As a lesbian I’m incredibly grateful for the wlw rep in cartoons but ofc it does come with the context that wlw relationships are seen as like… less real than mlw or mlm ones and that’s not fun. It’s also weirdly hard to find good wlw rep in shows that aren’t animated
yepp, i generally struggle with wlw content even tho im sapphic myself but the fact than im non binary makes that tricky bc most if not all rep in shows, novels and comics is about cis women, its weird bc it feels like im searching for the wrong rep for who i am, maybe its not sapphic relationships what i need really but simply a non binary character that happens to like women or other nbs?? maybe thats why i relate way more to Raine from the TOH I know thats not exactly what your comment was about but I felt the need to say this bc it just shows how we need more diverse queer stories, either in the sense of the content itself or in the medium its presented. EDIT!!!: Heyy so the reason I was unable to feel represented by sapphic content and even non binary characters to some extent is bc I'm actually a trans man!!! So that's why I obviously felt so lost, and I didn't see much of men being truly vulnerable in their relationships with women and they are always the dominant/protector type in the relationship which is very unlike how my personality is, I didn't and still struggle to find representation of the kind of man I am, and even of the kind of trans man I am, since I'm bi and not super masculine (I think that's why I thought I was enby since I enjoy playing with my gender expression a bit, but I still want to be seen as a man 100% so that's what was different) like the usual rep us trans guys get. Getting to understand myself and accept me for who I truly am was very difficult but I am glad I feel pretty secure in my identity now❤️ ALSOOO, I chose to keep my comment since I saw lots of you related to that feeling, so I think maybe it's still relevant to the conversation about how a lot of non binary people feel in these spaces, even tho I'm not sapphic nor enby, my experience at the time intersected with yours, which tbh I think happens a lot with trans people's experiences in general! But sorry in advance if I might have took a space accidentally that I wasnt meant to take
no i totally get what you mean. i appreciate the wlw rep, i love it, but the thing is I'm just not the biggest fan of animated shows. and it's so hard to find good wlw rep that's not an animated show. and especially cause these shows are all kids shows--no hate to anyone who watched these shows who's not a kid, i know it's not all kids that them and adults and teens can definitely enjoy them--but it's definitely mostly made for and marketed towards kids. and this is an issue bc they can't really explore in depth themes and plots that aren't exactly kid friendly. like i would love to see wlw rep in the style of ofmd, where they explore themes and character flaws that couldnt really be put in a kids show. overall it's just, I'm not a young kid anymore, and i wish i had rep that wasn't made for kids :(
@@punkithecat Very much!!! The only other NB character with a girlfriend I can think of is Syd from One Day At A Time!! (I’m not even sure if it’s stated explicitly that they’re a lesbian?? Haven’t watched the show in a while) but that really shows how little NB rep there is..
The thing that stood out to me the most about OFMD is that the characters are messy and very much not the best people, and yet it never takes away their ability to either give or receive love for it. I find that a lot of media that tries to sell queer representation ends up valorizing queer characters by always making them the "nicest" or most supportive people in the cast and by grinding away their flaws, which often unintentionally poses an argument that gay romance is only "deserved" or "acceptable" if gay people are morally superior (i.e. by being kinder, quieter, or less violent) than the straight people surrounding them. I felt so deeply seen when OFMD was like "maybe these characters are super flawed, and yet they fall in love anyway in-part because of those flaws, and they aren't less deserving of it just because they're imperfect". Furthermore, the characters won't be "fixed" by hooking up, and their flaws are associated with yet not directly caused by their sexualities. I related so much to the ways both Stede and Ed struggled to believe that they were deserving of love once love unexpectedly entered their lives, and it's so cathartic to finally see a show nail why I struggled with my own sexuality for so long.
Cause if the minority rep has to be good and deserving and long-suffering, then they're being treated as an instrument to lever tolerance out of a indifferent or phobic majority audience (who probably isn't that credulous anyway)
I definitely agree. There are some exceptions of course.. that antagonist from Ozark in the early season. I like that in Sex Education there was different types of gay guys through out the series.
“How quickly we forget where we came from, and the importance that most of us will one day live to an age hundreds of thousands of our people never got to see.” Good fuck, that almost made me cry
@@esbeng.s.a9761 It’s easier said than done. Also, I’m that person who’s going to go through the quantity over quality and I’m very harsh on myself about creating something. Not a pretty process.
@@PokhrajRoy. As a History undergrad who LOVES studying human behavior, I'd really like to add yet another Sociology-related UA-cam channel to my list! It was CrashCourse, not the educacional system, that thought me how cool Sociology is. The internet simply NEEDS more accessible Sociology content! You could ask a sociology-savvy friend of yours (preferably a quality over quantity person) to help you with the channel. Your tendencies would probably balance each other out, depending on who you chose. In my free time, I could help you with brainstorming ideas and even source-mining, if you'd like. I'd offer to do more (I love both researching and writing), but my schedule is relatively busy with, among other things, all the college stuff, so I cannot make any long-term commitments right now. P.S: if you decide to make a channel, you should do a series on Pierre Bourdieu. One of the best professors I've ever had (in terms of both knowledge and ability to make learning engaging) said that she found Bourdieu near-impossible to understand, citing the concept of habitus as an example. However, I read a book on undergrad-level Linguistic Anthropology, Laura Ahearn's "The Living Language", that is able to explain that very idea, as well as other ideas by Bourdieu, quite simply.
I understand this, but I think some of that basic homophobes bad stuff is surprisingly important. My dad watched glee with my mom and that was the point he started questioning his homophobia. If Glee didn’t exist coming out to him as trans would not have gone well. I understand the need for queer stories for queer people, but queer stories for straight audiences have a real impact on not only straight people but the queer people in their lives.
I thought it was interesting that you chose driving as the example of a behavior that doesn’t get incorporated into an identity because you’re right that people don’t see the world through a driving lens but I think that’s because driving is the heterosexuality of transportation. Many cyclists, on the other hand, do incorporate that into their identities because it goes against the normative expectation that everyone should drive.
I would say driving does seem to be an identity because when you can't drive people infantalize you and treat you like there is something wrong with you, so clearly driving is a valuable part of their identity and passing the test was seen as a rite of passage And most cyclists didn't choose to have cyclist as an identity. There are leaked media memos telling employees in trashy newspapers how to create a driver vs cyclist narrative because it would sell papers / get clicks . It has also got people (many of whom are drivers as well) killed on their bicycles. People seen with bicycles are seen as vile rule-breakers. They are regularly harassed for the actions of other people on bicycles, as if everything one person does on a bicycle reflects everyone when they get on a bicycle
And many people who drive and live in car-centric communities believe that driving is the “only way to go” because that’s what their environment is built around, that’s what their environment is safest for. Funnily enough, I hate both driving and that I live in an American suburb that essentially forces me to drive.
The thing that's always bothered me most about Kurt Hummel's character has been his real world origin story: Chris Colfer, his actor, auditioned for the role of Artie, the disabled nerd. Chris Colfer himself was a closeted gay man and was shy, wry, and super geeky. He didn't get the role, but the singing at his audition was so impressive that they erased their token Indian character and made a character just for him, inspired by the audition. Was the character a nerd? Was he shy or sardonic? No, he wasn't. In fact he had almost nothing in common with Chris himself because the only thing they cared about was that Chris had a high pitched, feminine voice, and it made him "sound gay." They wrote a gay character defined by stereotypes because they clocked a young, closeted, gay man based on the *pitch of his voice.* Then they stereotyped him in front of the entire world. The character of Kurt Hummel wasn't just about stereotyping the gay community as a whole - it stemmed from incorrectly stereotyping a gay man to his own face.
You can even see in Chris's early interviews that he's always mentioning how little he and his character have in common, and how it's been a challenge as a newbie actor to get into the character's head. When contrasted with the fact that the character himself was literally written based on the writers' impression of Chris Colfer, the picture it paints is awful and cruel.
That's the best representation. When it's just there. No hetero romances are advertised as "look we have hetero representation!" It's just there It should be the same with queer media. Focused on the story, not the fact of queerness. Having lgbt characters, either main or side, is normal. Just normal. It has all the rights to be there. No need to put a label on it. It's really refreshing to have a show which just does what it does, develops an awesome gay romance and doesn't focus on it being gay. As it should be.
And yet that's not very reflecting of reality for most people. I think both kinds of representation are important, the kind that serves as escapism where LGBT characters just exist and their identities are never the point of focus, and the kind that explores and showcases the challanges that come with being LGBT, cause ignoring them isn't gonna make them go away.
@@razvanradoiu it's kinda an overused trope already. We have enough of this and need to move on Media impacts life just as life impacts media. It works both ways. So there should be more pieces of media with normalized presence of lgbt, not overdramatized
@@Jev_the_fluorescent_shrimp I don't share your sentiment, both are important and pretending that opression dosen't exist is going make people ignorant, as we've "moved on" from that and people roll their eyes when you talk about LGBT discrimination because to them it dosen't exist anymore. Both kinds of representation are important and there isn't nearly enough of either.
@@razvanradoiu nah I’m tired I experience discrimination irl enough. I’m very happy to just disappear into a world where I don’t have to deal with that.
I am not technically represented in OFMD. I’m a Lesbian, there are no Lesbians on the show. Hell, there’s hardly any women. That being said, I feel wayyyy more represented, and on a very personal and somehow sentimental level, with OFMD than I ever have with all of the cartoon lesbians…who I honestly feel less than nothing about. (HOWEVER, still keeping my fingers crossed for actual historical lesbian pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Reed who lived at the same time and in the same place as Stede Bonnet and Blackbeard to happen in the show) Love your channel and all that you do. Keep up the good work my friend. 💗
@@racheltheclumsy Its not lesbian pirates but Yellowjackets and The Wilds has great lesbian power couples in a secluded adventure setting of peer acceptance
I absolutely love this video, I've always hated the "gay kid comes out and gets bullied" trope (despite being that kid) and you finally put a reason to why, thank you.
Right, I love it when a show just has a character who is Gay or Trans and doesn't make a whole thing of it, I then proceed to make a whole thing of it by flapping my hands in joy and jumping up and down and telling everyone how great it is. (I haven't forgotten about everyone else it's just I've so far only seen this kind of representation with Gay and Trans people, and almost never at that) You know what else? Just having a character be a *woman* and no one make a thing out of it is awesome. Kim in Better Call Saul doesn't have to deal with sexism once, it's incredible, it makes me so happy. Her being a woman doesn't come into it, everyone just respects her for who she is. Even the villain treats her with respect when he meets her. That's one show! One show! (that I've seen) For 48% of the population! Why is this taking so long!
I love when this happens, but somehow when it happens in a piece of media like Heartstopper, it upsets me. I love Heartstopper. I think it’s adorable. Yet, a lot of plot issues or discussions arise from the difficulties of coming out faced by Tara and Darcy + Nick and Charlie. Elle, however, doesn’t get any of this? There’s a moment where Nick is about to deadname her and Charlie goes “She’s Elle now she moved schools.” Tao offhandly mentions that she was bullied. I understand she’s not a main character, but her struggles are delegated to the past and aren’t actively talked about. She’s the only trans character in the show. I like it when characters are treated like they’re just like everyone else. It’s just that when this happens in a world where every other person BUT that character with a specific identity is treated differently for it, it leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
@@luxill0s that always gave me really weird vibes, especially considering the rise of transphobia in the uk. its just hard to believe that these white cisgender gay men are more oppressed than a black trans girl.
The getting bullied part kinda has gone away just a bit tbh. Most people have gotten over it and realized we aren't evil villains who wanna poison the water supply.
@@luxill0s I 100% agree. I thought it was weird that they portrayed homophobia but transphobia barely exists in that show. You’re telling me the same girls laughing at Tara being a lesbian don’t give a shit that Elle is trans???
This is brilliant-you perfectly encapsulated why Our Flag Means Death felt like such a victory and such a beautiful RELIEF. I especially appreciated the discussion of queerbaiting-watching OFMD for the first time, I genuinely didn’t believe that they were really going to confirm the romance until the beach kiss. We’ve all been burned before, and I was afraid to let myself hope that this time would be different. I want to send this video to everyone I know. I want to somehow convince all of my straight friends who “Don’t Get It” to watch it.
So often sapphic relationships in animation are seen as innocent and inoffensive. It's awesome that we are finally getting more and more confirmed sapphic relationships, but there are so many ones that are just "gals being pals". I related so much to your explanation on how queerbaiting can lead to feeling gaslit. There are many shows (especially anime) I could name that use these relationships between girls to push this innocence narrative and not confirm their relationship. Besties that are ride or die for each other. To point I question "can I say this couple is canon" because their emotions appear romantic, yet there is no official confirmation but also nothing denying it. So which is it? And it sucks have these couples in limbo.
