I've been thinking about this all afternoon. I have a few thoughts and I'm not posting them to be argumentative or anything, so feel free to delete the whole comment if you feel it necessary:
The idea that "nobody" pointed anything out in Series 1 & 2, is a bit of a ret-con itself. Jack made the "quaint little categories" remark, specifically because Tosh (I think) said "Doesn't she have a girlfriend?" when she saw Gwen & Carys in the cell. Owen was extremely keen to point out Jack's gayness "period military is not the attire of a straight man." Tosh made the "shag anything" remark and she herself at least acknowledged that sleeping with a woman (or an alien) might be a problem for her parents.
We were sold the idea that in Torchwood "everyone is bi" but the point still had to be made verbally. So it wasn't quite a utopia of carefree sexuality.
Most of the gay jokes in Rendition were being made by Rex, who was pretty much established as a asshole for the bulk of the episode anyway. He was basically being Greg House. The first line about letting the steward feel him up was EXTREMELY House-like.
I definitely think there was a significant shift in tone in how the show treated sexuality in s1/2 where the context in which the characters engage in queer relationships is pretty idealised to the point that two men dancing in the forties or two men dancing at a wedding or two women kissing in public isn't really commented on.Tosh hooking up with Mary doesn't become a subject for comment and neither does Ianto going from Lisa to Jack. They're pretty much taken as given. By contrast apparently nobody in s3 can pass Ianto without feeling the need to pass comment on his sexuality, even virtual strangers. It's pretty jarring. But then again one of the things I loved about the early seasons was that being queer was treated as an aspect of who the characters were, but it wasn't treated like some sole defining character trait.
I actually have major issues with the CJH dancing and fanon to the extent that it was a problem. Obviously it was all swept away in the romanticism of the moment and I'm as much a sucker that whole episode as anyone else, but I think that's less a statement of about the show's treatment of sexuality than it is a hand-wave to get to the big tear-jerky ending.
I'm not saying it's completely the same, but I think it's less different than a lot of people are claiming for whatever reason.
For example, you may not think the Mary thing comes up for comment, but Jack chooses that episode and that point to tell his Vincent/Vanessa story, which can be construed as transphobic or at least not a situation that's free of quaint little categories.
Kind of like saying CoE was so dark and so many people died, and therefore it wasn't really Torchwood, when it fact someone died in almost every episode of Series 1 and 2 and if you tallied up the bleak vs the cute/funny/crack or whatever, the facts just don't support the assertion.
I'm willing to say things are different, but there's a lot people starting to establish memes about how the show was before that aren't completely accurate.
I think you raise some fair points, in that yeah, even S1 and S2 didn't pretend that categories for sexual orientation don't exist, but at the same time, I don't think they were ever used to taunt anyone either, which is different to CoE and now MD. I mean, if we look at Owen taunting Ianto about being Jack's "part time shag" -- he's being an asshole (and in many ways, he's comparable to Rex), but he's not using the fact that it's a same sex relationship to facilitate his assholery.
Anyway, ultimately this is probably something that's going to rub some people the wrong way but not other people. Obviously, it's making a huge difference that you're contextualising this in terms of Egan's work in House, which is a context that I don't have -- and that's no criticism of you, just that it's inevitably going to mean that we look at this differently -- and neither of us is necessarily right or wrong. :)
(On another topic -- I'm watching the most recent White Collar right now, and OMG, your theory re: Mozzie's unrequited love for Neal grows stronger every episode!)
The idea that "nobody" pointed anything out in Series 1 & 2, is a bit of a ret-con itself. Jack made the "quaint little categories" remark, specifically because Tosh (I think) said "Doesn't she have a girlfriend?" when she saw Gwen & Carys in the cell. Owen was extremely keen to point out Jack's gayness "period military is not the attire of a straight man." Tosh made the "shag anything" remark and she herself at least acknowledged that sleeping with a woman (or an alien) might be a problem for her parents.
We were sold the idea that in Torchwood "everyone is bi" but the point still had to be made verbally. So it wasn't quite a utopia of carefree sexuality.
Most of the gay jokes in Rendition were being made by Rex, who was pretty much established as a asshole for the bulk of the episode anyway. He was basically being Greg House. The first line about letting the steward feel him up was EXTREMELY House-like.
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I'm not saying it's completely the same, but I think it's less different than a lot of people are claiming for whatever reason.
For example, you may not think the Mary thing comes up for comment, but Jack chooses that episode and that point to tell his Vincent/Vanessa story, which can be construed as transphobic or at least not a situation that's free of quaint little categories.
Kind of like saying CoE was so dark and so many people died, and therefore it wasn't really Torchwood, when it fact someone died in almost every episode of Series 1 and 2 and if you tallied up the bleak vs the cute/funny/crack or whatever, the facts just don't support the assertion.
I'm willing to say things are different, but there's a lot people starting to establish memes about how the show was before that aren't completely accurate.
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Anyway, ultimately this is probably something that's going to rub some people the wrong way but not other people. Obviously, it's making a huge difference that you're contextualising this in terms of Egan's work in House, which is a context that I don't have -- and that's no criticism of you, just that it's inevitably going to mean that we look at this differently -- and neither of us is necessarily right or wrong. :)
(On another topic -- I'm watching the most recent White Collar right now, and OMG, your theory re: Mozzie's unrequited love for Neal grows stronger every episode!)
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