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winderlylandchime · 3 years

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Hello, sorry to bother.. I was reading an interview from Randy saying that if he could've change something of his character it would've been his relationship with Brian because it was hard for him as an actor. This made me very sad and kinda of turned me off the ship. I discovered the show in recent years but I had not idea that this was the general feeling.. Do you have any thoughts?

Hi there! Never a bother!

Oh Randy Harrison. He’s said a lot of things - including that he thinks Justin would have ended up married to a doctor in the suburbs. He’s also said there is nothing good on Broadway (which is true now because of covid but wasn’t at the time). I don’t have links for these because I don’t go out seeking this information. And I’ll get to that in a bit.

Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman (CowLip) have said they intended the ending to be hopeful and that Brian and Justin end up together.

Who’s interpretation is right? Ultimately mine because I’m the consumer, the viewer of the art. As long as I don’t break the fourth wall and share uninvited my interpretations with the creators and argue that mine are correct and theirs are wrong, it’s all good. The art is made and out of their hands and in mine.

Randy disliked the choices that were made about his character. Randy was born in 1977 and raised (per Wikipedia) in a fairly privileged upbringing in Georgia. He was a very young queer man when he was hired to play Justin Taylor and his experiences as a young queer man were very different from CowLips.

Lipman was born in 1950. His experiences and Cowen’s experiences as gay men were very different from Randy’s. They created a show depicting the queer community as they wanted to see it. Randy disagreed with how his character as a young gay man was portrayed but if you think of the storylines from the POV of two men who lived through queer liberation and then saw much of their generation die from AIDS while the US government stood idly by you can begin to understand why there are generational differences.

Of note Randy did not (to my knowledge and again I don’t see this information out) criticize QAF for its misogyny, racism, transphobia, fat phobia, and other problematic elements that were not great in 2000 certainly didn’t age well.

So as I said I don’t seek out a lot of content on the making of something or lots of promo interviews. I know this puts me apart from how others “fan” but if I like something, the rest is truly irrelevant. Like I adore that Michael Sheen and David Tennant say that Aziraphale and Crowley are in love. I love that Neil Gaiman has said that interpretation is valid. But if they hadn’t? Does it make my seeing a love story in Good Omens any less true? If the love story is something that makes me a fan should I stop being a fan?

I said to a point. If an actor courageously discloses being treated poorly or experiencing racism or misogyny or anything I listed (or should have listed above) on a set, that changes how I feel. If a creator has actively caused harm, that changes how I feel.

The easy example is JKR but I’m going to use Ryan Adams because he’s more relevant to my life. My spouse introduced me to Ryan Adams. They put one of his songs on the first mix they made me (where I dissected every lyric trying to figure out if they had a crush on me they way I had on them). Later, when we were together (not much later, we both identified as lesbians then so we uhauled) we went to one of his concerts.

It later came out that he treated young women in a predatory way (not going into details on purpose) and also mistreated his now-ex wife Mandy Moore.

I no longer listen to his music. When I recreated that first mix on Spotify, so I don’t have to track down a CD player to listen to it, I left his song off it.

When I think about Ryan Adams, I wonder whose voice didn’t get to be heard. His privilege as a white cis het man put him at the front of the line to success in a very competitive industry. Who didn’t get a chance at success? What trans artist? What Black artist? What Asian artist?

But even if Ryan Adams wasn’t white cis or het, his treatment of women is a line for me.

Let’s go back to Randy. He has not complained of mistreatment. He disliked the storyline of his character, probably because of generational differences in the queer community and between him and CowLip. He was a queer actor given a queer role, yes he’s white and cis (as far as I know) but in 2000 (or 1999 when casting was likely happening) casting a gay man in any role was ground breaking. (still is) His success didn’t come at a cost to someone with less privilege. And he wasn’t mistreated or abused.

There is no media that is unproblematic. I promise you that nothing you enjoy is pure.

The exciting and good news is you get to decide for you where the line is between what you will enjoy despite its problems and what is too problematic. The bad news is no one else can make that choice for you.