In the Nurarihyon no Mago manga, there is once a story where an NPC Old Guy told the cast about how, long ago, there was a samurai and his Lord, and they were very close. And the girls were like, “was that homosexuality?” and the guy was like, “well, the WIFE certainly thought so, she tried to kill them!” and later on in a post-anime arc, an enemy has turned one of the girls to try to be more feral and attack the other girl like “Didn’t you ever wanna bite her😈?” And the turned girl was like, “😱😱Not like *that*” Unfortunately, the former story was cut from the anime entirely cuz “OMG thInK oF tHe cHIldReN”
just... THIS, as a lesbian myself, this part of the video feels like have take a weight off my shoulders, its so true, and as you said, especially anime, that uses these relationships for innocente narrative (or go for the extremely harmful stereotype predatory lesbian) and are always the feminine padronized mostly caucasin couples the only ones that gets canon, its sucks, its again the industry saying "you could have representation, but only barely"
DC's Harley Quinn, ivy and harley are both correctly criminals but they still love and are loved, and I personally find it refreshing to not have that squeaky clean morality in a queer relationship And it is confirmed At least 3 kisses? And they literally get elope
@@HuanjianLin I have watched all of the Harley Quinn Show and that show has the opposite issue that sapphic relationships can also get in media representation which is oversexualization of them. Overall I do like the show and I like their relationship. It's the girl on girl jokes and the men drooling over them that it can become uncomfortable. It took us almost two seasons for them to get together and we had to watch a straight relationship that Ivy cheated in to be with Harley. I dislike how often bisexual representation comes with a cheating plotline. Legend of Korra also had this issue. And I hated how Harley and Ivy were outed by showing a private intimate moment projected into the sky for the male characters to drool over. However I still like and watch the show because there are aspects that are done well. I like that the characters are villains and have personality and stand up for themselves. I like the relationship they have and have high hopes for season 3. But could do with it being less cheating and fetishy.
the frase "hey, gay! u wanna act gaily daily?" has been stuck in my head for two days now. thanks for the video, it was really interesting and inspiring, and its quality... so good! I'm going to rewatch OFMG now :^
I think someone mentioned it down below, but you kinda did glossed over just how normal The Owl House was about queer rep. Yes, a lesbian relationship was at the forefront of the story but there was other rep as well (a non binary character having a long standing relationship with the main protag’s female caretaker with mutual feelings. That female caretaker’s sister being aspec. And one of the main protag’s best friends causally having two dads.) I understand what you meant by lesbian relationships being treated as more “pure” than mlm relationships and I agree. But if we take into consideration of TOH existing, the normalizing of queerness didn’t start at OFMD. It probably didn’t even start with TOH, but normalizing queerness took a huge step with TOH and it continued with OFMD.
I agree, the representation in TOH is really nice. The main lesbian romance is also very well written, it doesn't drag or bait, it actually moves at a reasonable pace - which also means we get to actually see them act as a (very wholesome) couple for a significant amount of time. I actually wasn't aware Lilith was aspec, that's really cool, I hope they find some way to explicitly work it into the show.
Ugh, the rhetoric about being chastised for reading queer subtext hit hard. I used to find it so damaging when my heterosexual friends and family would talk down to me about it. Worst still, I would feel like I couldn't be apart of that Media, that those characters and their experiences "couldn't" be mine; they were heterosexual exclusive.
I definitely related to that too! When my family or friends look at me weird or call me a crazy shipper for thinking some characters are queer (in cinemas, when watching tv shows)
I have mixed feelings, I’m bisexual, and It’s not uncommon for homosexual people to say that bisexual people are just homosexual and “not fully out of the closet” and it’s also common for heterosexual people to say that bisexual people are “just going through a phase” The “guessing game” where other people guess someone else’s sexuality, gender, or even racial or ethnic identity behind their back instead of just asking and accepting the other persons answer can be hurtful, offensive, and dangerous.. I’m not sure if playing the guessing game with made up characters encourages people to play the guessing game irl, but I’m skeptical and cautious
@@handsomeboi3767 Agreed. Imo I don't have a problem with it unless they start attacking other fans and the creator when their headcanon was never confirmed in the first place. I'm bi myself so I'd love for there to be more and better rep, but some of these fans are just really obnoxious about their ships and headcanons and need to learn to let it go and just enjoy the fan content, instead of insisting things were intended when they very obviously weren't.
I genuinely believe that the worst thing to come out of capitalism is the idea of “the only motivation to make Art is to make profit”. I want to make Art for Art’s sake. I want to create because that is what I want to do with my life. I want to tell a story for the sake of getting it out there. It cuts me to the core to see so many artists and animators and writers and creatives having to compromise their vision for the sake of someone else’s wallet. What I love about OFMD is that it feels like no compromises were made. It felt like it was telling exactly the story that it wanted to. I hope that one day, hopefully in my lifetime, we get to a point where money isn’t a part of the creative process. Where not only *everyone* can afford to create, not just the rich and well off. But the things that they do create are made on their own terms. Without compromise. Where people are allowed to just… make.
Yeah, and even in the context of OFMD itself, Taika Waititi said it made him love the process of filmmaking/acting again and he often talks about the show more than the literal multi-billion dollar franchise Marvel movie he's meant to be promoting right now during interviews these days. Loving to merely create without compromise and censorship even if there's no capital incentive is something innate in humanity I believe.
@@malbasedvalentine3210 Pretty hilarious that you think 'Renaissance' and 'queer' are antithetical and that you'd choose that of all eras as examples of art that isn't "our people's". Donatello, Raffaello Sanzio and Leonardo da Vinci were all flamers, Michelangelo most likely was too, whoops lol 🤷♂
@@bisexualmajima “most likely”, but apparently to you people, every male who aren’t stereotypically masculine are homosexuals in secret… Ever think that you might be looking into things too much, and such people you mention are just coping mechanisms to justify depravity?
@@bisexualmajima but, I think it’s rather still pretty profound that none of those people revolved their work around one belief, they were incredibly fluent and open-minded. Which is the problem with you people, you lack both, and instead revolve everyone around homosexuality and your ultra moralist values.
I feel like the erasure of Jughead's asexualty in Riverdale was a big unintentional mask off moment for the showrunners and writers of live action teen/adult shows and just how they did not care to write about queerness. Unlike animated TV shows for kids where some research shows the creators of these shows expressing how they often fought tooth and nail for queer rep (Alex Hirsch even recently revealed that he used 'bromance' logic to trick the high ups and censors at disney into keeping a scene where a male character has his arm over another male character, characters who did later turned out to be gay) live action shows don't really have those same stories of being censored by higher ups. It has always been assumed that it would be easier for the showrunners of live action shows to have openly queer main characters approved, and it's assumed cause we don't have much evidence of them actually trying. Cause at the end of the day like how they had little interest in exploring how Jughead's asexualty and how that informs his high school expierence where his peers are constanly getting into relationships with one another or even researching ways that Jughead could still be in romantic relationships (though him also being aromantic is a popular fancanon) these writers have little interest in writing a gay man realizing his past relationship with women have been a bit preformative, or just writing a bisexual character. Because they wanted to write straight men, but you can get a lot of money from queers being in your fandom so just queerbait them. And when the show ends you can turn around to the fans you strung along your ultimately mediocre show and tell them "you know, it's people like you who are the reason why men can't have close friendships." Which is why our flag means death is so important to not only queer folk but queer folk who were in fandoms of live action shows that maliciously queerbaited them, or the queer folks in animated fandoms who lamented with the creators of animated kids TV shows that all they could get was a kiss at then end. Cause for the first time in a long time for a lot of these people they can let their guard down and are free to make queer headcanons. The fandom has even inspired the actor who plays Jim, Vico Ortiz, to pursue their own top surgery because of a popular fancanon of Jim getting top surgery from the chief/doctor crewmate helped assure Ortiz that getting top surgery wouldn't disrupt the show. And even if OFMD didn't get a season 2 the fans would have still gotten a canon nonbinary character, a scene where an entire pirate ship says they don't care if their very gay crewmate is sleeping around with everyone else, and a kiss from the two main characters that proved that the happiness they gave each other wasn't just 'bromance.' Oh my, I wrote a lot. . . Happy pride month gays!!! 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️🏴☠️
@@ChantelCarter-cc7cu Well my post was long because ace and aro erasure in media also leaks into why all queer rep is scarce in media Why isn't Jughead ace? The show runners don't find asexuality interesting to write and how could they write a character who's has a prominent role but never has a love interest ever. Why isn't Dean bi? Because the writers don't find bisexuality interesting to write and how can they have the macho character be interested in *men* oooo but there's money here so we'll wink to the audience sometimes and confirm that the character people shipped him hard with, who wasn't his brother, had a one sided crush on him
@Science Bear I mean there's clearly some *big* difference if writers would rather almost write a bi character rather than actually write one and why some actors have expressed some discomfort in bisexual interpretations of the *fictional character* they play
@@ChantelCarter-cc7cu Ya in Riverdale him and Betty become a couple at some point I guess it was poor wording on my part I meant an apathy felt towards the queer community towards these writers that stops them from researching and looking into these communities and break their preconceived notions and stereotypes Their apathy towards the queer communtoy makes them see and continue to see asexuals as uninteresting and bisexual as confusing etc
@Science Bear That’s.... not true... at all. Might be how it’s treated. Because you can just say a male character is bi but not have them ever be interested in men or actually be bi at all while demonizing other bi characters. Like Lucifer. Was that your point?
the thing i think has affected me most about rainbow capitalism is that when i was younger, i saw a rainbow bandana or pin or whatever in a backpack and thought "oh! gay. or ally. safe person". now when i see it i cant be sure if they are lgbtq+ or allies or its just a fashion statement. they took away our icons that we used to form community, and comodify them
@Hi there you bring up a good point, a few people i know are also just into rainbows but theyve lessened it because of it being a queer symbol. Although its not really a “political statement” either way
@Hi there Same! I love rainbows as a decorative motif, but I've since moved away from it because I don't want people thinking I'm a crazy extreme woke activist or be asked a million questions because of my choice of decorative motif.
whoa thats insane, its like homosexual entities in the free market took a symbol that was universal and commodified it for homosexuality only to have it gradually dissolve back into a universal symbol again over time.
I still see it as generally someone who's more safe than others, but it's not always the case, and I'm a lot more cautious around people now with who I tell what and even what I wear around certain people (gender non-conforming).
Speaking of queerbaiting and capitalism, a lot of anime utilizing this appealing to queer audiences (and honestly straight women) with heavily coded male characters. It allows a homophobic country to appeal to representation-starved fans from another homophobic country. Official art fuels this as many of them depict not-so-subtle and not-so-canon male relationships (getbackers, neon genesis, and bsd are all guilty of this)
TBH I just am not totally sure queer people have been on the radar as a consumer base for anime producers in the past 10 years. I'm sure there are queer people who have complex relationships to the subtext that shows up in these shows (and there's been academic research on how queer populations, esp gay men, engage w explicit depictions that aren't made for them in BL manga) but I feel like touchy-feely moe girls and fujobait boys are a similar and equally fraught but sociologically distinct phenomenon from queerbaiting in western media.
@@ElectroSocketBlues There was one manga I read not long ago, Otome Danshi ni Koisuru Otome, that did the opposite and I was really impressed with it. On the surface it's a typical josou shounen manga, but before long you get to see that, well no, the author actually has a strong grip on proper LGBT terminology and makes a point to educate readers on the actual conversation being had, and what things do and do not mean in a given context. I can't get any more specific than that, because it truly is the full spectrum of topics. Difference between sexuality and identity. Difference between identity and presentation. Etc. The problem is that the only scanlation I'm aware of, swaps in tons of homophobic and transphobic language where it definitely was not present in the original. Thanks weebs, for always ruining everything and making sure we can't have nice things. Guess the point I'm making is that there are folks in Japan fighting the good fight. They just aren't frequently heard.
handsome Boi yeah that’s my bad,, honestly I haven’t watched it in a really long time and I think I may be getting it confused with another old anime’s official art
I fear America will never get 'representation' right, not just with gays but in general. The ruling that Hollywood had to include a certain PERCENTAGE of x number of minorities in every film to qualify for the Oscars (or whatever that was) is proof that the focus is all wrong. Nobody wants to be a token. Or maybe they do. I don't. Rules like that guarantee the focus will be on unnatural, forced inclusion rather than quality storylines. You can't focus on two things at once and give both equal attention. They already have proven that they can't do the diversity thing right, now there's a literal quota. Ugh. Excellent vid by the way.
"I fear America will never get 'representation' right". They never will. They refuse to accept that "race" does not exist, skin color does not represent different species therefore people with darker skintones do not belong to different races. Sexuality gets treated the same way, they think men who like men are simply aliens from the Rainbow moon, or something like that. When the answer is right there, it doesn't matter who you fall in love with or which pigmentation is your skin is colored with, you are are all equally american. There is no gay culture, no black, or asian, or latin culture, these are all american culture. Because culture is representative of the collective of people living within a country. A country cannot be homosexual or heterosexual, in the same way a country does not have skin tones. People love to blame the system, but in reality, it's not just the people in power who are the problem, when the common people themselves perpetuate these negative stereotypes and misconceptions.
That queerbaiting subject made me realized how much I doubt myself when I pick up on queer characters and most times it is actually right! Once I was watching this series and it was mainly about a gay couple but then they introduced a new woman character who had romantic clues towards another woman in the show. I watched it with suspicion like is this gonna be a lesbian couple?? But I was like nah, I’m overthinking it, they would never. And then they ACTUALLY did make them a couple and I doubted myself until it was confirmed! Like as a queer woman Ik what attraction towards another woman can look like and I was STILL doubting myself cuz of the amount of queerbaiting there is in media
yeah because of queerbating I genuinely thought Catra and Adora would end up being just friends I mean I probably would have thought otherwise if I knew who ran the show lol
@@cathy9100 sorry for late reply but its called Bad Buddy. It’s a Thai series tho and all the relationships are so healthy. It’s a lighthearted series and fun if u just want to watch queer relationships!
