hey, anyone noticed that television is kind of weird about gay men?

[pocochina]

This is something that I think about a fair amount, but various media/fandom developments of the last few weeks have brought it to the front of my mind. The first half of this post is about ~stuff generally; the second half is specific to how it's apparently the Dean/Cas week of our ~cycle in Supernatural fandom.

Comments

[goldenusagi]

Ugh, I have so many thoughts on Supernatural, but I don't really want to type them out, because I feel like been there done that, and also I haven't watched the show in years. I suppose in summary, I feel like the writers are sort of queerbating. If they just told the story that they were telling and it happened to include intense looks between Dean and Cas, fine, but when they start adding actual wink wink nudge nudge into the show itself and then state outside the show that nothing is happening, I get annoyed.

And mentioning Rebekah, I think there's a huge difference in making/revealing a side (woman) character gay/bi, and making the main (man) character gay/bi. One is 'doable' and the other isn't (according to my reading of TV executives). I mean, the equivalent of making Dean bi isn't Rebekah, it would be Damon. But in general, I also feel like women's sexuality isn't viewed as character defining? Like, THIS IS DEAN, HE IS STRAIGHT. And then you've got Rebekah, and it's like, okay, why not, gay, straight, bi, she's a woman, whatever. I don't feel like I'm explaining this very well. I think I mean that a male character, unless he's conceived as gay/bi when the character is being developed (and that is going to be a Point), is less likely to have the "reveal" a few seasons in when the writers run out of story lines for that character/feel like they need to spice things up. And now I'm talking about the Suddenly Gay trope (and I fully realize that people in real life suddenly realize they're not straight, but I'm looking at this from a Doylist perspective, because all these people on TV have someone deciding what will happen in their lives next, and that's what we're talking about here). Even though TV Tropes seems to list a fair number of male characters who, some season, are Suddenly Gay, in my viewing experience, it's always been the female ones (Buffy, Desperate Housewives, Xena, True Blood, not to mention the times that girls just 'experiment' because, y'know, that's a thing girls do). Um, I guess my point here is that it seems to me that writers feel like suddenly making a male character (especially a lead male character) gay or bi would CHANGE WHO THEY ARE, they don't seem to feel the same way about female characters, who often get season long arcs about their coming out, because even if their sexuality changes, it doesn't change them. Probably because we're so hung up on what 'masculinity' is, and femininity is just anything that's not masculine, so it doesn't matter. IDEK.

[waltzmatildah]

I think your whole second paragraph ties in neatly to Poco's Willa Paskin point right at the top that female sexuality in general still doesn't carry the same 'weight' as male sexuality and so Television People (whoever they might be) feel like they can be more flippant with it, like it doesn't have the same impact as male sexuality. Female homosexuality is also more likely to be treated as little more than indulgent titilation. Have I understood that correctly? So yeah, contrast this attitude regarding female sexuality with attitudes regarding male sexuality and what equals masculinity, and you get, well, you get modern television, I guess.

Of all the relationships I've seen in my (admittedly pretty limited in the grand scheme of things) television watching life, the ONLY network television characters I've seen treated with the Suddenly Gay trope have been female. Callie Torres (Grey's Anatomy), Gail Peck (Rookie Blue), Willow (BtVS), several Australian soaps, etc. I'm seriously struggling to think of a single instance where this has happened to a male character in a show that I watch. I might have missed one, but yeah...

[goldenusagi]

I think your whole second paragraph ties in neatly to Poco's Willa Paskin point right at the top that female sexuality in general still doesn't carry the same 'weight' as male sexuality

Yeah, I just got a bit rambly with it, but that's basically it.

the ONLY network television characters I've seen treated with the Suddenly Gay trope have been female

Ditto for my TV watching. I was actually going to make a post about this, about how it only happens to women, but I thought I'd better look it up first, and TV Tropes tells me it happens to men, too, though not on any of the shows I've watched, and not with as much regularity, I don't think. And not being familiar with any of the shows where a man was Suddenly Gay, I can't say how much of a main character they were or not.

[waltzmatildah]

I just went through that Tropes page and I'm not familiar with any of the male Suddenly Gay characters, so I can't help there either.

[pocochina]

With SPN...yeah, it's at the point where the only question is how chickenshit the current PTBs are because it's way past nods and winks. The characterization work has been laid down for Dean the whole time, the usual romantic tropes are in place for Dean/Cas, and the show's gotten a good deal more progressive since the days of "burn witch burn." I still think it's slightly less likely to happen than it is to happen, but it's, you know, 60/40 rather than "clearly we cannot have nice things."

I also feel like women's sexuality isn't viewed as character defining? Like, THIS IS DEAN, HE IS STRAIGHT. And then you've got Rebekah, and it's like, okay, why not, gay, straight, bi, she's a woman, whatever

Yeah, that's definitely one of the core issues. That female sexuality is just not taken half so seriously. And this doesn't do women any favors, but there are ways that this really warps GBQ male representation.

[goldenusagi]

I still think it's slightly less likely to happen than it is to happen, but it's, you know, 60/40 rather than "clearly we cannot have nice things."

As I said, I haven't been watching in a while, so who knows, it may be that I'm just totally out of the loop. I haven't watched the show, though I do see the occasional gifs come across my dash. What I do do, though, is keep up with conventions. Pretty much every SPN convention there is, I'm on tumblr that weekend on the tags. And it just seems like every time the Destiel question is brought up, it is either given a thoughtful answer by Misha or a diplomatic answer by Jensen. But the gist is the same: there's a connection between them for sure, (but). Fill in your own 'but' here. Misha is a little more outspoken, but the feeling that you still get is that they're the actors, and what they say about the characters ultimately doesn't matter because it's the producers who are deciding things. Even when Jensen or Misha says (paraphrase) 'it's something we all know but it doesn't make it into the text', all I hear is 'it doesn't make it into the text'. No matter what the show lays down as far a subtext and no matter if Misha screams from the rooftops that Dean and Castiel love each other, unless there's a follow through from the producers, it just kind of seems meaningless to me? Which takes me back to the queerbaiting. They're perfectly happy to put in all this stuff that makes it seem like Dean and Cas are in love, but when it comes to it, it doesn't happen. And even though I'm a Dean/Cas shipper, I really don't even care at this point? I was fine with them in S4/5, when there wasn't all the subtext, and I was shipping it when they were just friends. But if they're going to add in as much stuff as they have, meaning, they aren't just telling a story anymore, they're pandering, then they should follow through. And I don't think they will. Because I think that's exactly what they're doing: pandering. Trying to keep everyone happy, without ever coming down on it. Because unless they come down on it, Dean is straight, because straight is the 'default setting'. They want to keep him straight and keep all of the fans who want him to not be straight. And really, at this point, I also think Dean will never be written as coming out because if he did, yeah, it would have to be with Castiel, and so then it becomes a matter of the show not just having a bisexual character, but ENDORSING A SHIP. I have no idea how much the Wincesters get around these days, or if Destiel has completely taken over the fandom, but I feel like the powers that be would never make Dean bi because it all really started with a ship. And wow, I have now just typed everything about SPN that I said I wasn't going to. Long story short, I've been watching for a while, and every season I've seen 'they have to make it canon this time, it's really getting involved!' and they never do. There are essays written in S6/7/8 (even S5, probably) about how it's just has to happen now surely, but nothing ever does. Maybe this season really is different and I'll be surprised, I don't know. But I think history will probably repeat itself.