Randy disliking his character’s storylines (and therefore finding his job difficult) is not a problem for me but it may be for you. The misogyny, racism, transphobia, fat phobia, and other problematic elements of the show make me cringe and groan but don’t stop me from enjoying the show and the ship but they might for you.

#thatajthings answers #dear anon #QAF discourse #queer as folk #randy harrison #long post

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ourimpavidheroine · 4 years

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Do you think Bryke meant to queer-code Wu?

The short answer to this is that no, I don’t think Wu was meant to be queer-coded. I do not think Wu was meant to be gay at all.

That being said? I think there’s a lot more to it than that.

The long answer to this is that I think Wu is, as a character, queer-coded. I mean, wildly so. In fact, I think he’s the most blatantly queer-coded character in both ATLA and TLOK, and I am including characters that Bryke have told us after the fact are queer, including Smellerbee and Kya.

But do I think Bryke purposefully coded him that way? Nope. Not at all.

Now, what they did do was create a character that was meant to a)irritate us, b)eventually amuse us and c)mirror Mako’s growth as a character. To do that, they gave us a very spoiled, very clueless rich boy. However, as part of accomplishing their goal of a character who would give us A, B and C, they chose to make him both effeminate as well as someone who doesn’t respect social/personal boundaries.

As in, here’s an undeniable sissy-boy who has his hands all over Mako. But! Never fear! To “prove” that he wasn’t (GASP) Gay For Mako, they had him hit on women.

Because apparently, in the minds of cis white Gen X dudes, having a character hit on women, regardless of how badly he does it, sort of Erases The Gay that you’ve coded him into with all the mannerisms and grabby-hands characterization.

I could be wrong, but I am going to make a wild guess that they didn’t have a queer person - especially a gay man - in the writing room. Because I am pretty sure anyone on the rainbow spectrum could have told them that a part and parcel of being in the closet is enthusiastically proclaiming your sexual attraction to people of the opposite sex. Like, very enthusiastically. So everyone will get that you really, really super duper like people of the opposite sex and could not in anyway be construed as being gay/lesbian. Because wooooo-wee! Look at those ladies (men)! Pretty hot, huh? That’s because I am a heterosexual person! Very heterosexual! Yes, I am!

I mean oh my god. Methinks the lady doth protest too much, hello!

Do I think Mike or Bryan are homophobic? Well, I think that they don’t want to be. I think that it is very important to them to have representation and I think they are making a very big effort towards that. I fully believe them when they say they wanted Korra and Asami to be bi and have a relationship in the show and certainly the two of them are a couple in the comics. They had Kya come out in the comics as well and while I personally don’t like the whole coming out/homophobia in the Fire Nation/acceptance in the Air Nomads plotline that was written into canon via the comics I do appreciate that they included it because representation matters to them. Korra, Asami and Kyoshi have been specifically canoned Bi/Pan and Kya is a lesbian and Smellerbee and the nameless City Council clerk in TLOK are somewhere on the trans spectrum.

That being said? I will point out that at this time (unless I have missed it) there have been no actual canon gay men characters or canon bi/pan male characters.

Which is...par for the course. Lots of het cis guys will include queer female characters and consider that queer representation without realizing that they are excluding men. It happens a whole lot. If you call them on it, they will insist that they are not homophobic! They have lesbians! But gays? Eh, not so much.

(And there’s a whole fucking lot to unpack about that but there are plenty of amazing queer scholars who have already done that work and I don’t need to clumsily rehash it. It’s a well-researched and written about thing. It exists. Systematic homophobia exists.)

I think that Bryke could, if they chose, take a step back and ask themselves why they wrote Wu the way they did. They could also take a step back and ask themselves why, exactly, Wu and Mako could not be a couple when canonically speaking they really do suit each other very well. Mako yells at Wu and Wu doesn’t care! Mako gets all pedantic and pissy and Wu doesn’t care! Mako imparts Mako-wisdom and Wu not only listens but takes it to heart! Wu never shuts the fuck up but Mako’s lived with his brother and clearly doesn’t care! Wu orders Mako around and Mako clearly doesn’t care! Wu buys Mako shit and Mako is clearly used to this and not only doesn’t care but considers it par for the course!