I was the person in my friend group that checked OFMD out first, so I went into it not knowing it was a gay pride show but when Ed and Stede had that beautiful moment in the bathtub (I guess only Ed was in the bathtub) I…was…TERRIFIED! Because, because I had been burned by queerbaiting more times than I wanted to think about and with everything going on currently, I knew my heart just couldn’t take it. So I stopped watching it. I waited until I heard confirmation of their relationship and I took a chance on the writers, creators, actors and it’s the most scared I’ve been. It felt like they were revealing a secret to the world, that we ARE just like everyone else. That we aren’t magic and we still fuck up like everyone else. But also that we can find love as well, just like anyone else. Moving forward, I was the one to tell my friends to check it out with the tagline (anything the story clearly promises on, they deliver. No queerbaiting) and it’s sad that I had to do that but Hollywood used and abused our community to the point that no one trusts them when they say it’s queer/gay (which is probably why they themselves didn’t advertise the show as #lgbtq)
I've been watching AreTheyGay for a very long time now, since the AreTheyGay johnlock video to this one. Seeing how much this channel has improved and how much the quality and just everything has improved makes me really happy. I cannot express how much this channel has just taken all my thoughts out of my head and put it into words that makes sense. This video is now probably one of my favorite. A genuine thank you for this channel from a fellow queer :)
Gracias por el video! I've been talking about rainbow capitalism with my fellow queer friends ever since the beginning of the month because this year in Italy we are going back to the "traditional" pride with an insane amount of multinational trying to rainbow wash themselves. Last year because of covid regulations it was just a sit in and no multinational thought it was worth it to promote their business, but this year, it's going back to the usual capitalism-filled and cop-friendly pride parade and I'm do tired of it. Also being a latina I feel like most white lgbt+ people especially in Europe do not really understand why it makes me uncomfortable to see Nestlé at pride while being surrounded by cops. But anyway, great video as usual! Thank you for always bringing extremely structured and information-filled videos.
I thought we were supposed to be about progress? Cops support us and be grateful instead of dwelling in the past. Also are they not allowed to genuinely support LGBTQ+ rights? Social liberalism and fiscal conservatism are not mutually exclusive and many people support both. Also, gay people are more likely to be CEOs than others.
Hello, I'm black and queer (a republicans jumpscare as I call myself), and I really enjoyed this video. I bring up being black because a while ago I watched a video (I think called "How to back"?) that delved into how to write a black (or any POC) character. The summary of the whole thing was that you don't always have to write a black character. You can just write a character that happens to be black. There doesn't always need to be a commentary on racism in the same way we don't constantly want to watch queer people be sad. Like... company organized pride parades and owning a denim jacket compares the same way that representations of "the hood" do to waking up to R&B on a Saturday cause you need to clean the house. One has a queer (black) aesthetic, while the other is a queer (black) experience. Great job as always, I've got Taxes to evade, peace out
Exactly what I needed for the sociology exam I have in a week lmao for real tho, this video is amazing and really shows how much effort you've put in it 🏴☠️🏳️🌈
I'm a cishet man, but I grew up surrounded by queer people, and to this day a majority of my friends are LGBT+. I heard about Our Flag Means Death and immediately made my friends watch it with me, and we immediately fell in love with the show. It's just amazing how, for once, a show is just showing love the way that I've always seen it growing up; people fall in love with who they fall in love with, and no one questions it. While there's merit to a lot of other queer media, I'm nonetheless exhausted by all the 3-hour misery simulators that just seem to capitalize on queer trauma or dramatize it for a cishet audience. This video is really well made, and, as a hardcore socialist and a history Master's degree student, I really do love all the work and attention to detail.
On a less content-focused note, i really enjoyed the "effects" and the way you animated everything (really not sure what terms to use but it looked v good and worked really well)
there's something that has always bothered me about queerbaiting. it's usually marketed toward straight cis women, isn't it? and that's why the couple or the characters depicted as potentially gay are usually male. of course it attracts both queer people and straight women, but there are more straight women overall, so they're the focus. i feel like people kinda don't talk about that side of it enough
While it could be that some women like shipping two men together just because they’re attracted to them, I think women tend to ship mlm ships because in most media there are more male characters than female, and male characters are the most developed. I think most of the investment in those ships comes from shipping two people the audience has gotten to know deeply and who have a complex relationship with each other, rather than from their sex. On a personal note, I’m a lesbian, but during all of my teenage years I really thought I was straight, and I wondered why I was so drawn to mlm ships thinking it must be the “straight woman likes to watch men kiss” or something. But now I realise it’s because most media I like has these kinds of relationships just between two men. I’ve actually been consciously trying to get into more femslash shipping but there’s nowhere near the couple of “gal pals” on TV as there are “just a couple of bros”. Of course there is a bit of lesbian rep and queerbaiting lesbians, but not at the level it’s at with the male couples.
Yeah that’s probably because straight women are attracted to men, and we already know male celebrities do very well with fan girls. So now you have two hot men with good chemistry? It’s both hot, and enticing to see two men be vulnerable with each other (depending on the ship). I’ve seen a lot of straight women go into depths about why they’re so into m/m specifically. Basically, either it makes them horny, or they loves dudes, so wow,, now two dudes together? Hell yeah. Pretty much what i understand
@@katitax508 Yeah, Id recommend reading manga, but watch out for the fetish shit. Or even Webtoons, plenty of wlw or gl there, though most of it is 16+ i think due to webtoon's guidelines, which is good cause the main audience of webtoons are teenageers i think.
@@katitax508 thank you for sharing your perspective! i find it interesting how a lot of women (straight, bi and gay) prefer to focus on mlm relationships, while some (bi and gay, in my experience, but i'm sure straight too) strongly prefer wlw, while being exposed to similar kinds of media. i'm sure there isn't a one single reason though
On gay men in cartoons - Owl House, which you mentioned, had Willow and her two dads. Same in The Dragon Prince with Rayla's two dads. Also, while not a cartoon, Eternals come to mind, which had one of the Eternals being in a gay relationship with a man and they adopted this boy... Now that I think of it, there are a lot of dads amongst gay men in modern media.
When you said that the visibility isn't really enough and doesn't lead to the help we need... I agree. I feel my life is falling apart, I've been in the closet my whole life, and despite being the most visible lgbtq people have ever been, there are still barely any resources to help us even stay alive. What resources do exist are underfunded and not wide reaching. What has target ever done for me when half my mental health issues are related to being lgbt+, and maybe a good portion of my problems stems from the owner class that rules the huge corporation trying to feed off of my lack of acceptance and steal my money. My money that does not exist
This show felt so different from the start. But the scene where Stede's wife is talking about what love feels like for her and says she hopes he finds it and he says he thinks he has. And then she asks "What's her name" and he says, "His name is Ed". That scene blew me away. It's the first time I've ever seen a coming out scene that didn't feel forced. It just felt so natural and beautiful.
while you were talking about the lack of representation of relationships between more aged people, I remembered Love is Strange. It's a beautiful and very gentle movie about two senior gentlemen deciding to get married after many years of being together. It speaks of some serious matter, like rekindling a long relationship like that or managing grief, but never paints it in drama or tragedy. On the contrary, it's one of the softest movies i've ever seen.
Half of the whole reason I stopped consuming TV/Movie Media’s was because I didn’t see any normalization of Queer men and Trans women. I appreciate this video, thank you for your work. x
Thanks, your script gave me this internal monologue: "Wow, I'd love to have homosexual propagandist as a job title...but that feels a bit too close to influencer or thought leader, which perpetuate capitalist hierarchies that are fundamentally anti-queer. I wonder how much 'propagandist' it takes before it crosses the line into perpetuating the same things it would fundamentally oppose or if it can even be reconciled in a...Oh shit, the deadline my boss gave me for that project is in 40 minutes"
Fantastic video, such laborious backgrounds and stuff! It supportes your voice over in a very natural way. Cutting out all those logos is such an effort and I very much appreciate the work you put in your videos. Loved it
ahh i got so excited when i saw the notification! and was then crushed by my weak human body’s need for sleep. i can’t wait to watch tomorrow and hope you have an excellent day!! you create brilliant videos and i love your sense of humour!
I agree, human bodies are so primitive... They need to eat, sleep, drink and be cleaned every single day, but no matter what you do, they eventually malfunction after sufficiently large amounts of time 🙄
The worst part of Love Simon is it's based on a book that's not just about coming out, it's about a happy gay relationship, it's about acceptance of self, coming out is a smaller part of the plot. And the movie turns the characters into empty shells of their personality. It just really bothers me.
Worth noting that in Owl House, Willow has two dads, and the show's not afraid to give them screen time. And that's to say nothing of Raine. It's just that the protagonist of the show happens to be female, and here we are. Though given how hard Dana Terrace had to fight with Disney over this representation, only to later get cancelled for "not fitting the Disney brand" (hella sus), I definitely wouldn't deny that a mlm protag relationship wouldn't have gotten past the censor.
i'm only like 5 minutes in but this is already the best video you've ever made?? the craft and quality of this??? hello???? this must have taken forever - and it was so worth it!!
I love pirates I love them enought that I started to write a whole movie with 3 main poly characters, I have wrote around 25 characters for it, gave all of them ther own stories from small to big simply becuse I love pirates that much Long live pirates (Also shout out to them for just absorbing abelism It just didn't exist for them as long as you coud kick ass or make a plan you were good)
I was terrified from this thumbnail that the point of the video was that the horrifying rightward creep of the Overton window meant that appealing to the gay consumer was no longer as profitable as appealing to the homophobe, and we were gonna see businesses stop bothering to do even what they do. Relief to see it wasn't that. The right hates their presence, I hate their omnipresence. The right hates me and my friends, I hate things that crowd out the stories and lives of me and the friends I love. Disney doesn't want gay characters, they want Their First Gay Character. There's a difference. Queerbaiting for brownie points, but not with the presence of queerness, but baiting with the importance of queerness. We deserve to watch something and know that someone can't edit our existence out for the Russian Market and no one would notice the missing two seconds of footage. Is there a word for that?
The thing I don't like about this phenomenon of calling everything queerbaiting, especially celebrities behavior, is that it in effect solidifies old rules. When Charlie Puth posts sus pictures and behaves in a way one might associate with a gay man, people will either shame him for not behaving/looking like a heterosexual man is supposed to, or accuse him of queerbaiting.
I was totally with you till you said "Queerbaiting isn't a thing that usually happens to 2 women" and I'm sorry Rizzoli & Isles, Once Upon a Time, Supergirl. Queerbaiting is all over and we've both suffered from it.
Obviously queerbaiting is everywhere, but you can't deny that it is definitely skewed, at least in modern media. In the past it was probably even. As he talks about how queer subtexts were reduced to "women in hats" but in modern media the queer baiting has become skewed towards 2 men relationships. For whatever reason, most likely the patriarchy as he says in the video, in our path towards progress this weird societal preference towards 2 women relationships is a stepping stone. Edit: I also want to mention that most gay women relationships are also animated. Queer baiting in live action is definitely something that every section of our community is still having to fight tooth and nail.
whoa whoa... what he means is that it is more common for wlw relationships to be confirmed than mlm ones. Which is true... for the reason that het men find it hot when hot women kiss, and wlw relationships aren't viewed as serious. It's okay for the teenage female protagonists to kiss on screen because that doesn't ruin them for a marriage later on (in the mind of a straight male viewer, who can then proceed to fantasize about marrying one of the said women). Whereas when two men kiss on screen, they are instantly no longer aspirational for a straight man. Nevermind whatever other qualities the characters might have and how unimportant their mlm relationship is to the story. The way almost all shows are written, you're supposed to fantasize about being the hero and marrying the heroine. A wlw relationship doesn't interfere with that, but an mlm relationship does. Therefore wlw relationships are censored less often.
i watched the new season of the umbrella academy yesterday, and i loved that Victor just came out, and that was it, it's Victor now. Truly transition goals. and it reminds of the natural, just existing vibe from OFMD. no tension about x-phobia just existing as a queer person.
I maintain that the Dean and Castiel thing is the most baffling phobic thing I've ever seen in fandom. Like... One's an angel who literally fell from grace for this guy and would do it again, the other considers this angel, a supernatural being, something he's been trained to hate, to be one of the best people he knows, and someone worth fighting anything or anyone to try and help. That's not subtext, that's text. It can absolutely be homoromantic. Hell, it's one of those rare beautiful things in a show dedicated to the Winchesters having the most f*ked up relationships with their family, the world, each other... Pretty much everything.
You’re right. I keep forgetting it though, since all of the cast seems hellbent on gaslighting people that you’re delusional for seeing Dean and Castiel like that.
@@dustind4694 Wow that was fast. Misha’s definitely better than Jared or Jensen who are outright offended anytime someone mentions destiel. I think he queerbaited destiel fans into thinking the show would actually follow through with the queerbaiting, but I don’t know what happened DURING the show’s runtime, since I started it this year after the finale was already done. And I don’t know for sure, since I’m pretty sure most “anti Misha” posts are usually from the “supernatural is about family!” people.
@@dustind4694 The biggest problem with Misha IMO is that so much of his commentary/actions have an inauthentic vibe. I mean, this is the guy who managed to "accidentally" call himself bisexual, and then had to "come out" as not actually bisexual on twitter. Like, I'm sure he's doing his best, but he's also not actually doing that much work to grow and improve as an ally, and it shows.
