Forums / Discussion / Serious Debate

(First off, apologies if this post is too long and/or not being worded properly, I'm not really one for posting on forums)

A couple of days ago, I commented on this image. If you frequent the Steven Universe gallery, chances are you've seen this kind of image before, wherein it depicts creator Rebecca Sugar demanding that her show is made "gayer". The comment I left was "Remember, being gay is apparently a fucking meme". Other users responded not exactly taking in what I wanted to say (and to be fair, my first comment was rather crude anyway). I posted another comment further elaborating what I wanted to say, but I would like to expand upon it and I figured it should be open to further discussion here.

The Nostalgia Critic alludes to this particular topic, so I'd like to start with that.

In my opinion, this is a problem I see becoming more and more prevalent in the online gay community. I'm gonna use the SU fandom as a crutch here, but this is something I find even outside of the SU fandom; I find that much of the tumblr-esque fanbase of the show (especially those identifying as non-heterosexual) reacting to subtext of the show and overblowing to the nth degree simply because "IT'S SO GAAAAY".

Now, let me make something clear: I am heterosexual and I have absolutely nothing against gay/LGBT people. However, I can't help but find it rather odd and almost insulting to the online gay community (again, referring mainly to tumblr here) that acting like this highly stereotyped image of themselves is healthy?

But I'm getting a bit to far ahead. To start, why did I bring up Steven Universe and why did I mean by that first comment. Well I want to look at two of the main characters: Pearl and Garnet, characters who, in the subtext of the show, are clearly gay (for obvious reason they never flat out use that word in the show, but by this point it's more than obvious). They're also technically agender, but they use female pronouns, so we'll just refer to them as such for convenience sake.

Pearl – A character who is intelligent but also tragic, Pearl was clearly in love with another female character who is deceased. Much of the more emotion-heavy episodes involving Pearl usually have her contemplating her loving feelings for this character and trying to move on. Most recently, she's become attracted to another female character.

Garnet – A straightforward and head-strong character, Garnet is an amalgamation of two other lesbian characters. Though she doesn't go through any drastic character evolution in the show, she's usually depicted as the wise badass leader of the main characters.

Needless to say, these two characters are very popular with the online gay community and with good reason as they're both, in my opinion, well thought out characters that otherwise have their own character flaws, both portray a positive and strong-willed image of themselves. But I'm not entirely sure this is the sole reason they resonate so well with the gay community. I feel many of the gay fans of these characters don't understand why they work as strong gay-positive characters: they're not blatant with it.

It reminds me of a quote by The Walking Dead's creator Robert Kirkman when referring to one of his gay characters, Jesus:

"In my opinion there should be more awesome gay people in fiction because there are plenty of awesome gay people in real life. I want Jesus to be a character where his sexuality is as unimportant as Rick or other heterosexual character's. So we won't focus on it constantly and it won't be the focus of any big storylines for him… but he'll make out with a dude every now and then."

What makes the subtext of Steven Universe work is because (as the word "subtext" would suggest) it's subtle. These gay characters work because they don't have their sexuality as the forefront of their personality. It's certainly part of who they are, but they don't have it as the main driving factor of everything in their life. They're gay, but that's not important. And that's why I feel so confused when I see images like the one I commented on.

When I commented that "being gay is a fucking meme", user ArthurMcCherryman said that being straight is a meme to by the technical definition of the word, and arguably, they're correct. What I meant by "meme" is the sense as we use memes on the internet as these one-off jokes. It also comes back to my confusion of the fanbase of SU praising simply because "it's so gay" and me scratching my head at images where they joke about how the show should be "gayer". Would the show being more blatant with its gay subtext actually benefit the show, the image of gay people, or even the gay community?

Again, I'm not gay so chances are I simply don't understand, but if you're gay, wouldn't it be rather demeaning and destructive of yourself to build the whole of your character around your sexuality? But like the Nostalgia Critic says, they're absolutely nothing wrong with being gay and being flamboyant or very open about, everyone is free to express themselves; but at the same time, is it really okay to behave what could perceive as a highly saturated and negative stereotype of who you are? (NRFKZ, love him or hate him, made a video kind of alluding to this kind of subject, and I highly recommend checking it out)

Again, I'm not gay nor am I homophobic, but for all I know I'm being an ignorant fuck who doesn't know what I'm talking about, but that's why I wanted to open this up for discussion.

