Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Besides the shows you named, @RumplesGirl, The Fosters, Orphan Black, Bones, Chicago Fire, The Good Wife, Rookie Blue, Under the Dome, Defiance, Lost Girl, Pretty Little Liars, Warehouse 13, True Blood, Teen Wolf, Sirens come to my mind (broadcast and cable). Not counting internet series like Orange is the New Black. Looks like some.
There is progress. GLAAD gives an annual report about queer characters on TV, you can find it here for 2013. Out of 796 series regular in primetime TV programs of the broadcast networks (ABC, NBC etc.) 26 are queer, 3.3 percent. ABC is above average with 5.4 percent. Among recurring characters on all broadcast networks they counted 20 characters being queer. To be fair, that is not a bad number. It’s difficult to compare, because there are no good numbers to compare with. Recent numbers given for the US estimate about 4 percent of adults identifying themselves as being in the queer community based on surveys, more though aknowledge to have had same sex experience. And it’s not clear, how high the number of people could be, who don’t tell even if a survey is anonym, so it is unclear how close these numbers are to the factual number of people being queer, openly or in the closet. There have been estimates up to 10 percent of adults.
If it comes to happy queer couples on TV, the number of shows is smaller. Of the shows named: Grey’s Anatomy, Modern Family, Glee, The Fosters.
We’re getting there, not with lightspeed, but things are getting better.
PriceofMagic wrote: The Willow/Oz and Willow/Tara ship war is no different to the SF/CS ship war where both sides see the other person as coming between their pairing.
It’s hard to tell, how much reactions were influenced by that Tara was a woman and not a man, making Willow, as she identified herself later, lesbian, and how many were just miffed because of their favorite couple breaking up (or as some would have said, being broken up). No one, or maybe only a few would have argued, Willow and Tara can’t fall in love because they’re both witches, but because Willow had before a crush on Xander and then was with Oz, both men, she couldn’t be interested in women in the view of some people. It was argued to be inconsistent and forced. It’s not so much the amount and passion of discussion, but what comes up as arguments. Doubt anyone argues that CS can’t be because one is of royal blood and the other as far as we know not, although there were times that would have been seen as legit argument.
Who would I like to see as queer characters on OUaT?
Red. With Mulan. Something I had on mind even before they let Mulan nearly confess her love to Aurora and thus made her officially lesbian (or bisexual). BTW thanks for pointing out Screwballs’s essay, @PriceofMagic, interesting. Fierce, loyal, vulnerable heartbroken introvert warrior and fierce, loyal, vulnerable extrovert tracker and wolf – perfect. Only problem: there might be no time to develop this. Still no news on the status of Ory’s show Intelligence, it’s on the bubble and might get cancelled. At the moment she is filming a Hallmark movie set to premier this summer (The Memory Book), and I hope for her she has other project in sight if Intelligence would be cancelled. The show Jamie Chung is on at the moment as regular, Believe, is as well on the bubble, but still she might not be available much either.
Archie – possible, but no idea who would be interesting for him.
Frankenstein – okay, Dr. Whale is a womanizer, so what? Jack Harkness (Torchwood, omnisexual) is quite a bit of a womanizer and still charms guys as well. Don’t think though that he and Archie would be any fit, although quite sure Whale should get some therapy hours with Archie.
One or more of the dwarfs – They have been kinda made look like being mostly asexual and said to be not capable of falling in love. Well, it would be interesting to have an asexual male character falling in love with some fairy tale prince or maybe one of the Merry Men. High on my list: Sneezy. Problem I have with any of the dwarfs: Besides Grumpy they are pretty much minor, supporting characters only.
Tinkerbell – our fairy rebell, so she could be a good choice to question the fairies don’t love policy again but with the twist of making her soulmate a woman. But, Rose McIver is busy. Not to mention might get her own show, iZombie seems to look good for pick-up, we should know more soon (CW upfronts are on May 15th).
Not so thrilled by the idea to bring in new characters, if so, at least pair them with an already introduced character.