Something about the way you've described OFMD reminds me of Xena, which, being the 90s, did have to dance around censors, but shows a surprisingly wonderful and romantic adventure couple travelling the anachronistic ancient world they were living in and being in love.
I guess, in my head, I like to boil this down to being about telling queer stories without always turning them into queerphobia stories. You were kinda dismissive of Owl House here, but I feel like it's a great example of exactly that - an escapist fantasy world where queer characters get to exist without being oppressed for being queer. It's valuable because it gives one a glimpse into the oppression-free world we are working towards and makes it seem reachable within a reasonable time frame. The point you made about animated lesbians being the safest option to go for does stand, though, I'm inclined to agree.
Fairly confident that the Harley Quinn show isn’t an example of recent lesbian couple representation in children’s television. Not to mention their relationship has been fairly prevalent since they first met 30 some odd years ago.
Ok, this seems very out of place next to all the other comments but i’ve been waiting for this for about 2 months and omg it was so worth it!!! I love this video so much and i just want to say THANK YOU.
I had no clue that this was about Our Flag Means Death until just before you started advertising your merch. I legit just thought this was an analysis of our current society but kinda gay.
"An obsession with reading gay subtext in everything" that says it right there, when I was younger I thought other people were just obsessed with thinking everything has something to do with gayness. Its only as i've gotten older that i've realized these shows really were trying to make people think there was something going on that wasn't
As a nonbinary lesbian, I love the representation that I’ve found in animation - because in my experience, a large majority of it is actually *made* by lesbian or other wlw writers. Writers who had to fight tooth and fucking nail to get the representation in. In some ways, I feel lumping shows like She-Ra together with something like LoK misses some nuance. In my opinion, sapphic love is allowed to be shown in two instances: one, when a sapphic person has to physically fight a room full of executives to the death. Two, under the condition that the sapphics can be read around, dismissed as “just friends” and ABOVE ALL, remain 100% accessible to men. I see this happen especially with rep of bisexual women, and it breaks my fucking heart. Straight men will slap the label bisexual on a woman so they can center her narrative around men, show romantic involvement with men, while being suspiciously silent when it comes to her relationships with women - platonic OR romantic. I feel this is a problem something like Legend of Korra suffers from. Our Flag Means Death is unequivocally amazing for representation - but it isn’t flawless either. There are precious few women in the show, and sapphic rep is nowhere to be seen. I’m not saying that it should be “”””cancelled”””” or whatever - but as much as I enjoy it, OFMD is not the universal queer rep people act like it is, and I have to wonder if it would ever have been taken seriously if the story featured lesbians in the starring role instead. I am so glad that OFMD got made - things can be flawed and still be really good! This is just my critique from a sapphic perspective. Godspeed to all the mlm out there who are FINALLY getting to have some incredible compassionate representation, and here’s hoping future seasons will give some badass lady pirates too :)
I agree, and it's not even the animation's industry fault that there isn't more live action representation??? It's that maybe it's just not (and doesn't have to be) specifically aimed at adults. And not all animation is even PG so it's kinda silly to assume that (it's a medium, not a genre goddamn it!!!). Still, those sapphic relationships that seen in childrens shows can be depicted as complex, and they're making a great job by making their young audiences feel less alienated. I'm sure as hell I wish I had that when I was a child.
Vou comentar em português mesmo. Que aula amigos, deu até vontade de estudar sociologia. Eu ainda não vi a série mas pretendo mudar isso logo depois de ver esse vídeo. Fico muito contente em ver a evolução dele ao longo dos anos que acompanho o canal.
There are so many shortsighted observations and absolutist terms thrown around in this video I'm left with no choice but to forget about it in the next 5 minutes.
53:00 idk if I'm included in gay community. I'm closeted straight passing national minority girl in Russia. So i cant belong to my national community, cause sadly it doesn't exist (or too underground). Also i can't associate with russian gay community, which more open to russian gay guys. So I'm part of internet LGBTQ community, cause it's only way to connect to my identity in safe way. But am i seen, cause i can only communicate to UA-cam algorithm.
Super late to the party, but 'being a driver' is absolutely a critical lens through which we see the world, and is absolutely pushed on non-drivers. I had multiple adults of authority tell me I wasn't a fully fledged human being until I learned to drive. It is (at least in America) a necessary identifier of adulthood.
I literally got an Amazon pride month as before this video, where they said that they explain to their workers what it means to be queer?? My guy, you won’t let them pee
1:36 - "What do you mean the market can theoretically give us all we want...?" - Actually, for structural reasons, no it can't. It can't even give all of us what we _need._ It can only look like that from the perspective of a first world country's middle class.
Seriously, your videos are an enrichment to my life. This one again was mindblowingly well researched and explained, putting into words what I've been thinking (or maybe more feeling) about vaguely and I just wanted to thank you for that. Keep on rocking on
As a longtime avowed yurifag, it's been interesting to sort of watch almost a microcosm of queer development and attempts at redefining queer media through the lens of yuri manga. While many of the original tropes still exist, things like "true happiness" and the "but we're both girls" moment, more and more you find works about girls who are just gay going through normal love or life troubles, and even many of those old tropes are looked at through new lenses of coming out and defying heteronormative expectations, rather than framing the story and relationship around heteronormativity. We're even beginning to see explorations of the transgender and aro/ace experiences within yuri works.
People keep asking for official merch for OFMD but I think that's also what I love about it, it's not marketed to make the most t-shirt sales or what makes the best lego model but instead tells a great story that in turn inspired hundreds of creators to make things out of love for the show & the characters and share them with each other.
this video is INCREDIBLE and also comes at a great time for me, as this weekend I spent the whole of my local pride parade trying to escape a Procter&Gable platform full of apathetic people in identical t-shirts with their logo and finding that every time we thought we were free of it, it appeared again. a pride nightmare
i love the academic approach you're going through for your videos recently. As someone who loves sociology and talking about modern queer internet sociological patterns you are one of my favorite UA-camrs. I'm pretty sure I've even cited your videos when writing for my film studies classes. Keep up the great work!!
i had a conversation with someone i know recently and they said that they think women are more likely to fall towards bisexuality while i personally thought that women aren't necesarilly more bisexual just more permissable of intimate relationships with eachother and they couldn't understand that so i had to explain to them that probably a lot of men do want to fool around and find out but that they won't want to anymore if it gets verbally or physically beaten out of them because any male intimacy is automatically seen as gay and often bad or atleast less good i think this fits here
Yeah, it sucks that after a certain age, boys can't show affection to their same sex friends the way girls are allowed to. I.e hugging, holding hands, lying in eachothers laps etc without it being perceived as homosexual. You should be allowed to express love to your friends without it being perceived as sexual. But unfortunately, that's just the way the world is at the moment. :-/
@@BrightWulph exactly, I’m a touchy person, I’m a teenager who’s touch starved for crying out loud!! I should be able to hug and be touchy with my friends without having to question my sexuality and be called ‘gay’.
I'm a sociologist and this video is just honey to my ears. 🥰I fell in love with your channel after the video about Hannibal, you always do a thorough analysis. Thanks for the great content!✨
this video also somehow led me to thinking about the show 'barry' and it's character NoHo Hank. they do a similar thing with him in that his sexuality is largely undiscussed but to a queer audience he slowly seems more and more gay as the show progresses. at one point, he does express attraction to a man (hilariously, might i add) and this could have easily been queerbaiting, but instead the show literally just paired the two guys up in a very straightforward way (the newest season just starts with them as an established couple) and then treated them with the same level of respect and playfulness as any other character on the show. no homophobia or need to come out, although it being set in modern times, there is the implied consequence of homophobia in the context of their jobs, but that hasnt even occured so far. and the show itself isnt at all about sexuality, nor is hank just seen as 'the gay one'. i dont think it's as subversive as ofmd but i really hope this kind of gay representation catches on! great vid btw!!
He really needs to do a NoHo Hank and Cristolbal video because yes they are definitely Gay. Also, yes their relationship was so sweet especially when you compare it to Barry and Sally's parasitic one. Also Barry is just such a great show. I cannot wait for season 4. 😩
for me this whole story is so wild. we all have heard about black beard and all his adventures, but is was only after the show that we get to know that the "gentleman pirate" was real, and he and blackbeard met (and maybe something else happened). i know "they were good friends" erases A LOT of queer stories, but it makes me sad to really think about it and imagine all the great stories that we won't ever know. i'm so glad to be alive to see this show being so successful
Same. It’s wild finding out the arguably most famous pirate was shacking up with the guy almost the entirety of his time as a captain. I know historians theorize that Blackbeard was doing it to obtain the Revenge, but it’s odd that the man who cultivated an image as being violent and ruthless was also on the record really generous to Stede Bonnet. Like not stripping him completely of his captain’s duties so as not to make him sad and also letting him bring his library aboard the Queen Anne’s Revenge. I definitely recommend watching Kaz Rowe’s video on the topic.
Also the characters that are more palpable, usually perform theur gender in the "normal" way, like it's pretty unusual to see a butch woman, or even a flamboyant gay man, like Lucius, the maximum a gay man can be feminine in tv, is usually Kurt Hummel. Also, wlw to be seen as predatory, it depends usually on how they perform gender, like a butch or androgynous women are seen as predatory a lot of the time. Oh yeah, and for the adventure time and legend of korra things, they only managed to show it in the end, because the networks didn't want to show "that" in a kids show, AT had confirmed that they had a relationship about 5 years earlier, and the legend of korra creators wanted a kiss, but had to settle for them holding hands
What is Nova Scotia? The Canadian province with the highest percentage of trans and non-binary people according to the 2021 census. Also a place with a history of pirates, so fairly relevant to the context of the video.
I think you make a really good point about how our society is more permissive of wlw relationships in kids shows (and for the most part, only kids shows) because it sees femininity as less predatory. It’s just really evident in the way that these wlw relationships present; both of the women are always incredibly feminine. Don’t get me wrong, as a lesbian I appreciate the representation, but it always just feels so fake. Like, yay the sapphics got together, but they don’t actually look like myself or any of my sapphic friends. The sapphic community, and especially the lesbian community, is missing so fucking much of our personality and history when you take away our masculinity. The only sapphic character I can think of who you could maybe consider butch is Netossa from SPOP, and she’s barely even a side character. (You can make an argument for Catra too, but I feel like it’s also very telling that the lesbian who is allowed to be masculine is the villain for 90% of the show.) At the end of the day, we’re allowed to be lesbian if and only if we look and act exactly like cishet women
Not yet done with the video but THE EFFORT of printing that much stuff and cutting up all THAT. Truly inspiring by itself
right he puts so much effort
ikr??
is your pfp ryan from infinity train and your username an otgw reference????
Exactly!!!! So much effort into this video!
@@torquedawg1004 YEAHH someone gets it
As a lesbian I’m incredibly grateful for the wlw rep in cartoons but ofc it does come with the context that wlw relationships are seen as like… less real than mlw or mlm ones and that’s not fun. It’s also weirdly hard to find good wlw rep in shows that aren’t animated
yepp, i generally struggle with wlw content even tho im sapphic myself but the fact than im non binary makes that tricky bc most if not all rep in shows, novels and comics is about cis women, its weird bc it feels like im searching for the wrong rep for who i am, maybe its not sapphic relationships what i need really but simply a non binary character that happens to like women or other nbs?? maybe thats why i relate way more to Raine from the TOH
I know thats not exactly what your comment was about but I felt the need to say this bc it just shows how we need more diverse queer stories, either in the sense of the content itself or in the medium its presented.
EDIT!!!: Heyy so the reason I was unable to feel represented by sapphic content and even non binary characters to some extent is bc I'm actually a trans man!!! So that's why I obviously felt so lost, and I didn't see much of men being truly vulnerable in their relationships with women and they are always the dominant/protector type in the relationship which is very unlike how my personality is, I didn't and still struggle to find representation of the kind of man I am, and even of the kind of trans man I am, since I'm bi and not super masculine (I think that's why I thought I was enby since I enjoy playing with my gender expression a bit, but I still want to be seen as a man 100% so that's what was different) like the usual rep us trans guys get. Getting to understand myself and accept me for who I truly am was very difficult but I am glad I feel pretty secure in my identity now❤️
ALSOOO, I chose to keep my comment since I saw lots of you related to that feeling, so I think maybe it's still relevant to the conversation about how a lot of non binary people feel in these spaces, even tho I'm not sapphic nor enby, my experience at the time intersected with yours, which tbh I think happens a lot with trans people's experiences in general!
But sorry in advance if I might have took a space accidentally that I wasnt meant to take
@@punkithecat i agree!
she-ra reference right? XD
no i totally get what you mean. i appreciate the wlw rep, i love it, but the thing is I'm just not the biggest fan of animated shows. and it's so hard to find good wlw rep that's not an animated show. and especially cause these shows are all kids shows--no hate to anyone who watched these shows who's not a kid, i know it's not all kids that them and adults and teens can definitely enjoy them--but it's definitely mostly made for and marketed towards kids. and this is an issue bc they can't really explore in depth themes and plots that aren't exactly kid friendly. like i would love to see wlw rep in the style of ofmd, where they explore themes and character flaws that couldnt really be put in a kids show. overall it's just, I'm not a young kid anymore, and i wish i had rep that wasn't made for kids :(
@@punkithecat Very much!!! The only other NB character with a girlfriend I can think of is Syd from One Day At A Time!! (I’m not even sure if it’s stated explicitly that they’re a lesbian?? Haven’t watched the show in a while) but that really shows how little NB rep there is..
