s just them, obliterated by the thing they created together. It just all seems very (just sub explicitly) queer, and yet.

I would probably be fine with watching Wicked with my mother, and it would be uncomfortable to watch arcane with her during the Jayce and Viktor scenes alone (not even the caitvi.) Jayce and Viktor’s love is implicitly something more than platonic love. Maybe it’s just because society (and therefore individual people) view platonic touchy feely and emotional closeness between two men as more inherently unacceptable than between two women. It’s always suspicious between men, but fine between women who are more sentimental? or something.

I don’t even know what I’m trying to say here really. It’s just all very weird to me.