The issue I have with the whole “make period dramas about masculine/androgynous women!” is that our modern understandings of masculinity, femininity, and androgyny are not ubiquitous across history.
[ID: “weird how all swooning, beloved-by-the-new-yorker lesbian dramas are set just far enough in the past that both parties will be as feminine as possible, based on the sartorial standards of the time. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.”]
There were absolutely instances of queer women (or even dubiously heterosexual women) who dressed in what was at the time a “masculine” style. There is even popular media that portrays them. One example would be Jo March from Little Women, who wore dresses tailored to have a “menswear” aesthetic and silhouette, and who eschewed contemporary standards of femininity through her aspirations, opinions, and presence, beyond just her fashion sense. The recent adaptation of Little Women decided to go the exhaustingly simplistic route of having her wear men’s clothes (Laurie’s, specifically), which is not something that was done. It wouldn’t have given the impression that she was more masculine, it would’ve given the impression that she was a crazy person. Today, women wearing men’s clothes is considered “butch” or “masculine,” but at the time, women could achieve the same effect in different ways.
Not only is the idea that media depictions of feminine queer women aren’t important discrediting to actual feminine queer women, it’s also simply not reflected in reality. Again, the modern eye might see skirts and pinned-up hair and think oh, that’s femme, but that simply doesn’t translate. Much in the same way that we today don’t think of, for example, bras as exclusively feminine (butch women can still wear bras without losing their butch cred!), queer women of the past did not always view things like skirts or corsets or long hair as restrictive in the same way a modern viewer might assume.
I’ve seen similar complaints arising about, for example, Gentleman Jack, wherein people claim that the show makes Anne Lister out to be more feminine than she was, or that it shows a femme/femme couple, or that there’s nothing “revolutionary” about two feminine queer women being portrayed onscreen… none of which is the case. The Anne Lister of Gentleman Jack is incredibly masculine… for the time, where masculinity presented itself differently than it does today. No, Anne Lister does not have a buzz cut, she doesn’t wear tank tops or work boots or eschew makeup entirely, because that’s not how masculinity presented itself when she was alive.
And, unfortunately, I’ve seen a few people starting to complain about Ammonite, which isn’t even out yet! One complaint I saw specifically said that GNC women would be more harshly punished then than they would be now, and that Ammonite would show women dressed and acting “super femininely.” None of that is correct! The film is about Mary Anning, who was during her lifetime considered to be an incredibly masculine figure, not just in the way she dressed but also in the way she behaved and the choices she made. She had a reputation for being “man-like” even during her lifetime! Nowadays there might be nothing unusual about a woman choosing to be a scientist, and it might not even cross our minds that a female paleontologist would be considered “masculine,” but at the time, it was a very different situation. Not only were gender roles defined and enforced differently, but subverting those gendered expectations was undertaken in a way that might not, to the modern eye, appear at all revolutionary. That doesn’t, or at least shouldn’t, negate the strength of those women, just because we in the modern day don’t think that a female scientist is something to gawk at. Progress is incremental, and looks differently according to the time period.
I’ve also seen people complaining that they’re not interested in period dramas about “feminine white women” who happen to be queer women. That is a very disappointing stance to take. Personally I am not a huge fan of the idea that racial diversity is the only, or best, form of diversity in media; I don’t think that, for example, media such as The Witcher, which is set in Poland, has an obligation to include racial diversity. I think it’s more important for that particular piece of media to represent an underrepresented culture, i.e., the Polish people. Similarly, there’s a trend on social media specifically where people will take characters from anime and “diversify” them by making them dark-skinned, specifically African-American. One example of this is the characters from Avatar: The Last Airbender, who unfortunately had their actual racial and ethnic identities erased in favour of what was considered more “woke.” On a more mainstream example, the recent adaptation of Dune cast its leads with a lot of racial diversity… but no Arab actors in the starring roles, which renders the diversity for naught, since it’s a very Middle Eastern, and specifically Muslim, story.
