Unfortunately, I am sick once again so I’ve been absent for a while. I logged back in to address a really odd take I’ve seen circulating Twitter lately. I’m not going to link to any of the tweets because I’m not looking to dogpile, but they’re saying stuff like:
“Wholesome stories are fine but why are we in an era where wholesome queer content is seen as morally superior? There’s nothing gross about queer sexual desire or displaying that sexual desire[…] Ofc I’m aware that sexy/horny queer storytelling exists, I just find it interesting that these pieces of media are never the ones that ‘break out’ and become incredibly popular. Just stuff to think about!”
I chose this particular tweet because it outlined their viewpoint so succinctly. I don’t agree with it. This is a really weird, myopic take on queer media lately.
I assume this is in response to stuff like Heartstopper,Stephen Universe,The Owl House, and Love, Simon.Setting aside the fact that these were marketed toactual kids, they are by no means the most popular queer films and TV shows to come out in the last five years.
That’s off the top of the freaking head. I’m not even including all the very sexy media that includes queer characters, but not as leads, nor the TV shows that aren’t mega-popular (e.g. shows found on Netflix like Bonding,Trinkets,Russian Doll,I Am Not Okay with This,Young Royals, ect).
Anyway, my only point is:
Not every piece of queer media is for every queer person.
I think that’s a good thing!
Diversity isn’t just important for race, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, physical and mental health. It’s also important in things like class, region of the country/world, and (yes) age. I’ve got kids that are, in my opinion, too young to watch EuphoriaandSex Education, but too old for TheOwl House.Stuff like Heartstopper,Love, Simon, and The Half of It fills a very necessary gap.
Anyway, back to sleep for me.
Keep yourselves so safe for me. Always.
XOXO, Earnest
Worth mentioning, too, that Heartstopperis actually a very “sexy” show, within the context of a younger audience. It has a lot of passionate kissing between both the mlm and wlw characters, much of it overflowingwith sexual tension. My kids were twitterpated throughout!
Unfortunately, I am sick once again so I’ve been absent for a while. I logged back in to address a really odd take I’ve seen circulating Twitter lately. I’m not going to link to any of the tweets because I’m not looking to dogpile, but they’re saying stuff like:
“Wholesome stories are fine but why are we in an era where wholesome queer content is seen as morally superior? There’s nothing gross about queer sexual desire or displaying that sexual desire[…] Ofc I’m aware that sexy/horny queer storytelling exists, I just find it interesting that these pieces of media are never the ones that ‘break out’ and become incredibly popular. Just stuff to think about!”
I chose this particular tweet because it outlined their viewpoint so succinctly. I don’t agree with it. This is a really weird, myopic take on queer media lately.
I assume this is in response to stuff like Heartstopper,Stephen Universe,The Owl House, and Love, Simon.Setting aside the fact that these were marketed toactual kids, they are by no means the most popular queer films and TV shows to come out in the last five years.
That’s off the top of the freaking head. I’m not even including all the very sexy media that includes queer characters, but not as leads, nor the TV shows that aren’t mega-popular (e.g. shows found on Netflix like Bonding,Trinkets,Russian Doll,I Am Not Okay with This,Young Royals, ect).
Anyway, my only point is:
Not every piece of queer media is for every queer person.
I think that’s a good thing!
Diversity isn’t just important for race, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, physical and mental health. It’s also important in things like class, region of the country/world, and (yes) age. I’ve got kids that are, in my opinion, too young to watch EuphoriaandSex Education, but too old for TheOwl House.Stuff like Heartstopper,Love, Simon, and The Half of It fills a very necessary gap.
Hello guys I have posted .(a miracle!) Just reread pieta it somehow hit even harder . maybe cause I was listening to texas reznikoff on repeat the entire time like . Wow.…they are so the breezes in each other’s Austin nights.. anyway I am feeling a little delusional who else up thinking they will be cured when they find their twin flame
Disney+ has a “pride” collection and it’s so abysmal it’s almost funny. They don’t even have enough movies to fill a full category so they lump them in with short films. There are still only eight pieces of media in the category.
The other two categories are series (which I’ll get back to later cause boy do I have things to say) and episodes. Episodes is a really shitty category. It’s literally just episodes from random shows that have queer plot lines or characters in that one single episode. Half of them are from shows mentioned in series. I’m convinced they only added this one so the page would feel less barren, but it’s a very poor attempt.
Which brings me back to series. It’s here that it goes from funny to infuriating. There are shows on there like glee and the high school musical series which I haven’t seen and can’t really speak on, but what really caught my interest was their inclusion of gravity falls and the owl house.
Gravity falls has two characters that are revealed to be gay in the finale and I think that’s about it as far as any queer rep goes so it feels cheap to put it in a pride collection. Gravity falls is only tangentially queer, and that’s thanks to disney. Gravity falls had to fight just so that two men could say they loved each other, and they could only do it in the last episode.