Neither interested that much to get just one episode guest character story, with a queer couple introduce as casusal as possible, but it would be a start.
Has been said by ohters, but I agree, it shouldn’t be about two characters being queer, but about two character falling in love, finding their soulmates, two character who happen to be of the same sex/gender. OUaT is a show about love and hope. As much as I can try to write my own stories and create my own characters (maybe I should, someone around to pay my bills for the next maybe two years so I can get on to it?), it would be really great to see a queer love on a show about love as well.
[adrotate group="5"]¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯
Gaultheria wrote (some pages back):
I think they have to be very careful about messing with people’s (especially children’s) sense of identity.
The problem is, that we have fixed pictures in our heads. One True Love is defined to some people still in a narrow sense, that means a woman and a man meant to be with each other, to build a family, to have children, to marry. While more people by now have become tolerant if it comes to same sex/gender relationships, for many it still goes beyond the imagination and acceptance of same sex/gender relationships as normal relationships, as being true love, and more importantly as good to build a family and have children and be married. And then there is Disney (at least in some parts of this world) delivering an important chunk of imagery what true love looks like (princess finding her prince), becoming kinda the stock of societal images people get in their heads on from childhood. If I want to change societal images of what is acceptable and defined as true love, and that I want to, I have to mess with people’s minds, question that stock of images we all have in our heads, use them differently, change them, offer new ones. If I let the old set untouched nothing will change.
Genderswapping, changing ethnicity are possibilities to jolt that (old) set of images, is a good way, and I say it is even the most radical one, it’s for example questioning gender images as well, and it means to change 2 characters even when creating a queer couple, of one character the gender, for both their sexual orientation. But there are still people who hate that new Battlestar Galactica made Starbuck a woman, if they had made her queer, having affairs with women it would have been only the icing on the top. Breaking up an OTP is not more of an issue in my opinion (instead of questioning gender roles though questioning the model of OTP, but both means questioning fundamental ideas thriving in storybooks). The only convenient way is to create new characters without all the burden of Disney and Grimm and other traditions. It is a way to bring in more diversity, but to reach a different level of acceptance still will have to shake up common conceptions and receptions, and that means to me, shake up characters that have tradition and baggage, characters people already do have some connection to and like, who have been in the middle of attention already, and not add new characters, who easily can be kept on the sidelines. Shaking up things is never comfortable and nice.
You might not have heard of it, but there are a few people claiming, that Frozen already is an attempt to indoctrinate children to accept same sex/gender relationship – and all that Frozen is showing is one princess not getting happily married in the end to a real man but stay unmarried. Elsa is a new character and some find even that scary and outrageous, even with there being just a possibility and more subtext than maintext.
Because Tara was brought up: When in Buffy Tara came into play a number of people disliked her, because she got in the way of Willow and Oz relationship. She was no all friendly welcomed (Amber Benson tells about an incident in the beginning on a fan meeting, where she heard fans talk about how much they hated her character and wanted the character to go away). Good if it has been mostly forgotten by now, and good that those embracing Willow and Tara were a loud group of fans, but it wasn’t an all easy peaceful transition. Nowadays some shipping war would rage all over the web, I am sure about that, and go away after while, with some fans leaving eventually, and new fans won. That war would be a tad more fervent because of having a political touch, but it would rage, people never like if something they’ve grown found of is been taken away.
Even if bringing in 2 fully new, unknown characters without any traditional story background there would be discussion, but it would be one, which could be easily ignored. Unless you take popular iconic characters or make the characters the main protagonist it means creating just some more niche characters. That might help to stabilize tolerance, but to reach more acceptance have to be make it less easy and shake up things right in the middle of attention.
PriceofMagic wrote:
In the case of SwanQueen, it’s not going to happen ever. Ignoring the fact that not only are Regina and Emma related but Regina has tried to kill Emma’s family a lot, both women are heterosexual and have shown no inclination whatsoever for people of the same sex. If there was any plan to make either Regina or Emma homosexual or bi, there would’ve been some hint in the last 2.5 seasons to trigger the transition. To make either character suddenly homosexual would not only be poor writing but a plot device.
