#it's a shame i loved this show but the fandom has genuinely thoroughly ruined it and i barely have any excitement for it anymore

[vicsuragi]

i haven't been here long but wow the disco elysium fandom is so much less fucking exhausting than the ofmd fandom. people aren't pitted against each other and writing back and forth essays about one fucking character and in constant fucking conflict with each other over ONE FICTIONAL GUY. people aren't sending rape and death threats to one group and then going and saying that group is sending those threats to themselves for sympathy!!! the fandom hasn't turned into utter wank it's amazing!!! i forgot that fandoms could just be chill and not get to the point where you have to block like 100+ bloggers because they are violently wrong and will call you a racist, sexist, abuse apologist, etc, because you like a wet pathetic little villain dude. we're all just making fun of harry for losing every poll he qualifies for and screaming over this game, like a normal fucking fandom. this is like a fucking vacation and i'm probably not going to go home.

[brianwilly]

I'd like to talk about Call Me By Your Name for bit.

If you're not aware -- and I gotta say I'm kinda envious if you're not -- there's been a wee bit of discourse surrounding this film.  Not an overwhelming amount, and even then thankfully very little of which has reached mine dashboards, obviously because everyone I follow is such a boss! or whatever

But it’s still there, and because I’m such a nosy prick who lives in tags, I’ve had the opportunity to glean a lot of the dispute on both ends.  And so, I’d like to talk about it, this thing that...by essence is going to be very controversial to try to talk about.  Especially on here, this site so known for being so very, ah, passionate and implacable about the issues it has taken to heart, mostly for the good, sometimes less so.

Specifically, for anyone still unaware, the issue is that the film’s story is about a romance between a seventeen year-old boy and a twenty-four year-old grad student who visits his house for the summer.

And the first thing I'd say, which is what most people would also probably say first, is to please watch the film (or read the book) before forming any strong proclamations about it one way or another.  And try not to watch it with a...miserly eye, being on the constant alert for any ammo you can use to fuel whatever blog post you're gonna write after the fact.  I've done this myself before, and it's an inept, feeble method of critique; confirmation bias is a thing that exists, and if you're going in with the sole intent of finding every bit of toxicity and harmfulness you can in this storyline, then that's truly all you'll end up finding.  Instead, try to watch it for the simple fact of watching a story unfold, of wanting to know what happens, of allowing yourself to experience what these filmmakers and actors are trying to convey.  After which, if you still dislike what you've seen?  At least you'll be better able to articulate why without having to rely solely on sound and fury.  And then you can call the cops on me, ‘cuz they’ll obviously prefer well-reasoned allegations of pedophilia-apologism as opposed to half-baked ones!

The next thing I say is going to be a bit of a...melodramatic diatribe about queer experiences.  Bear with, please.

When you're a queer person living in certain situations -- whether you're a child, teenager, or adult -- much of your entire identity is based on the need for repression, for secrecy, for hiding.  Every bit of affection, desire, or attachment you have to someone of the same gender, which is something that'll happen near every day of your life, is something else you'll have to learn to smother.  Everything about what you're feeling is confusing and yet you don't believe for a second that there is anyone you can trust to share these confusions with or to experience these desires with.  This pain of repression and confusion is something that the film version of CMBYN does hint at, but that the original book actually explores in broad, vivid detail, some of which I'm going to quote mostly verbatim for just how truthfully it paints these anxieties.

"What never crossed my mind was [...] that someone else in my immediate world might like what I liked, want what I wanted, be who I was. It would never have entered my mind because I was still under the illusion that, barring what I’d read in books, inferred from rumors, and overheard in bawdy talk all over, no one my age had ever wanted to be both man and woman— with men and women. I had wanted other men my age before and had slept with women. But before he’d stepped out of the cab and walked into our home, it would never have seemed remotely possible that someone so thoroughly okay with himself might want me to share his body as much as I ached to yield up mine." *** "Perhaps the very least I wanted was for him to tell me that there was nothing wrong with me, that I was no less human than any other young man my age. I would have been satisfied and asked for nothing else than if he’d bent down and picked up the dignity I could so effortlessly have thrown at his feet." *** "They worried for me. I knew they were right to worry. I just hoped they’d never know how far things stood beyond their ordinary worries now. I knew they didn’t suspect a thing, and it bothered me— though I wouldn’t have wanted it otherwise. It told me that if I were no longer transparent and could disguise so much of my life, then I was finally safe from them, and from him— but at what price, and did I want to be so safe from anyone?

There was no one to speak to. Whom could I tell? Mafalda? She’d leave the house. My aunt? She’d probably tell everyone. Marzia, Chiara, my friends? They’d desert me in a second. My cousins when they came? Never. My father held the most liberal views— but on this? Who else? Write to one of my teachers? See a doctor? Say I needed a shrink? Tell Oliver?

