Not for nothing, the representation of Porsche’s bisexuality means a lot to me as a bi person who didn’t figure out my identity until my early 20s. The journey that he goes through in the first half of the show, from a presumed straight man to a bisexual man in love with another man, is written and acted with so much empathy and grace. Porsche’s feelings about his identity and presentation of self are allowed to be confused, hesitant, and complicated without him being homophobic or misogynistic. The result is a more subtle arc of self-discovery, but such an important one. Porsche may not have deep-rooted internal prejudices but he still exists within oppressive structures that shape all our lives whether we want them to or not. Even though he doesn’t deny or dislike his feelings for Kinn, he does quietly struggle sometimes with the discomfort of being queer in a world that sees queer as “other.”
I think part of why this hits so hard is Apo himself. Now I don’t really follow the actors very closely and I try hard to separate the art from the artist, so I don’t want to place too much weight on this. But I do think Apo really brings a particular level of empathy and nuance to Porsche’s identity that deserves appreciation. Apo has spoken a number of times about how much he struggled with homophobic treatment in the Thai film/TV industry through the course of his career. He was often asked invasive questions about his sexuality, made fun of for the way he dresses and presents himself, and demeaned for being feminine or not masculine enough. It seems to have been a key factor in his decision to leave the industry (and even Thailand) entirely.
To be clear, he’s never made any public statement about his sexuality or gender identity, and it’s no one’s business to presume or ask about how he identifies. The problem was that, regardless of how he actually identified, homophobia had a big impact on him personally and professionally. Homophobia (along with all other forms of hate and violence) doesn’t hurt just queer people—it hurts everyone, because it confines and regulates people’s lives/bodies, and punishes deviations, big and small, from the norm.
Apo has some pretty incredible gender vibes to be honest. Something about his mannerisms, his face, his fashion choices, his presentation, just strikes keen envy in my nonbinary bisexual heart lol. And he brings that nuance into Porsche’s character so beautifully. Porsche gets to be tender as he is tough, someone who cares for his loved ones and shows affection without being demeaned for it. He’s allowed to be this strong, tall, muscular guy without it being prescriptive of his internal feelings and personality and how he presents in his voice and mannerisms. No one (least of all him) is policing his body and gender in the way queer people, particularly queer men, so often deal with. He gets to just be.
The freedom in that, for me at least, feels like a revelation. I feel loved when I watch Porsche, because his journey as a bisexual man isn’t rooted in his own repression or external prejudice. Even when he identified as straight, he didn’t behave or present in a way that was engineered to convey heterosexuality or even masculinity. He was already comfortable in his skin, and figuring out his sexuality was more of an internal journey than one centered on his body and how the world perceives it.
Obviously there’s nothing wrong with identity crises/questions/discoveries that do involve repression or homophobia (mine certainly does, thanks Catholic school 🙃). But I think it’s really neat that Porsche’s arc doesn’t, because it brings up questions that often get buried under the avalanche of homophobic/misogynistic/transphobic shit that unfortunately we so often have to wade through to come to our own queer identities. And that’s why I mentioned Apo’s experience, because I really think that as someone who’s had such a hard time in the industry in the past—precisely because he does step outside rigid gender norms—he really gets how homophobia shapes a person’s understanding of their own body. And consciously or unconsciously, he created in Porsche a character who could be free, for fucking once, of that heavy weight around his neck.
So basically, I hope he knows how much that means to a lot of people, not just me. And I hope that playing Porsche has given him some amount of comfort or healing or validation. He gave homophobia and misogyny a massive middle finger through this character, and I hope that and his continued outspokenness about his experience make everyone think twice before policing people’s gender and bodies.
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Leftists have been trumpeting the return of fascism for years, but people ignored it and called it "What you can have in your own opinion" or told us that we are the problem
It started with trans people, and all the way to entire LGBT+ groups, feminists also got hit and there was no reaction because "They could have stayed quiet and not done it" (When they were on strike)
In addition, using September 11 as an excuse to harass people of Arab origin all over the world (although they live in my country and it's more white people who do shit here), dehumanized people, but it's the Arabs' fault that one crazy person flew a plane into two towers , True?