As much as I agree, that SQ will not happen, that is not because Emma and Regina so far having been only shown in relationship with men nor because of Regina having tried to kill Emma (so did Spike, trying to kill Buffy and her loved ones, which didn’t stop any Spike Buffy shippers to ship them either, and that is okay), or because of no hints of bisexuality so far. Nothing of that stands against changing their story over time, and it could be done without retcon. This is a fairy tale soap opera after all, bringing the most unlikely characters together is happening all the time (Romeo and Juliet trope, and not all stories using it end as tragic).
The very simple reason, that it’s not going to happen is, that the writers have no intention to go there. Whatever vague statement they sometimes give, they don’t have that intention, they made that much clear IMO already. Yup, there might be still a number of SWanQueen shippers dreaming it could change, and I marvel at the strength of their hope, but I don’t share that hope.
The arguments used against a romantic relationship of Emma and Regina though are interpretations, one point of view. But this is fairy tale, fiction, nothing is impossible. And please, and no offense, that both have been so far shown just dating men and that there have been no hints it could be different is no good argument. It’s based on the assumption, that one’s sexual orientation has to show as teenager, latest in our 20s, and that things then have to be settled for the rest of one’s life, that there has to have been hints at least. That is maybe right for a majority, but it’s no axiomatic fact of life, it’s culture. That argument is bias, is based on what is called heteronormativity. That is particular what SwanQueen fans get riled up about, and though I am no shipper, something I will argue against any time as well.
TheWatcher wrote:
As in input here, I think most of the evidence for SQ isn’t as…potent as SQ shippers think it is. (…)
Guess have to give a try to give a bit of background of living as queer person (summoning up our alphabet community with one word, which though is disputed, just saying for those not aware, be careful when using it).
It’s not that long ago, that queer relationships were against the laws even in our so modern, democratic Western nations – and in even in a few of them still are, at least to some degree. And there are still many places in this world where queer people barely can live their lives at all, where they can go to prison for it, be punished physically and even executed, and many more where they can’t do it openly or only in very, very shy form. Even if law doesn’t stand against queer, that still doesn’t mean, they can show their affections openly, they might still be attacked, beaten up and even get killed for it.
Queer people have their places to go, where they can be more open, but most of the world we move in on daily base is not that open, even not in Western cultures. Many still aren’t out at work places for example, fearing they might lose their jobs or just the good relations they have with co-workers.
So subtext is for queer people something not just in fiction, books, TV, movie, it’s going on in real life, something queer people learn to use and decode out of necessity. That includes more covert flirting, finding each other despite that we can’t show openly affection. It’s not just about reading subtext, but as well about reading all the subtle signs of attraction and affection humans do show, better and earlier than most have to read them, because queer people have to, they need to be able to see signs when other might still overlook them. Of course it is possible to misread, to misunderstand signs of affection and attraction, because they might be just signs of liking and friendship at times.
Noticing subtle signs of attraction and affection is something though not just queers do or have to, in some cultures flirting is something done a lot more decent and covert than in our very expressive modern Western pop culture. No, it doesn’t need to be a hug to express. Yes, a look lingering a second longer (well, that is one of the things people are noticing already about Emma and Regina), how close people stand, if they face each other or stand slightly turned away, if they have open arms are fold their arms, if one touches the other at upper arm or just the wrist, when they show reactions – all that can tell something. And guess some directors and editors have some idea of the importance of timing, cutting to someone, the role of close-up and how that works on emotions and perception.
Even when there are only subtle signs, not as strong, open, visible, in some readings, like queer reading, that already can be open flirting. It might be hard to get into, to see, understand, when you’re not living it on a daily basis, but everybody can learn it, one doesn’t have to be queer to see it 😉
thelonebamf
Kinda like your idea, but I want a queer couple be neither melodramatic with tragic end nor the comedy relief – because both has been done ad nauseam. And there is a problem with comedy, because being queer has been used as offensive and vilifying “joke”. It’s not difficult because queer people are sensitive or have no humor (we have, plenty), but it is difficult, because some people think it is a joke to be queer while claiming what they say is just comedy, fun, nothing offensive.Puh, and I of course have a lot of more thoughts on some things written, and some things to add, but need to finish breakfast and get ready and out of the house for family day. So more later.
