... in which baby, I'm committing high treason
Okay, so, I love the Jeeves and Wooster books. I appreciate that PG Wodehouse was pretty awesome. But until yesterday, when, while knackered and yet innundated with bangs and explosions that tend to be rather antithetical to sleep, I picked up Mike and Psmith, I had not read any of the Psmith books. Needless to state, I am now halfway through Psmith In The City, and loving it. And I am saddened - nay, appalled! - that nobody told me how cute and gay they are! Seriously, people.
Okay, I must admit that I was under the impression for nearly half of Mike and Psmith that they were about thirteen or fourteen at the time and therefore finding them so slashy was quite disturbing. But then I realised they were eighteen when they met, and, um, well, the gayness really does just increase by the minute. I am so sad for them that they end up marrying other people! Seriously! It's quite possible it'll be cute and lovely when I actually read it, but the impression I have had is that Mike and Psmith slowly grow apart and Mike marries, and then so does Psmith. Which would have to be that way round, because god, Psmith's enormous crush on Mike is just... kind of painfully obvious. And while Mike is either clueless or straighter than Psmith, or both, they're just quite adorable. Psmith went through elaborate and silly theatrics to try and help him! And then never told Mike a word! And never would have, if it hadn't failed and Psmith hadn't then decided to go and throw himself on his sword in a last-ditch attempt to stop Mike being expelled. Oh, honey!
(Also, I sekritly kind of think Psmith was faking the I've-secretly-been-good-at-cricket-all-along thing in favour of spending the whole term practicising and getting better at it so he could bond with Mike about it. OMG.)
And now... omg. Mike being all upset he couldn't go to Cambridge and then working in a bank and then Psmith turning up at the very same bank, leaving his own place at university to go and work with Mike. For pretty much no reason at all. And then gets Mike to live with him! Babies!
Note: I am entirely cogniscant of the fact that PG Wodehouse wouldn't have thought that. He didn't think Jeeves and Wooster were kind of queer, either. However, I contend that this is because he seems to have been a mostly asexual kind of person (which, fair enough, if the person says he doesn't care about/notice romantic or sexual interraction much, that it's not important or relevant to him most of the time and he doesn't want it to be) and wrote his books in a world he concieved of being mostly exempt from anything approaching romantic feeling. I just think that this combined with his tendency to write very strong relationships between people of the same gender as his primary focus does end up making it seem, to this queer reader, kind of... gay.
In a good way. :D (And if he were still around, I don't think he'd mind, either.)
And oh my god I've discovered who Stephen Fry talks like. I could see there was some influence from Wodehouse before, obviously, but the way he writes himself - in both The Liar and Moab - is... Psmith. Down to a goddamn T. Heeeeee and loooove, omg.
Also, I want to know how nobody told me about the TV Tropes wiki. It's great - just one look at the difference between their 'character tropes that are always male page and their characters that are always female page is fascinating.
There's been some discussion about how the number of only-ever-male roles is much smaller than the only-ever-female list, and what that means. Some people seem to think that it's about women being allowed to be anything while men's roles are still more limited. ZOMG OPPRESSHUN OF THE MENZ, I think is how it goes.
And I really don't think it is. I'm looking at those lists, and what I see is that while there is now a place in mainstream television for the 'exceptional' woman who takes a male role, men are still never shoved into the demeaning, crap, ridiculous and stupid roles that women still get given. Who the hell wants to be considered a brainless giggling bimbo? Nobody, not even the people who accept that they are treated as such and don't mind it. The people who take pride in their bimbo status do so because they say it means that men want to have sex with them, they are socially recognised as 'considered worthy of having sex with', and this is a form of power they do have access to. And they're right, because other forms of power are denied them: if they weren't considered sexy then they wouldn't have even the tiny bit of bargaining power they do have.
And it's the same with the TV roles thing. The men get given the important roles, with depth and who we're supposed to care about, as a matter of course. That's default. They don't need the roles as nagging wife or pouty secretary, because those positions are crap and obviously, men are too good for those. Which, hi... doesn't being a person mean you're too good for that?
I think my main argument is just that 'hey, wouldn't it be nice if the insulting and demeaning roles were just got rid of altogether? why does somebody need to be leered at like a piece of meat in order for a joke to be made anyway?' But it's not just that, because I've been reading Preacher lately, and while I'm really liking it, it slightly bugs me that Tulip's story is also all about Jesse. And then I was thinking to myself, well, Tulip's really cool and why shouldn't the story actually be about the dude with the powers? And then I realised that it bugged me because that's the default - what importance the women in a story have, how much what they do is part of the plot or whatever, is almost always actually through their relationship with a man in some way, and he's the one who's actually important.