Fascism was reborn at the beginning of this century, but with Trump and Rowling it became more and more visible, but people thought it was nothing bad
2020 was also the point where fascism became acceptable (In my country, there was a campaign against LGBT+ people and women on strike after the ban on abortion on a damaged fetus, and then the dehumanization of people at the border who were deceived by Lukashenko, but as you said, it was was, then they called you under the propaganda of Lukashenko or Putin, yes, being a good person means being a traitor, I'd rather be a traitor than their "Hero")
It's no better abroad either, tik tok has become the only place, which has caused a lot of damage, including the resurgence of pro-ana, the destruction of the postivi body and the acceptance of autism
In 2024, many people's eyes have been opened, when anti-genocide strikes are attacked and people fighting for a free Palestine are called anti-Semites (Even if they are Jews), unfortunately, as before, people woke up to the genocide and the awareness that it is taking place, the holocaust was not stopped either and people were terrified only when it all came to light, now we can try to stop it, but there might not have been a genocide if we had reacted earlier when Israel used segregation to separate them from the Israelis
I'm born in 01, i.e. a zoomer, I used the Internet only for flash games, although I preferred DVD games (I watched as many cartoons from CDs, I watched them on TV when they were on, but that didn't mean I liked them as much as the DVD ones)
I watched Mini Mini while others were watching CN, hence I was considered immature by people in my class (10-14 years old)
It is possible that it was cartoons that helped me develop empathy (I have ASD, and it is a myth that autism does not have empathy), although I was never able to show it, and being a scapegoat did not help me much
I encountered LGBT+ at the age of 13, but thanks to the propaganda from religion classes you can guess what my approach was (Howrse, forum, censoring the word "Gay" as if it was a curse, WTF)
I don't remember when I realized that I was an aroace, because I was always an aroace, but I didn't know, for me the word "Love" didn't mean what cis hetero people consider love, for me it meant relationships where someone is close to you (Family, your pet, friendship etc…)
The first glimpses that something was wrong, I saw a certain Polish YouTuber explaining his transphobia (This was the moment when young and stupid me got a warning light, because if knowing being trans was an option for me, it doesn't change the fact that there was something wrong here yes, cognitive dissonance from cartoons I watched as a kid about that the most important thing is to be yourself and accept yourself, that others should also accept you, and then you come across this, even if you don't understand, you know that this creator's thinking is bad)
I became more interested in politics in 2020, when President Andrzej Duda (Rapper of the Year) said "LGBT+ is not people, it's an ideology", then I already knew that I was LGBT+ (I didn't use "Aroace" then, but "Asexual" and "Aromatic" )
Then I realized how many bad people there are and how they hate someone for their very existence. I can't blame myself for not being interested in politics before, because I was a child (Although pedophiles will probably say that "You weren't a child, you were a teenager", shut up!)
I had Twitter for a year because they blocked it, classic for "Inciting suicide" (But pedophiles and fascists can go unpunished, Twitter standards, they complain that Elon Musk destroyed it, no, he didn't destroy it, he was always fucked up)
I feel like I've grown up too quickly, and I've come so far in my development that it turned out that many people I trusted turned out to be bad, well, maybe loneliness isn't so bad, I have a cat, a dog and my own third party liability insurance, maybe not people (Or real ones…), but it's better than fake friendships, right?
2020 was a turning point for everything, entering politics and discovering how many people were actually mocking you and weren't your friends (Wasted years, even when they started a separate group to mock me and made a remake of my photo from 2013, where they stuck my face into a drawing of a penis… And yet I forgave them + I blamed it on myself, that I reacted badly to everything, when they pointed it out to me, that I was "exaggerating", I left groups, they added me again and so on endlessly)
It doesn't make it easier that in high school I had a toxic support teacher who controlled and criticized me (and laughed at me) at every step, and called my "meltdowns" aggressive and turned them into a note for the diary
So I've been in toxic relationships in real life and online, and this realization is killing me...
But coming back, we had the return of fascism and now people were hit with the realization that "Not an opinion" is "Fascism", the question is how long this approach will last and everything will not return to the status quo
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