One more thing:
Thanks to all participating for this open discussion!¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯
Was one of the people who missed Storybrooke, or more what it meant in first season: a contrast to the Enchanted Forest, to the simplicity of storybook lands, where people for example might question, why anyone has the right to rule them just because of heritage, where magic and science collide, where happy endings are something not happening or in a different way. Grumpy asking what would happen if people from our world discover dwarfs, fairies, (were-) wolves and other speaking animals are real was a good question, which they barely explored, rushing instead to get to Neverland sweet Pan. To me Storybrooke was not boring but one of the things that made the show interesting in the first place. Just some other, more or less new twists (IMO less) of fairy tales was only a part of what made me watch the show, and if they had put the story just in the storybook lands I might have tuned out already during first season.
What they made of Storybrooke though was not good. It never was about the town but about the difference in relationships, the difference of a world with different believes and approaches, it was a sort of alternative university setting without calling it an alternative university. Not to mention people missed quite simple the characters left behind in Storybrooke, Belle, Red, Granny, Archie, the dwarfs.
It was said, that all who were in Storybrooke during the first Dark Curse had their original life memories (Enchanted Forest etc. life) and their fake “modern” world ones, and that was hardly explored. That the show didn’t do that is their biggest miss so far, tons of character challenges and development missed out on, and their is no way to make good for that, the moment is gone.
So, right, now Storybrooke is boring.
¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯
I’m very much with you in this, Crystal Princess. And think we both know there are fan fictions and even queer fairy tale books, but that is not the point, they are treated as niche, and what we aim for is being in the mainstream, to be as visible as heterosexuality is, to be able to watch the daily TV mainstream program and find representations of us in it, not as specials but as being included. Amazingly especially fantasy and science fiction fail in this, should thing with so much freedom of imagination they would do better.
Stories are open for interpretation, some more, some less, and we all read stories our very own, indiviual way, through the lens and filters our own views, individual experiences, biography are setting. Part of it and more are societal images, images none of us is free of, creating a bias going beyond our individual interpretations. Frequently we are not much aware of biases coming from those societal images and how they affect us. If it comes to relationships, romance and love we have a dominant societal image: an adult woman and an adult man, mostly from the same ethnic group and around the same age, in a relationship that is marked as different from mere friendship by sexual desire and activity. Everybody can try it, ask yourself, what pictures first come to mind, when you think of romance. I am a bisexual woman and still can’t help it, but have a man and woman pretty much every time as first picture on my mind.
It goes as well the other way around, and that is the main issue here. When we see two women, about same age, sitting close, one leaning against the other on a park bench, it is less likely that we will think of them as lovers as if it were a man and a woman about same age sitting on a bench. Unless we explicitly are told differently, when a male co-worker tells, he was out last night with a friend on a romantic dinner, we will assume the friend is a woman. When a female character has been so far shown to have romantic relationships with men we mostly assume, she is straight and never will have any romantic relationship with women.
True, kisses can be non-sexual, not just historically and in other cultures but think in every culture, even U.S. American cultures (and the plural is intentionally, think there is not one big national culture but many sometimes just slightly different ones on U.S. American soil). The Christian kiss of peace when meeting is still practiced by some. Not to mention if going beyong kissing the lips. But as well kisses of sexual affection are not limited to lips 😉 Not even in visual media it is always explicit, but in books without more description and a more vague context it can be indeed read different ways, which should be not mistaken as subtext, it can be very well open text staying simply vague, as in the case of The Wicked Years (subtext means there is a maintext delivering a certain, often even clear, meaning, while there can be read a second and different meaning in it, a subtext). So some read Elphaba kissing Glinda as prove of a romance and sexual attraction, others just a close friendship. And many don’t even get the idea, it could be a romance, because it’s not explicitly said and they are women. If one of them were a man, most likely a lot more people would read romance, even if everything else was written the same way – and that is the bias created by societal images preferring hetereosexual pairings, something I think we should strive to overcome in society as much as individually.
