#people who queerbait are the people writing a tv show or a movie and pretending that a pairing is going to be gay

[jlf23tumble]

has anyone pointed out that harry has an extremely well known song titled olivia yet

OF COURSE, they did--when you're clutchin' at straws to come up with anyone but Olivia Wilde, that song's just one of many, here's an amazing list, even! Jesus, the way some people doubled down on the random cats and dogs, lmaoooo

[c-is-for-circinate]

For a long, large part of my life, being queer in a media landscape--finding queerness in a media landscape--has meant theft.

I'm a Fandom Old, somehow, these days, older than most and younger than some, in that way that's grown associated with grumpy crotchetyness and shotguns on porches and back in my day, we had to wade through our Yahoo Groups mailing lists uphill both ways, boring and irrelevant anecdotes from Back In Those Days when homophobia clearly worked differently than it does now, probably because we weren't trying hard enough. I've seen a lot of stories through the years. I've read a lot of fanfic. (More days than not, for the past twenty years. I've read a lot of fanfic.)

When people my age start groaning and sighing at conversations about representation and queerbaiting, when we roll our eyes and drag all the old war stories out again in the face of AO3 is terrible and Not Good Enough, so often what we say is: you Young Folks Today have no idea how hard, how scary, how limiting it was to be queer anywhere Back In Those Days. Including online, maybe especially online, including in a media landscape that hated us so much more than any one you've ever known. And that is true. Always and everywhere, again and again, it's true, we remember, it's true.

We don't talk so much about the joy of it.

Online fan spaces were my very first queer communities, ever. I was thirteen, I was fourteen, I was fifteen--I was a lonely, over-precocious "gifted kid" two years too young for my grade level in an all-girls' Catholic school in the suburbs--I lived in a world where gay people were a rumor and an insult and a news story about murder. I was straight, of course, obviously, because real people were straight and anyway I was weird enough already--I couldn't be two things strange, couldn't be gay too, but--well, I could read the stories. I could feel things about that. I would have those stories to help me, a few years later, when I knew I couldn't call myself straight any more.

And those stories were theft. There was never any doubt about that. We wrote disclaimers at the top of every fic, with the specter of Anne Rice's lawyers around every corner. We hid in back-corners of the internet, places you could only find through a link from a link from a link on somebody else's recs page, being grateful for the tiny single-fandom archives when you found them, grateful for the webrings where they existed. It was theft, all of it, the stories about characters we did not own, the videotaped episodes on your best friend's VHS player, one single episode pulled off of Limewire over the course of three days.

It was theft, we knew, to even try and find ourselves in these stories to begin with. How many fics did I read in those days about two men who'd always been straight, except for each other, in this one case, when love was stronger than sexual orientation? We stole our characters away from the heterosexual lives they were destined to have. We stole them away from writers and producers and TV networks who work overtime to shower them in Babes of the Week, to pretend that queerness was never even an option. This wasn't given to us. This wasn't meant for us. This wasn't ours to have, ever, ever in the first place. But we took it anyway.

And oh, my friends, it was glorious.

We took it. We stole. And again and again, for years and years and years, we turned that theft into an art. We looked for every opening, every crack in every sidewalk where a little sprout of queerness might grow, and we claimed it for our own and we grew whole gardens. We grew so sly and so skilled with it, learning to spot the hints of oh, this could be slashy in every new show and movie to come our way. Do you see how they left these character dynamics here, unattended on the table? How ripe they are for the pocketing. Here, I'll help you carry them. We'll make off with these so-called straight boys, and we only have to look back if somebody sets out another scene we want for our own.

We were thieves, all of us, and that was fine and that was fair, because to exist as queer in the world was theft to begin with. Stolen time, stolen moments--grand larceny of the institution of marriage, breaking and entering to rob my mother's hopes for grandchildren. Every shoplifted glance at the wrong person in the locker room (and it didn't matter if we never peeked, never dared, they called us out on it anyway). Every character in every fic whose queerness became a crime against this ex-wife, that new love interest. Every time we dared steal ourselves away from the good straight partners we didn't want to date.

And: we built ourselves a den, we thieves, wallpapered in stolen images and filled to the brim with all the words we'd written ourselves. We built ourselves a home, and we filled it with joy. Every vid and art and fic, every ship, every squee. Over and over, every straight boy protagonist who abandoned all womankind for just this one exception with his straight boy protagonist partner found gay orgasms and true love at the end.

Over and over, we said: this isn't ours, this isn't meant to be ours, you did not give this to us--but we are taking it anyway. We will burglarize you for building blocks and build ourselves a palace. These stories and this place in the world is not for us, but we exist, and you can't stop us. It's ours now, full of color and noise, a thousand peoples' ideas mosaic'ed together in celebration. We made this, and it will never be just yours again. You won't ever truly get it back, no matter how many lawyers you send, not completely. We keep what we steal.

.

Things shifted over time, of course. That's good. That's to be celebrated. Nobody should have to steal to survive. It should not be a crime, should not feel like a crime, to find yourself and your space in the world.

There were always content creators who could slip a little wink in when they laid out their wares, oh what's this over here, silly me leaving this unattended where anybody could grab it, of course there might be more over by the side door if you come around the alleyway (but if anybody asks, you didn't get this from ME). We all watched Xena marry Gabrielle, in body language and between the lines. We sat around and traded theories and rumors about whether the people writing Due South knew what they were doing when they sent their buddy cops off into the frozen north alone together at the end of the show, if they'd done it on purpose, if they knew. But over the years, slowly, thankfully, the winks became less sly.

A teenage boy put his hand on another teenage boy's hand and said, you move me, and they kissed on network TV, in a prime-time show, on FOX, and the world didn't burn down. Here and there, where they wanted to, where they could without getting caught by their bosses and managers, content creators stopped subtly nudging people around the back door and started saying, "Here. This is on offer here too, on purpose. You get to have this, too."

And of course, of course that came with a whole host of problems too. Slide around to the back door but you didn't get this from me turned into it's an item on our special menu, totally legit, you've just got to ask because the boss throws a fit if we put it out front. Shopkeepers and content creators started advertising on the sly, come buy your fix here!, hiding the fine print that says you still have to take what you've purchased home and rebuild it with your semi-legal IKEA hacks. Maybe they'll consider listing that Destiel or Sterek as a full-service menu item next year. Is that Crowley/Aziraphale the real thing or is it lite?

And those problems are real and the conversations are worth having, and it's absolutely fair to be frustrated that you can't find the ship you want on sale in anything like your color and size in a vast media landscape packed full of discount hetships and fast-fashion m/f. It's fair to be angry. It's fair to be frustrated. Queerbait is a word that exists for a reason.

There's a part of me that hurts, though, every time the topic comes up. It's a confusing, bad-mannered part of me, but it's still very real. And it's not because I'm fawning for crumbs, trying to be the Good, Non-Threatening Gay. It's not that I'm scared and traumatized by the thought of what might happen if we dare raise our voices and ask for attention. (Well. Not mostly. I'll always remember being quiet and scared and fifteen, but it's been a long two decades since then. I know how to ask for a hell of a lot more now.)

It's because I remember that cozy, plush-wallpapered den of joyful thieves. I remember you keep what you steal.

Every single time--every time--when a story I love sets a couple of characters out on a low, unguarded table, perfectly placed to be pilfered on the sly and taken home and smushed together like a couple of dolls, my very first thought is always, always joy. Always, that instinct says, yay! Says, this is ours now. As soon as I go home and crawl into that pillow-fort den, my instincts say, I will surely find people already at work combing through spoils and finding new ways to combine them, new ways to make them our own. I know there's fic for that. I've already seen fic for that, and I wasn't really interested last time, but the new store display's got my brain churning, and I can't wait to see what the crew back at the hideout does with this.

Every time, that's where my brain goes. And oh, when I realize the display's put out on purpose, that somebody snuck in a legitimate special menu item, when the proprietor gives me the nod and wink and says, you don't have to come around the side, I know it's not much but here--there is so much joy and relief and hope in me from that! Oh, what we can make with these beautiful building blocks. Oh what a story we can craft from the pieces. Oh, the things we can cobble together. Look at that, this one's a little skimpy on parts but we can supplement it, this one's got a whole outline we can fill in however we want. This one technically comes semi-preassembled, and that's boring as shit and a pain to take back apart, but that's fine, we'll manage. We're artists and thieves. I bet someone's pulling out the AU saw to cut it to pieces already.