The thing that stood out to me the most about OFMD is that the characters are messy and very much not the best people, and yet it never takes away their ability to either give or receive love for it. I find that a lot of media that tries to sell queer representation ends up valorizing queer characters by always making them the "nicest" or most supportive people in the cast and by grinding away their flaws, which often unintentionally poses an argument that gay romance is only "deserved" or "acceptable" if gay people are morally superior (i.e. by being kinder, quieter, or less violent) than the straight people surrounding them.
I felt so deeply seen when OFMD was like "maybe these characters are super flawed, and yet they fall in love anyway in-part because of those flaws, and they aren't less deserving of it just because they're imperfect". Furthermore, the characters won't be "fixed" by hooking up, and their flaws are associated with yet not directly caused by their sexualities. I related so much to the ways both Stede and Ed struggled to believe that they were deserving of love once love unexpectedly entered their lives, and it's so cathartic to finally see a show nail why I struggled with my own sexuality for so long.
I definitely agree!
Cause if the minority rep has to be good and deserving and long-suffering, then they're being treated as an instrument to lever tolerance out of a indifferent or phobic majority audience (who probably isn't that credulous anyway)
I definitely agree. There are some exceptions of course.. that antagonist from Ozark in the early season. I like that in Sex Education there was different types of gay guys through out the series.
“How quickly we forget where we came from, and the importance that most of us will one day live to an age hundreds of thousands of our people never got to see.”
Good fuck, that almost made me cry
I welled up. Like an arrow to the heart.
As someone who’s studied Sociology, I really wish I had this channel. I’m happy someone out there is making Sociology the cool subject it is.
pls i see you everywhere 💀
@@melon4234 Happy to see you too lol
@@PokhrajRoy. Why not take a chance and start your own youtube channel
@@esbeng.s.a9761 It’s easier said than done. Also, I’m that person who’s going to go through the quantity over quality and I’m very harsh on myself about creating something. Not a pretty process.
@@PokhrajRoy. As a History undergrad who LOVES studying human behavior, I'd really like to add yet another Sociology-related UA-cam channel to my list! It was CrashCourse, not the educacional system, that thought me how cool Sociology is. The internet simply NEEDS more accessible Sociology content!
You could ask a sociology-savvy friend of yours (preferably a quality over quantity person) to help you with the channel. Your tendencies would probably balance each other out, depending on who you chose.
In my free time, I could help you with brainstorming ideas and even source-mining, if you'd like. I'd offer to do more (I love both researching and writing), but my schedule is relatively busy with, among other things, all the college stuff, so I cannot make any long-term commitments right now.
P.S: if you decide to make a channel, you should do a series on Pierre Bourdieu. One of the best professors I've ever had (in terms of both knowledge and ability to make learning engaging) said that she found Bourdieu near-impossible to understand, citing the concept of habitus as an example. However, I read a book on undergrad-level Linguistic Anthropology, Laura Ahearn's "The Living Language", that is able to explain that very idea, as well as other ideas by Bourdieu, quite simply.
I understand this, but I think some of that basic homophobes bad stuff is surprisingly important. My dad watched glee with my mom and that was the point he started questioning his homophobia. If Glee didn’t exist coming out to him as trans would not have gone well. I understand the need for queer stories for queer people, but queer stories for straight audiences have a real impact on not only straight people but the queer people in their lives.
I thought it was interesting that you chose driving as the example of a behavior that doesn’t get incorporated into an identity because you’re right that people don’t see the world through a driving lens but I think that’s because driving is the heterosexuality of transportation. Many cyclists, on the other hand, do incorporate that into their identities because it goes against the normative expectation that everyone should drive.
My thoughts exactly
I would say driving does seem to be an identity because when you can't drive people infantalize you and treat you like there is something wrong with you, so clearly driving is a valuable part of their identity and passing the test was seen as a rite of passage
And most cyclists didn't choose to have cyclist as an identity. There are leaked media memos telling employees in trashy newspapers how to create a driver vs cyclist narrative because it would sell papers / get clicks . It has also got people (many of whom are drivers as well) killed on their bicycles. People seen with bicycles are seen as vile rule-breakers. They are regularly harassed for the actions of other people on bicycles, as if everything one person does on a bicycle reflects everyone when they get on a bicycle
such a good point!!
And many people who drive and live in car-centric communities believe that driving is the “only way to go” because that’s what their environment is built around, that’s what their environment is safest for. Funnily enough, I hate both driving and that I live in an American suburb that essentially forces me to drive.
It also ignores the fact that some disabilities make driving impossible. It’s kinda an accidental commentary on ableism and how there are defaults
The thing that's always bothered me most about Kurt Hummel's character has been his real world origin story: Chris Colfer, his actor, auditioned for the role of Artie, the disabled nerd. Chris Colfer himself was a closeted gay man and was shy, wry, and super geeky. He didn't get the role, but the singing at his audition was so impressive that they erased their token Indian character and made a character just for him, inspired by the audition. Was the character a nerd? Was he shy or sardonic? No, he wasn't. In fact he had almost nothing in common with Chris himself because the only thing they cared about was that Chris had a high pitched, feminine voice, and it made him "sound gay." They wrote a gay character defined by stereotypes because they clocked a young, closeted, gay man based on the *pitch of his voice.* Then they stereotyped him in front of the entire world. The character of Kurt Hummel wasn't just about stereotyping the gay community as a whole - it stemmed from incorrectly stereotyping a gay man to his own face.
You can even see in Chris's early interviews that he's always mentioning how little he and his character have in common, and how it's been a challenge as a newbie actor to get into the character's head. When contrasted with the fact that the character himself was literally written based on the writers' impression of Chris Colfer, the picture it paints is awful and cruel.
That's abusive
Wait wait wait, so Colfer wasn't out when he got the part ? So they basically _outed_ him ?
Glee... the gift that keeps on giving 🤡
And that is why I don't like Glee, beyond the music covers.
@@medealkemy Playing a gay character doesn't make someone gay so no, they didn't out him.
That's the best representation. When it's just there. No hetero romances are advertised as "look we have hetero representation!" It's just there
It should be the same with queer media. Focused on the story, not the fact of queerness. Having lgbt characters, either main or side, is normal. Just normal. It has all the rights to be there. No need to put a label on it.
It's really refreshing to have a show which just does what it does, develops an awesome gay romance and doesn't focus on it being gay. As it should be.
And yet that's not very reflecting of reality for most people. I think both kinds of representation are important, the kind that serves as escapism where LGBT characters just exist and their identities are never the point of focus, and the kind that explores and showcases the challanges that come with being LGBT, cause ignoring them isn't gonna make them go away.
@@razvanradoiu it's kinda an overused trope already. We have enough of this and need to move on
Media impacts life just as life impacts media. It works both ways. So there should be more pieces of media with normalized presence of lgbt, not overdramatized
@@Jev_the_fluorescent_shrimp I don't share your sentiment, both are important and pretending that opression dosen't exist is going make people ignorant, as we've "moved on" from that and people roll their eyes when you talk about LGBT discrimination because to them it dosen't exist anymore. Both kinds of representation are important and there isn't nearly enough of either.
@@razvanradoiuyeah keep whining and pitying yourself and that'll definitely help the situation
@@razvanradoiu nah I’m tired I experience discrimination irl enough. I’m very happy to just disappear into a world where I don’t have to deal with that.
I am not technically represented in OFMD. I’m a Lesbian, there are no Lesbians on the show. Hell, there’s hardly any women. That being said, I feel wayyyy more represented, and on a very personal and somehow sentimental level, with OFMD than I ever have with all of the cartoon lesbians…who I honestly feel less than nothing about.
(HOWEVER, still keeping my fingers crossed for actual historical lesbian pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Reed who lived at the same time and in the same place as Stede Bonnet and Blackbeard to happen in the show)
Love your channel and all that you do. Keep up the good work my friend. 💗
SAME!
Yesss, fingers crossed for Lesbian pirates in season 2!
What is wrong with Gentlemen Jack?
@@juliannehannes11 absolutely nothing! Love that show! I just want lesbian pirates on my favorite show!
@@racheltheclumsy Its not lesbian pirates but Yellowjackets and The Wilds has great lesbian power couples in a secluded adventure setting of peer acceptance
I absolutely love this video, I've always hated the "gay kid comes out and gets bullied" trope (despite being that kid) and you finally put a reason to why, thank you.
Right, I love it when a show just has a character who is Gay or Trans and doesn't make a whole thing of it, I then proceed to make a whole thing of it by flapping my hands in joy and jumping up and down and telling everyone how great it is. (I haven't forgotten about everyone else it's just I've so far only seen this kind of representation with Gay and Trans people, and almost never at that)
You know what else? Just having a character be a *woman* and no one make a thing out of it is awesome. Kim in Better Call Saul doesn't have to deal with sexism once, it's incredible, it makes me so happy. Her being a woman doesn't come into it, everyone just respects her for who she is. Even the villain treats her with respect when he meets her. That's one show! One show! (that I've seen) For 48% of the population! Why is this taking so long!
I love when this happens, but somehow when it happens in a piece of media like Heartstopper, it upsets me.
I love Heartstopper. I think it’s adorable. Yet, a lot of plot issues or discussions arise from the difficulties of coming out faced by Tara and Darcy + Nick and Charlie. Elle, however, doesn’t get any of this? There’s a moment where Nick is about to deadname her and Charlie goes “She’s Elle now she moved schools.” Tao offhandly mentions that she was bullied. I understand she’s not a main character, but her struggles are delegated to the past and aren’t actively talked about. She’s the only trans character in the show.
I like it when characters are treated like they’re just like everyone else. It’s just that when this happens in a world where every other person BUT that character with a specific identity is treated differently for it, it leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
@@luxill0s that always gave me really weird vibes, especially considering the rise of transphobia in the uk. its just hard to believe that these white cisgender gay men are more oppressed than a black trans girl.
The getting bullied part kinda has gone away just a bit tbh. Most people have gotten over it and realized we aren't evil villains who wanna poison the water supply.
@@luxill0s I 100% agree. I thought it was weird that they portrayed homophobia but transphobia barely exists in that show. You’re telling me the same girls laughing at Tara being a lesbian don’t give a shit that Elle is trans???
This is brilliant-you perfectly encapsulated why Our Flag Means Death felt like such a victory and such a beautiful RELIEF. I especially appreciated the discussion of queerbaiting-watching OFMD for the first time, I genuinely didn’t believe that they were really going to confirm the romance until the beach kiss. We’ve all been burned before, and I was afraid to let myself hope that this time would be different.
I want to send this video to everyone I know. I want to somehow convince all of my straight friends who “Don’t Get It” to watch it.
i hate to say it... i've been checking the channel everyday waiting for this video......... THE ANTICIPATION
SAME AND WHEN I GOT THE NOTIFICATION I CHEERED
Been doing the Same thing
SAME SAME GOGLODIGSKFHA
So often sapphic relationships in animation are seen as innocent and inoffensive. It's awesome that we are finally getting more and more confirmed sapphic relationships, but there are so many ones that are just "gals being pals". I related so much to your explanation on how queerbaiting can lead to feeling gaslit. There are many shows (especially anime) I could name that use these relationships between girls to push this innocence narrative and not confirm their relationship. Besties that are ride or die for each other. To point I question "can I say this couple is canon" because their emotions appear romantic, yet there is no official confirmation but also nothing denying it. So which is it? And it sucks have these couples in limbo.
In the Nurarihyon no Mago manga, there is once a story where an NPC Old Guy told the cast about how, long ago, there was a samurai and his Lord, and they were very close. And the girls were like, “was that homosexuality?” and the guy was like, “well, the WIFE certainly thought so, she tried to kill them!” and later on in a post-anime arc, an enemy has turned one of the girls to try to be more feral and attack the other girl like “Didn’t you ever wanna bite her😈?” And the turned girl was like, “😱😱Not like *that*”
Unfortunately, the former story was cut from the anime entirely cuz “OMG thInK oF tHe cHIldReN”
Now that it's visible we can continue with part four of our plan.
just... THIS, as a lesbian myself, this part of the video feels like have take a weight off my shoulders, its so true, and as you said, especially anime, that uses these relationships for innocente narrative (or go for the extremely harmful stereotype predatory lesbian) and are always the feminine padronized mostly caucasin couples the only ones that gets canon, its sucks, its again the industry saying "you could have representation, but only barely"
DC's Harley Quinn, ivy and harley are both correctly criminals but they still love and are loved, and I personally find it refreshing to not have that squeaky clean morality in a queer relationship
And it is confirmed
At least 3 kisses? And they literally get elope
@@HuanjianLin I have watched all of the Harley Quinn Show and that show has the opposite issue that sapphic relationships can also get in media representation which is oversexualization of them. Overall I do like the show and I like their relationship. It's the girl on girl jokes and the men drooling over them that it can become uncomfortable. It took us almost two seasons for them to get together and we had to watch a straight relationship that Ivy cheated in to be with Harley. I dislike how often bisexual representation comes with a cheating plotline. Legend of Korra also had this issue. And I hated how Harley and Ivy were outed by showing a private intimate moment projected into the sky for the male characters to drool over. However I still like and watch the show because there are aspects that are done well. I like that the characters are villains and have personality and stand up for themselves. I like the relationship they have and have high hopes for season 3. But could do with it being less cheating and fetishy.
the frase "hey, gay! u wanna act gaily daily?" has been stuck in my head for two days now.
thanks for the video, it was really interesting and inspiring, and its quality... so good!
