Anyway this week reading Genesis I was musing on Jacob’s folly in blessing Ephraim and Manasseh, Joseph’s sons. This manipulative stinker thinks that just like he stole the birthright from Esau, so he can upend tradition and elevate Ephraim the younger son over Manasseh, and they’re not even twins!
But that’s not even the most interesting part. The best part is that Jacob lays it on REAL thick in Genesis 49 about how Joseph’s kids are the most specialist ones ever. No other grandkids get a shoutout from Jacob on his deathbed. The rabbis say (compellingly tbh) that maybe Jacob wanted to publically acknowledge these boys since their mother was the daughter of an Egyptian priest, the ultimate idolators. Yes, I bet that was part of it. But the other part was obviously Jacob’s confidence that Joseph’s lineage would reign supreme throughout the generations. After all, isn’t that what all those old prophetic dreams were about?
The dramatic irony is that over the generations, Ephraim and Manassah underperform as leaders. Half of Manassah even refuses the heritage of Caanan and lives across the Jordan. Joseph’s descendents disappear with the 10 Lost Tribes like no one special. It’s Judah and Benjamin who survive, from whom we trace our legacy as Jews.
Jacob was a horrible father and a lousy clairvoyant, who died thinking he’d got the upper hand on the birth order tradition, as if that’s what’s most important in a family. Judah, on the other hand, who accepts and atones for his mistakes, is a better father, brother, and leader, and from him is merited the Jewish people’s future.
So I had a ramble about how important it was that Hanes and Ubeda purposefully played a mlm couple in CATS, and how that affected the fandom, and I stand by that, but I do also now have some additional data that really shows how much the 2019 movie affected Tuggoffelees specifically.
We see the Hanes and Ubeda bump there. And then the movie was announced.
This does actually play to my personal experience. I heard about the movie, which got me looking back into fandom and finding out about Tuggoffelees being canon in the Broadway show. Which lit the fire once again!
An interesting comparison I was able to find. Now Google Trends is weird and there are conflicts with some search terms so this isn’t perfect (for example, M/istoria is also the name of a UK Real Estate Group, so doing shipname vs shipname is completely screwed up). I wanted this data, though, to add to my point that queer wasn’t the norm in this fandom until fairly recently.
