fiddleabout:

invisiblenonexistence:

tyventyven:

adreadfulidea:

“Gay Migration fandom moves along lines of identity; that is, it comes to a show because someone said, “There’s lesbians here.” It regularly jumps across genre lines to do so, and very often, if it shows up in the middle of a show’s run, it does not bother to familiarize itself with previous seasons, core messages, pre-existing dynamics—in short, what makes that show tick. The pairing is all. As is the desired outcome: Some variant of “gets married and rides off into the sunset.” Which, we could all probably stand to see more of. However, given that ends-based approach, it makes sense that some frustrations around how queer stories are handled in that segment of fandom can be traced back to a fundamental misunderstanding—or total lack of understanding—about how different genres work. Their expectations are calibrated not by their sense of how a particular type of show might behave, or the kinds of topics they can expect it to address, or even if romantic relationships will be very important at all. Instead, their expectations are calibrated by their own regularly evolving idea of what gay stories are or should be, down to specific character beats and archetypes—which are often a function of a show’s genre, and not the disrespect of the writing staff. This in turn is shaped by experiences in previous fandoms, and heavily influenced by internal fanwank, negative interactions with production and writing staff on other shows, and other concurrent online arguments about gay culture and identity. In short, their expectations of the show are influenced by everything but the individual show itself.”

—

Genre and the Gay Migration | The Fandomentals
(via marieduplessis)

Really? This sounds like BS. Everyone I know who jumps to a new show because it has a gay character starts binging the show,from the first episode. This sounds like someone trying to shift the blame to queer people, us not being happy with the shitty repsentation we get.

‘shut up and be happy we included you for a little bit, yes the character died,but it isn’t my fault, it just made sense to the story!!!You’re just still mad they killed your fave on that other show!’

Yes,I’m still mad!I’m mad about all of the characters that are importent to minorities that get killed off/disappears, who seldom is shown the respect they deserve, because rep IS different for us. People who see themselves everywhere in everything just.don’t.get.it.

We should be allowed to ask for better.

Agreed. Speaking from my own experience, I’ve binged shows because they had gay/lesbian/bisexual characters. Given how many people in fandom are not straight, this seems like passing the buck – “Oh, it’s not our writing that’s shitty. You just don’t know the genre! Why should we have to do better? You didn’t even watch the show!” So, yeah – sounds like crap to me, and making excuses for lazy writing.

okay so like

i get that y’all are angry but also: did you actually read the article?  because even if you had a valid point against just this excerpt (which i don’t think you do), context still matters, and you seem to have missed all of the context of the article.

But we don’t need just one story. We need all of our stories. We are not monolithic in our experiences of our identity, and we are not monolithic in the stories we need.

And ultimately, the best way to negotiate that is to understand and maintain a language that allows us to express and define what we’re looking for, what we get out of our stories. Genre is one of those languages.

“we’re allowed to ask for better” yeah okay sure but also: that’s the whole point of the article?  that queer peoples’ representation should be expanding beyond just its own subgenre into broader genres, where it’s no longer the sole focus of the media.  that queer stories are human stories and should be told as human stories.

the whole point of the article is that queer stories should exist outside of just the three shelves of the queer section at the local bookstore and that they should be part of broader literary genres.  and you know what? putting queer people in horror stories, and sci-fi stories, and cheesy romance stories, and fantasy stories, and pretentious “literary” stories where the protagonist escapes to the seaside and spends 350 pages mentally fellating themselves because the world doesn’t understand them, is important and also requires a functional integration of them into the genre and its associated requirements.  that was the point of the article.  

it’s not that bad or lazy writing shouldn’t be called out when it happens, because it should.  it’s that as much as there are harmful tropes regarding queer characters that writers should avoid, there are unavoidable facets of genre that readers should be aware of when they consume pieces of that genre.  as harmful as negative tropes about queer people are, so too is the polar opposite: avoiding possible negative associations or unhappy stories for queer characters within a genre where negative or unhappy things happen to everyone, simply because they are queer.  

the advancement of queer people in media won’t come by elevating them to an untouchable status, but by advancing them to a place of equality with their straight counterparts.  because queer stories are human stories, and human stories don’t always have happy endings.  but people within the gay migration mentioned in the excerpt in the op aren’t looking for human stories, they’re looking for exclusively positive stories.  to wit: the massive influx of queer fans into the supergirl fandom in season two when alex’s queer storyline came about who blew several self-righteous gaskets when alex and maggie split up over an extremely human and realistic reason.  nobody died, nobody cheated, nobody did anything wrong; the just wanted different things, and that broke them up.  a wholly respectable and respectful reason to end a queer relationship, handle one of the actors leaving the show, and still leave the door open both for the remaining actor to have other romantic storylines and for the leaving actor to return later on.  and yet people were still bellowing about how it was homophobic and terrible and disrespectful, because the queer character was sad.  

the point of this article was that equality of representation of queer people in media requires acknowledging (1) the potential downsides of telling queer stories as human stories, and (2) that as queer representation is making its most significant strides within genre fiction, acknowledgement of the tropes and standards of that genre are required in the functional understanding and appreciation of those genres.