Mako never quits the job, regardless of how annoying Wu is supposed to be. And he very easily could; he even just accepts it when Beifong tells him Raiko is planning on sending him to Ba Sing Se with Wu which is just bananas. I mean, a)Raiko has no authority to do that whatsoever and b)Mako isn’t even a citizen of the Earth Kingdom. But Mako just...goes along with that without a fight at all. The dude is a pro-bender. He’s the pal of the Avatar and has personal contacts with some of the most influential people in the world. He’s a decent cop (although not a particularly by the rules kind of one, see growing up on the streets in a criminal gang). The man does not need to settle for being a bodyguard if he doesn’t want to be, is all that I am saying. So why does he keep doing the job? Oh, I think we know.

I’ve said before that Mako, in Bryke’s eyes, is clearly the handsome young protagonist. He was a pro-bender and is a self-taught bending master! (There is no other character in either ATLA or TLOK who handles lightning the way Mako does.) He had both the Avatar as well as the beautiful Asami Sato as girlfriends! He had a tragically romantic background! But as the seasons go on it is revealed that actually, Mako is kind of a dork. He’s the Mom friend. He’s pedantic. He’s not really all that great of a cop and not much better as a bodyguard. He’s a socially awkward mess. (I personally think he’s autistic as well as suffering from massive PTSD, but that’s for another time.) But even still, handsome, manly Mako? He can’t possibly go for the Rich Disaster Twink. Because that’s not what handsome young protagonists do.

I wish like hell there had been a queer person in the writer’s room; I wish they could have taken Bryke aside and pointed out to them that using queer coding in order to make a character annoying is homophobic as fuck, even when you have the best of intentions. But clearly nobody did that, just as nobody has sat them down and said, so after the entirety of Season 4 and all of the good that Mako and Wu do for each other, why exactly are they not a couple? Because Mako is straight and has to remain that way because...why? Why exactly? It’s okay for women to be canonically queer but not men because....?

I just wish.

#blah blah blah #Prince Wu #queer coding #etc etc etc #long post #Anonymous

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letmetellyouaboutmyfeels · 5 years

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THE BISEXUAL WYATT MANIFESTO: PART DEUX

The previous post simply got far too long for me to put it all in one place so here is part the second. Put below a cut and my apologies to mobile users!

Part one here.

PART THE SECOND: POURQOUI???

But why, Mads, you shout? Why decide to headcanon a character as bi? Is it just so you can write your dragon porn?

maybe

Ahem.

Listen. I love diversity as much as the next person. Y’all know I do. I mean, I’m a huge fan of Rufus and Jiya, and Denise, queen of my heart. But… I mean we already have a het ship with Jiya and Rufus. And I feel like, y’know, Wyatt being white AND cis AND male AND straight? Feels like a little much, y’know? And there’s no reason for him to be straight, he just IS, and that feels—I mean where’s the whole backstory about it, right? And it feels a little illogical to have… I mean I don’t have any friends who are white and straight and cis male. It just feels unrealistic.

Okay, okay, extreme salt aside and mostly out of my system…

As a character, even in season one when I did like him, Wyatt is boring. He’s the same white straight male soldier/law-and-order character that we’ve seen in literally every single piece of science fiction since the dawn of time. You will find an exact copy of him in Stargate SG-1 (my apologies to Jack O’Neill), Stargate Atlantis (sorry John…), 12 Monkeys, Sarah Connor Chronicles, Terra Nova, Battlestar Galactica, Andromeda, Star Trek Enterprise, Eureka… and that’s not even touching all the mystery/crime shows (CSI, Bones, Criminal Minds, NCIS, Law & Order, Blue Bloods, Take Two) and military shows (SEAL Team, 24, etc). He’s got a dead wife, fantastic, so does the Punisher, so does Sam Winchester (also created by Eric Kripke), so does GARCIA FLYNN, another character on the show, and Flynn’s wife’s death actually ties into the bigger mystery of the show. By God, if you’re gonna fridge a wife at least make her fridging the entire reason the show exists.

Yes, you heard me. Think about it. If Lorena and Iris Flynn don’t die, then Flynn never wants to go on a vengeful rampage, so Lucy never chooses to give him the journal, so he never steals the time machine… killing Lorena and Iris was the biggest mistake Rittenhouse ever made. If you’re gonna play the dead wife card then by golly at least do it like this and make avenging her death the entire reason for the show.

