Glee rant about queer teens and PDAs, again

[rm]

People,

As much as I, too, would like to think Kurt and Blaine kissed in that hall, at that moment:

- Blaine is still freaked out because when he last tried to go to a dance with another guy he got the crap beat out of him
- Kurt has just realized that things at McKinley are as bad as they ever were.
- The school is NOT a safe space, especially when the rest of it is empty -- what seems to give them privacy also puts them at risk if they run into someone else who might be feeling violent.


I cannot emphasize enough how complicated PDAs are for gay teens and gay people in general. I cannot emphasize enough that even though things may seem, and even be, perfectly safe they won't necessarily feel that way to people because of their own experiences with violence or being warned about violence or whatever.

I am 38-years-old. I live in New York City. I have let go of same-sex lovers' hands in public places within the last ten years when I wasn't entirely sure it was safe for us to be holding hands because I didn't know the neighborhood or it was late at night and drunk people make me more wary or whatever. And dudes, New York Fucking City, not a high school in Lima, Ohio.

This is huge mileage may vary territory for everyone. I'm totally okay with your "they kissed in the hall" head-cannon, but really worn out from the "Blaine sucks for not touching Kurt at x, y, or z moment" stuff and the "it's totally safe for them to be kissing!" assumptions and the "it must be evil FOX not giving us more gay kisses" theories.

This is complicated. This is complicated for gay people. This is complicated for US television. It's just complicated.

Please just let it be complicated.

And particularly for my straight readers, please, please, please take a moment to think about what it would be like to always be doing the math and then imagine what it would be like to do that math at 16. When you've already experienced assault. And you have one good thing and you're terrified that if you show affection for that thing in public, it will get it destroyed (and to be extremely fucking clear, by destroyed I mean murdered).

Being out and proud does not stop you from doing the math.

Comments

[sizequeen.livejournal.com]

Thanks you so much for this perspective. Glee fandom might be queer friendly, but the straight ones don't know what it's like to walk in these shoes.

[dorei.livejournal.com]

My son's prom is next weekend. He waffled back and forth about asking his crush to be his date. He contemplated going stag. All of which I was fine with -- whether he took the boy or not, I didn't care. But, when he said he kinda wished he could wear a dress, I had to tell him no.

I love my son and I want him to be who he is. But I want him to be safe more. This is the same school that two years ago decided to put on a play, and then pull it without ever showing it, because the end scene showed two boys about to kiss just before the stage went dark. I told him if they are going to have a problem with THAT, does he honestly believe they won't bother him if he shows up, not just with another boy, but with him in a dress? They probably wouldn't let him in to the hotel where the prom was being held.

I wish I could have said yes to it all, and taken him out to get a dress rather than telling him to wait until he's out of school.

[saharafic.livejournal.com]

Thank you for saying this. I do the math too. And I've never been assaulted or physically threatened, but I always worry.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

How do people not get this?

[yarram.livejournal.com]

"Being out and proud does not stop you from doing the math."

A-to the fucking-MEN!

[ciel-vert.livejournal.com]

This post says a lot of things that I think others take too much for granted. Well, said all of it.

[fyithoughtso.livejournal.com]

exactly. ^^^^^

rm, thank you so much for sharing this.

we need the reminder. i need the reminder, that it's complicated. so we can be a part of the trying-to-help-make-it-less-complicated, in whatever ways we can.

[wordplay.livejournal.com]

I think this is exactly what I was trying to get at in my throwaway comment over on b_d - it was so uncomfortable to see them physically far apart, and what I was wondering is if that was SUPPOSED to be what I was feeling (narrative intention of, look, they can't) or just some kind of... personal artifact, either shipper goggles or privilege or just a byproduct of my own ridiculous tendency toward physical affection.

It makes me want to go back and watch the scene where Kurt asks him out again, though, because I want to see the look on Blaine's face when Kurt tells him to take his hand across the table.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Word, I'm actually dying to see that scene again too.

I'm also interested in this Blaine backstory, because I sort of got the impression he was all "Oh, things at my old school weren't as bad for me as they are for you at McKinley" when he first meets Kurt and stuff, and I'm like... Blaine what is going on in your skull?

And yeah, they have such amazing chemistry, it feels completely weird when they are not touching, because it reads awkwardly and like they're expending lots of energy on not touching. Which sucks. But that's what happens. The wanting to touch energy doesn't go away. It just sits there and makes you AWKWARD. I think the show is doing a great job with this (although I think it's on the performances more than the writing that's making that particular issue work), but I think it's like... a lot of straight viewers can see something's wrong there, but can't necessarily see what the wrong thing is... or something?

[shesingsnow.livejournal.com]

I get the impression that the script is leading Karofsky to a suicide moment. I don't know if US television is going to be able to handle that. The truth, I mean. I wonder.

