#it's like they're purposefully making a mockery of the character and any fans who liked him | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

motorcyclegirlfriends · 7 years

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it's about the pattern. not JJ's pattern, all shows and f/f ships. we've seen actors/producers do this many times. everyone thinks they're special and should be judged on their life of goodness. no. an action can be judged against the systemic pattern too. "not the story we're telling, just friends, i don't see it, won't happen, family show"-- this constitutes a visible pattern. the pattern is homophobic, i don't care what your feefees were at the time. also "ignorance of the law..."

Late ass reply, and I honestly hate to bring the topic up, but here we go:

“Family show” is different, actually homophobic. Has the secret meaning of “seeing gay people living their lives is harmful to children”. (This is what I mean by an innately homophobic phrase)

“Not the story we’re telling” is shady to me, because it feels like “we’re not being activists, we’re telling normal stories” which is offensive, but it might just actually be their way of saying “we’re not gonna go that direction” ? Depends on if my vibes about it are right.

“They’re only friends” is just alerting us to whether or not they’re gonna get together.

This isn’t a package deal. Saying one of these things doesn’t mean you mean or think the others, regardless of what other people have said in the past.

And the way they emphatically said it wasn’t, “you’re crazy for thinking it’s a possibility!”

It seemed more like, “everyone is going crazy for this thing that’s not actually gonna happen.” Like a half put-on exasperation. Exasperation that we have no reason to believe exists because the ship is gay.

(The common theory is that Jeremy’s reaction had to do with the fandom’s intensity. It’s both eclipsing of the canon content that they’re actually working on on purpose, and has been historically aggressive. Personally, I think Melissa was just kinda going with it for humor.)

And just in case anyone was wondering: these writers deciding not to make both of their leads wlw just isn’t homophobic.

There is indeed a pattern of not having representation in the media, not including diversity in shows over and over and over again, when writers who aren’t a minority should still be able to relate to these people enough to tell stories that include them. They should be able to see themselves in these people.

If they can’t, that hints at a larger issue within them...

But shipping is different.

Someone can’t force themselves to ship something different than their orientation. A straight writer wouldn’t feel pleasure in writing a gay relationship any more than a gay writer would feel pleasure in writing a straight relationship.

Any more than a gay person would feel pleasure in watching a straight relationship.

Expecting a straight person to change their lead- who is often their favorite character and who they most relate to- so that they start dating someone of the same sex, when they themselves aren’t of that orientation and can’t feel the emotion of the relationship, is expecting too much.

If that decision were made, it would be specifically for the benefit of the fans, for the cause, and maybe because they’re logically interested in the prospect. But they would not feel it in a romantic, emotional way. Not the way we do.

And writers write things they want to see more than they write for other people to see it.

If you’ve written fanfiction, you know that you don’t want to write for a ship you don’t ship. You might do it from time to time, in small doses for people who request something about them, but your main focus is the ship that you do like. (Side note: imagine your frustration if the ship you do like to write about is massively less popular than the one you don’t.)

This might be why most lgbt+ characters are side characters. Because the writers can’t relate to them in that way, and they want the most important character to also be their favorite character.

They can’t project themselves onto the characters and feel like they’re experiencing the romance.

And if the story is romance-focused, then it is especially unlikely that they’d have the main character be gay. Not unless there is some degree of fluidity in their sexuality.

The solution is to have writers who can relate.

Lgbt+ writers.

When writers see that the fans like something a lot, they take a second look at it, and if they agree, they might change the story.

But straight writers will never agree about gay chemistry, because they can’t feel it.

And so we need more wlw/mlm/etc. writers out there, so that when we show a writer that this other ship has chemistry, they’ll be able to feel it and then possibly turn the story in that direction, instead of only advancing the gay ships that they had designated from the beginning.

This is where Supergirl has gone wrong, in (what it looks like) pushing Ali Adler, lesbian writer, off the show. That’s what we should be raging about.

That a writer who might have seen the chemistry is gone.

Not that these writers don’t personally see the chemistry of a specific ship.

Also, you can’t say “let’s compare it to the rest of society” and then leave out the fact that they have an actual canon lesbian ship.

That’s the full picture.

And not just because they have some positive track record that absolves them, but because it means that this isn’t “give us a gay character!” to which they respond with “~We don’t want to tell that story~.”

(Or show us that, in never having a gay character or only having one for five minutes)

This is, “Make this specific character gay!”

And then they respond with, “No, actually, we plan to keep that one straight.”

So if this is the reason that what they said is homophobic, then you’re also mad at the actors for just knowing what the writers are doing.

If I had gotten a lot of asks sent to me saying “Lena and Kara might actually end up being canonically together!” I might have responded in the same way.

“They’re not gonna get together, they’re (canonically) only friends.”

Now, I’d have more tact than Jeremy, because I know people’s real feelings are involved in this, but even if I were blunt about it, it wouldn’t make me homophobic.

And your “ignorance of the law” argument just doesn’t apply to the fandom’s “feefees”.

Because that’s what's happening.

It’s not that the cast was ignorant that what they were saying was homophobic (because it wasn’t), it’s that they were ignorant that lgbt+ fans’ feelings would be hurt because they hold the ship close to their heart.

It’s like if someone called the rainbow flag ugly, not realizing that people are very emotionally attached to it’s image.

It’s kind of like, “They should probably know that people might feel that way...” but calling the flag ugly isn’t actually homophobic.

Now, if they think it’s ugly because it reminds them of gay people, that’s homophobic.

If they called it ugly to purposefully hurt gay people, that’s homophobic.

But we can’t know that that’s what they’re thinking from just that statement alone, just like we can’t know what Jeremy and Melissa were thinking from just their statements.

(This is where examples of their past “allyship” come into play. It’s not “Melissa was on glee so she can’t be homophobic.” It’s “Hey, because of their track record, we have no reason to think there was anything secretly nefarious behind what they said. They just didn’t realize how seriously wlw take their non-canon ships.”)

And yet people have been automatically projecting homophobia onto what they said.

They’re placing mockery of gay fans or feelings of disdain for two women being together onto the event when it just isn’t there.

If anything, I think if Jeremy and Melissa were actually uncomfortable with Supercorp, they’d have been exponentially more careful with their words.

#supergirl #supercorp #melissa benoist #jeremy jordan #sdcc superfail #Anonymous #the format for this is kind of a mess

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