So not only is Wyatt the same cookie cutter character we’ve seen in every TV show ever, he’s also a repeat of Flynn. He’s not just boring, he’s redundant.

Wyatt is also the only character on the show that you could replace with someone else without changing any of the main plot. When I originally decided to do a fic where the team comes back to find one of them was erased from existence on the trip, I knew it had to be Wyatt—erasing Lucy would change everything (which I explore in The Void is Open), erasing Flynn would take them to a world where Rittenhouse has won, erasing Rufus would mean potentially no pilot… you see what I mean. But Wyatt is very neatly replaced with Dave Baumgardner in 1.14 and shows us that Wyatt is, literally, replaceable. Of course he isn’t to Lucy and Rufus at that point because they care about him but for writing reasons? For plot? Literally any soldier would do. Any. Denise could hop in there with them if she so chose.

Now, all this makes it sound like I dislike Wyatt. And I didn’t in season one. I quite liked our puppy. I liked him for two reasons: 1. He had a lot of potential and 2. his character mirrored/paralleled Flynn and I saw a copious amount of opportunities with that.

Both Flynn and Wyatt have lost their spouse. Both Flynn and Wyatt are soldiers. Wyatt had an abusive father and given that Flynn goes on a potential suicide mission for his mother but we never once hear him mention his father (he might as well not have one for his importance to Flynn’s life), I’m taking a guess that Flynn’s father wasn’t all that great of a person either. Both Flynn and Wyatt risk everything to save the people they love and both pay heavy prices for it and become people they’re ashamed of (Flynn all of season one, Wyatt in 1x13). Both Flynn and Wyatt care deeply for Lucy and look to her for guidance.

Wyatt and Flynn mirror each other. One is willing to break rules, and to forge his own path, while the other follows rules and is scared to strike out on his own. Both of them struggle with identity–Wyatt has no idea who he is now that Jess is dead, and Flynn believes he’s turned into a monster and who he once was is lost. Taking advantage of that mirror makes for compelling storytelling, and the writers failed in that in season two after setting it up so beautifully in season one.

The fun thing is, these parallels become even more poignant if you make Wyatt bi and have him be attracted to Flynn (and is a convenient shortcut to bring those parallels back to the fore).

We touched in the previous section how it’s easy to see Wyatt as attracted to Flynn and that’s why he lashes out so much, and indeed how that is the only rational explanation for why Wyatt is so goddamn against Flynn the whole time.

Let’s dive into that, shall we?

Of the original trio, Rufus and Lucy have ample reason to dislike Flynn. Wyatt? Has none. Flynn makes things personal with Lucy right out the gate, and Rufus’s family will be hurt if Flynn isn’t stopped. But Wyatt is just supposed to see Flynn as an enemy soldier. No personal vendetta involved. And before you say rivalry over Lucy–most of Lucy’s pivotal moments with Flynn in season one are without Wyatt present, and the ones she does have in front of Wyatt aren’t automatically read as romantic. Wyatt himself doesn’t even admit he’s got feelings for Lucy until season two, and as far as he knows, Lucy’s still dealing with Noah.

But Wyatt hates Flynn. As we’ve seen in our examples, he reacts to Flynn with a violence that is missing from Rufus and Lucy. And there is no reason for that violent dislike to be there.

Unless Wyatt is attracted to Flynn and is scared of that from internalized homophobia.

If Wyatt finds Flynn attractive, and has internalized homophobia from, y’know, growing up in Texas and having an abusive father and going into the army, then his anger towards Flynn, his stubbornness, his refusal to listen to Flynn (because if Flynn is right about things and Flynn is an okay guy that opens the door to other more ‘dangerous’ thoughts), and his tendency to react to Flynn’s time with Lucy with such anger–it all makes sense. The last one is partly about Wyatt’s jealousy and possessiveness over Lucy but if it’s coupled with attraction to Flynn it makes even more sense.