Based on that biased most people assume without questioning it, that if a woman has been shown on a show in just one relationship so far, or a few, and it was with men, that she never could have had in theory any realitionship with women or ever will have, in other words, she will be called straight, and all ideas of her being with women will be dismissed as not possible. Guess what, there are women who had most of their lives only relationships with men and then there is that one woman they fall in love with, they might never again, no one can tell, but there is this one woman at this moment. Others know early on that they are attracted to more than one gender. Just because a person was so far always with one or the other gender doesn’t make sure to me they never will be able to fall in love with another, unless they claim for themselves that they are just one or the other or something else, I respect how people identify themselves. That a woman has been and maybe is at the moment in love with men says not much about her future, it creates at best a possibility that the next person she’s going to fall in love with might again be a man, but it doesn’t disprove, that it couldn’t be as well a woman.
The problem is not so much, that people read stories differently, but that they ignore possibilities because of societal dominant images and think that is the normal reading of the story.
The common approach is: a character is heterosexual unless shown otherwise. It’s an eye opener when you approach stories and characters with the different assumption, that everyone is at least bisexual unless said by the character otherwise. Try it!
And as well we should be cautious about assuming gender (although I ignored it here in this discussion). But seeing how OUaT struggles to even bring in something different from hetero-normal relationships that is something even less to expect to ever be shown on this show.
I don’t mind an evil character to be bisexual or gay/lesbian, if them being that is not the main root of their evilness. Given the dark past of LGBTQI representation in media and how little representation still is there, making LGBTQI characters the evil, the antagonist means moving on thin ice, possible but writers should know what they’re doing. It’s not about adding eventually fuel to the fire of homophobia, because it doesn’t matter, homophobes twist whatever you offer to have prove for their views, and it’s neither about creating positive images, whatever that should be. To change heteronormativity it doesn’t matter much either, make it more likely that a character could go in a different direction is the point, more visibility. LGBTQI are rather people like heteros are, with good sides and manners and bad sides and manners, we’re not any better nor any worse, we make mistakes and do things right, we can be heroes and evil and cowards as everybody else, and I want to see all that. Just one thing: Because if we get stories we mostly get the ones ending with drama and tragedy so far, love not fulfilled, it would be nice to get some happy ending for a change.
I see not many parallels to The Wicked Years, not even nods here and there, but correct me if there had been, so I highly doubt that the affections Elphaba and Galinda/Glinda have in the books and the musical are any inspiration for OUaT. Besides being green see not much that Elphaba and Zelena share. Nevertheless, the idea of Zelena and Glinda having been close to each other in a more romantic sense is interesting, but I can only picture it before Zelena discovered who she was, because think since she did, and then visited EF and was refused by Rumple, she wasn’t anymore open for love.
Glinda told the Charmings, that she and Zelena were friends, and unless told otherwise the option is there, that they had a strong affection for each other, or even maybe just one of them for the other, that there could have been a romance in the making, which maybe never came to be though.
PanTheMan wrote:
Hercules would be a fantastic gay character, especially considering his Greek/Roman origins.
Why would Hercules being of Greek/Roman origins make it any more notable to be a gay character? The ancient Greek and Roman cultures had different views on sexuality than we have in our contemporary Western cultures, which doesn’t mean they were all open to being gay or lesbian as we understand it today, alright, and I know some have the view, that Greek and Roman mythology have a number of gay relationships, including Hercules with younger men, but so what? It would be nice if it would be more noticed that in Greek mythology Hercules was not just a womanizer but also had relationships with young men which could be read as gay, but that is about it, not the origin in Greek/Roman mythology but that there are already possible stories could be interesting to work with.
¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯
A quick way to reduce the number of recurring cast.
But might have just been some unknown peasants and they will lift a glass to them off the camera at Granny’s diner some day.