And then I get back to our den, which has moved addresses a dozen times over the years and mostly hangs out on Tumblr now (and the roof leaks and the landlord's sketchy as fuck but at least they don't charge rent, and we've made worse places our own). And I show up, ready for joy--ready for a dozen other people who saw that low-hanging fruit on that unguarded table, who got the nod and wink about the special menu item, who're ready to get so excited about this newest haul. Did you see what we picked up? The theft was so easy, practically begging to be stolen. The last owner was an idiot with no idea what to do with it. The last owner knew exactly what it could become, bless their heart, under a craftsman with more time on their hands, so they looked away on purpose at just the right time to let me take it home. I show up every time ready for our space, the place that fed me on joy and self-confidence when I was fifteen and starving. The place that taught me, yes, we are thieves, because it is RIGHT to take what we need, and the beautiful things we create are their own justification. We are thieves, and that's wonderful, because nothing is handed to us and that means we get to build our own palaces. We get to keep everything we steal.

I go home, and even knowing the world is different, my instincts and heart are waiting for that. And I walk in the door, and I look at my dash, and I glance over at twitter, and--

And people are angry, again. Angry at the slim pickings from the hidden special menu. So, so tired and angry, at once again having to steal.

And they're right to be! Sometimes (often, maybe) I think they're angry at the wrong people--more angry with the shopkeeper who offers the bite-sized sampler platter of side characters or sneaks their queer content in on the special menu than the ones who don't include it at all. But it's not wrong to be mad that Disney's once again advertising their First Gay Character only to find out it's a tiny sprinkle of a one-line extra on an otherwise straight sundae. It's not wrong to be furious at the world because you've spent your whole life needing to be a thief to survive. It's far from wrong. I'm angry about it too.

But this was my den of thieves, my chop shop, my makerspace. Growing up in fandom, I learned to pick the locks on stories and crack the safes of subtext at the very same time I learned to create. They were the same thing, the same art. We are thieves, my heart says, we are thieves, and that's what makes us better than the people we steal from. We deconstruct every time we create. We build better things out of the pieces.

And people are angry that the pre-fab materials are too hard to find, the pickings too slim, the items on sale too limited? Yes, of course they are, of course they should be--but my heart. Oh, my heart. Every single time, just a little bit, it breaks.

Of course the stories are terrible (they have always been terrible). Of course they are, but we are thieves. We steal the best parts and cobble them back together and what we make is better than it was before. The craftsman's eye that cases a story for weak points, for blank spaces, for anywhere we can fit a crowbar and pry apart this casing--that's skill and art and joy. Of course we shouldn't have to, of course we shouldn't have to, but I still love it. I still want it, crave it. I still thrill every time I see it, a story with hairline cracks that we can work open with clever hands to let the queer in.

That used to be cause for celebration, around here. I ask him to go back to the ruins of Aeor with me, two men together alone on an expedition in the frozen north, it feels like a gift. And I understand why some people take it as an insult. I understand not good enough. I understand how something can feel like a few drops of water to someone dying of thirst, like a slap in the face. If it was so easy to sneak it hidden onto the special menu, to place it on the unguarded side table for someone else to run off to, why not let it sit out front and center in the first place? I know it's frustrating. It should be. We should fight. We should always fight. I know why.

But my heart, oh, my heart. My heart only knows what it's been taught. My heart sees, this thing right here, the proprietor left it there for you with a nod and a wink because they Get It. It's not put together yet, but it's better that way anyway. It's so full of pieces to pull apart and reassemble. I bet they've got a whole mosaic wall going up at home already. We can bring it home and make it OURS, more than it was ever theirs, forget half of what it came from and grow a new garden in what remains.

And I go home to find anger, and my heart breaks instead.

