Out in Storybrooke: Who should have a Queery Tale romance?

[RumplesGirl]

They should create a show for Red and let Jane Espenson take the captain’s seat on it. Just saying. And now better take a deep breath before I think even more about how they missed chances… (or should find time to write fanfiction)

I’d watch it. Can Elsa be in it too, as her girlfriend? Because the more I think about it, the more I really love Red and Elsa.

The Duck of Wessleton even calls Elsa a monster and sends men out to hunt her down and kill her. Sounds *very* Red-Handed, where the villagers were hunting a wolf and it turns out to be Ruby.

[PriceofMagic]

It occurred to me earlier that Disney themselves have kind of dealt with a transgender character in one of their movies. I’m talking about Mulan. Whilst it’s true that Mulan still identifies herself as a woman and the men identify themselves as men so it’s not 100% transgender ie man trapped in a woman’s body and or vice versa, they still have the majority of the movie with their main female character dressing and acting like a man. They also have some of their male characters disguising themselves as women in full make up and dress. So Disney have kind of explored the cross-dressing aspect of transgender albeit for a purpose (fooling the huns, Mulan taking her father’s place in the war) rather than the deeper issues of gender identity crisis (Mulan dressed like a man to take her father’s place in the war rather than dressing like a man because she felt like she was a man trapped in a woman’s body).

Mulan doesn’t conform to her society’s expectation of women of that time. In the song “honour to us all” it states the roles of men and women. For example:
“A girl can bring her family
great honor in one way
By striking a good match
And this could be the day

Men want girls with good taste
Calm
Obediant
Who work fast-paced
With good breeding
And a tiny waist
You’ll bring honor to us all

We all must serve our Emperor
Who guards us from the Huns
A man by bearing arms
A girl by bearing sons”

Basically it says that men’s role is to fight for the country whilst a woman’s role is to get married, be everything her husband desires in a woman and have sons. When Mulan tries to be “the little woman” expected of her rather than who she truly is, it all goes terribly wrong, as seen in the matchmaker scene.

Mulan’s Reflection song could easily be sung by someone who feels like they are in the wrong body. The lyrics go:

“Look at me
I will never pass for a perfect bride
Or a perfect daughter
Can it be
I’m not meant to play this part?

Now I see
That if I were truly to be myself
I would break my family’s heart

Who is that girl I see
Staring straight back at me?
Why is my reflection someone I don’t know?

Somehow I cannot hide who I am, though I’ve tried
When will my reflection show who I am inside?”

Mulan on Once upon a Time identifies herself as a woman, but she still dresses in more masculine clothes rather than girly dresses, and that is presented as absolutely okay on the show. The show may not ever do a 100% transgender character, but they have introduced aspects of it.

I do wonder if maybe the Mulan/Aurora storyline being swept under the carpet a little bit was due to the actress availability issues (Both actresses had other shows) rather than a conscious attempt by the writers to sweep LGBT characters under the rug. After all, if the writers didn’t really want to introduce an LGBT character, why write Mulan as one? With Jamie Chung’s (Mulan) show being cancelled, and both Aurora/Philip and Robin Hood/merry men in Storybrooke, it’s entirely possible that Mulan is in Storybrooke too and that we just haven’t seen her yet. 3B was mostly focussed around the regulars and the characters they just so happened to interact with at a time so it’s entirely possible that Mulan has been around but off-screen. Season 4 could bring Mulan back and continue her storyline.

All magic comes with a price!

Keeper of Felix

[RumplesGirl]

I’ve always considered Mulan to be one of Disney’s bolder movies. I know they are following the traditional legend, but Diseny didn’t shy away too much from the more liberal topics.

But is it a message of transgender people? I don’t know. I’ve always seen Mulan as less about Mulan wanting to change herself and more about Mulan wanting to change society. It’s not that Mulan wants to be a man and dresses as a warrior because she feels it is who she really is, but rather because that’s the only way Mulan can play a part in society and save her family. Mulan deals a lot with gender and society, which is still a pretty heavy topic for something like Disney to take on. But I do think you’re right that Mulan’s more fluid nature between “masculine” and “feminine” is what inspired A and E to have her falling for Aurora. I really *really* wish we had an episode dedicated to Aurora and Mulan’s adventures in finding Philip. It would be a great episode to explore internal conflict: Mulan is falling for Aurora, but wants to save Philip who is Aurora’s true love. If anything, Mulan certainly has more integrity than a lot of other characters.