I recently showed the movie Big Eden to a group of about ten people - wide variety of people: young, old, gay, straight, etc.

And after the movie was done, we talked about the acceptance level for gay characters. And one woman objected to authenticity of the scene where the main character couldn't come out to his grandfather, despite the total atmosphere of love and support. They gay people, myself included, in the room pointed out how the scene was one of the most authentic in the movie - and the straight people weren't seeing it. And the best we could get to was to agree that it was complicated.

[shesingsnow.livejournal.com]

I believe there was a line or a scene, when Kurt first met Blaine, where Blaine explained that he knew how difficult things could be but that he was lucky enough to have money to leave and go to Dalton. They never got into Blaine's specific reasons, I think.

[shesingsnow.livejournal.com]

I agree, it was an interesting scene from a camera-angles perspective, because at some points the angle showed them far apart, far across the table. Then the shot would move in closer. I noticed that the camera shots seemed to flow with the conversation -- emphasizing separateness and difficulty when that was the subject, coming in close when the subject got safer.

[shesingsnow.livejournal.com]

I am really, really glad that they tackled the subject of being practical in the face of danger -

[wordplay.livejournal.com]

I think that a lot of people are going to be cranky about it, in part because Ryan Murphy took the Modern Family people to task... last summer, maybe? about the comparative levels of onscreen affection between the different couples in the show. I remember, in the early days of K/Bl, a lot of talk about how that meant Glee would do a better job with this so I think there will be expectations, etc. And, also, frankly: this pairing's fans can be a little reactionary, more so than I'm used to, anyway. Were you around when Brett Burk used the phrase "foam party fags" in a review? It turned into A Thing.

I'm working on a road trip story right now, the final bit to my own college universe, and one of the stops was always going to be Laramie to have a Matthew Shepard moment. From a completely selfish fanwriter perspective, then: what a great bit of character development.

[nevercheshire.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this. Glee is complicated, surreal yet Kurt's story seems to be the most realistic of the cast. I'm glad that realism carries over to the physical distance between them. I thought the affection shown between them was quite clear.



I've also decided Brittany is my favorite because she is so much like Capt. Jack (I'll just go and dance with everyones dates)

[rm.livejournal.com]

Oh oh oh, i wish your little universe would NEVER end. But excited for new story!

And yeah, I had a self0sh fanwriter moment. Blaine being all weird about Kurt asking him to the prom... so the little (not very competent) adult I've been writing in my college thingy. I felt so vindicated.

[rm.livejournal.com]

OMG, I need Brittany/Jack crossover fic like burning now.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

For the same reason that they believe since they themselves are "colorblind" that the whole damned world is "postracial". Privilege is about seeing oneself as an individual first, foremost, and perhaps not as a member of a group at all. Disprivilege is being aware of the boxes one is shoved into.

Because they don't look at the very real gay people in their worlds, and talk to them. Because the only gay people they know are the slash characters in their heads, in a slash-friendly, happy jolly kumbaya queer accepting AU - so if it's *canon*...

[nevercheshire.livejournal.com]

gets in line...

also JB on Glee would be lovely!

[gina-r-snape.livejournal.com]

I have walked in these shoes, like you, in NYC, in the last 10 years. Your points are salient and important.

But I simply would have been more emotionally satisfied if Blaine and Kurt (or Brittany and Santana who were in the privacy of a classroom) had kissed at some point.

[gina-r-snape.livejournal.com]

Oh I really hope they don't go that route, but I could easily see it happening.

Karofsky's is turning out to be a truly fantastic storyline.

[eac.livejournal.com]

Because it's never happened to them or someone they love.

(RM, thanks for this post.)

[rm.livejournal.com]

Various people connected with the show have said this would NOT happen; however, the degree of trolling the fandom by the creators and performers is really high, and it's generally unwise to believe anything they say.

[gina-r-snape.livejournal.com]

I've actually opted to not read any spoilers for any of the shows I'm watching this Spring. Partly as a novel experience, partly because, well, dissertation prevents me from reading as much as I might normally in various fandoms.

I'm very amused to hear there's much trolling of fandom by cast and creators alike, though.

[skelody.livejournal.com]

That's a good canon-only analysis, but when considering the attitudes of content producers, it becomes more important to consider the motivations behind their choices. Are there lesbians in this episode because the writers recognize that gay women exist, or because they want to titillate heterosexual men? Is this masculine male character expressing his distaste at feminine things because they want to critique femme-hate, or because they think "male" and "feminine" are so contradictory that it's funny? Are the male couple not-engaging in PDA because it's only realistic, or because they don't want to push their luck with the gay smoochies?

I don't watch Glee, I know very little about it and have no investment in these characters. Maybe there are scads of scenes where queer characters make out in private, which would definitely suggest public-standoffishness-due-to-realism. I wouldn't know! But with just this information I think it is important to examine the situation with a broader view.

/incoherent