[mdccanon]

question: how would you cast a trans character in a show who comes out during the show? from what I’ve heard, most trans people don’t like cis people playing trans people. however, a trans person probably wouldn’t like playing their birth gender in the episodes before they came out, it might give them dysphoria. and recasting them would ruin the immersion. idk the internet’s reaction to the Loki show had me thinking.

The queer community's reaction to a casting is based entirely on if they like the actor and if it fits into the hidden, specific algorithm of wish-fulfillment representation they want to see.

The very concept of "queerbaiting" is audience members saying they would gladly accept cis straight actors playing as queer characters IF it ends with queer couples on screen... Until the exact moment TV shows or movies announce, loudly, that they are purposefully writing a queer character. Then, suddenly, the same people are asking for representation in the actors. See the double standard?

Mark Hamill is a completely average straight white dude, but according to Tumblr, Luke Skywalker is the paragon of twinks. A03 is FULL of fanfiction re-imagining popular characters as trans. Do THOSE fans stop imagining the cis actors and VAs as the cast of their characters?

So, with that being said, representation matters, and acknowledging the difference between sex and gender matters. Sex is sex is sex. Can a cis woman play as a trans man? Well, that's an interesting question. In a story that is about the transition and is about transgenderism, how far can an actor go? Because 80% of this issue is about medication, not about the mentality. If every actor had to have every mentality of every character they played, then how far does that little rabbit trail go?

After all, what would it mean for an actually trans person? Should they STOP taking their medication in order to play the full transition? Or for playing flashbacks? How are those to be written, by the way? Does this stigma against cis people playing trans including playing them as children? Why can't a teenaged girl who looks like the trans man play him when he presented as a teenaged girl?

Dysphoria doesn't factor as much to me because I don't think trans actors are that mentally fragile. An actor thinks about their own dead parents to cry on command. An actor imagines how they would kill their co-star. An actor lives in a prison for a few weeks to prepare for a role that doesn't even have scenes that take place in a prison--they just wanted to get into the headspace. (So much of the extra weight we put on actors comes from a political-social agenda and not really understanding acting. People recognize how acting works for anything that isn't political -- we just want to control what cis straight white people do, and fear hurting any intersectional person. We insist that black people can play in Shakespeare plays just fine -- and on a larger note, 21st century people can pretend to be 15th and 3rd century people -- we say that women can play roles usually written for men with little re-writing, we accept every twisted and horrible and depraved idea with voyeristic glee at seeing two people do horrible things to each other...)

There is no mysticism behind trangenderism. It isn't mysterious or magical. It's pills, wigs, clothes, make-up, pitches of voice, and a balancing deep-seated feelings of imposter syndrome with self-reassurances that you are enough. It's using gender stereotypes while also deny gender stereotypes and re-inventing and reimagining gender stereotypes, and then getting into Internet arguments with non-binary people who think wearing sweatshirts all the time makes them equal. XD

So! To actually answer your question....

I would cast an actor based based entirely on how much the story hinged on showing their transition and the subsequent dysphoria mattered to the PLOT, because that makes the most sense to me as far as immersion for literally any other transformation that has ever existed in fiction, ever. It is absolutely stupid for a handsome actor to be cast as an "nerd" by putting some glasses on them and then dramatically taking them off and tussling their hair. Likewise, Ebenezer Scrooge spends 90% of the story being the version of himself you don't want him to be so that the transformation matters. So, it seems more sensible to me for a story ABOUT a transformation to feature a person who actually looks like they haven't had a transformation yet. You don't cast a kind-looking old man to be Scrooge.

In a story that isn't about the transformation, Hollywood has no excuse not to hire a trans person so that they can give the limited role the most authenticity they can provide. An actor transitioned during The Chilling Tales of Sabrina. Which was great. But there wasn't anything profound about Theo's story that couldn't have been played by a cis actress. The story wasn't about his transition, but in an already tone-deaf story, it was good that a trans person was there to add some authenticity to something... Too bad they couldn't help the rest of the show's anti-masculinity and toxic feminism~!

