hey, anyone noticed that television is kind of weird about gay men?
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.
( some observations about trends in depiction of male sexuality ~generally )
( some observations about trends in depiction of male sexuality ~generally )
I think it makes a LOT of sense.
As an additional and kinda related but kinda not note (probably more regarding fandom than anything else): It drives me inssssaaaane when a character who has been portrayed as straight for seasons suddenly (or not so suddenly - that part is irrelevant actually) engages in behaviour indicative of same-sex attraction they are immediately declared by fandom as being Totally Gay, as though bisexuality is not a thing. And to suggest otherwise gets your head bitten off! And if a character ends their same sex relationship and even so much as vaguely ~looks like they might be interested in someone of the opposite sex, fandom goes bat-shit about character assassination. I completely understand that there has been (and still is) a lack of realistic portrayals of same sex couples/homosexual characters on television, and there are legitimate ~reasons for labelling a character as Gay as opposed to bi, but... but... it annoys me. Yeah. Because bisexuality is an actual thing just as much as homosexuality and heterosexuality and all the other 'alities are actual things. And yet I can't think of a SINGLE show that I've watched where this has been honestly explored for a male OR a female character. Grey's Anatomy have maaaaybe come the closest with Callie Torres, but not really, tbqh. She was straight and then she was gay is the general vibe that show has given off.
Anyway, yeah. My intention here was totally not to derail your very legitimate/necessary post about representations of gay men so I'm going to stop there now that I've got that off my chest!
TLDR; very interesting post! Thank you for sharing it :)
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And Callie was like, BOTH. And I got both perspectives? She had sex with Mark and was like, no, it still feels just as good, something clearly is wrong with me that i'm not NOT turned on. BUT ERICA HAS GLASSES ON ALL OF A SUDDEN, WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?
Overall: I agree to the points of this post. Being Gay/OTHER is Not Comfortable in network television (or television in general). But I think Grey's was/is trying to trailblaze.
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I just think I might want to have my cake (realistic portrayals of bi women) and eat it too (where their sexuality is front and centre so they can Teach Me All The Things) so, ignore me!
But I think Grey's was/is trying to trailblaze. You know what? Another factor I totally have to take into consideration here is my absolute tendency towards cynicism when it comes to this show and everything it's chosen to be since, like, mid season five. There is also that!!
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AND I UNDERSTAND YOUR NOT KNOWING. Because I think the show TRIED to have its cake and eat it too! And was therefore not satisfyingly one way or the other- just WELL IT'S PROBABLY BISEXUALITY BUT MAYBE HE'S *MAN ENOUGH* to STRAIGHT HER QUEER WE WON'T SPELL IT OUT THAT WOULD LOSE US ADVERTISING DOLLARS
I think in the following ep she did say it aloud that she thought she was bisexual to Erica though. And was therefore dumped. It is on the HD though, and a while ago!
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And was therefore dumped. Oh, boy. Was this the cause of the dumping?? For some reason I thought that came down to Callie erring on the side of supporting Izzie Stevens in reprisal of The Great Stolen Heart And Severed LVAD Debacle of 2005! Clearly I am mis-remembering (and very unlikely to go back and re-watch).
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In a 2011 interview for The Watercooler, Michelle Lovretta described her reaction to being asked to create Lost Girl: "When Prodigy (our studio) asked me to create a show about some kind of bisexual superhero who uses sex as part of her arsenal, my first thought was "hell, yes!"...The challenge was to create a fun, sex-positive world that celebrates provocative cheesecake for everyone, without falling into base stereotypes or misogynistic (or misandristic) exploitation along the way...Bo has lots of sex, with men, women, humans, Fae, threesomes... and she’s still our hero, still a good person worthy (and capable) of love, and that’s a rare portrayal of female sexuality...It’s also rare to have a female lead who is so honestly sexual, without judgment...I think the single element I will remain proudest of is just that we’ve been able to create and put out into the world a sex positive universe where a person’s sexual orientation is unapologetically present and yet neither defines them as a character, nor the show as a whole."
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But yeah, she kind of drives the point into the ground, doesn't she. "Captain Jack Harkness can survive on American basic cable, as long as we're talking about a Canadian show with the tiniest of cult followings, and also as long as she's a woman."
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"Canadian supernatural crime drama..."
How do I not know about this show?!
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if a character ends their same sex relationship and even so much as vaguely ~looks like they might be interested in someone of the opposite sex, fandom goes bat-shit about character assassination. I completely understand that there has been (and still is) a lack of realistic portrayals of same sex couples/homosexual characters on television, and there are legitimate ~reasons for labelling a character as Gay as opposed to bi, but... but... it annoys me. Yeah.
And on the one hand...I kind of get it? I think television fifteen or maybe even ten years ago or less, there was so little queer representation at all that the idea of putting a canonically queer character into a m/f relationship would be like a slap in the face, as you say. I can understand how showrunners and fans would worry about implicitly reinforcing all that nonsense about bisexuality being "a phase" or "curable" or whatever. But now that there's a little more of a margin in terms of raw numbers of queer characters - though overwhelmingly women - the framework does have to change.
(Though in a non-boneheaded way, obviously. I don't know if you ever watched House? But there was a character in the later seasons who started out being really promising because she was bi, she identified as bi, she never had any issues about being bi, it was fine. But then it started to play into some really nasty tropes where when she was in her ~dark night of the soul~ she had lots of sex with women, and then the thing that signaled she was ~seeing the light was when she got into a conventional relationship with a male character. And...I don't know if that ever improved? And I don't know why that was the thing that left a bad enough taste in my mouth about House that led me to lose interest, but I think it was. And...on the one hand, the fact that female bisexuality is "less threatening" or whatever meant that we could have that character? But it also meant that when this particular storyline dropped, the kind of shocking implications of it don't seem to have gotten the weight they ought to have.)
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I stopped watching the show a bit after you did, so you might be interested to know that Thirteen/Foreman imploded spectacularly due to him being a jackass. And I think I read somewhere that in the run-up to the series's end we find out that Thirteen has moved away to be with a girlfriend, so there is that.
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I was only ever a casual House viewer. I've seen odd episodes here and there and pretty much nothing from the later episodes.
But then it started to play into some really nasty tropes where when she was in her ~dark night of the soul~ she had lots of sex with women, and then the thing that signaled she was ~seeing the light was when she got into a conventional relationship with a male character. Um, excuse me??!! Wow, that's... wow.
But it also meant that when this particular storyline dropped, the kind of shocking implications of it don't seem to have gotten the weight they ought to have. Yeah, unfortunately this makes a lot of ~cultural sense... Do you think it would be different if it happened now? I mean, I get that it was probably only a couple of years ago, but I do think things are changing little by little on this front. I'd like to think it would be picked up and examined for what it was a little more closely these days.
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