#this episode was such an accurate representation of millenials | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

elizabethrobertajones · 6 years

Note

This is a different anon, but about the Eleanor being bi thing, even though I myself am bisexual and I noticed all the nods towards it, to me, until they said for certain that she was, I didn't really think of it as 'canon' because I'm so used to us being incredibly poorly represented in the media and mistreated with all the 'oh well they have bisexual 'tendencies', but that doesn't /mean/ anything' queerbaitey-ness *sigh* Then again maybe my brain fog just blocked it out and I need a rewatch 🤔

(bi!eleanor 2/2) I feel like I wasn’t clear in that ask I just sent, but what I mean to say is that I don’t want every representation to have a neon sign that says hey! don’t worry, they actually /are/ queer, but I think it’s a difficult line to be toeing at the moment, like you mentioned, and I wonder how we can get to the right place where being bi doesn’t have to be a plot point, or consume their identity, but still good representation that’s obvious to all parties involved, audience-wise.

Sadly we really do seem to be in the stage where you need to go full bi song and dance routine to explain it, so it might be an obnoxious feature of this fight for representation, that it gets explained and signposted way more than it rightly should - but until the cultural bias and widespread lack of acceptance that characters can just, like, flirt with anyone they like and that’s enough to get an idea and for it to be widely accepted, the visibility is still just not good enough to be subtle >.>

I kinda hate it but I’m heartened that things like B99, a cultural touchstone, did a whole bisexuality Special Episode kinda deal complete with cramming in all the common biphobia things people say and think, and lots of moments to make it unequivocally clear how bisexuality actually works. So we’re at least moving past “I don’t like labels” or mangled representation where a character who shows attraction to multiple genders still ends up labelled straight or gay based on an endgame romance, and then even further back to no representation at all… Like, we’re getting better. Having a massively popular show do the whole Special Episode thing was taking a fall for the cause that in the wider scheme maybe…

Not like it has to be the touchstone forever now but we’re in the phase at least of media having bi characters and explaining it for people, because the visibility is the worst part - that somehow an entire and massively common identity slipped entirely between the cracks during the whole tug of war between straight and gay, which to me is ridiculous because I think that while of course those orientations exist and I’m not a “everyone is secretly a little bi” sort of believer, I do think if you actually did an honest poll of the planet, straight would not be in the majority and most people would fall somewhere in the middle.

Which is what we’re seeing with millenials and now gen z each being queerer than the previous generations. And this is still far from a perfect world for people to feel safe to come out. Which means bi and pan and other queer identities are probably the ones that need the most representation while being the most invisible and the ones with the hardest societal wall to break down just to get media - which is like the official record of our society and of course all art is political and blah blah it’s important - to actually depict things accurately.

Anyways it’s something like, yeah, it’s kind of annoying for creators to be vague because it can be wiggle room not to commit and deny representation, and it’s annoying in the sense of just, like… criticisms of storytelling and taking a pause to do a presentation on what bisexuality is in the middle of the story every time, or even just worrying about natural ways to cram it into a conversation and have authentic characterisation and storytelling… Which is by far the lesser of 2 evils so at least while being vague for character reasons can easily draw cries of queerbaiting if someone is casually bi but doesn’t make a big deal out of it and has a strong romance arc which absorbs most of their attention and all so that it seems they are only focused on the one person they care about and in TV rules that defines their sexuality absolutely… I think this is something we have to endure to get to a place where culture changes and the majority of people would find Rosa’s coming out arc to be laughably basic and clunky rather than culturally necessary… that’s the good place :P

#Asks #homophobia cw

15 notes · View notes