Oh, and as far as Loki.... That's such a funny thing to watch Tumblr be upset about... In a material understanding of the universe, there is no such thing as a "black, crocodile, and female" Loki because having different DNA means you are a different person, period. Tumblr has to simultaneously buy into a spiritual belief that a person is the same person even if they physically aren't ("OMG, he's kissing himself") but then complain that those variations of DNA should match their very particular hiccups about DNA, namely, that they want to see the magical version of estrogen pills. XD

Here's a question: some people justify all this with the very politically incorrect assertion that you can't prove a character is bisexual if they only kiss girls. But that still doesn't even make sense, because if Tumblr is going to insist that a lesbian should date trans women, than even if Sylvie was presented as a trans woman, wouldn't that still be Loki being shown only as straight? XD

Even if Sylvie wasn't shown to be physically female, I'm not entirely sure what Tumblr's ask was on this one. Since when has gender and sex been so completely confused that a shapeshifter is also a trans person? Loki will kill and transform into a man to take his place as husband to the fair and sweet Sigyn, but when he transforms into a female horse to distract the stallion of an enemy, that gets lumped into the same definition as a person who doesn't want to be the sex their DNA says they should be? Do those two things match?

[awed-frog]

Hi! I've just gotten back into the fandom after a few years break. I've watched SPN since it aired in 2005, but I've left four times, each time for at least a year, because I keep feeling like we're being queerbaited w/Destiel and it really upsets me. In short, I feel like investing so much time, and so many emotions, into this pairing is a waste of time because it will only leave me disappointed in the end. So my question for you is, what keeps you positive enough about this pairing to stay?

Hey, sorry for getting back to you so late. I wrote and erased several answers to this, because, I don’t know, on some days I was trying to be clever and go all meta-stuff but it always sounded pretentious and stupid, and then on other days I felt dramatic and angry and got all upset and it would generally read as too much or not nearly enough, so. And today I really think I left this unanswered for way too long and that if you asked me, then you wanted my opinion on the matter and this is what I should be trying to do - just to say what i think, without too many frills.

So, first of all - I’m a weird person, and sometimes I get too worked up about stuff, and I obsess a lot, and thank God I’ve got people in my life who keep me grounded and remind me about what really matters. And the truth is, Supernatural doesn’t. It’s a good show, and we all love it, and sure, like all popular works of fiction it probably changed someone’s mind and had an impact on someone’s life, but at the end of the day, you come first. As I said, I had periods in my life where I was putting too much energy on the wrong things, and a TV show is definitely the wrong thing, especially if it leaves you frustrated and upset and angry. I say this with a lot of respect, because I know we all love Supernatural and everything, but let’s be honest - it’s a TV show. It’s not real. If it makes you cry for the wrong reasons, get away from it and good riddance. What truly matters in this life is to find a way to love yourself and to be there for other people - to be kind, and to be strong, and to maybe make our world a little better. So if a story helps you do that, embrace it; and if it doesn’t, let it go. It’s just a story.

For me, personally, I had a very emotional time with Destiel (you can read about it here), because I felt cheated and let down and pretty much what you describe - I knew I’d invested so much of myself in the show, and that they’d let me down for stupid reasons. And it was really bleak for a while, so I get where you’re coming from. Back in S9, I spent many days feeling listless and depressed, and quite a few nights ranting and raging and even crying about it, and when I snapped out of it I realized that sure, they were being cunts and cheaters but there was something wrong with me, as well - because, as I just told you, it’s just a show, and it shouldn’t have dominated my feelings in such a way. So I tried to be objective and rational and I thought about it and I realized it was a bunch of things - I was stressed in school, and my grandparents were sick - all I’d wanted was to take a big step back from reality and as a result I’d fallen too deep into the show and that’s why when it let me down, it really felt like a physical blow. And since not getting lost in fiction, my own or other people’s, is not an option for me, I’m learning to deal with real life stuff better so I can tell apart what really matters from what doesn’t. I know I’ve made some progress there because I was really invested in Sherlock and Johnlock, and yet after the series finale I was - normal. I was upset and angry, of course, because it sucked balls, but it didn’t ruin my whole week or anything. My general mood was more a sort of, It’s not real and I can’t change it, so fuck them. 