Anyway, none of that is to say that we shouldn’t be promoting more stories about diverse characters, obviously. But it’s also important, in my opinion, to make sure that your perceived ideal of diversity does not trample all over other underrepresented groups, because that’s not actually progressive.
At first I thought the bathtub scene is the one where Stede breaks his rule and reaches for Ed unasked. But then I saw Ed moved first, curled his whole body toward Stede; and only then does Stede touch him, just the tips of his fingers to a sad shoulder; and Ed closes the distance and lays his cheek on his hand. He might not have used words, but he was asking for him.
Even in the beard-tending scene he waits to be asked, and when he takes Ed’s silk he doesn’t touch him. Even when he’s kissed, he waits to reach out until Ed cradles him first, and he withdraws so fast! He only gazes. Is that inherent to their personalities? Or did someone teach him that reaching out uninvited ends badly?
i feel like that sort of thing is always going to be, in part, decided by personality. like, two people with the similar trauma won’t always handle it the same, yeah? and in this case…i think it’s definitely him handling trauma in his own way.
he’s someone who’s been ostracized his whole life, and a lot of that derision he experienced was specifically homophobic. it’s. not that much of a stretch to assume he’s learned to fear/suppress his own desires for intimacy & physical contact, especially with other men, for the sake of survival.
plus he’s just…not great at high pressure social situations, which would be like. most social situations when you’re mingling with high society. and it’s really hard to know when it’s appropriate to touch someone if you can’t read a room. coming off as generally kind of reserved would probably be less of a detriment to him & his family’s reputation than being overly-familiar with the wrong person.
Yes that all tracks. And then that makes me wonder if there’s a broader cultural difference? The upper crust British culture seems far more hands off than Māori culture. And is part of it because Ed’s mother was present and at least somewhat nurturing, while Stede’s mother seems to have been completely absent? I wonder when was the last time he was touched tenderly. I wonder if he feels he knows how. Stede was raised in boarding, with no one there to care for him; Ed seems to have been home until the tragedy.
Anyway your tags got me in the gut.
Ed knows how to help him!! in ways she never could!!
@hebelongstothestars THANK YOU that’s a very painfully relevant part of the bullying
@eightdaysuntiltheapocalypseiguess I think so too. Man, that hurts. But then to see him step up and offer to be chivalrous for Ed, to defend him, so he doesn’t have to defend himself—the way he straightens up and orders him to stand down! How sure and steady he is! And the way Ed accepts it—calms immediately and looks shyly, deeply at him—it’s the same expression he gives him under the moon, the very vulnerable one. I don’t think anyone’s ever trusted Stede to defend them before, or offered chivalry to Ed; that must have felt electric to them both.
@magniloquent-raven oooh you’re right. I missed that. I feel like “passive” is also how I’d describe Stede up until he goes for piracy, too. I wonder if he felt like passivity was his only model for dignity or at least decency. If he wouldn’t be a bully like his father, he’d have to be dutiful and peaceful and disengaged like his mother—as long as he was living in their world. He’d have to deny his misery and his dreams. But if he could step into the world of his pirate stories—if he could make that real—then suddenly he could recreate himself as the hero; the one who says something worth saying, who deals out challenges and praise, who calls a bully an asshole and defends who he loves.
And then of course when he tries to return to his father’s world he can’t stay passive any more; he can’t stomach getting through conflict with Mary by conceding and deflecting and avoiding, although he tries; he’s too much in the habit of being a real person, now. And so is she. Him saying “I think I’ve solved it” to her after they’ve had it all out—and her accepting it, allowing him to set them free—tells me he’d become a “real boy” there at home too; he was ready to name what was needed, to trust his capabilities, to step up and fight for both their separate happinesses. He owned himself at last.
So, I want to talk about the lighthouse, and what it means for Stede to be the lighthouse.
I’ve seen fanart that frames the lighthouse/kraken imagery in a light vs dark, oppositional way. Like Stede is a light that needs to rescue Ed from the dark. And jarring with that use of the imagery made me realise that I see these symbols completely differently, not in opposition but in parallel. To me it follows that if the kraken is Ed at his worst, then the lighthouse is Stede at his worst.
