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NL was just the same thing over and over again. It wasn’t like Wonderland which at least had different locales. It was like the same clearing over and over.
I liked the arc in terms of bringing everyone together and it had some great flashback eps like Quite a Common Fairy and Ariel but aside from that it did drag a bit.
[adrotate group="5"]I don't cause commotions, I am one.
Also I don’t mind making this a general gay pairing thread or whatever if that’s what people want to do. I feel like it needs to be talked about because all too often queer people are a little shunned in this fandom because they fall under the somewhat maligned SWEN banner.
I don't cause commotions, I am one.
I think people forget that OUAT can and already has gotten away with a lot more than the average Disney movie. It’s just the right distance from Disney so it doesn’t show up at the parks or whatever but there is still an official variation of a Disney character that is queer for us to cling to. There wasn’t really much of an outcry with Mulan, maybe they were testing the waters.
I don't cause commotions, I am one.
I’m not sure how I feel about that. In the official Disney canon I’d hate to break them up but Rumple isn’t exactly the beast for example. And Cinderella had… complications.
We do also have to accept though that if we’re going to keep using the same archetypes again and again and changing nothing we’re leaving no room for diversity. It’s been a problem with comics for yonks – new characters don’t tend to to well and haven’t since the 80s, in fact most have been around since the 60s.
I don't cause commotions, I am one.
That’s a great post, Myril, thanks for explaining much of what I was trying to say from a different perspective, it makes it harder to isolate someone as being contrarian when someone can back up what i’m saying with their own twist on it.
I have a friend who’s discovering her bisexual identity in her mid 20s actually right at the moment, so it rings especially true to me.
I don't cause commotions, I am one.
The point I want to make about “seeing the same thing” is that we live in a society where we are cultured to see straight relationships and gender normative behaviour first and foremost. We don’t get a lot of exposure to same sex relationships in the media and what we do tends to be relegated to shows that are particularly known for it and have a “Queer” vibe to them (Orphan Black, Orange is the New Black, Glee, etc.). We’re seeing better now but unfortunately lesbian relationships especially have not quite broken into the “Fairytale romance” thing and often happen in complicated or shady circumstances(again, Orphan Black and OitNB being great examples of this).
It’s not just straight people that miss it – though they’re more likely to not having personally experienced it – I didn’t even pick up on Sleeping Warrior at first, because again I was so used to the idea of the show being so heteronormative and that any queer pairing would as has been said, end up having a “Song and a dance” made about it(though personally being into musicals I like a song and a dance being made out of everything, so not sure I would have said it that way!). We’re not used to the idea that there can be queer subtext between characters and are much quicker to dismiss it than we would for traditional pairings, because it takes a lot more “activation energy” for that chemistry to happen in our minds.
Which is in a sense homophobic, but people don’t want to admit it because they take it as a personal insult. And it’s always a problem when people make other people’s oppression about them. It’s not a personal insult – it’s just pointing out how negative or dismissive attitudes towards homosexuality have been imprinted on our culture. After all if they weren’t there, we’d already have queer characters on the show and a gay disney princess. We don’t. And it’s not so simple as blaming a few soccer moms or religious fundamentalists for this – it’s a sociological trend and thus can be found in everyone to a degree.
So please don’t take it personally if I point out that people aren’t likely to pick up on a queer romance or pairing like Galinda/Elphie – we are all brought up in a society that instils certain values in us and teaches us to recognise certain things in certain ways. Unfortunately people like me have been completely excluded from that and goodness knows how many decades or centuries it will take to truly turn that around and imprint the idea of homosexuality and especially bisexuality(some of the anti-Swan Queen arguments seem to be based in bi erasure) into our culture.
As a queer woman I want a happy ending. I’ve had a difficult time lately, I had a brief relationship with another girl I loved very much, she was my Galinda(and still calls me her Elphie), but things got difficult. Long distance relationships are hard. When you’re lonely, the first instinct of a geek is to dump your head into fiction. I watched/rewatched a bunch of Disney movies when I was sick/depressed a while back, and ended up feeling worse in some ways as a result. I take offense to people who tell me(and this has even come from other Swanqueen shippers, generally the more sheltered middle class types) that headcanons are enough for now, give it time etc. and I Don’t accept that. As a queer transwoman I’m used to fighting for my identity, it’s not been an option to me not to and I know if people keep pushing we can see more acceptance and representation. It’s very deeply morally wrong that in 2014 especially we still have queer people excluded from fairytale romance almost entirely, even though queer narratives often make such wonderful fairytales.
p.s. they kiss at the end of For Good in the Finnish production. Just saying.
I don't cause commotions, I am one.
See, I read a ton of classics where people kiss all the time and it’s not sexual. So just kissing doesn’t make it a romance for me :p
If they were male and female then it would be taken to be romantic. Because it’s female/female people make excuses and assume otherwise. That’s heteronormativity and it sucks. People are more open about Polyamory in Maguire’s Oz too which makes things more complicated.
I don't cause commotions, I am one.
It’s not about whether people consciously have or think they have a problem with non-hetero romance, it’s that that are all kinds of biases in society that people internalise and can get in the way of us seeing these things.
I’m bringing up Wicked in specific because it was a series that played with that idea, which I think is interesting.
I kind of agree that it would be a bad idea though for the first proper queer relationship to be with someone as nasty as Zelena, but I still kind of want to believe she can be redeemed. I kind of just feel bad for her in this way I can’t describe and would like to see her finally feel like she’s wanted and loved instead of so angry 🙁
I don't cause commotions, I am one.
… they kissed? Twice? And slept together? Like they outright kissed each other at one point. Glinda was only ever interested in Elphaba. She married for money. She was a lesbian.
I think part of the problem with people “Not reading” Queer romance is that they’re either straight or generally not exposed to it… which is why you end up with such a rift in the OUAT fandom for example. We don’t get enough of these examples in the media, people get defensive, don’t want to look homophobic but don’t want to accept sociological concepts like heteronormativity either.
When it comes to WIcked a lot of this was confirmed in later books etc. like Glinda’s friends got married after college. Ozma is a lesbian as was Lurline. Gregory Maguire’s Oz was pretty queer – everyone is Bi until proven otherwise(this is Word of God) which is a nice change from having to go to a lot of effort to “prove” potential queer attraction between characters in other series. The idea of bisexuality being the norm messes with people’s heads and I love it.
Even in the musical, it’s not stated as outright that it’s a love story between Elphaba and Glinda, but it has been outright stated by cast and crew. In the song “Loathing”, they purposely took a lot of tropes associated with love songs and subverted it.
It was all intentional, word of god stuff and when people still deny it even then that’s when it gets darn right offensive. The assumption that all characters are 100% until proven otherwise is really offensive and one which the Wicked years explicitly rejects. I hope they realise that even if they are not adapting that book or musical, their marketing and focus on the Witch is riding on the coat tails of it, and fans of both the book and musical are largely queer women.
So at the very least, again, it would be a nice nod to one of the books that probably has inspired the development of characters like Regina as well as Zelena even if they’re not outright admitting it. I would like if we can stop acting that queer people or queer romance are some sort of special case that need some sort of special justification for our inclusion – you never need an excuse for straight people so it should be different for us, especially when there is a very clear precedent in it. Using “Wicked” in the marketing implies they’re taking at least some inspiration from the book and/or musical even if they can’t use it directly – it’s not a stretch to also embrace the book and musical’s love of queerness.
I don't cause commotions, I am one.