(I think this is what happens with everything, by the way - most sport fans get so invested in their teams because it’s a sort of victory by proxy and it compensates for those things that are wrong in their lives. So, really - I don’t know you, and I don’t want to tell anyone how they should live their lives, but if this kind of ‘external’ things such as TV shows and movies make you so unhappy, my advice is to get to know yourself and understand why you feel that way. If there is something in your own life you’re not dealing with, the best thing is really to try and be brave and go at it head-on, because life is unfair and bad feelings and bad situations - that’s not something that goes away on its own. And it’s your life - you deserve to live it fully.)

So now - now there are shows I watch because I think they’re objectively outstanding, like Westworld, and there are shows I watch as a guilty pleasure and I’m mostly rolling my eyes at the screen but who knows, maybe it’s healthy to cry once a week so whatever (yeah, I’m a Grey’s Anatomy aficionado), and then there’s Supernatural, which is neither. I guess the reason I keep watching is because most of it is well-written, even if I dislike the fact they clearly have no idea as to where they’re going and what the whole thing even means, and I keep watching because I love the characters, and I keep watching because I met a lot of nice people in the fandom and writing about the show is helping me to get better as a writer (I think). The truth is, I’m an unusual Destiel shipper (if there’s such thing as a regular Destiel shipper, that is), because I’m not that interested in romance and even representation - well, it’s very important and stories should be more inclusive, but a good story can work even without being PC, in my opinion (take Reservoir Dogs, for instance). So what I resent the most in this situation is that they got me to care - they clearly wrote the story one way - and then they made me feel like there was something wrong with me for seeing what I was seeing. This is textbook abusive behaviour, and the fact it was targeted directly at the gay community (because, on the whole, they’re more likely to pick up on subtextual clues about sexuality) made it even more horrifying and wrong. 

That said, I don’t think there was a malicious intent there. I’m sure they knew what they were doing, because that’s their job, after all, but they all seem to be pretty decent people, so it’s not clear if they did not realize how significant a love story between Dean and Cas would be, or how attentive their own fandom was - I simply don’t know. Maybe they were going for some old-fashioned ‘alas, that it shall never be’ nonsense - back in the day, it happened very often that you were left with the feeling of things unsaid and you never knew if you were right or not, and also you mostly forgot about it because real-time fangirling over stuff wasn’t a thing. In a way, that’s also what happened with Sherlock, which became a worldwide phenomenon because of the fandom, something Moffat and Gatiss acknowledged without never realizing, apparently, the full implications of.

I think that, to an extent, we’ve always lived in a world of lies and deceit, and that’s just human nature; but as far as I can tell, the spreading of capitalism and consumer culture, on the one hand, and that of democratic societies, on the other, elevated the importance of honesty to a whole other plane. Corporations lie to us as a matter of fact - all advertisement is a lie, after all - and politicians also mostly lie, both to us and to themselves. This was always bound to have disastrous consequences, which we are now starting to witness. For this reason, mostly, I think it’s more important than ever that artists are honest about the stories they tell - they can talk about anything, of course, and decide which kind of story they want to create, but they should stay true to it. I sometimes feel that, like other important concepts, such as freedom of expression, the idea that a story is its reader’s, and not its creator’s, is sometimes perverted beyond recognition. To say that the story belongs to its readers means that we all come to the story with our own experiences, and that we all get from it what we choose to get, to some extent; this is, perhaps, some form of cognitive bias (we see the world as we are, and not as it is: that sort of thing), and a good writer will create a story that is deep enough all of us can recognize ourselves in a part of it. But some modern creators, like current politicians, intend the concept in a very different way. Their method is to deliberately appeal to everyone in order to get money or votes, and they forget, or pretend to ignore, that in so doing they are bound to deceive a significant part of those who believed in them. Just as the centrism in politics is an illusion, a story which tries to make everyone happy is plain dishonest. When push comes to shove, Dean and Cas are either in love or they aren’t, and it’s not my job as a viewer to guess what they really feel - it’s the show’s creators job to tell me.