Having Wyatt behave this way simply doesn’t hold up. It relies far too much on the audience making leaps of logic about Flynn and Lucy’s relationship in season one and assuming that Wyatt and Lucy are meant to be together, without enough evidence for the latter and Wyatt not at all present for the former.

If Wyatt’s bi, it all makes sense and is logical and again adds another dimension to his character and to his interactions with Flynn.

Monkey Brain: heh heh Wyatt and Flynn kissing is hot as fuck

Wyatt’s toxic masculinity becomes even more interesting and important (and make more sense) if Wyatt is bi.

In this meta here (my first for the Timeless fandom!) I talk about Wyatt and his toxic masculinity so to avoid repeating myself howzabout you go read that and come back mmkay?

…

You done? Perfect. So. Now that you understand where Wyatt’s toxic masculinity comes from and how he displays it in canon, I can say this:

Wyatt being bi forces him to confront his toxic behavior in a unique and powerful way that he can no longer ignore.

Part of Wyatt’s toxic behavior is that his behavior is specifically based in the masculine and the patriarchal. And so most of his bad behavior is rooted in how he treats his romantic interest–which has been Lucy and Jess.

Wyatt was, by his own admission, jealous and possessive towards Jess. He didn’t know how to relate to Lucy when she was no longer a romantic option, so he keeps trying to be romantic with her instead, and his possessive behavior comes to the fore as he tries to control who she spends time with and tries to get her to be as emotionally intimate with him as she was before, despite his wife being back and that intimacy no longer possible.

Getting Wyatt to realize his toxic behavior is difficult, since so many people have bought into the lie that men are supposed to be territorial and possessive towards the women they’re in relationships with. However, most heteronormative toxicity falls apart and is recognizable as harmful once we put it in a new light.

When a situation is bad, you often need an outside perspective, or to change one of the circumstances, in order to see how bad it is. Wyatt’s been lectured at by Lucy, Rufus, Flynn, and Jess, and he didn’t see his behavior was unhealthy. But if we change one of the circumstances i.e. the gender of the person he’s attracted to romantically/sexually, then suddenly he has to look at his behavior towards that person in a new light.

Let’s take Flynn for example. Wyatt can’t treat Flynn the way he’s treated Jess or Lucy. If he tries to be possessive of Flynn, not only would he be unable to, but he’ll realize that it’s wrong of him to even think of it. Wyatt wouldn’t find it natural to try and be jealous when Flynn talked to another man, because Flynn is a man, and he wouldn’t automatically assume another man was flirting with Flynn, or that Flynn was flirting with that man.

Because the thing is, our society is pretty heteronormative still. It’s genuinely hard to tell when someone is just being friendly or actually flirting, but we tend to really assume that when a man is interacting with a woman, one or both of them are flirting. With people of the same gender (or of non-cis genders such as trans and nonbinary) it becomes harder to tell, and a lot of the time we assume that it’s just platonic. So for Wyatt to become jealous over Flynn talking to a man–that goes against the norm because it means he’s assuming romantic rather than platonic interaction, the opposite of what we assume when we look at two people of the same gender.

It would force him to take a second look at all of his behavior and choices. It would force him to realize that his behavior was wrong towards Flynn, which means it’s wrong towards Lucy and Jess, etc. It changes an element and so it forces him to see everything in a new light.

On top of all this—Wyatt’s character is pretty stagnant. I believe that’s why they brought Jess back, honestly: because without Jess coming back to complicate things, there’s nowhere for Wyatt to grow. Forcing him to confront his behavior towards Jess was, I think, what the writers ultimately intended for him (the smart ones, anyway). I don’t think they intended for him to end up with Jess at the end, at least not originally. There are things said by Shawn Ryan in interviews that suggest to me that they realized Flynn/Lucy and Wyatt/Jess was a more interesting dynamic than the originally planned Wyatt/Lucy, so they switched gears and planned to have Jess end up with Wyatt. BUT, whether a romantic reunion endgame for them was the plan or not, given the alley scene in 2x10 and other scenes in season two, I fully believe that prior to the nuclear bomb of dog shit that was the Christmas finale, the plan was always to give Jess a redemption arc and that Wyatt would become a better person through convincing her to turn double agent (and through becoming a father).

