I need a Nero gif, I think.
Okay, remember, remember, remember how a couple months ago I wrote some paraphrased and redundant rhetoric about how important it is to ship gay couples, and giving queer sexuality a presence in pop culture, and how it's bullshit that no one acknowledges subtext, and I don't know, whatever else I said?
I still think that, don't get me wrong. I'm less yelly about it lately cause while it's something in which I believe, it's not totally my motivation when I write, so I feel sorta weird about appropriating it. When I write fics, it's more 'oh god you know what would be HOT? If Jim was an X and Spock was Y and then they fell in love really slowly and had complicated feelings!' I'm so used to shipping boys with boys and girls with girls that there isn't a lot of intention behind it anymore. I pair people if I see them together-and since most of the shows/movies/ect that I fangirl over focus around male duos, it's not really a surprise that pretty much I write gay stuff 100% of the time. I often have to remind myself to throw in a couple straights, actually, and not fulfill the Everyone is Gay trope. Unless it's Star Trek, because everyone legitimately IS gay in TOS.
Anyway, this isn't even really a thing, but my friend and I had a weird pseudo-argument about it last night, so:
Steve/Tony or Captain America/Iron Man.
Totally hot, amirite? Steve is all WHOLESOME and MORAL and BORING (okay, maybe not boring, but I have Carpe Brewski's Steve in my head as canon, and that guy is dull), and Tony is THE OPPOSITE OF ALL OF THOSE THINGS, and fission/fusion and then they yell at each other and end up having sex that Pepper probably walks in on. Awesome! I have read a couple of these fics-okay, one, one of these fics, I haven't been reading much fanfiction lately because of reasons, ANYWAY-and they are lovely, and I really admire writers who can take Steve and make him interesting, and yes, fanfiction, awesome, shipping, l love it.
Except that I don't actually ship them together at all. Which is odd, cause usually I'm on board with the general consensus of the internet, but, meh, I just don't see it. I don't see the gay angle with Steve-the Captain America comics that I've read don't give me much to work with in either direction, and the movie didn't come across as subtexty for me. There were places where there could have been a spark with Bucky, but they just came across as bros, and for once I left a superhero movie pretty sure that they were telling us everything. And he's AMERICA, America in the FORTIES-you don't get much straighter than that.
Tony I can see as gay, or bisexual-probably the latter, though to actually know what the hell I'm talking about, I'd have to rewatch the movies or find some of the comics. So let's just leave it at 'okay, maybe!'
One of the many problems with falling into the habit of recognizing themes in blockbusters is that there are these relationships that exist somewhere between canon and shipping. No one actually disputes John/Sherlock (okay, except for my mother and one of my stupid friends, but no one who's INTO IT); it's fanon and unquestioned. We work off the assumption that there's something going on off-camera; it's different from going 'oh hey, I bet these two characters would work well together, let's explore that'. Charles/Erik is fanon; Raven/Angel is normal shipping (is there a word for this?). Granted, this has some variance, but I'm gonna keep it simple and say that GENERALLY, the biggest pairings go without saying.
Because of this, people get mad when you contest them. Put the characters in different configurations, sure, play around with pairings, but don't say that Spock isn't with Jim in canon, are you crazy? People care. And when they meet people who disagree with them, they're-or, well, I'll speak for myself-I'm so surprised that I'm taken completely off-guard. It's like listening to someone say 'Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy? Man, are you serious? That would NEVER HAPPEN.'
IT HAPPENED. I SAW IT HAPPEN. DON'T TELL ME IT DIDN'T HAPPEN.
And my POINT is that it's sometimes difficult to tell fanon from shipping (reason 32849038 they should just let the damn queers get together, please). And I don't know if you can justify getting angry when your pairing is denied either way-cause, I mean, come on, getting MAD is kind of stupid in any of these discussions-but I know that the word 'homophobia' comes up when people reject gay fanon couples. Which isn't always totally fair-I mean, it's canon that Spock and Uhura get together in the new movie and comics, you watch them have moments, but NOPE I STILL HAVE TROUBLE BUYING IT. It doesn't mean that I'm anti-straight. Sometimes pairings just don't work for someone, and that's okay.
Sometimes, probably, people refuse to see relationships that are really obvious (to fangirls, at least) because they don't like gay people, or don't acknowledge gay people, or aren't aware enough for it to even occur to them, or a billion different variations on the theme. But I don't think it's fair to jump to the conclusion of homophobia, and I don't think it's fair to say that it's a disservice to the characters or gay people in general. I don't think that, by rejecting one dynamic, you're rejecting the idea that there should be as many gay characters as fucking possible in pop culture. Maybe you just don't see X and Y together, and that has everything to do with their personalities and nothing to do with their sexuality. I think that rejecting certain gay pairings is actually a good thing for gay presence; it treats gay couples with the same legitimacy as straight ones. I want queers in pop culture, but more than that, I want realistic relationships-I want pairings that make SENSE, that are character-driven.
And Tony/Steve doesn't fulfill that for me, for whatever reason. I know it does for a lot of people, and that's cool! I'll totally read your porn. But rejecting a pairing because it doesn't feel true to the characters to me isn't an affront to sexuality or any other cause. It's just putting characters ahead of agenda.
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A note: This applies to other minorities in pop culture, too, but homosexuality is the one I see most often and the one about which I kinda sorta think I know what I'm talking about. There are articles to write about the presence/fanon of polyamory and gender and asexuality and other queeritude and things I haven't even thought of, but I don't feel qualified to write them. Yet!