in which Katta is growly as all fuck

[kattahj]

Okay, so someone writes a pretty fun article comparing the sex potential of Avatar and Sherlock Holmes. I, as the idiot I am, read the comments.

FUCK I HATE PEOPLE.

I particularly hate this one:

Comments

[wee_warrior]

Acting as if there were NO gay people back in anno dazumal.

I'm sure Oscar Wilde is shocked by these thoughts.

Judging from anecdotal evidence mostly derived from TV shows I do believe producers did - and in some cases, still do - try to make male relationships less close, because they are afraid of slash interpretations (or, I'd theorize, because they are afraid of their advertisers' reactions to these interpretations), but I think that is a clear sign of internalized homophobia. In other words, if the media - and a larger quantity of the (male) viewership - were more accepting of storylines featuring gay people, and especially gay men, it would be far easier to show close male platonic friendships without having to "prove" that it is not something sexual.

[therru]

Incidentally, Arthur Conan Doyle was pals with Wilde. :)

[kattahj]

Shush! How dare you! ACD would roll in his grave at the mere thought of Teh Gay! It is ever so much worse than the mice and ducks and robots!

I'm ridiculously amused by saying "Arthur Conan Doyle would roll in his grave."

[therru]

From what I've read, he was pretty liberal-minded for his time and defended Wilde on more than one occasion. Also, he wasn't even very proprietary about Holmes, and didnt care much what others did with him after he himself was done writing him. So I think he is probably not losing any peace of death about anything, except possibly conservative homophobic wankers. :)

[kattahj]

Yeah, I'm pretty amused at the thought of all of these people trying to protect the fictional virtue of a character whose own creator tried to murder him. :-)

[kattahj]

Yeah, exactly. Of course it's done, but it's done because they, like these commenters, think gay is an insult. And these days, a lot of producers seem to roll with the punches. Someone pointed out that when people on Psych mistake Shawn and Gus for a couple, Shawn tends to reply stuff in the line with "oh, he can do so much better than me" rather than "no no no, we're not gay."

I mean, I know it's annoying to be seen as a couple when you're not - I had a close guy friend in my teens, and our other friends kept insisting that we WERE in love, we just didn't KNOW it yet (apart from one girl who was convinced he was gay, which in retrospect makes a helluva lot more sense, though he wasn't). I got massively annoyed with that, but it would never have occurred to me to stop cuddling the guy when we met or writing him letters when we didn't.

And of course, then we get people like the Heroes actors, who defuse rumours by cuddling everyone. But I guess that's what these assholes would call "juvenile". (So it's slashers' fault that macho men

[wee_warrior]

And these days, a lot of producers seem to roll with the punches.

Yeah, I think it got a lot better over the last ten years. Rumour persists that during Deep Space Nine, the station's doctor Bashir and retired spy/assassin/tailor Garak were deliberately kept apart during later seasons because there was lots of subtext (intentionally, from the actors' side), but now you have things like your Psych example, or House, where it seems to be very deliberate subtext as well. Still, you also have the counter example (most recent one I encountered was a denial for True Blood, concerning one of the main vampires and his sire, which I found just plain odd - first because it was obviously also deliberate subtext, secondly, because said main vampire is constantly hinted to be bisexaul, and thirdly because the creator is gay. No idea what that mess was about.).

I mean, I know it's annoying to be seen as a couple when you're not - I had a close guy friend in my teens, and our other friends kept insisting that we WERE in love, we just didn't KNOW

[kattahj]

The thought that someone would find that worth complaining about is somewhat hilarious. I mean, a) actors, for heaven's sake, and b) it doesn't seem to me that Pasdar of all people has a problem in the masculinity department.

His masculinity doesn't seem to suffer the least bit from him fondling all his coworkers, no. :-) Though he does make a very pretty (if square-jawed) girl.

That was in the Celluloid Closet, wasn't it?

It was. I love that film, especially all the bits about old-film subtext. Like how the writers of Rebel Without a Cause were all, "Oh, we didn't think of that, but of course Plato is gay."

Of course, he played the "bad guy" and fluent sexuality has always been more acceptable for them than for leading men. I suspect that's what all the fuss with Holmes and Watson is actually about.

That's very true. Which now makes me wonder what would have happened if they'd put in a gay Moriarty or lesbian Irene Adler... *mind is distracted by lesbian Irene Adler and promptly forgets the discussion topic*