#why did u have to make up biological essentialism for fantasy creatures. please
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This may make me look like an idiot bc I canât articulate myself BUT!!!!!!!! Big Queer Good Omens meta incoming
I want to talk about This Neil Gaiman ask for a minute because I figured out why I really like his blanket response to this âdiscourseâ a lot but still somewhat disagree on the nuance, and why fandom attitudes about this bother me much much more than his open ended response like this one
Under a read more because im going to get Insane
First of all this is going to be riddled with my own viewpoints on queerness as a transmasculine nonbinary person who reads too much theory so if u disagree please be polite lol
So like. To begin with I really donât think Neil is obligated to understand these nuances or even comment on them, let alone explain them to fans desperate for validation, so the fact that heâs been able to answer so eloquently is pretty impressive considering how vicious fandom is. But I want to specifically talk about what I think he means here and why that seems to bother fandom so much sometimes, and how fan interpretation of these ideas he presents can get Really weird and interesting imo.
In my view, Neil is answering this from a Doylist perspective, as in like. To the real life human audience, angels and demons are inherently queer because they donât fit into traditional human definitions of genders and sexualities. This especially comes across in his insistence that Aziraphale and Crowley arenât gay because they arenât human men, but they ARE queer. This literally just looks to me like him saying âyeah so no angels and demons fit into these categories so theyâre definitely queer from our perspective but I understand âgayâ as being two men and i donât think that fits because itâs narrowâ and while I disagree on some nuances here for reasons Iâll get into I think this makes total sense as an author describing how, from his perspective, an audience is intended to view these nonhuman characters.
However, Iâm much more interested in a more Watsonian explanation of how A&C are queer, one thatâs much more relativistic and honestly not something I expect Neil to go over every time he gets another ask about this???? My opinion has always been that A&C choosing human queer masculinity is significant and that it gives evidence to them being nonbinary, transmasc, gay, ace, aro, anything that people headcanon really. Because they are presenting themselves as queer in a HUMAN way in universe imo, which makes them queer not just by the standards of the audience but by the standards of other angels and demons in the story? I think that the fact that they were created as sexless and genderless and then CHOSE human gender presentations, whether nonbinary or not, that reflected themselves, and then them being in love with each other in a human way IS what makes them queer, not Just the idea that an angel without a gender or sexuality/romantic or other relationship orientation is inherently queer from the average humanâs perspective. People who just want them to be Human Cis Gay Men are really missing this idea I think.
The thing is though. And I donât think this is Neilâs problem to solve or whatever, nor does it mean âstop liking that angels and demons are genderlessâ. The thing that annoys the shit out of me. Is that fandom, even queer fandom, took Neilâs Doylist explanation of celestial beingsâ gender status and just didnât think any further about it. To this day people insist that A&C MUST be nonbinary forever just because theyâre an angel and demon and were made that way. Like literally just inventing Fantasy Biological Essentialism again which is annoying as hell to me, another nonbinary person. Again, the fact that they were created without any sense of gender or biological sex and then chose any humanish gender for themselves at all whether nonbinary or not is what makes them queer in universe I feel. I think the âtheyâre an angel and demon so theyâre inherently nonbinary and canât be anything elseâ is shit tbh.
To reiterate, I think Neil is responding about this from a Doylist perspective aka âto the real life audience all angels and demons are queer because they donât fit into human genders and sexualitiesâ but I am focused much more on the Watsonian idea that A&C are queer in universe bc angels and demons can choose their gender presentations like humans can and everyone else hasnât figured it out bc they havenât been on earth to figure out what gender even is. I feel fandom gets weird about this because lots of people still see gender as something solely internal and inherent, when I genuinely donât think thatâs all it is. Itâs internal feeling, external projection/behavior, and both of those as a reflection of social experience all at once. The feelings and internal sense of Knowing your gender or lack thereof is inherent to your self identity, but your gender is also informed by what you understand genders as, and what presentations you understand and have access to! Aziraphale and Crowley can be Human Genders because, because theyâve been on earth, they 1)know what gender is, 2)can see those feelings reflected in themselves, and 3)through that understanding choose how to present based on their feelings! They donât just have to be genderless celestial beings in the sense angels are if they donât feel like it anymore! They can be like âoh actually Iâm a queer manâ or âoh Iâm nonbinary but in the way that Iâm among humans and Iâm not a man or woman.â I just feel like only considering them queer from a human or angel perspective but not both is sort of undermining the themes in the text against bioessentialism in favor of the instant validation of âoh theyâre angels so they must be nonbinary.â Perhaps having any human gender presentation is queer to the average angel. Our internal feelings and sense of self knowledge as queer people is inherent. How we act on those things and assign meaning and labels to them can be anything! A&C can be anything they feel like! They donât have to be the classic celestial beings above gender! I feel like they would love and have fallen into human gender customs just from so long on earth, and that doesnât mean they canât be nonbinary or agender. It means they, as a part of humanity, saw and understood human genders and realized what gender they were in relation, whatever you headcanon that to be. And thatâs more queer than âgod made them without sex and gender so I guess their species makes them inherently one thingâ!!!!!!
#good omens#book omens#neil gaiman#good omens meta#go meta#queer#idk guys. Just really not liking the biological essentialist takes in queer fandom especially#why did u have to make up biological essentialism for fantasy creatures. please#I donât blame Neil for this btw literally chill about him who cares#anyways lol
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