Venting

[teyla]

Okay, internet. ENOUGH with the heterosexual privilege fail.

Ever since this post went up at doctorwho, it reminded me to actually pay attention to how much heterosexuality is accepted as the only valid norm in all parts of western society, and good lord. It's making me tired.

Sure, you can be gay, as long as you act according to the norm. Nobody really cares about what you do in your bedroom, but don't you dare disrupt people's views of what men should be and how they should act, of what women should be and how they should present themselves. And this isn't even limited to people with a heterosexual orientation. Enough queer people are of the opinion that hey, as long as you don't get beat up on street corners for being with a same-sex partner, it's absolutely fair that you keep your head down and adapt to the heterosexual norm. Because anything else would create conflict, and gosh, we can't have conflict.

Yes, there are mistakes being made on both sides. That's because queer people as well as straight people are people, and people make mistakes. But to reach true equality, the queer community has to become a visible part of all aspects of society, and that won't happen if the they keep to themselves and adapt to the norm in order to avoid conflict.

And sexism isn't a thing of the past, either. Look at the representation of women in Hollywood movies; there's sexism for you, no matter if this is the 21st century or not. And no, don't shrug and say, well, they're Hollywood movies. They're the side of the media that's shaping the images that our society draws its norms and standards from, which means that if you want the images to change, the media needs to change first. And it won't do that unless the minorities keep pointing out that yes, they actually would like to be represented equally and fairly.


comment on LJ

Comments

[daphnie_1]

...that the presence of subtext is completely inconsequential if it isn't combined with other factors that make it clear that the subtext is intended to be read as queer

I'm starting to understand how important the distinction is. The subtext may be nice but when it comes to actual portrayals of sexuality it's, inherently, useless unless it's backed up with textual evidence to support that reading.

I'd be really interested - if you wanted to share - about why you feel Merlin can be read this way. As far as I could tell it's all just subtext too?

[teyla]

Well, with Merlin it's that basically the entire show is about the Arthur/Merlin relationship, and the fact that Merlin has to hide his true nature from Arthur, not because Arthur would necessarily want to reject him for it, but because he would have to according to the rules of his society. You can watch the show without being aware of the Merlin/Arthur subtext, but that's like reading Kafka's Metamorphosis as a story about a guy who turns into a bug, without making the connections to Kafka's own life. In doing that, you're basically only getting half the story.

With Vincent and the Doctor, the subtext was a take-it-or-leave-it thing. Seeing the subtext wasn't a moment of, "oh, so that's what this story is about", it was more a moment of "oh look, that could be fun to explore". The former would have been a form of queer representation, the latter wasn't.