elatedandexasperated - Tumblr blog

[elatedandexasperated]

So there's been some discussion on RWRB actually being a "gay movie"

Most posts I've seen have more or less summarized that the movie is effectively a "straight romance" featuring a mlm coupling, which annoys me a bit. I can't say that this take is entirely wrong per say - I mean, I've called it basically a Hallmark movie, which I still think is true - but it's not devoid of queer experience like a lot of people seem to think it is...

and that "Hallmark" comparison, which I still stand behind, I feel comes more from structure than content.

You can take the film at face value or read deeper into it and still find a case for this argument. Most of this pertains to the movie alone, I'm personally in the camp that if you're going to analyze a piece of media, it should stand on its own. So while the book may have different expressions and levels of inclusion, remember, it's a book, not a 2-hour time boxed movie

Production

Right off the bat we have the movie's production. I'm not going into speculation on TZP or NG's sexuality out of respect, neither have confirmed or denied being part of the community and that's frankly their business and privacy. In a bit I will go into the text of the film regarding the characters, but I don't want to drag the actors into this any further than saying they did an excellent job portraying the characters.

Lopez, though, who is publicly out as gay, as well as McQuistion who is NB, have both put their messaging and perspectives on queer experience into the book and by extension the film and that much is very clear through things like the inclusion of Intimacy Coordinator Robbie Taylor Hunt (another Gay man) as a way of trying to keep the intimate scenes grounded and realistic. So in the production alone there were clear attempts to visually represent authentic queer experiences. I think this is honestly the main reason why the main relationship is so compelling: the actors vibed well with each other (to the point that it was the initial feud that seemed contrived and unrealistic, which is just hilarious to me) and the coordinator worked with everyone collaboratively to keep things grounded, realistic, and to prevent it from going too far into the realm of fetishization from a visual standpoint.

As for the writing, we obviously are going to see most of the relatable queer experiences pop up in the lead roles:

Henry

Henry's character is arguably where the representation of queer experience is most explicit - at least from a level that regular (read straight) viewers would get without a lot of hand holding. At a surface level there's the classic "what will my family think?" questioning and general anxiety of being outed. Most of us in the community can relate to that, but in all honesty this is pretty standard fare and not the meat and potatoes of why I wanted to write this, what I am now realizing, unreasonably long rant breakdown *inhales*

ANYWAY.

At a deeper level though, Henry's struggle isn't so much internal as it is external. Yes there's internal angst still about being able to love openly, but in the film it's pretty clear that a good chunk of his family is aware of his sexuality (the statement that the king had a conversation with him when he was 18, him being open with Bea, etc.); He's also pretty confident in his sexuality already (he fairly easily explains his sexuality to Alex, and has confidence in his sexual experience). I'll go into this when we talk about Alex more, but I think this stems from the characters being aged up, but what this also does is shifts the narrative from simply "coming out" to dealing with abusive relatives and power systems after you've come to terms with who you are as a person, and then finding the strength to actually fight them once you've built up your support network.

And progress isn't linear for anyone on this - we relapse, mourn old relationships with people and family we thought would support us, and sometimes silence ourselves because "it's easier"; we see this happen with Henry pretty explicitly when he runs from the lake house. The reconciliation with Alex isn't flawless either: Henry requests time and patience with things so he can slowly begin his process of actually tackling the issue of how his sexuality and relationship with Alex relates to and impacts his professional duties. Alex, in true found-family style, gives him the support that he both wants and needs at that point in the story.

Alex

Alex's portrayal in the film I think has been the more controversial of the two (Not in terms of actor choice, TZP is a fantastic actor... Also fine as hell but that's beside the point). Most people who read the book criticize his relatively short "Bi-panic" period and how they felt it was more fleshed out in the book. Again, we're dealing with a time boxed movie here, so obviously the book will have more details. That being said, I don't think it was as unrealistic as people make it out to be if you dig a bit. This part gets a bit speculative, but stick with me here.

While I can't relate to a Bi coming out being a gay man and all, I think people should look at some context regarding the character's background: Alex is an incredibly flirtatious, personable, and media-savvy character who is also steeped in left-leaning politics. He knows what bisexuality is and given that he had a few same-sex experiences, has probably come to terms with that before his conversation with Nora in her office. In that scene he even stated that being into guys was something he understood for himself, his main source of "panic" was more the realization that he was specifically into Henry, someone he was actually angry and antagonistic with for several years.