If you don’t bring Jess back, there’s nowhere for Wyatt’s character to go. Nothing for him to do. Rufus, Lucy, Flynn, Mason, Denise, Jiya—they all have hugely powerful arcs and tough situations. I could go into them but that’ll send me off into another tangent that we don’t have time for. Suffice to say, I can off the top of my head think of two internal struggles and places for each character to grow that would last a couple seasons. And that’s just off the top of my head.

But Wyatt? You can’t. He’s got nowhere to go.

Bringing back Jess is one way that you can force growth and give Wyatt a new arc, but you can’t just give a character one single arc. You have to give them multiple. No real life person is struggling with just one thing, we’re struggling with multiple things. Take Lucy in season two. She’s struggling with Rittenhouse, with her relationship with her mother, with her realizations about herself and what she’s willing to do, with losing Wyatt, with getting back Amy, and with her growing relationship with Flynn.

That’s a lot.

Rufus and Jiya have their relationship AND Jiya’s visions that lead to an arc about destiny versus free will, AND both struggling with the “what are we willing to do to win/who am I becoming” arc.

Give Wyatt JUST Jess, and that’s not enough. It’s also something that, to do right, you have to stretch over I’d say two seasons, seasons three and four. So you need something else to fill in more gaps.

Having Wyatt be bisexual and having him struggle with his sexuality gives him dozens of more opportunities for interesting interactions with other characters, it gives him more ways to address his toxic behavior (as we discussed), it gives him more ways to grow. Because we don’t just grow in a straight line. We grow like trees, with limbs stretching up all over the place and roots digging in deep and crisscrossing everywhere.

Wyatt is a stagnant character. Giving him bisexuality gives him a way to continue to grow that isn’t dependent on another character (Jess) and can be shortened or drawn out depending on how his other arc (Jess, potentially Lucy as well) plays out.

Having Wyatt be bi takes away all of his redundancy, and stops him from being boring, and stops him from being so easily replaceable. If a character isn’t intrinsically tied to the plot (Rufus is there because he’s the only pilot, Lucy is a history expert and tied to Rittenhouse, etc) then you need to think of other reasons for the viewers to really care about them and I’m sorry, but having a dead wife and then being stuck in a heterosexual love triangle doesn’t cut it in the year of our lord 2016 (or ’17, or ’18, or any other year that follows).

And no offense to anyone struggling with PTSD because it needs to be addressed, but the whole ‘soldier with PTSD’ has been done before and, despite making it a main feature in 1.05 The Alamo, it hasn’t been touched on since. Not once. So that’s I guess been thrown out the window by the writers as a plot device (although again that could be brought back by having Wyatt bond with Flynn and Flynn talking with him about shared experiences could be a way that Wyatt further develops feelings for him YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN!?!?).

It also, as I outlined in part one, explains all of his behavior. It takes behavior that made no sense and was toxic alpha male bullshit and puts a whole new and interesting and understandable spin on it. Note I said understandable, not justifiable, this does not in any way excuse any of Wyatt’s behavior. But boy howdy does it make it a lot more nuanced and layered. Having Wyatt be bi suddenly opens so many goddamn doors for his character I can’t even keep track. His PTSD, his relationship with his father, his relationship with Jess, his relationship with Flynn and Lucy, his time in the army, all of those things have new and boundless opportunities in them. It gives opportunities and explains and gives depth to one-note, shallow, cliche male behavior.

Not to mention, um, making him a repressed bisexual gives so many more opportunities for angst and hurt/comfort and all that delicious, delicious character conflict that we all love. Mmmm yes the precious. And, BONUS, it gives us character angst that doesn’t necessarily revolve around a romantic pairing! You can give a character a sexuality crisis without giving them a person to be paired off with! Wyatt can have his crisis over Ian Fleming or Wendell Scott or Rittenhouse Agent No. 5, and figure it all out with only platonic assistance from the team. OR he can be pining over Flynn without Flynn having a clue because Flynn needs his love interests to hit him over the head with a baseball bat to get him to notice and even then it doesn’t always work. OR have him worry about confessing to Jess and/or Lucy and fearing they’ll see him differently given their past sexual/romantic entanglements! ALL. THE. CHARACTER. ANGST. BITCHEEEEEES.

