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Pride Watch: Nanette
Jun. 27th, 2018 10:33 pmEveryone stop what you’re doing and watch this right now. No, really, right now.
One of the remaining virtues of Twitter, and the reason I’m not quite ready to quit it entirely, is because the TL occasionally puts awesome content like this in my path. Hannah Gadsby’s un-comedy special Nanette is witty, brilliant, and breathtaking, and I did not know I needed it so much.
There are a few unspoken assumptions about being an out queer person that I’ve never really seen anyone else talk about the way Gadsby does here. The first is the way we’re obliquely introduced to “our people.” Namely, parades, marches, and other loud, boisterous, crowded events. Her question, “Where do the quiet gays go?” is one I have been asking for YEARS. Because it can be disorienting to say the least to have the only Pride events happening in your city (assuming your city has any at all) be parades and marches, when you’d be much happier at home, under a blanket, with a cup of tea. (I do like the flag though.)
Where do the “quiet gays” go? I’d be all over a Pride Book Club or a Pride Recipe Exchange or any other much lower-key things like that. Just throwing that out there. *ahem*
And then there’s the darker, even more hard-hitting aspect of her show. The persistence of shame. You don’t go from Closet to Proud in one awkward conversation with your parents. It takes decades, and internalized homophobia does not wear off easily. I am always happy to see out and proud folks being out and proud, and I love them for it, but you never see what it took for them to reach that point. The long, hard, slog to self-acceptance is always past-tense. Even when it is still ongoing, it’s treated as if it’s past-tense.
I’m actually struggling with a conundrum in my fiction writing right now, because I keep hearing that we’re supposed to be over the stage of telling stories where queer characters fight to be comfortable in their own skin. And while I’m all for having more happy, contented, proud characters in stories, that other story? The one where the queer characters have to deal with homophobia and self-loathing in real time, and overcome it? I’m not ready to stop telling that story yet. I am still living in that story, and I need fiction to work out a lot of those feelings.
And this. This helps tremendously.
So, Hannah Gadsby: Thank you for your story. Thanks for making me laugh and cry. Thanks for reminding “our people” that we are not alone.
One of the remaining virtues of Twitter, and the reason I’m not quite ready to quit it entirely, is because the TL occasionally puts awesome content like this in my path. Hannah Gadsby’s un-comedy special Nanette is witty, brilliant, and breathtaking, and I did not know I needed it so much.
There are a few unspoken assumptions about being an out queer person that I’ve never really seen anyone else talk about the way Gadsby does here. The first is the way we’re obliquely introduced to “our people.” Namely, parades, marches, and other loud, boisterous, crowded events. Her question, “Where do the quiet gays go?” is one I have been asking for YEARS. Because it can be disorienting to say the least to have the only Pride events happening in your city (assuming your city has any at all) be parades and marches, when you’d be much happier at home, under a blanket, with a cup of tea. (I do like the flag though.)
Where do the “quiet gays” go? I’d be all over a Pride Book Club or a Pride Recipe Exchange or any other much lower-key things like that. Just throwing that out there. *ahem*
And then there’s the darker, even more hard-hitting aspect of her show. The persistence of shame. You don’t go from Closet to Proud in one awkward conversation with your parents. It takes decades, and internalized homophobia does not wear off easily. I am always happy to see out and proud folks being out and proud, and I love them for it, but you never see what it took for them to reach that point. The long, hard, slog to self-acceptance is always past-tense. Even when it is still ongoing, it’s treated as if it’s past-tense.
I’m actually struggling with a conundrum in my fiction writing right now, because I keep hearing that we’re supposed to be over the stage of telling stories where queer characters fight to be comfortable in their own skin. And while I’m all for having more happy, contented, proud characters in stories, that other story? The one where the queer characters have to deal with homophobia and self-loathing in real time, and overcome it? I’m not ready to stop telling that story yet. I am still living in that story, and I need fiction to work out a lot of those feelings.
And this. This helps tremendously.
So, Hannah Gadsby: Thank you for your story. Thanks for making me laugh and cry. Thanks for reminding “our people” that we are not alone.