As for why he seemed trepid first telling Henry he was Bi, and this is speaking from experience, there's a huge difference between coming to terms with who you're attracted to and putting a label on it for the first time, even to yourself. I think TZP acted that awkwardness well, especially in the Paris scene where, to shift gears a bit, the driving queer experience is Alex's inexperience with going that far with other guys, something most of us go through at some point. And again, in good, supportive fashion, Henry guides Alex through the process without judgement.

Alex and Henry

Both Alex and Henry are older in the movie than they are in the book, a fact that Lopez confirmed via interview. Even though it's only a few years, there's a huge difference in understanding your identity between your late-teens/early 20s and your mid 20s (generally speaking, people can come out at any age and that's completely fine. Everyone deserves to come out at their own pace and in their own way). With this, I think they did a good Job shifting the narrative from the more internal conflict of "who am I", which is very common in teen-centered dramas, to the more nuanced experience of figuring out how "Who I am" is going to impact your relationships and professional life, which I think is more befitting older characters. With Alex, it's how it will look to voters/impact on his mother's reelection AND how it impacts Henry's professional responsibilities; with Henry, it's his duties to the royal family and appearances.

*PHEW*

There's a lot more too when you dig. A personal... Um, well "favorite" isn't a great word, but you get my point - is how some members of the community will actively sabotage others for personal gain: Miguel outing them for the sake of professional ambitions (and maybe some light petty retribution for Alex dumping him, wherein Alex was justified) is unfortunately a pretty common experience.

I'm sure that there will be more to add for this if there's a sequel, which I hope there is and that they bring McQuiston in for (talk about marketing: she writes the outline based on the movie and the novel based on the first book which releases at the same time as the second movie. People would go nuts I'm sure).

Asides

We as a community spent years reading into media to find scraps of representation because that's all we could get, but I think we're not great at reading into it with more explicit movies that, while maybe building themselves off of "traditional" genre frameworks, still have those queer experiences. I think we set our standards too high sometimes because we are so starved for representation. What we got in this movie is, at least in my opinion, decent representation and authentic experiences for many people in our community, it's just subtle and maybe requires a deeper read of a character or scene. I picked up on some of these points and I hope other people can see some of the arguments I'm making here.

As a complete aside, I think we've been brainwashed a bit to think that "queer experiences = struggle" automatically and we're too quick to disregard queer media as "not gay enough" if there's not a suitable amount of angst or a particular identity isn't represented (This is NOT me minimizing the struggles of the LGBT+ community, just making a statement that maybe we shouldn't hinge our identities and portrayals in media on such negative experiences). Gay stories don't have to be tragic or full of existential crisis as it pertains to our identity. And while maybe unrealistic, some good fluff is healthy to see alongside the angst. As we progress as a culture and we become more accepted, struggle hopefully becomes less and less a unifying aspect of queer identity and we'll be able to see that reflected in our media.

tl;dr

I think the movie has more going for it in terms of queer experience than people give it credit for, it's just not what's typically seen in visual media and is buried in there a bit deeper. Just because it's a "Hallmark movie" structurally and plays into tropes doesn't mean it's not gay.

[elatedandexasperated]

So RWRB was a movie with some discourse...

In all honesty, the discourse has bugged me more than any issues with the film itself. I get a film adaptation not living up to personal expectations set by a book is... a response that people have, but the fact some people have been trying to convince people it's not worth watching bothers me.

Don't get me wrong, I've seen all of the love for it too and I know the antis for the film are definitely in the minority. No one can control how anyone relates or who is allowed to enjoy a piece of media, but the sheer hatred I've seen from some of the people on here for the film hurts a bit to see. The arguments seem to be no deeper than "x character was removed" , "there's these plot holes" and "it's too formulaic" that last one of which I feel was kind of the point: it's a formulaic romcom so that queer people can have a fairy tale romance story like the straight ones that get shoved down our throats from a young age by companies like Disney. McQuiston, an NB writer, has gone on record stating that a huge reason why they write is to feature queer identities and make stories that people like them would have liked to read and feel represented by when they were younger.

If this was a straight Hallmark romcom (which tbf, it basically is in terms of story structure, and I low-key love it because of that) it wouldn't have made so much as a blip on most people's radars. But because it features queer characters the threshold for scrutiny seems to have been dropped to the floor (insert "Get Low" joke here). I can get having criticisms of the film, I have a few myself, but the attempt to convince people the film is bad and to disregard it as a whole because of them ignores the positive qualities, what the film means to people in the queer community, what its success can lead to in terms of representation for underrepresented people in the community (Ace, bi, NB, trans, etc.), and an understanding of intricacies that go into adaptation.