Tell Oliver. There is no one else to tell, Oliver, so I’m afraid it’s going to have to be you…" *** "[...] another part of me knew that if he showed up tonight and I disliked the start of whatever was in store for me, I’d still go through with it, go with it all the way, because better to find out once and for all than to spend the rest of the summer, or my life perhaps, arguing with my body."

Now, I'm not saying this stuff to grind for sympathy points or to be needlessly depressing, and I should probably sidebar here to make it clear that, in spite of the quoted passages above, neither the film or the book are as remotely fixated on these sorts of oppressive life experiences as it might seem; quite the opposite, in many ways.  But I'm still saying this stuff to contextualize a lot of peoples' mindsets and experiences going into a story like this, and of the social foundations from which this story was conceived.  Because the fact remains that when you're a queer person living in certain situations, this repression and confusion is your reality as you know it.

And this sort of reality...a disease, really...is something that will eat away at you day after day, week after week, month after month after year.  This is the sort of toxicity that can actually scar someone's identity, if not ruin them outright.  And as for romance?  It's not even just a matter of your options being limited, it's as drastic as you never being able to show your affections, and no one will ever return those affections even if you show it, and you'll probably never be able to tell anyone any of this.  It's not simply a matter of not having someone in town that you can get your rocks off with, it is a matter of having to hide so many important parts of yourself, a matter of feeling so alone in many of the ways that matter most.  And none of that is even going into the shame you feel in yourself, in your own body, for just being wrong somehow.

Queer Tumblr is such a place of liberation and celebration for the most part, and that's a good thing, but I feel like it's easy to forget that this liberation and celebration comes about specifically as a shelter against the repression and shame out there in our real lifetimes.  And I feel like we can be so fiercely, indiscriminately protective of our younger generations -- precisely because there is so much genuine danger out there to have to protect them from -- that we might miss the danger in seeing only danger and scandal and malice where there might instead be something important and cathartic and affirming in this story for anyone -- queer or straight, young or old -- to experience.

Bluntly: I'm not saying that seventeen year-olds should be pursuing twenty-four year-olds, and certainly not vice-versa.  But given all that above, is it really so difficult to imagine why many viewers might not be so quick to disapprove of the relationship depicted in CMBYN?  Is it so hard to imagine why it is not so vile or perverse for a seventeen year-old to have someone who understands his loneliness and alienation to assuage those vicious anxieties?  That this seventeen year-old deserves the chance to explore and express his identity with someone in a caring, compassionate manner?  That any sort of inherent harm that a difference of seven years might potentially do them might indeed be more than balanced out by the virtues of getting to experience the sort of love and companionship that only comes from total honesty and understanding between partners...something that they as queer people in their situation might have never thought possible.  That the freedom to love and be loved in this safety of this validation is a gift and not an onus.  That the appeal of this story is not about how cool or sexy it is for seventeen year-olds to be sleeping with twenty-four year-olds, but about how both of these boys -- and by inference every boy like them, every girl like them -- deserve the chance to not be repressed, to not be shamed.

And if I may be a bit of an asshole for a second.  I look at the culture of Tumblr and I am persistently inundated with favored pairings that are born out of animosity, out of antagonism and toxicity if not outright violence.  I have seen so many instances of fictional characters wholesale harming other characters both physically and verbally and having those things be called romantic by scores of thousands of likes and reblogs.  Look up maybe any fandom in the search bar and chances are good that some of the most popular pairings are gonna be the ones most shrouded in dysfunctionality.  Heck...even the ones that are ostensibly "the good examples" of healthy functional vanilla romances tend to be constantly punctuated by stretches of jealousy or dishonesty or manipulativeness or other such sorts of crass relationship issues in order to drive drama.  So many creators' ideas of what make a fictional relationship appealing -- or even a non-fictional one -- often feel like trying to air all the dirtiest laundry you can find in that household and calling that romance.  And let's not even venture for now into the dark boiling abyss that is the queerbaiting issue.

Now...'nother sidebar...I'm not saying that the romance of CMBYN is a perfect one; there are certainly issues of insecurities and miscommunications that afflict this relationship as well, and all that these sorts of things entail.  I also don't wanna blow this whole film out of the water like it's some sort of immaculate remedy to all the ills of film and literature and the evils of the world or whatever, which is just gonna lead to disappointment if you do watch it.  I definitely do not want to undermine anyone’s legitimate concerns over the issues inherent in age-gap relationships.  Liberation is nice, naiveté is not.

But, again...is it really so difficult to imagine how people can look at this story, borne so thoroughly out of care and validation and respect between two people for whom those things are not readily-available, and be engaged by its content instead of repulsed by it, finding it vastly preferable to what usually passes for steamy pairings nowadays?  Is it so unbelievable for people to be engaged by the goodness depicted in Elio and Oliver's courtship with each other, to not throw complaints of harmfulness and toxicity at something so marked by its distinct lack of harm, even with the seven years’ difference between them?

I'm not saying that seventeen year-olds should be pursuing twenty-four year-olds and vice versa.

But man, do I ever wish that more stories ought to be taking more cues from the way that this one does it.