It’s easy to see the negative attributes of a kraken (frightening, violent), but the negative attributes of a lighthouse are less straightforward (yes, you can get smashed on the rocks, but what exactly does that tell us about Stede?).
When I considered it, it brought to mind the apocryphal tale where two nations are in contact by radio at sea. They each demand the other divert to avoid collision, going back and forth until one country says “This is the biggest, most heavily armed warship in our country’s big and heavily armed fleet. We demand that you divert course or we will fire upon you,” at which point the other country says “This is a lighthouse. Your call.”
A lighthouse is not going to divert course to avoid a collision. It’s going to stay exactly where it is, and if you don’t divert course to accommodate for it, you’re fucked. A lighthouse is a perfect metaphor for obstinance, for inflexibility. Stede can be bad at taking other people’s perspectives into account and adjusting accordingly. At his worst, he can’t even take in that other people’s perspectives may differ from his in the first place.
We see this with his family. He wants to uproot their lives and go to sea. He presents his dream as a present to Mary, and assumes she will be just as thrilled as he is, because he’s too wrapped up in his own excitement to connect with Mary as a separate individual. The dialogue then explicitly tells us how Stede is unwilling/unable to hear Mary expressing her perspective/experience:
Mary: “You know I hate the ocean. I said so just the other day.” Stede: “What? When?” Mary: “When we were standing by the fucking ocean.”
Mary isn’t upset that Stede has an interest in sailing, she is upset that Stede has no interest in actually knowing her, merely trying to fit her into his own interests. The scene where Mary repeatedly tries to get Stede’s attention and he ‘Mmm’s without looking up from his book also show us how he does not respond to her attempts to communicate. It’s telling that when she presents her anniversary present to him, Stede does not know Mary paints. (Honestly, I would find it completely in character for Stede if she had mentioned her painting to him several times in the past, but he just hadn’t taken it in because it’s not what he’s interested in.)
Which takes us to the consequence of this inflexibility: the lighthouse is isolated. Stede is so inflexible at times that he cannot forge the back-and-forth communication required to actually connect with other humans.
We also see this at the start of the show with his crew. I think the underlying reason that the crew wants to mutiny is how Stede cannot see things from their perspectives or accomodate for them.
Stede went into piracy with no experience, and decided to impose his own views on how to do things on his crew, without seeking to first learn from them about an area in which he has no experience. Throughout the first few episodes we see Stede trying to push his crew into being the people he expects and wants them to be, rather than trying to get to know them.
In the first episode, in the ‘talk it through as crew’ call and response, we see Stede (frankly, quite patronisingly) trying to push the crew into adopting his perspective and participate the way he wants them to. We hear Stede narrate “I pay my crew a salary. Same wage, every week, no matter what. Course, it took them a while to come ‘round to the idea”, and while Stede probably thinks he’s doing what’s best for them and they just can’t understand that, consider what difference it makes to the power dynamics if the results of everyone’s work are shared versus if they are completely dependant on Stede. Consider how Stede is disbelieving when Lucius says he’s the only crew member who can read (“That’s not. Is that true?”), dismissing this input to the point that a couple of episodes later, when he tries to replace Lucius with Frenchie, he is surprised to discover Frenchie cannot write.
When Stede decides that the crew should vacation in episode two, he says explicitly “Your time is yours to do with as you please” and “There’s literally no way to mess this up.” He then almost immediately starts telling the crew what they can and can’t do, responding to their methods of unwinding with “That is NOT what I was talking about!”. You’re not allowed to spend your downtime roughhousing, becasue Stede does not enjoy roughhousing. Stede’s preconception of himself as a captain is that he is accepting and he listens, but the actuality of his captaining style is that he tries to push his crew into complying with his preferences.