Or the monkeys weren’t killed but when injured automatically get poofed to somewhere else.
Or TPTB thought, hey, cool CGI, let’s do it – without thinking any further than that.
And maybe we get a cute little baby flying monkey thanks to Aurora being turned into a monkey. Regina should reconsider her pets policy.
¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯
What was already said, and each pregnancy is different.
What stressed my mind watching “A Curious Thing” and seeing Aurora and Phillip being turned into flying monkeys: What happened to the baby? Was the pregnancy kinda paused or did Aurora gave birth months later or something else?
¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯
My first thought was, they made the doorway disappear as a sign of things being off in the house after they had contact with that dark vortex (suspense!), but they showed it so pronounced and there is no follow-up, that I began wondering, if there is more to it. And why should the vortex or the ghost be any connected to that doorway disappearing, trapping whoever is in the house for what? Possession? And why just this doorway disappearing, why not seal off some window as well? Remembered the Halloween episode of season 04 of Buffy, “Fear, itself” (4×04 – not written by Espenson), maybe similar intention.
But the doorway disappearing from the hall didn’t necessarily mean, anyone is trapped, could be just a change in the architecture of the house (strange design maybe, but not impossible to have a different way from main entry hall to main stairwell). Small changes in furniture, architecture, pictures on the shelf or wall, change of clothes are often hints or foreshadowing that something or someone is changing a timeline, that we are in an alternative timeline or alternative universe. To use the title of the episode, this disappearing doorway could be a sign that maybe an alternative timeline or universe is beginning to bleed through, the world as we know it is transforming. By the way, in theater bleed through is sometimes used as term for a transformation of the scene by using sharktooth scrim effect (lit from the the front and no back lights the scrim is opaque, lit from behind what is behind the scrim becomes visible, fast way to change scenery or to hide set changes being made).
If it was just for this episode or something foreshadowing upcoming events, it was IMO bad that they just showed the doorway disappearing but then nothing followed. So we’re left wondering. Even if it is something that will come up in a following episode again, would have been better to now either make clear, if it was something just connected to the appearing of Cora’s ghost or something different. Another pan shot showing if the doorway is back there or still gone at the end of the episode, maybe even someone wondering for a second (Snow, Emma) that they’ve thought there were a doorway, not really knowing, but like faint echo of memory (if a sign of timeline altering), maybe just a startled look. Not sure if to blame writing, directing or editing or all of it for it. This way at least I am left more wondering, if the doorway is still gone and not so much why or what it meant.
¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯
hmm. wouldnt it have been cooler if Jonathan had been a stable boy pretending to be a prince, instead of a gardener? thats how i would have written it.
Like that. Even more so because it was episode 18 of season 01 we met Regina’s stable boy. Could have been such a nice nod to it.
¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯
anyone else like the whole green vs red apple onversation? just me. ok.
You’re not alone, Although I would take bittersweet, red and green, and have me some nice cider 😉
First thought hearing the first lines: Jane Espenson! Can’t be sure which parts of the script she wrote, but it is noticeable she had her hands in it.¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯
My own headcanon is that Cora’s mother was really Morgan Le Fay of Arthurian legend.
Funny thing, made a note while watching, that some day Jonathan might turn out to be Merlin in his second Sturm und Drang years (known as Storm and Stress, though Drang is better translated as impulse or urge or drive… aka wild years), who had just come back broken hearted and disillusioned from his hundred of years lasting trip through the worlds looking unsuccessfully for his blue flower Nimue (or Viviane, The Lady of the Lake, not the one we saw, another one) who meanwhile had become the Blue Fairy and accidentally created the smoke monster of the lake searching for her lost love. The monster later became known as the Dark One…
Jonathan was some enchanter, here in the sense of charming is way into Cora’s bed, but who knows.
(the blue flower was a core motif of German Romanticism, a symbol for desire, love, for seeking for the infinite and unreachable, for sehnsucht aka longing as C.S. Lewis correctly understood it; Sturm und Drang was a precurser of Romanticism)
¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯
