Fourteen Valentines, Half A Dozen Posts
So, it's 14 Valentines again, and once again I completely forgot to sign up to do anything about it until I saw the first post on my flist yesterday. For those of you who don't know, 14 Valentines is an annual collaborative effort to raise awareness and, in large part, celebrate a whole host of issues having to do with the lives of women. It's not feminism in the sense of wandering around with a bingo card looking for oppressions to get angry about, but it is honest, and it's been important to me for a few years now. So you get a link.
I'd had sort of an idea that, even if it wasn't related to 14 Valentines, I'd write a post a day for the first two weeks of February, just to be doing something. Obviously, since it's already the 2nd and, by the time I post this, probably the 3rd, that's not going to happen, but I can at least make some effort at talking about Important Things in here.
So today's essay is on Glee, and it's not about women at all except in that it's entirely about how we talk about oppressions, and what that does to privilege, and...
I want to talk about Blaine and his dad. I want to talk about the tyranny of of course.
There's a tone I've seen, in fandom; it's cropped up a thousand different times, but it didn't really crystallize in my mind until I saw this tumblr post--and not the post so much as the tags.
#of course his parents still love him and of course his father wasn’t trying to make him straight when they fixed a car together #he might not realise it but he is still perfect to them
It's a lovely headcanon. It's even a plausible headcanon. Could Blaine's father just be even worse at people and emotions than Blaine is? Sure.
What bothers me--what scares me, as a queer individual, as a woman, as someone who watches Glee not for the things that couldn't ever happen in the real world, but for the things that could--is the "of course".
There's an article making the rounds of Tumblr today, about a town in Minnesota, and kids who are dying, teenagers, middle schoolers, kids who are dying, and if you've got bullying or suicide triggers be warned, but read it. It will make you uncomfortable. It should.
And that is just one school district, and that school district is a thousand kinds of fucked. And that isn't everywhere, and it isn't even Lima, where the slushies run like blood but nobody ever actually kills themselves, right?
Of course it won't happen on 'Glee'. Of course it won't happen in your town. Of course someone, somewhere, has it rough, but of course the gays you know are safe.
Of course nobody can actually count on any of that, but what can you do.
Three points about Blaine's dad to consider:
First, and most simply, most obviously, there is no of course. Blaine's parents aren't going to love, accept, and cherish him by default, in spite of his being gay, any more than Quinn's beloved father could be counted on to just of course support her when she got pregnant. According to a study by the National Coalition for the Homeless, 26% of LGBT youth who came out to their parents were asked to leave home. That doesn't even begin to factor in the rates of abuse, mental of physical, among those who stay at home--but seriously, just look at that number. That number is one fourth. Even if we're looking just from Ryan Murphy's standpoint as a writer: he's not fishing for drama if he writes deep, serious conflict between Blaine and his parents. He's just playing the numbers.
Second: Blaine has so many more reasons to believe the worry than to believe the of course. It's not a self esteem issue. It's pure probability.
A story: I came out to my parents the summer I was 18. I'd been in college for two years at that point; I'd had a job for a while, and I'd even sublet an apartment instead of coming back home for the summer. If my parents had disowned me completely, withdrawn all financial support, and shut me out entirely, I'd have had to drop out of school, but I could have lived, housed, and fed myself, and that's if my aunt and grandmother would in any universe have let me go without moving in with one of them. Never mind that my dad's entire family are staunch liberal Democrats, and my mother, disapproving Republican that she may be, has never put her foot down long enough to make one of her children so much as eat a piece of broccoli in her life.
I had nightmares about those anti-gay reeducation camps for two nights before I told them, and a week after. I wasn't at risk, I wasn't, but the thing you must understand is that when you're sixteen or seventeen or twelve years old and you don't know what it means to be gay, you may not know about which states have legalized marriage or how the sex is supposed to work or even what you are entirely. You may have seen a thousand IGBP videos, you may have spent years reading slash fanfiction. But you know, somewhere in the fragmented scraps of 'what it means to be gay', about the anti-gay camps. You know about the suicides, and Matthew Shepard, and getting thrown out of the house. If you live in the middle of Minnesota (if you live in Lima, Ohio), if you know nothing else about what it means to be gay, you know that.
And however good and strong and supportive your parents are, you can't take that for granted. You know that other kids like you couldn't take them for granted. Kurt Hummel was afraid to come out to his dad, and there is no parent alive more supportive than Burt.
What I am saying is, Blaine does not get the luxury of an of course. Santana, whose grandmother plastered her refrigerator in photos and loved her beyond words, did not get the luxury of an of course. You cannot blindly trust that it won't matter, not even if they haven't kicked you out. Even if Blaine's parents are trying as hard as they can, Blaine has the right of his doubts. And as we've said above, there is no evidence that they're trying so hard as all that.
Which brings me to my third point. When you claim the 'of course', you do more harm than you could know.
The point of privilege is the 'of course'. It's the not having to think. The not having to worry, or care. The point of privilege is getting to say that surely all parents love their children, because yours will always love you. And that's fine, that's lovely. It should be the 'of course' for everyone. We should all have dads like Burt Hummel.
But when you lay that 'of course' onto someone else, someone who doesn't get the luxury of it in their own life (someone like Blaine, like Santana, like the 26% of LGBT teenagers who're thrown out of their homes or the 74% that aren't, someone like me), then you erase the problems that actually exist. It is not safe to assume that all parents are Burt Hummel, and what's more, it is not safe if the rest of the world assumes it, even if the people in direct danger know better.
The reason Burt matters isn't because he's the default--he's the standard. We need Burt so that we know he's possible, but the only reason that matters is because he's rare. Special. Something we hope that someday, all our parents and teachers will resemble.