After all, if the writers didn’t really want to introduce an LGBT character, why write Mulan as one?

A lot of it was subtext I think (though it got heavily more “text” as S2 went on and then into S3). But like @Myril said a page of so back–you still have tons of people denying that Mulan went to declare her feelings to Aurora, they think she went to talk to Philip. So as to the “why” well….because the writers aren’t stupid. Philora fell flat in a lot of ways (lack of screen time together, for instance). But SleepingWarrior took off like hotcakes. The writers aren’t 100% ignorant of social media and what is considered popular. They had to hear enough about SleepingWarrior that they were clued into how popular it had become. BUT A and E like their Disney couples to be canon and so they threw the audience and shippers a bone, and then took it away. I really wish Jamie would come back so we could see how Mulan is coping with her unrequited love and perhaps her growing sexuality.

"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"

[Myril]

Where to begin… In society and culture we have gender images and gender roles. In our European/American cultures gender is mostly equaled with biological sex, and we have a binary system of gender and sex. There are men and there are women, and eventually, though made invisible, those “by nature” not clearly defined, hermaphrodites. At school most of us learn biological sex has something to do with X and Y chromosome, but it’s a bit more complicate than that. Whoever is seen as biological as man is expected to behave more as such and women as women, and anyone somehow somewhere biological in between is expected to decide to be one or the other. In society we have ideas, what is proper manly behavior and looks and images of masculinity, and we have ideas what is proper female behavior and looks and images of femininity, and a kind of image of in between as androgynous. Some cultures though have not the same strict view of biology defining someone’s gender, in Albania for example there have been the so called sworn virgins, who are biological women but live accepted as men as long as they refrain having any sex (you can find pictures on the web, and its hard to tell by their looks that they are biological women). It’s known sometimes as “third gender”, though this term has been used quite confusingly sometimes for a different gender than the two common ones, sometimes including or not transgender, sometimes including or not transsexuals, and by a few even for different sexual orientation.

It can get confusing, not even biological sex is clear cut, different from what most remember from school. And there is gender identity and gender expression as two different things. We have people, who, out of whatever reason, live in a body not fitting their sexual identity, people whose bodies don’t fit their gender identity and people who don’t fit into any of the binary identities. We have multiple possibilities of sexual orientation (hetero, gay, lesbian, bi, pansexual, asexual to name the most common labels). Then we have people who like to cross-dress, but that doesn’t necessarily has to do anything with their gender identity or sexual orientation (a common misunderstanding). And we have people questioning the common gender roles in society, being gender-nonconform. Not to mention images of gender and gender roles might change with time and culture. It might seem a bit nitpicking to make all these differences, but when you discuss gender roles and gender images for a while it will make sense.

So Mulan. In the universe of the Disney movie story, in the diegetic reality Mulan is a young woman, has no doubt about being one, but she struggles somewhat with gender roles, she is more or less a tomboy in behavior, though in looks pretty much a young woman, she is gender nonconform. To protect her father Mulan masquerades as man to be able to fullfil his call to military duty. The movie has some typical jokes about acting gender nonconform (which makes the movie quiet ambivalent if it comes to questioning gender roles let alone identities), in the army emphasizing a more traditional picture of masculinity, but on the other hand one can say, it’s the army, warriors have to be tough no matter what gender. With a bit of comical touch in the crisis climax of the movie the best comrades disguises as women to fool the bad (masculine) guys, and though playing on gender roles, it as nothing to do with questioning them and not the least bit with Third Gender, transgender, transsexuality – in the diegetic reality that is.

Mulan has no doubts about her identity, but issues with gender roles, and while in the legend there are elements of attraction between two women, one can debate if is more sisterly or romantic, there is nothing like that in the Disney movie. Mulan is a gender nonconform but gender straight woman and straight in her sexual orientation.

