if the creator has to say “yeah this one vague line was refering to this character being gay” it doesnt count as representation. if it’s a punchline at the end of the movie, it doesn’t count as representation. if the writer announces it outside the work but never in the work it doesnt fucking count as representation
You know, it’s worth noting that until very very very recently, and in many places still, representing gays in your work can be very hard to get past publishers, executives, censors, ect. particularly in works aimed at children. Frankly I was always happy when prominent characters in popular works were revealed to have been gay in one of the above manners, because it hammered home the whole point, both to gays who need affirmation and potentially bigoted straight people that ended up identifying with a gay character, that being gay does not prevent you from being important and does not have to be your sole defining characteristic.
Now, as Society becomes more accepting of gays and we slowly scrub away the bigotry it is absolutely good to push for more representation and straightforward representation that really shows us as gay from the get-go, but that doesn’t mean that works that have used these methods in order to get shit past the censors, or the authors and writers that tried to increase representation despite them, should have their role in helping our community discounted simply because it doesn’t hold up to the standards we have in the more progressive parts of the world right now.
^This.
Really, really amazing addition to the post with the small caveat of the original post still having examples in the last few years. Le Fou, etc.
I think probably the best example of the ‘sneak gays past the censor’ would be the Percy Jackson books, and all the spinoffs that followed. Because it started out straight as can be, but once it hit the point of being a household name with millions of people begging for the next book, the author could force the publishers hand. Oh, you don’t think I should write about queer kids? Well no new book for you.
Wheras by the time Deathly Hallows came out, JK Rowling also had that kind of power. And she did fuckall with it. That book had more Dumbledore development than any other, it would have been childs play to refer to Grindewald as Dumbledore’s ex. But she didn’t, instead jut saying it after, and that kind of makes me think she didn’t even consider it until she was looking through the published Deathly Hallows and went ‘hey thats kinda gay, i can use that’.
Add in the fact that the two spin offs (Cursed Child and Fantastic Beasts) have been painfully white and straight, both things she could have changed or denounced, and well. Makes me think someone’s not the ally she plays on TV.
Not to mention that in all the post-DH interviews where she was happily pairing everyone off, ALL the couples were straight. It would bother me less if she didn’t keep trying to paint herself as being a bastion of progressiveness.
My favorite thing ever is how Ron just sent Charlie a random letter like “hey yo there’s an illegal dragon at hogwarts, could you come and smuggle it out of here, please?” and Charlie was just like “yeah sure, I’ll trespass into the castle and steal a dangerous magical creature, of course, lemme just hit up my friends”
It’s better if you imagine Charlie and co as a group of Grad Students trying to avoid their other responsibilities.
ofdreamsanddragons 