But I, with my mother who let me move back into her house and is still trying to fix me up with boys, can't take that for granted. And Blaine, whose parents put him through private school and whose dad tried to teach him to fix cars, can't either.
I'd had sort of an idea that, even if it wasn't related to 14 Valentines, I'd write a post a day for the first two weeks of February, just to be doing something. Obviously, since it's already the 2nd and, by the time I post this, probably the 3rd, that's not going to happen, but I can at least make some effort at talking about Important Things in here.
So today's essay is on Glee, and it's not about women at all except in that it's entirely about how we talk about oppressions, and what that does to privilege, and...
I want to talk about Blaine and his dad. I want to talk about the tyranny of of course.
There's a tone I've seen, in fandom; it's cropped up a thousand different times, but it didn't really crystallize in my mind until I saw this tumblr post--and not the post so much as the tags.
#of course his parents still love him and of course his father wasn’t trying to make him straight when they fixed a car together #he might not realise it but he is still perfect to them
It's a lovely headcanon. It's even a plausible headcanon. Could Blaine's father just be even worse at people and emotions than Blaine is? Sure.
What bothers me--what scares me, as a queer individual, as a woman, as someone who watches Glee not for the things that couldn't ever happen in the real world, but for the things that could--is the "of course".
There's an article making the rounds of Tumblr today, about a town in Minnesota, and kids who are dying, teenagers, middle schoolers, kids who are dying, and if you've got bullying or suicide triggers be warned, but read it. It will make you uncomfortable. It should.
And that is just one school district, and that school district is a thousand kinds of fucked. And that isn't everywhere, and it isn't even Lima, where the slushies run like blood but nobody ever actually kills themselves, right?
Of course it won't happen on 'Glee'. Of course it won't happen in your town. Of course someone, somewhere, has it rough, but of course the gays you know are safe.
Of course nobody can actually count on any of that, but what can you do.
Three points about Blaine's dad to consider:
First, and most simply, most obviously, there is no of course. Blaine's parents aren't going to love, accept, and cherish him by default, in spite of his being gay, any more than Quinn's beloved father could be counted on to just of course support her when she got pregnant. According to a study by the National Coalition for the Homeless, 26% of LGBT youth who came out to their parents were asked to leave home. That doesn't even begin to factor in the rates of abuse, mental of physical, among those who stay at home--but seriously, just look at that number. That number is one fourth. Even if we're looking just from Ryan Murphy's standpoint as a writer: he's not fishing for drama if he writes deep, serious conflict between Blaine and his parents. He's just playing the numbers.
Second: Blaine has so many more reasons to believe the worry than to believe the of course. It's not a self esteem issue. It's pure probability.
A story: I came out to my parents the summer I was 18. I'd been in college for two years at that point; I'd had a job for a while, and I'd even sublet an apartment instead of coming back home for the summer. If my parents had disowned me completely, withdrawn all financial support, and shut me out entirely, I'd have had to drop out of school, but I could have lived, housed, and fed myself, and that's if my aunt and grandmother would in any universe have let me go without moving in with one of them. Never mind that my dad's entire family are staunch liberal Democrats, and my mother, disapproving Republican that she may be, has never put her foot down long enough to make one of her children so much as eat a piece of broccoli in her life.
I had nightmares about those anti-gay reeducation camps for two nights before I told them, and a week after. I wasn't at risk, I wasn't, but the thing you must understand is that when you're sixteen or seventeen or twelve years old and you don't know what it means to be gay, you may not know about which states have legalized marriage or how the sex is supposed to work or even what you are entirely. You may have seen a thousand IGBP videos, you may have spent years reading slash fanfiction. But you know, somewhere in the fragmented scraps of 'what it means to be gay', about the anti-gay camps. You know about the suicides, and Matthew Shepard, and getting thrown out of the house. If you live in the middle of Minnesota (if you live in Lima, Ohio), if you know nothing else about what it means to be gay, you know that.
And however good and strong and supportive your parents are, you can't take that for granted. You know that other kids like you couldn't take them for granted. Kurt Hummel was afraid to come out to his dad, and there is no parent alive more supportive than Burt.
What I am saying is, Blaine does not get the luxury of an of course. Santana, whose grandmother plastered her refrigerator in photos and loved her beyond words, did not get the luxury of an of course. You cannot blindly trust that it won't matter, not even if they haven't kicked you out. Even if Blaine's parents are trying as hard as they can, Blaine has the right of his doubts. And as we've said above, there is no evidence that they're trying so hard as all that.
Which brings me to my third point. When you claim the 'of course', you do more harm than you could know.
The point of privilege is the 'of course'. It's the not having to think. The not having to worry, or care. The point of privilege is getting to say that surely all parents love their children, because yours will always love you. And that's fine, that's lovely. It should be the 'of course' for everyone. We should all have dads like Burt Hummel.
But when you lay that 'of course' onto someone else, someone who doesn't get the luxury of it in their own life (someone like Blaine, like Santana, like the 26% of LGBT teenagers who're thrown out of their homes or the 74% that aren't, someone like me), then you erase the problems that actually exist. It is not safe to assume that all parents are Burt Hummel, and what's more, it is not safe if the rest of the world assumes it, even if the people in direct danger know better.
The reason Burt matters isn't because he's the default--he's the standard. We need Burt so that we know he's possible, but the only reason that matters is because he's rare. Special. Something we hope that someday, all our parents and teachers will resemble.
But I, with my mother who let me move back into her house and is still trying to fix me up with boys, can't take that for granted. And Blaine, whose parents put him through private school and whose dad tried to teach him to fix cars, can't either.