My life isn't fucking subtext

[lonespark]

This started as a pile of tweets but that was getting out of hand...

I was responding to tweets saying we don't care if our ship is canon, and we know that's not something they could get away with on a kids' show.

I have been thinking about this and like, no, I don't care if my ship is canon, but ships that show that bi people exist, and have lives and kids and are complicated? I need that, and so does my family.

I was remembering how much Korrasami made me feel seen and validated but like, I'm not a teenager? My whole public queer life has been as a parent.

I need my life to be normal on kids' shows.

And if we lived in the world where "The king's ex-boyfriend is kind of a jackass" was just a thing that made sense and the notable, arguable thing in fandom was exactly how much of a jackass he is? That would be part of that good world.

You get there by having a lot of queer characters. Not just young ones. Not just ones involved in current romantic relationships. Not just couples where they're both the likable, heroic one.



And this reminds me of Gods and Monsters, and of growing up during the AIDS crisis with invisible lesbians. Perhaps that should be a different post?

Comments

[silveradept]

I hear this. I also think the people who are clamoring that everything that has representation in it is about representation, instead of what makes a work "good", don't realize that the way to make those things not about representation is to have representation be so ubiquitous that it becomes background.

So, yes, please, more queer, more bi, more "the king's ex-boy toy is a jerk."

[lonespark]

Yeah, like, IDK if they don't realize, or they just think we can only have so much. Depends on the people, I guess? What I learned from politics is the way you get what you want is to demand a fuck of a lot more.

And it reminds me of the person saying, "You can't have Finn/Poe because I want my son to have straight Latino leading man rep." Like. We should have all of those things, but why is your son better deserving than the queer kid?

Because there's supposed to always be an order. You can't have queer rep and woman characters and POC and gods forbid disability all at once. Cuz reasons. It's just too much deviation from the Default Hero white dude. So you end up with entire universes where black women don't exist, etc. (In TDP so far they exist but don't get any lines so...yay? And canon gays exist... in the background, quietly...) Fuck that forever.

[silveradept]

WTF, can't have queer POC because straight POC is more important? Reminds me of the geek hierarchy graphics that were going around as jokes (mostly as jokes, I guess) in the early bits of the 2000s.

I agree there is an order, based on how far away from the Straight WASP a person is, founded entirely in mistaken ideas that you have to get people comfortable with stuff by moving at glacial paces and then making sure everyone is completely comfortable with that tiny change before moving further forward.

Blow that up, media conglomerates, and find out that you get better things when you just say "these people are," and all the people who are become an audience for the work.