In the third episode, Stede is completely unwilling to learn from his crew – most of whom have visited the Pirate Republic before – about how things work there. When Lucius tries to advise him (repeatedly) he dismisses it (repeatedly).
If the kraken represents a toxic masculinity aligned with aggressive and threatening behaviour, then the lighthouse represents a toxic masculinity aligned with is mansplaining, blind confidence and the assumption of authority.
In episode four, their meeting starts Stede and Ed’s arc of mutual character development. I think it’s a crucial moment in Stede’s development when he excitedly presents Ed with Stede’s preconception of who Ed is – a picture of Blackbeard from one of his pirate books – and Stede actually sees and takes in Ed’s response. Stede listens to Ed. And after having listened, Stede adjusts his course. While Stede’s perspective is firmly that being Blackbeard would be great (he says that he’d give up everything for just a day of being Blackbeard), what he says to Ed isn’t encouragement to keep going, insisting that surely Ed’s life is amazing. Instead, it’s: “Look. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but have you ever considered retirement?” This might be the first moment in the show where Stede is considering things from someone else’s perspective. And that’s the start of him being able to reach past his previous isolation and actually connect.
Stede still struggles at times with seeing past himself for the rest of the show, but episode four is a turning point. It introduces his capacity to change and a new willingness to learn.
For the rest of the show, we see Stede succeed when he stops trying to be the isolated beacon that gives detached direction, when he can see past his preconceptions, connect and adjust, and we see him fail when he can’t. In episode five his moment of triumph is rooted in a moment of connecting with and listening to Frenchie. When Frenchie expresses his experience – “I was in service for a minute so I now the lay of the land and trust me, servants, they see everything. This lot, they’re not so fancy” – Stede actually takes it in, and that gives him the idea to ask Abshir for the information that Stede builds into his passive aggression bomb. In episode six Stede comes pretty close to explicitly naming the problem and solution himself: “I’d like to apologise for my behaviour earlier. As total as my theatrical knowledge may be, I did forget the most important thing: company!”
I think what takes the crew from where they started at the brink of mutiny, to the intense loyalty they have by the end, is not a change of heart on their part, but Stede changing. Stede softening his dismissive streak, starting to genuinely rather than superficially listen to his crew and to respect their input.
When Stede feels he needs to be the lighthouse, he feels he must be the guiding light all on his own. He can’t have his guidance questioned, because then he’s failing in his role.
I think this sense that ‘knowing best’ is supposed to fall entirely to him is one of the reasons why he feels so guilty about leaving Mary: he is supposed to be her guiding light, so surely without him she must be lost? Surely, without his light, his family have been smashed up against the rocks? It is his sense that he has failed in his duties at being his family’s lighthouse that makes him falter at the crucial moment when he leaves Ed. Stede seeing that actually, his family are just fine at finding their own direction (and Stede finally, finally, listening to and allowing himself to be changed by Mary) is what shows him that he doesn’t have to be the lighthouse.
I don’t think he returns to his crew as a guiding light. I think he returns ready to adjust course as he goes, with his crew’s support and collaboration.
At first I thought the bathtub scene is the one where Stede breaks his rule and reaches for Ed unasked. But then I saw Ed moved first, curled his whole body toward Stede; and only then does Stede touch him, just the tips of his fingers to a sad shoulder; and Ed closes the distance and lays his cheek on his hand. He might not have used words, but he was asking for him.
Even in the beard-tending scene he waits to be asked, and when he takes Ed’s silk he doesn’t touch him. Even when he’s kissed, he waits to reach out until Ed cradles him first, and he withdraws so fast! He only gazes. Is that inherent to their personalities? Or did someone teach him that reaching out uninvited ends badly?
i feel like that sort of thing is always going to be, in part, decided by personality. like, two people with the similar trauma won’t always handle it the same, yeah? and in this case…i think it’s definitely him handling trauma in his own way.
he’s someone who’s been ostracized his whole life, and a lot of that derision he experienced was specifically homophobic. it’s. not that much of a stretch to assume he’s learned to fear/suppress his own desires for intimacy & physical contact, especially with other men, for the sake of survival.
plus he’s just…not great at high pressure social situations, which would be like. most social situations when you’re mingling with high society. and it’s really hard to know when it’s appropriate to touch someone if you can’t read a room. coming off as generally kind of reserved would probably be less of a detriment to him & his family’s reputation than being overly-familiar with the wrong person.