Finally, last but not least, why should Wyatt be bi? Because representation matters, that’s why.

Up until now I’ve highlighted why Wyatt, specifically, as an individual, should be bi. But stepping away from him individually… why the fuck not make your character bi?

It’s the 2010s. The world is finally waking up to the fact that LGBT+ people are here, we exist, and also having us as characters makes your ratings soar. People were ecstatic over The Day Reagan Was Shot, which focused on Denise and her coming out. Timeless’s diversity was a huge point in its favor and was a huge part of why critics loved it. Making, of all people, the most rough and tumble masculine man’s man of the cast be bisexual is important because it reminds us that anyone can have any sexuality, that there are no stereotypes, and that not all LGBT+ people are fashion gurus.

I’m sorry, Wyatt, but it’s true, you are no longer allowed to dress yourself, I’ve submitted you to Queer Eye.

What could be a more powerful storyline for today than a man who was abused as a kid, exhibited toxic masculinity, and was clearly unhappy with himself as a person and looking outside of himself to someone else to fix him, come to terms with himself, come to love himself, come to say “hey I love who I love and I am who I am and fuck anyone who says otherwise”? What could be a more wonderful representation of the diversity and family bonding themes of the show then to have Wyatt, the insecure difficult-with-feelings small town poster for typical masculinity come out, scared of rejection, scared of their reactions, only to have everyone show him love and acceptance and unwavering support? To have Denise hug him and tell him she understands how she feels? To have Lucy tell him she doesn’t see him any differently? For Rufus to joke this is why Wyatt can never choose a cereal and then reaffirm their friendship?

Having Wyatt be bi isn’t just good for him as a character, it’s good for the audience, and it continues the themes of the show and continues to break down stereotypes and honestly, there’s no reason for any character to be straight, either. We just ask “but why” because straight is still the default in our heads and all deviancy from the norm must be explained and rationalized. But there’s no need for that. Wyatt has the most typically heterosexual traits out of all of them, and he’s from a small town in Texas, and he went into the army. How powerful for people to see him come out. How wonderful. But Wyatt can be bi just because you damn well feel like it, because there shouldn’t be a big list of reasons (although I do have them, clearly). He can be bi just because, well, there’s no big tragic backstory for why I’m bi. I just am. And so is he.

In conclusion: Bi!Wyatt is ten times more interesting, nuanced, and unique than Straight!Wyatt, it adds depth and opportunities for growth, it gives layers to existing storylines and character relationships involving Wyatt, it explains his behavior and makes it more understandable, and it gives us needed representation.

My monkey brain adds that the opportunity for humor with this is also boundless and honestly I agree, good job monkey brain, you get a treat.

Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk.

#wyatt logan #timeless #timeless meta #wyatt meta #Wyatt Logan's Bisexuality Crisis #koortega #tagging her since she sent me the original ask

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duaneodavila · 6 years

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The Uninvited and the Disinvited

Not long ago, lawprof Nancy Leong got an unpleasant lesson in courtesy and clout. When you’re invited to be a guest on someone else’s panel, you can accept or decline, but you can’t demand they recreate the panel to meet your demands. She was unceremoniously dropped, and thought they were wrong because, naturally, she couldn’t be.

It’s not that Nancy’s concern wasn’t real or sincere, that there be greater representation of women and minorities on her panel, as she was the only one, but that her effort to achieve her goal by an ultimatum backfired. Do it or else? She got “or elsed,” and then there were none.

This raises a key point that might not be obvious to many. People are asked to speak because they have something to say that other people want to hear. Nobody goes to a conference, a panel, a presentation, because of the demographics of the participants.

That said, there is a dearth of demographic variety at legal conferences, which means that we often find ourselves with presenters who have nothing to offer, but are old white men. At the same time, we don’t get to hear women and minorities who are outstanding in their fields, knowledgeable and more interesting than some guy whose only claim to fame is his being pals with the guy throwing the conference.