At the end of the day, this film was competently made (and in my opinion, well made) by a gay director with an inclusive team and a deep care for both the source material and an understanding of what the film would mean for millions of viewers. It featured experiences and themes that are common to many people in the community with several very poignant messages that actually have huge metatextual implications with the film (The "forced conformity of the closet" quote sticks out in particular to me: the number of op-eds speculating Nick and Taylor's sexualities and how they've been mum about them makes me think a lot of people missed that one; also looking at you, people that forced Kit Connor out of the closet 😒)

The film is a celebration of love featuring characters that people like me and others in the community can relate to. Is it formulaic? Yes. Did they remove some characters to try and create a tighter narrative focused on the main romantic pair? Yes. Is it overly cheesy and so unrealistically sweet that it will give me diabetes? Delightfully so.

So ending on a positive note, I just want to run down some things I've loved about it:

- An mlm story with an actual happy ending that features adult main leads! (Credit to youth stories, they're important, but as an adult it's hard to relate to teenage characters sometimes)

- The charisma both TZP and NG just radiate throughout the movie

- Sarah Shahi eating the absolute SHIT out of every scene she's in (Touch her and die)

- Same for Rachel Hilson

- Uma Thurman and Stephen Fry (enough said)

- The acting overall was fantastic

- The care and work put into intimate scenes and inclusion of an intimacy coordinator

- On a personal level, I loved seeing parallels between Alex and Henry's relationship and the relationship I have with my husband. For the first time in my 30 years I actually see a little of myself in an uplifting and happy piece of media and not portrayed as a dramatic tragedy, villain, or inconsequential background character.

Tl;Dr if you didn't like the movie, that's your opinion. I'm not here to try and convince you otherwise. But please stop trying to convince people it shouldn't be watched. Regardless of your opinion, this film means a lot to a lot of people, including the author of the original book! Just let us enjoy this imperfect, but tasty cheese with our w(h)ine ❤️

[elatedandexasperated]

Me and my brazilian husband are tagged in this and I don't like it

Langa: English is a difficult language.

Langa *In English*: It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though.

Reki: You need to stop.

[elatedandexasperated]

So I mentioned in previous post(s) that the Sk8 dub VAs had clear intent with how they read certain characters and how David Wald felt that ambiguity in representation can actually reach people who might be questioning their sexuality or gender identity more easily than explicit media where they might tune out as a defense mechanism - and by explicit here I mean "clearly in the text" not "NSFW"

Now this line of thought got the hamster wheel in my head running, so I decided to run with it. The more I thought about the limits of this theory, the more I came to the conclusion that ambiguous representation can still be fine as long as there isn't canon heteronormative content that invalidates the subtext.

I think Sk8, both the sub and (but primarily) the dub kind of stumbled into this a bit. This could have been intentional (which I feel is the case of the dub) or unintentional (which I feel is the case of the sub/original production) or a mix. But in either case I think it's a very interesting scenario to apply Queer Film Theory to (James Somerton did a fantastic video on that topic, you should give it a watch) and an interesting example of utilizing tools that have traditionally been used to bait the LGBT+ community in a way that lets us better identify with the media.

I bring this up because the ambiguity in the show can actually be a boon for the fandom because theres no explicit explanation in the text OR heteronormative contradictions to the way certain charachters act. In that way, people can read different qualities into all of the characters and they can all be equally valid:

- A NB reading of Cherry is just as valid as an Ace one

- An Ace reading of Langa is just as valid as a gay one

- A gay reading of Reki is just as valid as a Demi or a bi one

- A Bi reading of Joe is just as valid as a Poly one and so on

From an academic perspective I think this is absolutely fascinating in that so many people can relate to these characters and at the same time don't need to pretend that an aspect of the show doesn't exist (like a het pairing) to fit their reading of the character.

Now this doesn't mean that we in the LGBT community don't need explicit, healthy, and clear representation in media, we absolutely do; and that will only change with continued action and pressure on studios and by putting more LGBT+ people into creative postions. I'm also not saying that queerbaiting is okay, it absolutely isn't and studios and creators who do so are honestly despicable.

What I'm more saying is that there is potential power in ambiguity and that we as a community can still enjoy a piece of media that's largely subtextual and interpret it as healthy representation as long as it's handled with care for the community and there's an intentional and clear effort to do so, much like how the Sk8 dub VAs are handling this show.

[elatedandexasperated]

So yesterday I watched the Sk8 VA panel on twitch, and I wanted to highlight a very interesting point that David Wald (the VA for Ad*m) brought up about representation in media.

Basically, he said that the type of representation they're going for, while not explicit, is definitely there and presented in such a way that LGBT people can identify with it in a healthy way (well, unhealthy in the case of Ad*m, but I digress). We get it, it's there explicitly and intentionally for us, and if the straights want to stick their fingers in their ears and go "la la la" that's fine, who cares, they'll get a fun shonen romp thats well animated, directed, and acted.

