It was a point I only realized through[sniiiip]
There’s a really weird thing with f/f. It’s simultaneously less respected and more ‘normalized’. As a queer woman I’m sometimes seen as less ‘threatening’ to audiences than a queer guy and like, say, in the DC universe there are more queer women IIRC- yet on the other hand, it’s not f/f that gets the big “social impact” storylines. Glee is a good example: the m/m couple gets respectful treatment, and coming out storylines; the f/f is very badly handled, as well as really fanservicey. BUT, the f/f existed, technically, before the m/m. And it was less controversial.
re: ‘just be friends’, well, I do really disagree there- or… sort of… LIKE I SAID, BAD AT STRAIGHT ANSWERS. The thing is, while two guys can’t be close without gay jokes (which does suck in the sense that it is, basically, a gay panic thing), nobody tends to actually buy the concept they could actually be into each other. Look at all the ‘bromance’ movies: X-Men, Sherlock Holmes, etc. Sure, two dudes can’t have that closeness without the jokes being made. But say you seriously, legitimately find it to be a love story and you get shot down- ‘it’s just a joke, they aren’t really…’. I feel like there’s two seperate issues there? The demonization of guys having emotions which people turn into a punchline, but also the fact that people can’t conceive of it being romantic- it really is just a punchline. (Though interestingly, Sherlock Holmes is one instance where RDJ was way more open about how hey, maybe it was true- and then the lawsuits were threatened.)
And yesss, I did actually see that meta and I think it’s really insightful. Guys are not allowed to be emotional, at all, because that’s for girls (and we’d just hate to be like a weak girl now wouldn’t we). This is an issue I have with so many male characters, that they’re forced to be these often-unhealthily stoic people full of ~manpain that I’m supposed to care about, but which they can’t express without being blasted. It’s terrible, and I think it is a big problem for guys. I saw a piece on Tumblr today in a newspaper about how ‘horrified’ a woman was to see young guys hugging because ‘it’s not manly, wtf’. I JUST. CAN’T.
And yeah, it’s been done on a kids’ soap opera in the late 90’s, it was done on Doctor Who (we even got an onscreen kiss once). The trouble is, we import a lot of our TV from the US. But there’s also more of a blurred line between ‘adult’ and ‘kid’ TV over here. (Doctor Who also gets away with enormous quantities of violent human deaths, very mild cussing, and innuendo. Also it is watched by five year olds.)
Yeah, I mean… I feel like there’s not even a good vocabulary to discuss topics like this! It’s SO erased, and SO under the rug, that you really have no touchstone to discuss it using. The concept of showing queerness to kids doesn’t even factor in as often as I’d like in discussions amongst queer people, and it shows.
Ohman, bromance completely slipped my mind! Letting my inner word geek out, I just like the visceral sound of it. Otherwise, it seems like an interesting development, but I haven’t really critically looked into it.
…And, hmmm, I can’t think of any new responses right now. Just absorbed the response this time around, felt better informed, so YAY! but I don’t immediately feel any questions to ask or comments share. I may be running out of steam at the moment, though it’s all really interesting