Which isn't always true, especially in novels, and it's getting better, slowly. I'm just saying... one insidence of it being about the man wouldn't bug nearly as much if it wasn't nearly always all about the man.
Oh, and finally, I think Unphotographable is kind of beautiful. I also kind of wish I'd had that idea first.
Okay, I must admit that I was under the impression for nearly half of Mike and Psmith that they were about thirteen or fourteen at the time and therefore finding them so slashy was quite disturbing. But then I realised they were eighteen when they met, and, um, well, the gayness really does just increase by the minute. I am so sad for them that they end up marrying other people! Seriously! It's quite possible it'll be cute and lovely when I actually read it, but the impression I have had is that Mike and Psmith slowly grow apart and Mike marries, and then so does Psmith. Which would have to be that way round, because god, Psmith's enormous crush on Mike is just... kind of painfully obvious. And while Mike is either clueless or straighter than Psmith, or both, they're just quite adorable. Psmith went through elaborate and silly theatrics to try and help him! And then never told Mike a word! And never would have, if it hadn't failed and Psmith hadn't then decided to go and throw himself on his sword in a last-ditch attempt to stop Mike being expelled. Oh, honey!
(Also, I sekritly kind of think Psmith was faking the I've-secretly-been-good-at-cricket-all-along thing in favour of spending the whole term practicising and getting better at it so he could bond with Mike about it. OMG.)
And now... omg. Mike being all upset he couldn't go to Cambridge and then working in a bank and then Psmith turning up at the very same bank, leaving his own place at university to go and work with Mike. For pretty much no reason at all. And then gets Mike to live with him! Babies!
Note: I am entirely cogniscant of the fact that PG Wodehouse wouldn't have thought that. He didn't think Jeeves and Wooster were kind of queer, either. However, I contend that this is because he seems to have been a mostly asexual kind of person (which, fair enough, if the person says he doesn't care about/notice romantic or sexual interraction much, that it's not important or relevant to him most of the time and he doesn't want it to be) and wrote his books in a world he concieved of being mostly exempt from anything approaching romantic feeling. I just think that this combined with his tendency to write very strong relationships between people of the same gender as his primary focus does end up making it seem, to this queer reader, kind of... gay.
In a good way. :D (And if he were still around, I don't think he'd mind, either.)
And oh my god I've discovered who Stephen Fry talks like. I could see there was some influence from Wodehouse before, obviously, but the way he writes himself - in both The Liar and Moab - is... Psmith. Down to a goddamn T. Heeeeee and loooove, omg.
Also, I want to know how nobody told me about the TV Tropes wiki. It's great - just one look at the difference between their 'character tropes that are always male page and their characters that are always female page is fascinating.
There's been some discussion about how the number of only-ever-male roles is much smaller than the only-ever-female list, and what that means. Some people seem to think that it's about women being allowed to be anything while men's roles are still more limited. ZOMG OPPRESSHUN OF THE MENZ, I think is how it goes.
And I really don't think it is. I'm looking at those lists, and what I see is that while there is now a place in mainstream television for the 'exceptional' woman who takes a male role, men are still never shoved into the demeaning, crap, ridiculous and stupid roles that women still get given. Who the hell wants to be considered a brainless giggling bimbo? Nobody, not even the people who accept that they are treated as such and don't mind it. The people who take pride in their bimbo status do so because they say it means that men want to have sex with them, they are socially recognised as 'considered worthy of having sex with', and this is a form of power they do have access to. And they're right, because other forms of power are denied them: if they weren't considered sexy then they wouldn't have even the tiny bit of bargaining power they do have.
And it's the same with the TV roles thing. The men get given the important roles, with depth and who we're supposed to care about, as a matter of course. That's default. They don't need the roles as nagging wife or pouty secretary, because those positions are crap and obviously, men are too good for those. Which, hi... doesn't being a person mean you're too good for that?
I think my main argument is just that 'hey, wouldn't it be nice if the insulting and demeaning roles were just got rid of altogether? why does somebody need to be leered at like a piece of meat in order for a joke to be made anyway?' But it's not just that, because I've been reading Preacher lately, and while I'm really liking it, it slightly bugs me that Tulip's story is also all about Jesse. And then I was thinking to myself, well, Tulip's really cool and why shouldn't the story actually be about the dude with the powers? And then I realised that it bugged me because that's the default - what importance the women in a story have, how much what they do is part of the plot or whatever, is almost always actually through their relationship with a man in some way, and he's the one who's actually important.
Which isn't always true, especially in novels, and it's getting better, slowly. I'm just saying... one insidence of it being about the man wouldn't bug nearly as much if it wasn't nearly always all about the man.
Oh, and finally, I think Unphotographable is kind of beautiful. I also kind of wish I'd had that idea first.