But by going with this more subtextual, subtle route, he said that the media becomes more accessible and digestible to young people who might be in denial about their sexuality or gender identity. That by presenting representation in this way, you catch an audience of people who might be questioning themselves and would actively tune out as soon as things become explicit.

That moment was just... So powerful to me, and at that point it just... clicked. That's because I was that questioning gay kid growing up with no formative media to fall on, desperately trying to force myself into relationships with girls to feel normal because I thought it was weird to be gay with no one and nothing telling me it was alright. And I was the same kid who would feel guilty, embarrassed, and dissociative whenever I did see gay media representation and would tune it out immediately, not wanting other people to think I was gay just for watching it.

In all reality, I know we won't get an explicit, canon confession for either of the main ships (Although Jonah and Daman are two seconds from giving me a god damned heart attack and I love it). It is a bit disappointing, and healthy, canonical representation should be something we continue moving towards and pushing studios to allow, but the intent for good representation is there.

And what blows me away is that the VAs are actively playing with the ambiguity, the thing traditionally used to bait the queer community, to let us have those moments of representation, knowing that we won't have been baited through the reveal of an 11th hour straight pairing that invalidates the subtext. Not all representation needs to be explicit as long as there aren't canon contradictions to it.

And to David's point, if even one LGBT+ person who's in denial or is questioning looks at this show and feels a bit more normal and at ease with who they are because of it, even if they don't realize it then and there, then mission fucking accomplished

[elatedandexasperated]

Y'all hate on the Sk8 ED palm trees but always fail to mention:

- Red and Blue outlines for Renga (even the heights match)

- Green trees and Pink sky for Matcha Blossom

We stan the ED in this house...

[elatedandexasperated]

So this has been rattling around in my head for a couple of weeks now, so sorry for the rant, but with the dub of ep. 8 dropping it's clear that the Sk8 dub cast and crew is actively and intentionally playing up the lgbt elements of the show:

- Langa's interaction with his mom is pretty explicit, granted beat for beat the sub is more or less the same

- the whole "Bitches, Bros, and NB Hoes" thing was COMPLETELY out of right field and didn't even have a correlation in the sub

- the VAs for Joe and Cherry stating they're reading their charachters with a *ahem* very specific dynamic in mind and actively, publicly shipping them AND renga

- the fact that Reki FINISHED HIS F*CKING SENTENCE in ep. 7 (granted it was kind of inconsequential, but it does show that they're willing to remove some of the ambiguity of the original script)

- The fact that they explicitly stated as such in the VA panel last night

All this genuinely makes me curious what the agreement Funimation and Bones came to with the dub. It really has me wondering if it was basically the creators at Bones saying "We clearly wrote this subtext in place, but given censorship laws here we need to leave it at that. You can expand on that for English audiences because you won't have the same restrictions" essentially allowing Funimation a degree of creative freedom with the dub when it comes to the extent of coding and and explicit representation in the show.

That being said, given how much more explicit the dialog is, if Bones or the original crew had a problem with the way Funimation was handling it, you would think they'd have pulled support or made some kind of statement by now. The only thing that concerns me here is that Ep. 8 and the panel were the most explicit the coding has been and they both happened pretty much yesterday, so we very well might see bones make a statement soon. They did mention in the stream that there were lines they were concerned with crossing, so hopefully some of the things said that night don't result in the VAs getting their wrists slapped. I hope that's not the case and that this is being supported internally, but I really don't have enough faith in our corporate overlords to actually have the best interests of the LGBT community at heart here.

Tl;dr Sk8 is great, the dub is great, it's hella gay, they know it, they are having fun with it and letting us have fun with it too

But presuming the ideal case (and to get back on a more positive note), I think there is an earnest desire for representation here that they are trying to meet within the framework of what the creators are permitted by the studios (which is where the real issue with healthy representation lies: it's the studios, not the artists... usually). And at the end of the day, even if there is no explicit statement of a relationship in the dub, I think the dub crew (and the original production in all honestly) crafted a great show that's fun, well produced, and provides a narrative that I think the writers and actors intentionally tried to make resonate with LGBT+ people and let us identify with while not pulling a bait and switch on us with a canon straight pairing at the end.

[elatedandexasperated]

Honestly, I'm not big on social media and usually just lurk on tumblr, but this blog is basically anonymous and the sh!t going down with the Sk8 dub has me busting at the seams with commentary, so please excuse the 8 million analysis posts I may make in the next day...