But the owl house. The owl house. This is a show that disney is cancelling for “not fitting the brand,” a show the creators have had to fight just to get it as far as it has already come, and disney has the audacity to tout it in a pride collection.
Disney works against queer characters and storylines in media, yet still shows them off when it’s time for rainbow capitalism. They’re trying to pander to the queer community while also pleasing homophobes. They’re pretending they care about queer people while also silencing them.
If in five years tumblr decides that The Owl House was A Bad Show, Actually because of problems that were directly caused by a homophobic studio cutting them off at the knees, I’m going to scream.
Legend of Korra got attacked because Korra and Asami “only held hands in the last shot,” despite the uphill battle the writers waged against Nickelodeon to give us even that much.
Steven Universe’s final season gets remembered in the most bad-faith way possible because the crew risked everything to get the first-ever queer wedding in a kids’ show, and got penalized by the network because of it.
Adventure Time gets panned for “waiting until the very end” to make Bubblegum and Marceline canon, despite the fact that they couldn’tget the network to allow it until after the wedding in Steven Universe (hey! look at that! STEVEN UNIVERSE BEING IMPORTANT TO OTHER SAPPHIC SHIPS GOING CANON, fancy that!).
She-Ra gets accused constantly of being “toxic representation” despite the sheer number of queer people who fought tooth and fucking nail to get it to happen at all and put their entire soul into representing themselves honestly.
The Owl House crew has directly cited Steven Universe and She-Ra for paving the way. Lumity would have never fucking happened without the milestones made by others who came before.
I am beggingpeople to learn about the history of queer representation in television, and I am beggingpeople to stop holding queer media to infinitely higher standards than any other type of media.
Disney+ has a “pride” collection and it’s so abysmal it’s almost funny. They don’t even have enough movies to fill a full category so they lump them in with short films. There are still only eight pieces of media in the category.
The other two categories are series (which I’ll get back to later cause boy do I have things to say) and episodes. Episodes is a really shitty category. It’s literally just episodes from random shows that have queer plot lines or characters in that one single episode. Half of them are from shows mentioned in series. I’m convinced they only added this one so the page would feel less barren, but it’s a very poor attempt.
Which brings me back to series. It’s here that it goes from funny to infuriating. There are shows on there like glee and the high school musical series which I haven’t seen and can’t really speak on, but what really caught my interest was their inclusion of gravity falls and the owl house.
Gravity falls has two characters that are revealed to be gay in the finale and I think that’s about it as far as any queer rep goes so it feels cheap to put it in a pride collection. Gravity falls is only tangentially queer, and that’s thanks to disney. Gravity falls had to fight just so that two men could say they loved each other, and they could only do it in the last episode.
But the owl house. The owl house. This is a show that disney is cancelling for “not fitting the brand,” a show the creators have had to fight just to get it as far as it has already come, and disney has the audacity to tout it in a pride collection.
Disney works against queer characters and storylines in media, yet still shows them off when it’s time for rainbow capitalism. They’re trying to pander to the queer community while also pleasing homophobes. They’re pretending they care about queer people while also silencing them.
I can’t believe I was skeptical about OFMD being a queer show at first. Like yeah, it made me realise how deep queer baiting runs but also - in what other community would flags hold such deep meaning??
When you’re queer, depending on where you live and what situation you’re in, your flag can quite literally mean death. Which is horribly depressing in and of itself, but it also means love. Having just a pin on your person, having a little art piece or tiny flag somewhere on you is such a beautiful way to be able to reach out to other queer people.
Our flags and our little symbols are such wonderful ways to say:
“hey, I love like you. I share this experience with you, even in the most basic of ways. We’re here together in this place and time and I know you in a way that others closer to you may not”
Queer flags mean death AND love. They’re a testament to all the members of the community who came before us, all the ones whos lives and loves were lost. Our flag means love and survival.
And that’s what this show is about.
And if we don’t get that fucKING RENEWAL I SWEAR TO GOD ILL-
Just going to throw on a few more that I’ve read since last year. A reminder that these are all over the place in terms of tone, length, content, etc.
The only unifying traits are they are SSF, aimed at an adult audience (not YA or middle grades), have prominent queer characters, and I enjoyed reading them.
It’s our Pride episode! Queer media has grown by leaps and bounds during the pandemic. Join us as we talk about some of our favorite new things to watch, listen to, or read!
We have gathered every issue of Anything That Moves as PDFs and are working on transcribing them into plain text for accessibility and easy spreading and quoting! Check out our carrdhere for links to all the files.
This is incredible! Anything That Moves was a bisexual magazine that ran from 1990 to 2002 and most of the issues were very hard to find up until now, making this part of bi history and culture accessible is MONUMENTAL