I'm going to rewatch OFMG now :^
I think someone mentioned it down below, but you kinda did glossed over just how normal The Owl House was about queer rep. Yes, a lesbian relationship was at the forefront of the story but there was other rep as well (a non binary character having a long standing relationship with the main protag’s female caretaker with mutual feelings. That female caretaker’s sister being aspec. And one of the main protag’s best friends causally having two dads.) I understand what you meant by lesbian relationships being treated as more “pure” than mlm relationships and I agree. But if we take into consideration of TOH existing, the normalizing of queerness didn’t start at OFMD. It probably didn’t even start with TOH, but normalizing queerness took a huge step with TOH and it continued with OFMD.
I agree, the representation in TOH is really nice. The main lesbian romance is also very well written, it doesn't drag or bait, it actually moves at a reasonable pace - which also means we get to actually see them act as a (very wholesome) couple for a significant amount of time. I actually wasn't aware Lilith was aspec, that's really cool, I hope they find some way to explicitly work it into the show.
Actually their relationship would be considered a sapphic or wlw relationship, since Luz isn't a lesbian
@@marisolbecerra06 you're right. I did know that Luz is bi but I guess I forgot that a better term existed to describe their relationship with.
I mean given how much media there I that's simply just a love story one about love story but it's lesbian seems .. neat
In she-ra one of the character also has two dads and its just treated as normal
Ugh, the rhetoric about being chastised for reading queer subtext hit hard. I used to find it so damaging when my heterosexual friends and family would talk down to me about it.
Worst still, I would feel like I couldn't be apart of that Media, that those characters and their experiences "couldn't" be mine; they were heterosexual exclusive.
I definitely related to that too! When my family or friends look at me weird or call me a crazy shipper for thinking some characters are queer (in cinemas, when watching tv shows)
I have mixed feelings, I’m bisexual, and It’s not uncommon for homosexual people to say that bisexual people are just homosexual and “not fully out of the closet” and it’s also common for heterosexual people to say that bisexual people are “just going through a phase”
The “guessing game” where other people guess someone else’s sexuality, gender, or even racial or ethnic identity behind their back instead of just asking and accepting the other persons answer can be hurtful, offensive, and dangerous..
I’m not sure if playing the guessing game with made up characters encourages people to play the guessing game irl, but I’m skeptical and cautious
@@coppermoth6069 I definitely agree with that! Bisexual erasure is just so infuriating
nothing wrong with reading queer subtext but its really only valid when the creator intentionally makes a queer subtext
@@handsomeboi3767 Agreed. Imo I don't have a problem with it unless they start attacking other fans and the creator when their headcanon was never confirmed in the first place. I'm bi myself so I'd love for there to be more and better rep, but some of these fans are just really obnoxious about their ships and headcanons and need to learn to let it go and just enjoy the fan content, instead of insisting things were intended when they very obviously weren't.
I genuinely believe that the worst thing to come out of capitalism is the idea of “the only motivation to make Art is to make profit”. I want to make Art for Art’s sake. I want to create because that is what I want to do with my life. I want to tell a story for the sake of getting it out there. It cuts me to the core to see so many artists and animators and writers and creatives having to compromise their vision for the sake of someone else’s wallet. What I love about OFMD is that it feels like no compromises were made. It felt like it was telling exactly the story that it wanted to. I hope that one day, hopefully in my lifetime, we get to a point where money isn’t a part of the creative process. Where not only *everyone* can afford to create, not just the rich and well off. But the things that they do create are made on their own terms. Without compromise. Where people are allowed to just… make.
Yeah, and even in the context of OFMD itself, Taika Waititi said it made him love the process of filmmaking/acting again and he often talks about the show more than the literal multi-billion dollar franchise Marvel movie he's meant to be promoting right now during interviews these days. Loving to merely create without compromise and censorship even if there's no capital incentive is something innate in humanity I believe.
@@malbasedvalentine3210 Pretty hilarious that you think 'Renaissance' and 'queer' are antithetical and that you'd choose that of all eras as examples of art that isn't "our people's".
Donatello, Raffaello Sanzio and Leonardo da Vinci were all flamers, Michelangelo most likely was too, whoops lol 🤷♂
@@bisexualmajima “most likely”, but apparently to you people, every male who aren’t stereotypically masculine are homosexuals in secret…
Ever think that you might be looking into things too much, and such people you mention are just coping mechanisms to justify depravity?
@@bisexualmajima but, I think it’s rather still pretty profound that none of those people revolved their work around one belief, they were incredibly fluent and open-minded. Which is the problem with you people, you lack both, and instead revolve everyone around homosexuality and your ultra moralist values.
I feel like the erasure of Jughead's asexualty in Riverdale was a big unintentional mask off moment for the showrunners and writers of live action teen/adult shows and just how they did not care to write about queerness. Unlike animated TV shows for kids where some research shows the creators of these shows expressing how they often fought tooth and nail for queer rep (Alex Hirsch even recently revealed that he used 'bromance' logic to trick the high ups and censors at disney into keeping a scene where a male character has his arm over another male character, characters who did later turned out to be gay) live action shows don't really have those same stories of being censored by higher ups. It has always been assumed that it would be easier for the showrunners of live action shows to have openly queer main characters approved, and it's assumed cause we don't have much evidence of them actually trying. Cause at the end of the day like how they had little interest in exploring how Jughead's asexualty and how that informs his high school expierence where his peers are constanly getting into relationships with one another or even researching ways that Jughead could still be in romantic relationships (though him also being aromantic is a popular fancanon) these writers have little interest in writing a gay man realizing his past relationship with women have been a bit preformative, or just writing a bisexual character. Because they wanted to write straight men, but you can get a lot of money from queers being in your fandom so just queerbait them. And when the show ends you can turn around to the fans you strung along your ultimately mediocre show and tell them "you know, it's people like you who are the reason why men can't have close friendships."
Which is why our flag means death is so important to not only queer folk but queer folk who were in fandoms of live action shows that maliciously queerbaited them, or the queer folks in animated fandoms who lamented with the creators of animated kids TV shows that all they could get was a kiss at then end. Cause for the first time in a long time for a lot of these people they can let their guard down and are free to make queer headcanons. The fandom has even inspired the actor who plays Jim, Vico Ortiz, to pursue their own top surgery because of a popular fancanon of Jim getting top surgery from the chief/doctor crewmate helped assure Ortiz that getting top surgery wouldn't disrupt the show. And even if OFMD didn't get a season 2 the fans would have still gotten a canon nonbinary character, a scene where an entire pirate ship says they don't care if their very gay crewmate is sleeping around with everyone else, and a kiss from the two main characters that proved that the happiness they gave each other wasn't just 'bromance.'
Oh my, I wrote a lot. . . Happy pride month gays!!! 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️🏴☠️
@@ChantelCarter-cc7cu
Well my post was long because ace and aro erasure in media also leaks into why all queer rep is scarce in media
Why isn't Jughead ace? The show runners don't find asexuality interesting to write and how could they write a character who's has a prominent role but never has a love interest ever.
Why isn't Dean bi? Because the writers don't find bisexuality interesting to write and how can they have the macho character be interested in *men* oooo but there's money here so we'll wink to the audience sometimes and confirm that the character people shipped him hard with, who wasn't his brother, had a one sided crush on him
@Science Bear
I mean there's clearly some *big* difference if writers would rather almost write a bi character rather than actually write one and why some actors have expressed some discomfort in bisexual interpretations of the *fictional character* they play
@@ChantelCarter-cc7cu
Ya in Riverdale him and Betty become a couple at some point
I guess it was poor wording on my part I meant an apathy felt towards the queer community towards these writers that stops them from researching and looking into these communities and break their preconceived notions and stereotypes
Their apathy towards the queer communtoy makes them see and continue to see asexuals as uninteresting and bisexual as confusing etc
@Science Bear What the actual fuck.
@Science Bear That’s.... not true... at all. Might be how it’s treated. Because you can just say a male character is bi but not have them ever be interested in men or actually be bi at all while demonizing other bi characters. Like Lucifer. Was that your point?
the thing i think has affected me most about rainbow capitalism is that when i was younger, i saw a rainbow bandana or pin or whatever in a backpack and thought "oh! gay. or ally. safe person". now when i see it i cant be sure if they are lgbtq+ or allies or its just a fashion statement. they took away our icons that we used to form community, and comodify them
wow, that’s so true
@Hi there you bring up a good point, a few people i know are also just into rainbows but theyve lessened it because of it being a queer symbol. Although its not really a “political statement” either way
@Hi there Same! I love rainbows as a decorative motif, but I've since moved away from it because I don't want people thinking I'm a crazy extreme woke activist or be asked a million questions because of my choice of decorative motif.
whoa thats insane, its like homosexual entities in the free market took a symbol that was universal and commodified it for homosexuality only to have it gradually dissolve back into a universal symbol again over time.
I still see it as generally someone who's more safe than others, but it's not always the case, and I'm a lot more cautious around people now with who I tell what and even what I wear around certain people (gender non-conforming).
Speaking of queerbaiting and capitalism, a lot of anime utilizing this appealing to queer audiences (and honestly straight women) with heavily coded male characters. It allows a homophobic country to appeal to representation-starved fans from another homophobic country. Official art fuels this as many of them depict not-so-subtle and not-so-canon male relationships (getbackers, neon genesis, and bsd are all guilty of this)
I agree...
TBH I just am not totally sure queer people have been on the radar as a consumer base for anime producers in the past 10 years. I'm sure there are queer people who have complex relationships to the subtext that shows up in these shows (and there's been academic research on how queer populations, esp gay men, engage w explicit depictions that aren't made for them in BL manga) but I feel like touchy-feely moe girls and fujobait boys are a similar and equally fraught but sociologically distinct phenomenon from queerbaiting in western media.
@@ElectroSocketBlues There was one manga I read not long ago, Otome Danshi ni Koisuru Otome, that did the opposite and I was really impressed with it. On the surface it's a typical josou shounen manga, but before long you get to see that, well no, the author actually has a strong grip on proper LGBT terminology and makes a point to educate readers on the actual conversation being had, and what things do and do not mean in a given context. I can't get any more specific than that, because it truly is the full spectrum of topics. Difference between sexuality and identity. Difference between identity and presentation. Etc.
The problem is that the only scanlation I'm aware of, swaps in tons of homophobic and transphobic language where it definitely was not present in the original. Thanks weebs, for always ruining everything and making sure we can't have nice things.
Guess the point I'm making is that there are folks in Japan fighting the good fight. They just aren't frequently heard.
there was no gay coded chacaters in neon genisis they literally said the guy with white hair loved shinji and shinji was bi an
handsome Boi yeah that’s my bad,, honestly I haven’t watched it in a really long time and I think I may be getting it confused with another old anime’s official art
I fear America will never get 'representation' right, not just with gays but in general. The ruling that Hollywood had to include a certain PERCENTAGE of x number of minorities in every film to qualify for the Oscars (or whatever that was) is proof that the focus is all wrong. Nobody wants to be a token. Or maybe they do. I don't. Rules like that guarantee the focus will be on unnatural, forced inclusion rather than quality storylines. You can't focus on two things at once and give both equal attention. They already have proven that they can't do the diversity thing right, now there's a literal quota. Ugh.
Excellent vid by the way.
iirc it was something about a production crew having a minority quota, not character identities
I might be remembering completely wrong though
"I fear America will never get 'representation' right".
They never will. They refuse to accept that "race" does not exist, skin color does not represent different species therefore people with darker skintones do not belong to different races.
Sexuality gets treated the same way, they think men who like men are simply aliens from the Rainbow moon, or something like that.
When the answer is right there, it doesn't matter who you fall in love with or which pigmentation is your skin is colored with, you are are all equally american. There is no gay culture, no black, or asian, or latin culture, these are all american culture. Because culture is representative of the collective of people living within a country. A country cannot be homosexual or heterosexual, in the same way a country does not have skin tones.
People love to blame the system, but in reality, it's not just the people in power who are the problem, when the common people themselves perpetuate these negative stereotypes and misconceptions.
That queerbaiting subject made me realized how much I doubt myself when I pick up on queer characters and most times it is actually right! Once I was watching this series and it was mainly about a gay couple but then they introduced a new woman character who had romantic clues towards another woman in the show. I watched it with suspicion like is this gonna be a lesbian couple?? But I was like nah, I’m overthinking it, they would never.
And then they ACTUALLY did make them a couple and I doubted myself until it was confirmed! Like as a queer woman Ik what attraction towards another woman can look like and I was STILL doubting myself cuz of the amount of queerbaiting there is in media
I definitely relate to that too! It makes me so happy when movies or tv shows confirm things as queer, it validates me in a way
Drop the show name for a fellow queer girl
yeah because of queerbating I genuinely thought Catra and Adora would end up being just friends
I mean I probably would have thought otherwise if I knew who ran the show lol
@@cathy9100 sorry for late reply but its called Bad Buddy. It’s a Thai series tho and all the relationships are so healthy. It’s a lighthearted series and fun if u just want to watch queer relationships!
@@rain_drops2723 tysm, dont worry abt the late reply
I will never stop being absoluetly amazed at your gay excellence! Keep up the hard work! Your youtube channel is amazing!
