glitter_n_gore

Everyone stop what you’re doing and watch this right now. No, really, right now.

Watch on YouTube

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.

Greetings! We are in our second week of Pride Month and I’m talking about Remus Lupin--more specifically, the question of whether the character is bisexual.

Since Lupin is the only one of the werewolves on my list who is not explicitly confirmed in the text as bi, I took a poll. Here's what it looked like:


Screenshot of Twitter poll with question “Is Remus Lupin Bisexual?” and results
Yes = 63%
No = 13%
Not Sure = 13%
Whatever JK Says = 11%

I asked more informally on my regular blog as well. As you can see, results were mixed. More so than I had anticipated. This is why I wanted to start here. More often than not, LGBT fans do a lot of guesswork to figure out if there are any non-straight, non-cisgender people in the fictional universe we're being shown. Unless it's a world that's helmed by a writer/director/producer who's actively trying to create more diversity in that particular area, it’s down to the audience to interpret what we’re given.

( Read more. . . )

Let's.

Blogger’s Note: This is a revision/amalgamation of two previous blog posts I made elseweb, entitled “#GiveCaptainAmericaABoyfriend” and “The Trouble With Agent 13” respectively. Expanded my thoughts on both after rewatching Civil War, and reading Ed Brubaker’s The Winter Soldier. For *ahem* “research.”

It’s been eight years since the first official MCU movie came out--Iron Man in 2008.

Do you guys realize how long ago that was? Obama was in the process of moving into the White House. Heath Ledger had just died, and the dark, gritty, realistic Christopher Nolan-verse Batman movies were the exception, not the norm. David Tennant was still playing The Doctor. Okay, eight years isn’t really an astronomically long time. BUT the MCU has churned out thirteen two-hour-plus episodes of their staggeringly successful franchise on a regular basis since it started. And we are still waiting for one--Just one!--canonically LGBT character.

HI THERE!

It is Bisexual Awareness Week, and if you didn’t know this, I am not straight. I’m bisexual more or less, although a more apt description is “panromantic demisexual” (words which aren’t recognized even by my spellchecker, but I encourage you to Google them), and I’ll answer to both.

What you probably do know is I watch lots of superhero movies and read fewer but still lots of comic books. That doesn’t really set me apart. And I’d like to see more awesome action movies with characters that reflect my POV/orientation just a little bit. Which . . . also doesn’t set me apart, because I think everyone wants that. Who *wouldn’t* want to be a superhero, at least in a power fantasy kind of way? However, when you’re not a straight, white dude between the ages of 18 and 35, it’s a little trickier to split the difference.

I’m here to talk about Bucky Barnes.

( “Read )

I'm saying "queer" because it's easier to type than "LGBTQ + a bunch of other letters I can never remember." (Love the people, not the acronym. It's not kind to dyslexics.) Apparently this is the only thing I'm doing for Pride Month this year. Which is still better than previous years, in which I've done absolutely nothing because I'm horrible at keeping track of when things are.

I ran into a lot of unforeseen qualifiers once I started putting this list together. For instance, I wanted to only use artists who are actually out and on the record as not-straight. As opposed to people who've been the subject of speculation but have neither confirmed nor denied anything, or people who use fanservice as a gimmick (particulary the girl-on-girl kind--yeah, don't get me started), or people who appeal to a queer audience for whatever reason but aren't queer themselves (Madonna, Cher, Celine Dion, etc.). And from there I had to narrow it down to music I actually like.

Wasn't easy, let me tell you. I've also, sadly but somehow not surprisingly, wound up with a completely male-dominated list here. It's not that I don't like Tegan & Sarah--I saw them live once, opening for Ben Folds, and they put on a good show. But it's still not really my thing. And much as I've tried to like Lady Gaga, I still feel only "meh" about her music.

That in mind. . .

( My Top Five Queer Artists! )

So who have I left out? Anyone have recommendations? Questions? Hit me--I'm all ears. :)

Remember Wicked Pretty Things? Well, buckle your seatbelts, because someone's thrown more fuel on this fire.

The basic story is this: Authors Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith wrote this article for Publishers Weekly, detailing their decision to walk after a certain agency asked them to A) marginalize, B) de-gay, or C) entirely remove a pivotal character from their YA novel.

Agent Joanna Stampfel-Volpe (although not the agent in question, at least not as far as sources can tell so far) caught wind of this and put out a response to the internet, saying that the conversation about the character, and what should be done about him, was taken out of context, misconstrued, and these authors are taking things the wrong way and making the agency look bad. Her full rebuttal is here.

It got complicated as more authors, editors, and agency reps hopped onto the comment train, and added their tweets to the conversation.

As usual, the magnificent Cleo has all the details.

The real issue is not truly who said what to whom and for what reasons in this particular incident. Oh, no. The issue is what place queer characters currently occupy in the YA market, and how that needs to change.

Particularly telling is this anonymous comment on Brown and Smith's original article:

"I'm so tired of the reactionary nature of the internet. This is a case in point of that.

As a reader, I don't want to be force-fed something I'm not comfortable with reading or dealing with. This goes for anything, not just homosexual content.

Do homosexuals exist? Do rapists exist? Do drug addicts and drug dealers exist? Do dark and scary things exist?

Yes. But that doesn't mean I want to read about it. I read to escape and if a book leaves me feeling enraged or depressed or anything that isn't a feeling I want to have hanging over my day or week, it's not a book for me.

It has nothing to do with homophobia or bigotry of any kind." (Source)

Take a moment and let that sink in. I want you to note how this person equates rape and drug-dealing with homosexuality. This right here is why we call it homophobia--it all comes down to fear. And it's a fear that, unlike that of rapists and drug-dealers, is completely baseless. I really wonder where these people get their information, and how they draw their conclusions about what makes non-straight people so "dark and scary."

So what do we do about it?

If you're a reader, you can follow the suggestion to vote with your dollars--prove to the marketplace that the readership for queer characters and their stories is out there, especially in YA where all the really important changes seem to be happening these days. That is the best and most impactful way to make something happen.

But what about me? What should I, as a writer, do about this?

( Read on. )