Something different is again the spectatorial reality (perception audience) and maybe somewhat the creational reality (intention filmmakers). It is possible to see some subtext in it, coming from the tough warrior woman who dresses as man depiction, quite like there is plenty of subtext reading with a character like Olivia Benson of SVU, who I think though had an even more masculine appearance and behavior than Mulan ever had in the movie (and Benson is still more masculine, even though they made her more feminine over the years). In OUaT Mulan though was shown more masculine in her manners than in the movie, but most we have about her background, why she dresses as manly warrior, has become a warrior is speculation, based on the Disney movies.

If it comes to transgender and transsexual: The sad reality is, it is something barely shown on screen so far at all and neither noticed that much if it comes to subtext. In fantasy one can read some subtext into anyone struggling with being or becoming a supernatural being, in science fiction we have alien races and as well transformation process (Star Trek a few interesting episode to offer).

To break it down to OUaT: Red is a lot more transgender subtext open than Mulan. Even the dwarfs are more open for transgender subtext. Maleficent could have been an interesting character for it. Working with stereotypes, but as said, that is not per se negative.

PoM, RG: I very much appreciate how much thought you’re giving it.

¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯

[RumplesGirl]

Working with stereotypes, but as said, that is not per se negative.

So I’ve recently begun watching Orphan Black (holy….so. freaking. good.) and since I’m all caught up now, @Rainbow sent me a link to a conversation at SDCC before S2 began with Tatiana, Dylan (Paul), and Jordan (Felix). And Jordan began discussing people’s reaction to his portrayal of Felix as being “too gay” and being a cliche. And Jordan’s response was that we as a society don’t get to dictate what types of people we show. You can’t show only one type of of queer and not another because of fear of cliche. Sexuality is a spectrum, but so is personality going hand in hand with sexuality.
And this got me thinking….I’ve always had a problem with Archie being gay because, in my head, it would be very cliche and unoriginal: the bachelor in the sweater vests that everyone turns to for advice and is never seen being romantically attached. Of course he’s gay. And when I was listening to the Orphan Black conversation and heard Jordan say what I mentioned above, I began to realize that we (as a collective whole but speaking for myself in this moment) can’t dictate what “type” (bad word, I know…sorry) of queer to show. If we can show any type of heterosexual, from Regina’s sass in SB, to Snowing’s family-first orientation (and sometimes, a bit dull), to Emma’s love triangle and trying to be a mom and strong woman first and trying to figure out what her role is as daughter, mother, Savior…then we have to be able to demonstrate the many types of LGBT’s there are: which means going for the quiet ones like Archie, the flamboyant ones like Felix on Orphan Black, and the ones that you can pass on the street and “never know” because it’s not like LGBT people where a sign that says “hello, I am LGBT” anymore than heterosexuals wear a sign claiming their sexual preference.

So where am I going with all this? Well I guess, if we set aside the fear of cliche because cliche is still a representation of actual types of people out there in the vast world, what the bloody heck are A and E waiting for??

That’s the question that has now been circling my brain since I watched this SDCC conversation with the cast of Orphan Black.

"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"

[PriceofMagic]

This is probably going to sound bad, and I don’t mean it to be, but I don’t want an over the top gay character like the son out of Ugly Betty on the show. I found him extremely annoying.

I have no problem with homosexuality being shown on Once whether that’s gay, lesbian, bi, etc. I used to watch Buffy and they dealt with Willow coming to terms with her sexuality and engaging in a lesbian relationship beautifully. Ugly Betty also had another older gay male character on the show who was a bit on the flamboyant side and he was okay so maybe it was the kid’s acting that was the issue for me but I just couldn’t stand the son from Ugly Betty.

How would you want them to betray an LGBT character on Once? Is there a right way or a wrong way to do it?

All magic comes with a price!

Keeper of Felix

[RumplesGirl]

How would you want them to betray an LGBT character on Once? Is there a right way or a wrong way to do it?

I asked this same question like maybe 10 pages ago (lol, we’ve talked a lot guys!)