“but in the spirit of gay piracy I'm also scamming you”
sorry I needed to write this down it made me laugh a little more than normal
I was the person in my friend group that checked OFMD out first, so I went into it not knowing it was a gay pride show but when Ed and Stede had that beautiful moment in the bathtub (I guess only Ed was in the bathtub) I…was…TERRIFIED! Because, because I had been burned by queerbaiting more times than I wanted to think about and with everything going on currently, I knew my heart just couldn’t take it. So I stopped watching it. I waited until I heard confirmation of their relationship and I took a chance on the writers, creators, actors and it’s the most scared I’ve been. It felt like they were revealing a secret to the world, that we ARE just like everyone else. That we aren’t magic and we still fuck up like everyone else. But also that we can find love as well, just like anyone else.
Moving forward, I was the one to tell my friends to check it out with the tagline (anything the story clearly promises on, they deliver. No queerbaiting) and it’s sad that I had to do that but Hollywood used and abused our community to the point that no one trusts them when they say it’s queer/gay (which is probably why they themselves didn’t advertise the show as #lgbtq)
I've been watching AreTheyGay for a very long time now, since the AreTheyGay johnlock video to this one. Seeing how much this channel has improved and how much the quality and just everything has improved makes me really happy.
I cannot express how much this channel has just taken all my thoughts out of my head and put it into words that makes sense. This video is now probably one of my favorite. A genuine thank you for this channel from a fellow queer :)
Gracias por el video! I've been talking about rainbow capitalism with my fellow queer friends ever since the beginning of the month because this year in Italy we are going back to the "traditional" pride with an insane amount of multinational trying to rainbow wash themselves. Last year because of covid regulations it was just a sit in and no multinational thought it was worth it to promote their business, but this year, it's going back to the usual capitalism-filled and cop-friendly pride parade and I'm do tired of it. Also being a latina I feel like most white lgbt+ people especially in Europe do not really understand why it makes me uncomfortable to see Nestlé at pride while being surrounded by cops. But anyway, great video as usual! Thank you for always bringing extremely structured and information-filled videos.
I thought we were supposed to be about progress? Cops support us and be grateful instead of dwelling in the past. Also are they not allowed to genuinely support LGBTQ+ rights? Social liberalism and fiscal conservatism are not mutually exclusive and many people support both. Also, gay people are more likely to be CEOs than others.
Not Nestle!!! That’s a major yikes 😬
Hello, I'm black and queer (a republicans jumpscare as I call myself), and I really enjoyed this video. I bring up being black because a while ago I watched a video (I think called "How to back"?) that delved into how to write a black (or any POC) character.
The summary of the whole thing was that you don't always have to write a black character. You can just write a character that happens to be black.
There doesn't always need to be a commentary on racism in the same way we don't constantly want to watch queer people be sad.
Like... company organized pride parades and owning a denim jacket compares
the same way that representations of "the hood" do to waking up to R&B on a Saturday cause you need to clean the house.
One has a queer (black) aesthetic, while the other is a queer (black) experience.
Great job as always, I've got Taxes to evade, peace out
Republicans not liking teh gays or teh blacks is another fake trope, myth, falsehood packaged by people invested in controlling division.
yh same
Exactly what I needed for the sociology exam I have in a week lmao for real tho, this video is amazing and really shows how much effort you've put in it 🏴☠️🏳️🌈
I'm a cishet man, but I grew up surrounded by queer people, and to this day a majority of my friends are LGBT+. I heard about Our Flag Means Death and immediately made my friends watch it with me, and we immediately fell in love with the show. It's just amazing how, for once, a show is just showing love the way that I've always seen it growing up; people fall in love with who they fall in love with, and no one questions it. While there's merit to a lot of other queer media, I'm nonetheless exhausted by all the 3-hour misery simulators that just seem to capitalize on queer trauma or dramatize it for a cishet audience.
This video is really well made, and, as a hardcore socialist and a history Master's degree student, I really do love all the work and attention to detail.
THE PRODUCTION VALUE.... Chef's kiss
On a less content-focused note, i really enjoyed the "effects" and the way you animated everything (really not sure what terms to use but it looked v good and worked really well)
there's something that has always bothered me about queerbaiting. it's usually marketed toward straight cis women, isn't it? and that's why the couple or the characters depicted as potentially gay are usually male. of course it attracts both queer people and straight women, but there are more straight women overall, so they're the focus. i feel like people kinda don't talk about that side of it enough
While it could be that some women like shipping two men together just because they’re attracted to them, I think women tend to ship mlm ships because in most media there are more male characters than female, and male characters are the most developed. I think most of the investment in those ships comes from shipping two people the audience has gotten to know deeply and who have a complex relationship with each other, rather than from their sex.
On a personal note, I’m a lesbian, but during all of my teenage years I really thought I was straight, and I wondered why I was so drawn to mlm ships thinking it must be the “straight woman likes to watch men kiss” or something. But now I realise it’s because most media I like has these kinds of relationships just between two men. I’ve actually been consciously trying to get into more femslash shipping but there’s nowhere near the couple of “gal pals” on TV as there are “just a couple of bros”. Of course there is a bit of lesbian rep and queerbaiting lesbians, but not at the level it’s at with the male couples.
Yeah that’s probably because straight women are attracted to men, and we already know male celebrities do very well with fan girls. So now you have two hot men with good chemistry? It’s both hot, and enticing to see two men be vulnerable with each other (depending on the ship). I’ve seen a lot of straight women go into depths about why they’re so into m/m specifically. Basically, either it makes them horny, or they loves dudes, so wow,, now two dudes together? Hell yeah.
Pretty much what i understand
@@katitax508 Yeah, Id recommend reading manga, but watch out for the fetish shit. Or even Webtoons, plenty of wlw or gl there, though most of it is 16+ i think due to webtoon's guidelines, which is good cause the main audience of webtoons are teenageers i think.
@@ron4202 I’d like to get into lesbian manga and webtoons! Do you have any specific recommendations?
@@katitax508 thank you for sharing your perspective! i find it interesting how a lot of women (straight, bi and gay) prefer to focus on mlm relationships, while some (bi and gay, in my experience, but i'm sure straight too) strongly prefer wlw, while being exposed to similar kinds of media. i'm sure there isn't a one single reason though
On gay men in cartoons - Owl House, which you mentioned, had Willow and her two dads. Same in The Dragon Prince with Rayla's two dads. Also, while not a cartoon, Eternals come to mind, which had one of the Eternals being in a gay relationship with a man and they adopted this boy...
Now that I think of it, there are a lot of dads amongst gay men in modern media.
And Darius!
When you said that the visibility isn't really enough and doesn't lead to the help we need... I agree. I feel my life is falling apart, I've been in the closet my whole life, and despite being the most visible lgbtq people have ever been, there are still barely any resources to help us even stay alive. What resources do exist are underfunded and not wide reaching. What has target ever done for me when half my mental health issues are related to being lgbt+, and maybe a good portion of my problems stems from the owner class that rules the huge corporation trying to feed off of my lack of acceptance and steal my money. My money that does not exist
This show felt so different from the start. But the scene where Stede's wife is talking about what love feels like for her and says she hopes he finds it and he says he thinks he has. And then she asks "What's her name" and he says, "His name is Ed". That scene blew me away. It's the first time I've ever seen a coming out scene that didn't feel forced. It just felt so natural and beautiful.
it feels like alex had a certain quota he had to hit in terms of mentioning james mcavoy
Of course, some of us are here for the James Mcavoy content
while you were talking about the lack of representation of relationships between more aged people, I remembered Love is Strange. It's a beautiful and very gentle movie about two senior gentlemen deciding to get married after many years of being together. It speaks of some serious matter, like rekindling a long relationship like that or managing grief, but never paints it in drama or tragedy. On the contrary, it's one of the softest movies i've ever seen.
Half of the whole reason I stopped consuming TV/Movie Media’s was because I didn’t see any normalization of Queer men and Trans women.
I appreciate this video, thank you for your work.
x
I'm probably not saying anything you don't know already, but Pose is pretty good!
I’m having a really tremendously shit day and “J. Edgar Hoover, yaaas!” made it a good bit better. Thanks for bringing a smile to a gay commie’s face
I wish for at least the next few days to be a bit better as well. :)
This channel is such a gem!!! Just discovered you and you should have triple the subs you currently have.
Absolutely agree
Thanks, your script gave me this internal monologue: "Wow, I'd love to have homosexual propagandist as a job title...but that feels a bit too close to influencer or thought leader, which perpetuate capitalist hierarchies that are fundamentally anti-queer. I wonder how much 'propagandist' it takes before it crosses the line into perpetuating the same things it would fundamentally oppose or if it can even be reconciled in a...Oh shit, the deadline my boss gave me for that project is in 40 minutes"
"that Queen phase in high school" don't read me like that
My god the presentation is so fun to watch. So creative, supports the video, doesn't distract. This must have been a brutal amount of work and time.
The amount of work you had to put into this video is amazing to me. From the paper animation, to your research, editing, lighting, etc. Bro!
Fantastic video, such laborious backgrounds and stuff! It supportes your voice over in a very natural way. Cutting out all those logos is such an effort and I very much appreciate the work you put in your videos. Loved it
ahh i got so excited when i saw the notification! and was then crushed by my weak human body’s need for sleep.
i can’t wait to watch tomorrow and hope you have an excellent day!!
you create brilliant videos and i love your sense of humour!
I agree, human bodies are so primitive... They need to eat, sleep, drink and be cleaned every single day, but no matter what you do, they eventually malfunction after sufficiently large amounts of time 🙄
The worst part of Love Simon is it's based on a book that's not just about coming out, it's about a happy gay relationship, it's about acceptance of self, coming out is a smaller part of the plot. And the movie turns the characters into empty shells of their personality. It just really bothers me.
After this show the bar has been set so high I feel like I can't watch anything else without being disappointed
I was just wondering why this one took awhile but YOUR PRODUCTION QUALITY! This is amazing and so well worth the wait!
I'm only 17 or so minutes into this video so far, but I love how you're able to incorporate humor while still communicating a serious message!
Worth noting that in Owl House, Willow has two dads, and the show's not afraid to give them screen time. And that's to say nothing of Raine. It's just that the protagonist of the show happens to be female, and here we are. Though given how hard Dana Terrace had to fight with Disney over this representation, only to later get cancelled for "not fitting the Disney brand" (hella sus), I definitely wouldn't deny that a mlm protag relationship wouldn't have gotten past the censor.
I’ve been waiting so long to see a video essay on this channel and you know what, it’s worth the wait.
i'm only like 5 minutes in but this is already the best video you've ever made?? the craft and quality of this??? hello???? this must have taken forever - and it was so worth it!!
I love pirates
I love them enought that I started to write a whole movie with 3 main poly characters, I have wrote around 25 characters for it, gave all of them ther own stories from small to big simply becuse I love pirates that much
Long live pirates
(Also shout out to them for just absorbing abelism It just didn't exist for them as long as you coud kick ass or make a plan you were good)
I was terrified from this thumbnail that the point of the video was that the horrifying rightward creep of the Overton window meant that appealing to the gay consumer was no longer as profitable as appealing to the homophobe, and we were gonna see businesses stop bothering to do even what they do. Relief to see it wasn't that.
The right hates their presence, I hate their omnipresence. The right hates me and my friends, I hate things that crowd out the stories and lives of me and the friends I love.
Disney doesn't want gay characters, they want Their First Gay Character. There's a difference. Queerbaiting for brownie points, but not with the presence of queerness, but baiting with the importance of queerness. We deserve to watch something and know that someone can't edit our existence out for the Russian Market and no one would notice the missing two seconds of footage. Is there a word for that?
Russian Market?? are you that daft or China is a paradise in your mind
Companies
June 1st: Hi gay 👋
July 1st: Bye ***** 🖕
The thing I don't like about this phenomenon of calling everything queerbaiting, especially celebrities behavior, is that it in effect solidifies old rules. When Charlie Puth posts sus pictures and behaves in a way one might associate with a gay man, people will either shame him for not behaving/looking like a heterosexual man is supposed to, or accuse him of queerbaiting.
I was totally with you till you said "Queerbaiting isn't a thing that usually happens to 2 women" and I'm sorry Rizzoli & Isles, Once Upon a Time, Supergirl. Queerbaiting is all over and we've both suffered from it.
Obviously queerbaiting is everywhere, but you can't deny that it is definitely skewed, at least in modern media. In the past it was probably even. As he talks about how queer subtexts were reduced to "women in hats" but in modern media the queer baiting has become skewed towards 2 men relationships. For whatever reason, most likely the patriarchy as he says in the video, in our path towards progress this weird societal preference towards 2 women relationships is a stepping stone. Edit: I also want to mention that most gay women relationships are also animated. Queer baiting in live action is definitely something that every section of our community is still having to fight tooth and nail.
whoa whoa... what he means is that it is more common for wlw relationships to be confirmed than mlm ones. Which is true... for the reason that het men find it hot when hot women kiss, and wlw relationships aren't viewed as serious. It's okay for the teenage female protagonists to kiss on screen because that doesn't ruin them for a marriage later on (in the mind of a straight male viewer, who can then proceed to fantasize about marrying one of the said women). Whereas when two men kiss on screen, they are instantly no longer aspirational for a straight man. Nevermind whatever other qualities the characters might have and how unimportant their mlm relationship is to the story. The way almost all shows are written, you're supposed to fantasize about being the hero and marrying the heroine. A wlw relationship doesn't interfere with that, but an mlm relationship does. Therefore wlw relationships are censored less often.
i watched the new season of the umbrella academy yesterday, and i loved that Victor just came out, and that was it, it's Victor now. Truly transition goals.
and it reminds of the natural, just existing vibe from OFMD.
no tension about x-phobia just existing as a queer person.
