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well, at least she's a good-looking spy ([info]blue_penguin) wrote in [info]unfunny_fandom,
@ 2011-09-24 16:54:00


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"Gay comics characters don't look gay enough!"
This has been making the fandom rounds, but I haven't seen it here yet, so here goes:

Brett Booth and Scott Lobdell, the team behind the relaunch of Teen Titans, have decided to add a new gay character to the team. Cool, right?

Unfortunately, Booth's comments on the reasoning behind this decision are somewhat less cool. A few choice quotes:

I’ve seen all the other gay superheroes out there, Ok maybe not all. They look just like regular heterosexuals, they act like regular heterosexuals, they just happen to have sex with people of their own gender, under the covers and in the dark. Sure you might get a kiss on a page, but that’s all (an no we won’t be doing any sex scenes in TT, get your minds OUT of the gutters

We wanted to show an interesting character who’s homosexuality is part of him, not something that’s hidden.


[...]

As for the children.. Most simply don’t know or don’t care. It’s not like Migg’s is going to be doing a one man gay pride parade. I don’t think we even mention that he’s gay, you see him, you know it, no need to harp on about it. He’s just a happy fun loving guy! He won’t be wearing anything that I haven’t seen at Walmart. Well maybe Target;)

Which (a) has the unpleasant implication that gay characters (and indeed actual gay people) are Not Gay Enough unless they fit certain stereotypes and (b) leads to concerns that the character in question may be written as a sort of sexless Gay Best Friend type who you "know" is gay not because he expresses any interest in men, but because he's effeminate. Fun!

This RPG.net thread has a good discussion of it (turning partway into a discussion of comics characters who were conceived as queer vs. ones that were retconned to be, but that's interesting too!); it's also been posted on inclusive_geeks on LJ. (Those are the only places I've seen it, but if anyone has more links, by all means let me know!)


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[info]mmanurere
2011-09-27 10:28 am UTC (link)
They look just like regular heterosexuals, they act like regular heterosexuals, they just happen to have sex with people of their own gender, under the covers and in the dark. Sure you might get a kiss on a page, but that’s all (an no we won’t be doing any sex scenes in TT, get your minds OUT of the gutters

We wanted to show an interesting character who’s homosexuality is part of him, not something that’s hidden.


In other words:

"Sure, we could have a gay character just be gay in that real-world 'is attracted to people of the same sex' sense of the word -- but that wouldn't be keeping it real enough, so we're going to see how many stereotypes we can shove into one character." Silly me, here I was thinking that it was my liking cock that marked me as gay, with my general flaminess being perhaps a hint as to said trait. But no, these straight men have enlightened me: if I'm gay, I must fit a very narrow and asexualized stereotype for the entertainment of straight people! After all, that's what being gay is all about -- just ask the straight comics-people who have decided that I exist for their amusement!

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