Lastly, I apologize again if this post is rather long. I don't post on the forums a whole lot, let alone talk at length over a rather touchy subject; so If I'm being at all confusing with I've said, let me know and I'd be glad to explain myself.

Now let me get the obvious memes out of the way first

I totally agree on that gay characters should try being more subtle because I think representation in fiction should be realistic in most cases unless the creator is going for something with a specific unrealistic twist and by realistic I mean realistic to the environment. Realistically, these flamboyantly gay people who love talking about how gay they are do exist, I've met them. They're just rare.

But at the same time doing flamboyant characters is fine because these people also exist as I said and they're still just as gay as anybody else, it should just try to be more proportional since as I said representation should try to be as proportional as possible and the least forced as possible. I'd rather have no representation than tokenism or arbitrary minority quotas.

On the meme thing though, I do find the "gay" thing to be pretty funny it's actually one of my favorite like cheesy things to joke about when I have no creativity. Like the above-mentioned "that's gay" stuff I love that kind of humor. I also like the word fag tbh used directed towards gay people (as long as they're okay with it) or anyone in general hell usually when I use the word it's only used in a gay context 1% of the time probably.

And also let's not forget the "no homo" jokes aka the pinnacle of gay memes.

I totally agree on that gay characters should try being more subtle because I think representation in fiction should be realistic in most cases unless the creator is going for something with a specific unrealistic twist and by realistic I mean realistic to the environment.

That's the thing, realistic doesn't make for good tv. A show would become pretty boring if it followed normal people talking about sports and never doing crazy shit.

So they run with basic stereotypes: The flamboyant gay, the dumb blond chick, that one dude that gets all the girls, the know-it-all autistic nerd.

In relation to the topic, all these stereotypes are memes. But in reality: If you're gay, you're not always flamboyant; If you're blond, you're not always an idiot; if you're German, you don't always wear lederhosen.

That’s the thing, realistic doesn’t make for good tv. A show would become pretty boring if it followed normal people talking about sports and never doing crazy shit.

So they run with basic stereotypes: The flamboyant gay, the dumb blond chick, that one dude that gets all the girls, the know-it-all autistic nerd.

A network executive might well lap up this easy laissez-faire approach to entertainment, but plenty of people would disagree. Storytelling needs to be engaging but it needs to be believable at the same time.

I'm not asking for 100% reality all the time, but different people have different tastes. Maybe the average casual viewer is fine with the relentless propagation of old-fashioned dead horse stereotypes, but just as many people demand intelligence and forethought in their storytelling.

You can do and say different things every once in a while. Not all stories are the same and not all characters/people are the same, which is why different genres exist. Some people wrote stories to directly oppose the common ideas of their time – see for example the concept of the "social novel" and works by people like Dickens and Orwell, which became popular through their frank reality, and endure to this day.

But yeah as strong social ideas, the "gays are flamboyant" type stuff are definitely memes.

If we go by the strict term of meme to be "an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from one person to another in a culture" (taken from the Merriam-Webster dictionary) then I suppose you could say that being gay is indeed a meme.

I think the main issue is that people still don't treat being gay as something normal, so when portrayed in media people feel like they have to make him/her act different to differentiate them from the heterosexual cast. Thus why the flamboyant gay stereotype still exists, even though that's as much a stereotype as asians not being able to drive or black people not being able to swim.

Also, to be frank being portrayed as "progressive" gives any kind of media a huge amount of brownie points in this day and age, and there is no better way than to support LGBT in your series. Thus gay characters may seem sort of shoehorned in, or random offhand comments from series creators cough JK Rowlings cough indicate someone is gay when there is no indication at all beforehand. I understand that it's not always easy to determine if someone is gay or not, but I'd rather such an important detail about a character not be tossed out as an offhand comment.

I'm not gay myself so I can't claim to speak for them. But I do think it is a bit insulting that in an attempt to be "progressive" people end up using these stereotypes. Using stereotypes to support a minority group seems kind of counter-intuitive, don't you think? Imagine if in the Simpsons (since everyone is yellow anyways) the only way you figure out someone is Asian is by them crashing cars every time they drive?