As well-researched, deeply interesting, and hilarious as always - I always walk away from your videos feeling like I understand more about the world.
I maintain that the Dean and Castiel thing is the most baffling phobic thing I've ever seen in fandom. Like... One's an angel who literally fell from grace for this guy and would do it again, the other considers this angel, a supernatural being, something he's been trained to hate, to be one of the best people he knows, and someone worth fighting anything or anyone to try and help. That's not subtext, that's text. It can absolutely be homoromantic. Hell, it's one of those rare beautiful things in a show dedicated to the Winchesters having the most f*ked up relationships with their family, the world, each other... Pretty much everything.
The idea that it diminishes either of them, 'ruins' the relationship, or is somehow unwholesome, is just sad.
You’re right. I keep forgetting it though, since all of the cast seems hellbent on gaslighting people that you’re delusional for seeing Dean and Castiel like that.
@@alien-chat Even Misha? Dude seems pretty cool, generally.
@@dustind4694 Wow that was fast. Misha’s definitely better than Jared or Jensen who are outright offended anytime someone mentions destiel. I think he queerbaited destiel fans into thinking the show would actually follow through with the queerbaiting, but I don’t know what happened DURING the show’s runtime, since I started it this year after the finale was already done. And I don’t know for sure, since I’m pretty sure most “anti Misha” posts are usually from the “supernatural is about family!” people.
@@dustind4694 The biggest problem with Misha IMO is that so much of his commentary/actions have an inauthentic vibe. I mean, this is the guy who managed to "accidentally" call himself bisexual, and then had to "come out" as not actually bisexual on twitter. Like, I'm sure he's doing his best, but he's also not actually doing that much work to grow and improve as an ally, and it shows.
Something about the way you've described OFMD reminds me of Xena, which, being the 90s, did have to dance around censors, but shows a surprisingly wonderful and romantic adventure couple travelling the anachronistic ancient world they were living in and being in love.
I guess, in my head, I like to boil this down to being about telling queer stories without always turning them into queerphobia stories. You were kinda dismissive of Owl House here, but I feel like it's a great example of exactly that - an escapist fantasy world where queer characters get to exist without being oppressed for being queer. It's valuable because it gives one a glimpse into the oppression-free world we are working towards and makes it seem reachable within a reasonable time frame. The point you made about animated lesbians being the safest option to go for does stand, though, I'm inclined to agree.
"if you don't speak 2014 tumblr..." I CHOKED
Fairly confident that the Harley Quinn show isn’t an example of recent lesbian couple representation in children’s television.
Not to mention their relationship has been fairly prevalent since they first met 30 some odd years ago.
Ok, this seems very out of place next to all the other comments but i’ve been waiting for this for about 2 months and omg it was so worth it!!! I love this video so much and i just want to say THANK YOU.
I had no clue that this was about Our Flag Means Death until just before you started advertising your merch. I legit just thought this was an analysis of our current society but kinda gay.
Alex please iron your unnaturally large rainbow flag background
"An obsession with reading gay subtext in everything" that says it right there, when I was younger I thought other people were just obsessed with thinking everything has something to do with gayness. Its only as i've gotten older that i've realized these shows really were trying to make people think there was something going on that wasn't
Fans are always blamed for this.
Dammm, that production quality!
As a nonbinary lesbian, I love the representation that I’ve found in animation - because in my experience, a large majority of it is actually *made* by lesbian or other wlw writers. Writers who had to fight tooth and fucking nail to get the representation in. In some ways, I feel lumping shows like She-Ra together with something like LoK misses some nuance. In my opinion, sapphic love is allowed to be shown in two instances: one, when a sapphic person has to physically fight a room full of executives to the death. Two, under the condition that the sapphics can be read around, dismissed as “just friends” and ABOVE ALL, remain 100% accessible to men. I see this happen especially with rep of bisexual women, and it breaks my fucking heart. Straight men will slap the label bisexual on a woman so they can center her narrative around men, show romantic involvement with men, while being suspiciously silent when it comes to her relationships with women - platonic OR romantic. I feel this is a problem something like Legend of Korra suffers from. Our Flag Means Death is unequivocally amazing for representation - but it isn’t flawless either. There are precious few women in the show, and sapphic rep is nowhere to be seen. I’m not saying that it should be “”””cancelled”””” or whatever - but as much as I enjoy it, OFMD is not the universal queer rep people act like it is, and I have to wonder if it would ever have been taken seriously if the story featured lesbians in the starring role instead. I am so glad that OFMD got made - things can be flawed and still be really good! This is just my critique from a sapphic perspective. Godspeed to all the mlm out there who are FINALLY getting to have some incredible compassionate representation, and here’s hoping future seasons will give some badass lady pirates too :)
I agree, and it's not even the animation's industry fault that there isn't more live action representation??? It's that maybe it's just not (and doesn't have to be) specifically aimed at adults. And not all animation is even PG so it's kinda silly to assume that (it's a medium, not a genre goddamn it!!!).
Still, those sapphic relationships that seen in childrens shows can be depicted as complex, and they're making a great job by making their young audiences feel less alienated. I'm sure as hell I wish I had that when I was a child.
i have been camping in your account since you started teasing this video
Vou comentar em português mesmo. Que aula amigos, deu até vontade de estudar sociologia. Eu ainda não vi a série mas pretendo mudar isso logo depois de ver esse vídeo.
Fico muito contente em ver a evolução dele ao longo dos anos que acompanho o canal.
I love your videos so much. Like the more recent ones especially! Love the social theory bits about it.
In this video I really love the apple bit nice editing
There are so many shortsighted observations and absolutist terms thrown around in this video I'm left with no choice but to forget about it in the next 5 minutes.
The evolution of this channel lights my life
Trans girl here. This was a really interesting look into the L and G from somebody who tends to only ever see the T and Q
53:00 idk if I'm included in gay community. I'm closeted straight passing national minority girl in Russia. So i cant belong to my national community, cause sadly it doesn't exist (or too underground). Also i can't associate with russian gay community, which more open to russian gay guys. So I'm part of internet LGBTQ community, cause it's only way to connect to my identity in safe way. But am i seen, cause i can only communicate to UA-cam algorithm.
Super late to the party, but 'being a driver' is absolutely a critical lens through which we see the world, and is absolutely pushed on non-drivers. I had multiple adults of authority tell me I wasn't a fully fledged human being until I learned to drive. It is (at least in America) a necessary identifier of adulthood.
"Karl Marx was not...gay" well, I'll let Engels be the judge of that
I have, unfortunately, read some of Marx's poetry. He is definitely not gay.
Marx and Engels: Are They Gay?
@@durnsidh6483 Oh well, I'm Cuban he's a communist it was forbidden love. 😔
As a wanna-be writer/story builder, who is also GAY, this is absolutely important to me, I am watching this twice!!
I literally got an Amazon pride month as before this video, where they said that they explain to their workers what it means to be queer?? My guy, you won’t let them pee
1:36 - "What do you mean the market can theoretically give us all we want...?" - Actually, for structural reasons, no it can't. It can't even give all of us what we _need._ It can only look like that from the perspective of a first world country's middle class.
Seriously, your videos are an enrichment to my life. This one again was mindblowingly well researched and explained, putting into words what I've been thinking (or maybe more feeling) about vaguely and I just wanted to thank you for that. Keep on rocking on
As a longtime avowed yurifag, it's been interesting to sort of watch almost a microcosm of queer development and attempts at redefining queer media through the lens of yuri manga. While many of the original tropes still exist, things like "true happiness" and the "but we're both girls" moment, more and more you find works about girls who are just gay going through normal love or life troubles, and even many of those old tropes are looked at through new lenses of coming out and defying heteronormative expectations, rather than framing the story and relationship around heteronormativity. We're even beginning to see explorations of the transgender and aro/ace experiences within yuri works.
People keep asking for official merch for OFMD but I think that's also what I love about it, it's not marketed to make the most t-shirt sales or what makes the best lego model but instead tells a great story that in turn inspired hundreds of creators to make things out of love for the show & the characters and share them with each other.
this video is INCREDIBLE and also comes at a great time for me, as this weekend I spent the whole of my local pride parade trying to escape a Procter&Gable platform full of apathetic people in identical t-shirts with their logo and finding that every time we thought we were free of it, it appeared again. a pride nightmare
i love the academic approach you're going through for your videos recently. As someone who loves sociology and talking about modern queer internet sociological patterns you are one of my favorite UA-camrs. I'm pretty sure I've even cited your videos when writing for my film studies classes. Keep up the great work!!
i had a conversation with someone i know recently and they said that they think women are more likely to fall towards bisexuality while i personally thought that women aren't necesarilly more bisexual just more permissable of intimate relationships with eachother and they couldn't understand that so i had to explain to them that probably a lot of men do want to fool around and find out but that they won't want to anymore if it gets verbally or physically beaten out of them because any male intimacy is automatically seen as gay and often bad or atleast less good
i think this fits here
Yeah, it sucks that after a certain age, boys can't show affection to their same sex friends the way girls are allowed to. I.e hugging, holding hands, lying in eachothers laps etc without it being perceived as homosexual.
You should be allowed to express love to your friends without it being perceived as sexual. But unfortunately, that's just the way the world is at the moment. :-/
@@BrightWulph exactly, I’m a touchy person, I’m a teenager who’s touch starved for crying out loud!! I should be able to hug and be touchy with my friends without having to question my sexuality and be called ‘gay’.
For some reason I didn’t expect this to be about ofmd when I clicked on it, but I’m so delighted that it is 😭
I'm a sociologist and this video is just honey to my ears. 🥰I fell in love with your channel after the video about Hannibal, you always do a thorough analysis. Thanks for the great content!✨
this video also somehow led me to thinking about the show 'barry' and it's character NoHo Hank. they do a similar thing with him in that his sexuality is largely undiscussed but to a queer audience he slowly seems more and more gay as the show progresses. at one point, he does express attraction to a man (hilariously, might i add) and this could have easily been queerbaiting, but instead the show literally just paired the two guys up in a very straightforward way (the newest season just starts with them as an established couple) and then treated them with the same level of respect and playfulness as any other character on the show. no homophobia or need to come out, although it being set in modern times, there is the implied consequence of homophobia in the context of their jobs, but that hasnt even occured so far. and the show itself isnt at all about sexuality, nor is hank just seen as 'the gay one'. i dont think it's as subversive as ofmd but i really hope this kind of gay representation catches on! great vid btw!!
He really needs to do a NoHo Hank and Cristolbal video because yes they are definitely Gay. Also, yes their relationship was so sweet especially when you compare it to Barry and Sally's parasitic one. Also Barry is just such a great show. I cannot wait for season 4. 😩
I’m sorry I kept tweeting at u to release this I understand why it took so long this is absolutely fantastic
for me this whole story is so wild. we all have heard about black beard and all his adventures, but is was only after the show that we get to know that the "gentleman pirate" was real, and he and blackbeard met (and maybe something else happened). i know "they were good friends" erases A LOT of queer stories, but it makes me sad to really think about it and imagine all the great stories that we won't ever know. i'm so glad to be alive to see this show being so successful
Same. It’s wild finding out the arguably most famous pirate was shacking up with the guy almost the entirety of his time as a captain. I know historians theorize that Blackbeard was doing it to obtain the Revenge, but it’s odd that the man who cultivated an image as being violent and ruthless was also on the record really generous to Stede Bonnet. Like not stripping him completely of his captain’s duties so as not to make him sad and also letting him bring his library aboard the Queen Anne’s Revenge. I definitely recommend watching Kaz Rowe’s video on the topic.
Also the characters that are more palpable, usually perform theur gender in the "normal" way, like it's pretty unusual to see a butch woman, or even a flamboyant gay man, like Lucius, the maximum a gay man can be feminine in tv, is usually Kurt Hummel. Also, wlw to be seen as predatory, it depends usually on how they perform gender, like a butch or androgynous women are seen as predatory a lot of the time. Oh yeah, and for the adventure time and legend of korra things, they only managed to show it in the end, because the networks didn't want to show "that" in a kids show, AT had confirmed that they had a relationship about 5 years earlier, and the legend of korra creators wanted a kiss, but had to settle for them holding hands
I mean driver can be an identity, the term "car guy" has blown up to a broader category of people
What is Nova Scotia? The Canadian province with the highest percentage of trans and non-binary people according to the 2021 census. Also a place with a history of pirates, so fairly relevant to the context of the video.
I think you make a really good point about how our society is more permissive of wlw relationships in kids shows (and for the most part, only kids shows) because it sees femininity as less predatory. It’s just really evident in the way that these wlw relationships present; both of the women are always incredibly feminine. Don’t get me wrong, as a lesbian I appreciate the representation, but it always just feels so fake. Like, yay the sapphics got together, but they don’t actually look like myself or any of my sapphic friends. The sapphic community, and especially the lesbian community, is missing so fucking much of our personality and history when you take away our masculinity. The only sapphic character I can think of who you could maybe consider butch is Netossa from SPOP, and she’s barely even a side character. (You can make an argument for Catra too, but I feel like it’s also very telling that the lesbian who is allowed to be masculine is the villain for 90% of the show.) At the end of the day, we’re allowed to be lesbian if and only if we look and act exactly like cishet women