So, you know - you ask how I stay positive enough to keep watching the show - it sounds weird, since I write metas every week and I write Destiel fanfiction and everything, but personally, I’m trying not to think about Destiel at all. For me, it is real, in the sense that I still see it in the story, but I think that for a variety of reasons, there will be no steady love stories on Supernatural until the very last season. My hope is that, since a convincing gay story is harder to write than a straight one (because, apparently, many people are still unaware of the fact gay people are a thing at all), the Destiel subtext will get stronger quite soon(ish) if Destiel is indeed endgame. I mean, you see it very clearly from that whole Saileen business - in Sam’s case, two episodes are plenty enough to build a believable love story and make us root for Sam and Eileen and daydream about their darling little house and their fluffy future dogs, but, again, when it comes to gay couples - even if Dean and Cas do get together in the very last episode or something, you need to build that up quite openly and not too late, or it will feel forced to a casual viewer. As I said, I try not to think too much about it because there are a lot of ifs, but - if Supernatural has an end date in sight, if this is a coming of age narrative and not a tragedy, if nothing messy happens IRL - then I think that yes, we still have a chance for Destiel to happen textually. That dreadful Sherlock ending, after all, and mostly the outraged and angry response from both critics and the fandom, should serve as a warning to Dabb and his team: planning to go big and then not going big doesn’t endear you to anyone, because people’s hearts are wild, unpredictable, irrational and beautiful things, and even Hotelling’s law has its limits.  

[finnglas]

having queer history feels today so i’m gonna just...pretend tumblr is livejournal and write out my thoughts/feelings about it, sry

so okay like i was reading this post about what queerbaiting is and its history and where the term came from (it originated outside fandom, back when it was a crime just to be queer, when male police officers would pretend to be interested in sex with men in order to bait those men into expressing return interest and therefore be arrested) and the history of queerbaiting in media and like

guys

i know i’m turning into a fandom old, i’m gonna be 35 this summer. i grew up very conservative. i didn’t even know what the word “gay” meant, aside from colorful and happy, until i was like, 13. and even then i heard it in the context of “sexual perverts who have been cursed with AIDS as punishment for their sin against God.” (I turned 13 in 1995, which was the year that had the highest number of deaths from AIDS in the United States.) 

But do you know what I remember about media?

I remember that getting little hints about someone’s sexual orientation in a TV show was manna from heaven. I remember showrunners coming under heavy fire for even daring to imply that gay people might not deserve death and destruction, or that someone who was gay might be a decent person. And when I say “gay” what I mean is “a woman who listens to kd lang” or “a very fashionable man who hangs out exclusively with women but is distinctly disinterested in dating any of them (but is never shown as dating a male partner either)” because that was as explicit as it got.

And even that? That was likely to be elbowed in past censors’ scrutiny by writers who were queer themselves, who were desperate to see any kind of representation of themselves in the media they were writing. Even if it wasn’t happy, even if it wasn’t perfect, they just wanted to show characters like them existing who weren’t the subject of terrible, mean-spirited jokes and being arrested for being gay.

We used to live off those breadcrumbs. (God, you can’t imagine what happened in my little 17-year-old brain when two women kissed on-screen in “all things”, the X-Files episode that Gillian Anderson got to write and direct. There was this weird...like, electrical short, where I immediately expected them to turn out to be evil villains and try to kill or seduce Scully because that’s what lesbians on TV were, but no, they were just a casual couple shown being casually loving in their own home because Gillian Anderson is actually a wonderful person and has, on occasion, waffled with identifying herself as bisexual, but that’s another matter.)

One of my part-time jobs is that I do closed captioning for movies and television, including providing closed captioning for old movies that were made before CC was a thing. I actually really like doing old movies, from a technical standpoint, because they are recorded to be easily understandable over subpar audio equipment because HD sound wasn’t a thing back then either. So it’s much easier to hear and understand speech. But let me tell you something about how casually cruel some of these old movies and TV shows are about gay people. If you’ve never watched things from the 70s and 80s, if you’ve never heard someone make a “joke” about gay or trans people in the 70s or 80s, wow. You might be shocked. (The sexist humor was no joke, either, especially in the 60s or before.) 

But anyway, sometimes it’s hard to see how far you’ve come without looking back on where you came from, and I’m just having a lot of feelings today, and I’m so glad for the “PC culture” that made it frowned upon to make jokes on television about God using AIDS to kill queer kids, and I’ll be fucked six ways from Sunday if I let us go back to that.