In my opinion, this is a problem I see becoming more and more prevalent in the online gay community. I’m gonna use the SU fandom as a crutch here, but this is something I find even outside of the SU fandom; I find that much of the tumblr-esque fanbase of the show (especially those identifying as non-heterosexual) reacting to subtext of the show and overblowing to the nth degree simply because “IT’S SO GAAAAY”.
Now, let me make something clear: I am heterosexual and I have absolutely nothing against gay/LGBT people. However, I can’t help but find it rather odd and almost insulting to the online gay community (again, referring mainly to tumblr here) that acting like this highly stereotyped image of themselves is healthy?

My interest shall be put in the part of "prevalent in the online gay community". Very well, we can set some common ground saying that a source of certain magnitude is creating a lot of buzz? When we talk about "tumblr", and "Steven Universe", and "fandom" all together, another topic that appears often is "social justice". The same modern set of ideals which, despite "advocating" about racial/sexual/cultural diversity, is chock-full of people with a comfy socioeconomic status, whites, and straights; among other problems. (e.g. 90% of the people being discussed in the gamergate thread).

Now, consider that straight men tend to like material featuring lesbians. Now, consider that women have an equivalent. If someone who likes women sees multiple women doing it together and likes it, why wouldn't someone who likes men see two men doing it together and like it? Fujoshi, if you are talking about manga/anime, not sure if they receive another name with other media.

The point is: a combination of age-old trends, and then back them with a new wave of ideals that say "hey, good, modern people like this!", will attract people. NRFKZ's video references this. Personally i'm conflicted with the modern representation of LGBT individuals because, when seeing the whole, there's an abundance of female (Korrasami, Bubbline, Steven Universe, OITNB, Ghostbusters had one) characters, whereas male couples are not as abundant (and when they are, there's the accusation of queerbaiting, featuring LGBT people except that nope, those characters where always straight, eg Supernatural), because back in the day, a female/female couple had a different value in comparison with a male/male couple, which makes me doubt about the changes in media production (i.e. are they being honest? Was there actually a change of heart?).

Talking about it, i dislike the direction that SU went. It's rather long and maybe sometime i'll put it in the unpopular opinions thread, but bringing the relevant part for this topic, i question the lesbians and tone of the plot. Garnet's character started as a (mostly) serious and refined leader-type, but after season 1, her single biggest trait is her being a fusion (e.g. Jamie's crush, the Sardonyx arc, conversations with Peridot, the Cluster). "She is a relationship". And Pearl's thirst for Rose, being more and more alluded/referred. This "meme" that OP is talking about, is derived from the trend of the latest episodes; a growing trend.

Others have covered already my views on a lot of it, give or take, so I'm going to talk about different focuses in your post that weren't talked about as much.

In my opinion, this is a problem I see becoming more and more prevalent in the online gay community. I’m gonna use the SU fandom as a crutch here, but this is something I find even outside of the SU fandom; I find that much of the tumblr-esque fanbase of the show (especially those identifying as non-heterosexual) reacting to subtext of the show and overblowing to the nth degree simply because “IT’S SO GAAAAY”.

Tumblr + SU = Not good. The fandom has driven two people to attempt suicide over stupid stuff. The "discourse" is notorious for being horrible. Apparently the SU fandom is better elsewhere (a regular reddit user on here told me the reddit SU fandom is fine) but the tumblr su fandom is horrible.

Now that I got that out of the way, more general thoughts.

I think an over-saturation of gay is bad, as others have expressed, and the idea of characters whose sexuality isn't their focus is just good writing (unless you're attempting something like a clever deconstruction). However, white-straight-cis (again, hate or love the word "cis", it's filling a role that's needed now) characters are virtually omnipresent in U.S. media. There's no lack of them. So it's nice to see someone who's like you (and, of course, is actually well written, isn't the bad guy, and doesn't die).

I guess it kind of creates a kid-in-a-candy-shop effect, where you want more than what is really a good idea. It's just nice to see some quality representation, instead of "you're evil" or "you die" or "you're a stereotype", or some combination thereof.

Didn't think unloading that image would lead to this.

Once again, Rivers beat me to the punch. The fact is, people like being represented positively in media, and only fairly recently are queer folks getting this in mainstream media, and so when queer people talk about "making it gay" they don't hate straight people, they want to see more representation. Really, what harm does a gay headcanon do anyone?