Yes that all tracks. And then that makes me wonder if there’s a broader cultural difference? The upper crust British culture seems far more hands off than Māori culture. And is part of it because Ed’s mother was present and at least somewhat nurturing, while Stede’s mother seems to have been completely absent? I wonder when was the last time he was touched tenderly. I wonder if he feels he knows how. Stede was raised in boarding, with no one there to care for him; Ed seems to have been home until the tragedy.
Anyway your tags got me in the gut.
Ed knows how to help him!! in ways she never could!!
@hebelongstothestars THANK YOU that’s a very painfully relevant part of the bullying
I think we need to be very careful about agreeing with Ed when he says he’s the kraken. Because I don’t think it’s true, and I don’t think the show WANTS us to think that it’s true. Yes, Ed THINKS the kraken is him, but the kraken is actually a bunch of invisible arms that maneuvered everything into place so that Ed was forced to make an impossible decision that would be deeply damaging to him no matter what, when he was too young to understand all the forces at work on him. The kraken is the institutionalized violence that allows white men to believe they’re owed something and therefore deserve to take it, that pushes marginalized people into poverty and holds them there, that turns a blind eye on white men who abuse their families, and that gives those families no recourse but to stay. The kraken is the greed of the men in that system which upholds their actions as a part of the natural order of things while condemning a child for doing what he had to do to save someone he loved.
There’s a reason we were shown Ed helplessly watching as the kraken killed his dad before we ever saw the truth of what happened. There’s a reason why he doesn’t use this incident to curry favor with the pirates despite it being the only death he actually caused with his own hands. It’s not like they would have blamed him after finding out his father was a total piece of shit. He doesn’t want to tell the story because telling the story as it really happened would expose how little agency he actually had in the situation. And even then, he sees it as a personal failing, and sees himself as a perpetrator rather than a victim of the system.
But we are shown that it’s not really true. The violence didn’t start with him; it’s not coming from him. Divorced from the circumstances he inhabited beyond his control, we see that he’s not a naturally violent person, and is in fact less deadly than a lot of other people in the same situation. Because following that incident, he immediately removed himself from the society that forced his hand, and put himself in a place where he actually DOES have agency. And he doesn’t kill. The people he comes across when he captures merchant ships play just as much a part in upholding the system as his father did, likely even more of one due to their class and wealth, and at least some of them must have been as personally despicable, but now that he’s in a position where he CAN choose not to kill, he chooses not to. Even with Lucius, it’s like he said after Jack was bragging to Stede about the men Ed killed setting fire to their ship: technically, the fire killed them. If Lucius is dead, then technically the water killed him.
It’s no coincidence that the one pressuring Ed to kill is a white man, and that this white man is telling him a killer is what he’s meant to be. It’s all just white men using people of color to cement themselves in or maneuver themselves into positions of power. Izzy sees this perceived monstrosity of Ed’s as a positive thing to be used against the institutions he hates, because he has believed the lie that Ed and people like him are the true danger to society and its people. Even from the outside, he still can’t see it. This is how the system works: it maneuvers people like Ed—specifically, people of color, and in particular queer people of color—into untenable situations, and when they react to those circumstances the only way they can, the system holds them up and says look. Look at what these people are. Look at what they do. And so in this way the system reinforces itself. It reinforces itself by getting the majority of people within the system—and even outside it, because its power doesn’t exist in a vacuum—to see things this way. Society needs its monsters. It fools its (often unwitting—that’s what makes it so insidious) agents into thinking Ed is the danger to their safety, and not the system itself. And the worst part is that it convinces Ed of this too.
Now, we have to see things for what they are and stop letting it convince US.