Lexblog CEO Kevin O’Keefe goes to more of these conferences and panels than anybody I know. He’s a regular speaker, and he’s pretty good at it. I’ve shared a podium with him in the past, as well as the occasional beer. Much as we disagree about a lot of things, we are good friends. So i was surprised to learn that he’s prepared to never speak again if it will bring diversity to legal speakers.

Legal librarian and tech leader, Sarah Glassmeyer shared that she logged into Twitter last week to find another legal tech conference with all male panels.

Glassmeyer presumably was referring to ALM’s Legalweek Show, long known as Legaltech show. The first session I sat in, a pretty good one on AI, was six men, no women

I then noticed the keynote speakers being advertised on large screens. I shared on Twitter that of the sixteen keynote speakers only three were women.

Kevin’s reaction was that she’s right.

Glassmeyer’s right, time to stop complaining and time to start demanding diversity in legal tech conference speakers.

While this is legal tech as opposed to anything of interest to practicing lawyers, the push is no different. Glassmeyer is a law librarian, which means she’s entitled to scold lawyers for not being as woke as she demands without any of the burdens of being a lawyer. To that end, she came up with two lists.

The first is a list of people who are anything but old white men who can fill diversity quotas at conferences. She titled the list “POC and Underepresented People of Legal Tech and Innovation.” She did not call her list “people who have things to say that anyone else wants to hear.” Then there was her ideas for how to make change happen.

Refuse to speak on non-diverse panels.

Offer to give up your slot to a diverse individual. Have suggestions ready (Another way this list might come in handy.)

Insist that any conference you speak at or attend has a code of conduct. Here’s a great starting point for one. And yes, your conference needs one.

Speak out about the need for diversity. This can’t be a battle only fought by underrepresented populations. Some CIS het White men need to take up the banner. I know some of you just rolled your eyes at the phrase “CIS Het White Men.” Get over it.

Will Kevin offer to give up his slot to a “diverse individual”? Will he refuse to speak, like Nancy? When you’re a guest at someone else’s party, do you get to “insist” on anything and expect to still be welcome?

And then there’s Glassmeyer’s “deplorable” moment, where she indulges her inner infant and calls out the CIS het White men. Did you roll your eyes? Frankly, no one who would bother to read anything written by Glassmeyer was likely to roll their eyes, since they already shared her college sophomore’s grasp of effective rhetoric.

“Get over it.” Is that how it works? Will you be shamed into being a social justice warrior for diversity because of your need for Sarah Glassmeyer’s woke approval?

Does her admonition compel you to put random people on panels because of their genitalia? Will you start inquiring as to preferred sex partners of otherwise desirable speakers? I suspect I’ve heard gay lawyers speak in the past even if I didn’t know it, because I don’t ask speakers about their sexual preference. Was I remiss? Was it relevant if they knew how to rip an agent to shreds on cross?

Kevin was convinced.

Five or six years ago I was asked by the Practicing Law Institute to put together two all day programs on social media and blogging. The first thing I was handed were the diversity requirements for reach panel and the entire program. It’s obvious other conferences are not following PLI’s lead — or at least not enforcing any diversity policies they may have.

I don’t remember that panel. I wasn’t on it. Kevin didn’t ask me, but then, what would I know about social media and blogging? Surely there are many other lawyers who have blogs that could be far more informative than me. Surely anyone attending that conference would learn far more by virtue of the diversity of the programs than they would hearing an old white man like me.

It’s not that diversity is wrong, or an unworthy goal. It’s that diversity isn’t a substitute for quality. Had the point been that we’re not hearing from illuminating people who have much to contribute to our knowledge and make us better at whatever it is we’re supposed to learn, because presenters tend to have no better qualifications than being part of the old boys club, then I would raise my fist for the cause.

But if the best they can argue is for programs consisting of random vaginas, then they’ve got nothing. Glassmeyer insults the very people she seeks to promote, but lacks the awareness to grasp why. Put the best people on the podium and people will want to listen, regardless of their irrelevant characteristics. Don’t deny us anyone’s brilliance, and don’t expect us to care what someone has to say because they wear makeup and high heels.

And if you’re invited to speak, accept or decline, but you’re not entitled to dictate how someone else is to run their program. If you’re disinvited because you’ve behaved like a smug, self-righteous ass, too bad. Get over it.

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