I think the general consensus is that there shouldn’t be a right way or wrong way, just like there isn’t a wrong way or a right way to show a heterosexual character. We have a range of heterosexual characters on ONCE, right? I think we can say that pretty safely. But none of us even blink an eye at them and say “the writers aren’t doing this right.” We have villains and heroes and everything in between. We have people with tragic pasts, people who are focused on power, people who are focused on family, people who want it all. People who lie, cheat steal, and people who try to uphold all “good” qualities. We may not like the heterosexual character or the pair, but I never hear anyone say, “they wrote them wrong.” (The exception might be Rapunzel and her never ending filler-ness).

"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"

[PriceofMagic]

and GOAT and their plot deviceness of being every idea the writers had mishmashed into one character

All magic comes with a price!

Keeper of Felix

[Myril]

PoM – never saw Ugly Betty, so can’t say anything about that character. But maybe it was something like I (and others) had with Star Trek’s Wesley Crusher, couldn’t stand that character but was never able to nail, why not. I love Wil Wheaton by now, great geek, great guy, but still have a hard time watching any episode with Wesley in the middle of attention. And they didn’t even tell such bad story with him at times. Interesting that some people have some problems with Henry, might be something similar. And now I am already straining my head to find a female character as example, lol.

Maybe there is no wrong or right way, but ways one can still dislike. I mentioned the sweep weeks lesbian kiss some pages back. Though there are some clear examples, there are as well some debated ones, like an episode from Star Trek Deep Space Nine, where the Dax symbiont meets a former spouse but both are now in new hosts, and renewing their romance is something the Trill society forbids. I like that episode and how they addressed same gender love as not the issue. They could have very well made one of the characters a man and avoid the same gender question, the issue was true love against societal rules and laws. But as well one can argue, they downplayed the same gender relations too much, they should have made it an issue, or why make their love an issue at all. Not to mention, there is no happy ending for them. But’it’s one of my favorite Star Trek episodes.

And I am in love with Felix from Orphan Black. Street smart and hot. Yes, bit cliche gay, but so are some of my gay (guy) friends.

¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯

[RumplesGirl]

PoM – never saw Ugly Betty, so can’t say anything about that character. But maybe it was something like I (and others) had with Star Trek’s Wesley Crusher, couldn’t stand that character but was never able to nail, why not. I love Wil Wheaton by now, great geek, great guy, but still have a hard time watching any episode with Wesley in the middle of attention. And they didn’t even tell such bad story with him at times. Interesting that some people have some problems with Henry, might be something similar. And now I am already straining my head to find a female character as example, lol.

SAME. Wil Wheaton is *great* but Wesley Crusher, to this day, annoys the living daylights out of me. Wunderkind extraordinaire.

Though there are some clear examples, there are as well some debated ones, like an episode from Star Trek Deep Space Nine, where the Dax symbiont meets a former spouse but both are now in new hosts, and renewing their romance is something the Trill society forbids

Great episode. And I love Dax overall. Dax and the Trills are a great example of the fluidity of sex and gender. Dax, the symbiotic, (for people unaware) had several hosts of its lifetime, both sexually male and female. And of course, it’s just very Star Trek that most of the surrounding characters don’t experience any oddness over her changes in gender. (and you wanna talk about gender roles….the entire arc of Quark and Rom’s mother and Nagus’s eventual retirement to let modern ways come forth)

Or, another example, whenever DS9 goes to the Mirror Universe: Mirror Kira is obviously bi-sexual, whereas “our” universe Kira is really only interested in the opposite sex. Though, lol, of course, she ends up falling deeply in love with someone who’s whole nature is fluid and who could literally be anyone or anything. And speaking of the Changelings…I’m sure we could write *pages* about the Changelings

(I am deeply in love with DS9)

I agree that there are things ONCE would do that I wouldn’t like–only showing villainous LGBT characters for example. Or being so overly flamboyant that they become a characteriture. Felix, on Orphan Black, is flamboyant but he’s also very real and, like everyone, is complex and layered. He doesn’t just show up in something skin tight and speak like a flamboyantly gay man. He has ranges, like everyone.

"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"

[Author]

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