I'm training myself to say things like "of course he did" or "this is disappointing yet predictable" instead of "normal" with the current president.
Queer books and media can definitely help. So can joining forums like the one at Empty Closets (and Imzy!). LGBTQ Reads has a great selection of books for people of all identities and interests.
My go-to queer reads are GEOGRAPHY CLUB by Brent Hartinger, CHICKEN by Chase Night, LUMBERJANES, and THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST by Emily M. Danforth.
If you know queer folks in other places, maybe send them a text or email or (gasp!) call them to talk on the phone (or Skype) about feeling isolated.
If you can, try to spend some time outdoors. Go for a walk if it's not too icy. This might not help with the loneliness, but the exercise will help you feel better.
And please know that all of us queeries on Imzy are here for you. You're not alone! We've got your back.
I asked my friend who worked at a comic shop which X-Men comics I should start with. He recommended these two:
Hey! Former Seattleite here. I recently moved to New York and won't be attending ECCC anytime in the near future. Would anyone be willing to pick up and mail me copies of the X-Plain the X-Men zines? I asked my friends on Facebook but didn't get a hard answer. I am totally willing to reimburse costs.
I'm gonna point out the obvious here in this "VPs have minimal power" argument: Dick Cheney.
It's true that Cheney and Bush didn't agree on every policy, but that man had way more power than any VP I can think of in living memory.
I'm with Tholomyes: if Pence is running the country, we will have much to fear. See: Rachel Maddow: http://www.towleroad.com/2016/11/rachel-maddow-mike-pence/
I'm so grateful for this. Jay, when you quoted Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time (one of my favorites as well), I sobbed.
Things seem dark now. They may get much darker. But if the X-Men and Meg Murray and Hermione Granger and Celes Chere and Tsukino Usagi and Tenjou Utena and Buffy Summers and all my other heroes can hold on, well then damnit, so can I.
That tangent early on in the episode about spelling, linguistics, prescriptivism v. descriptivism, and copyediting made my day. Thank you, Jay.
http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/icon_uk/11800056/693460/693460_original.jpg
(Link summary: Cypher: You all . . . You are my language.)
Autostraddle raised the points I wanted to make at the end of their article, so I'll just drop this link to hammer the point home:
http://comicsalliance.com/give-em-elle-wonder-woman-queer/
Word of Gay is all fine and dandy, but unless I see a character's queerness made explicit on the page (or onscreen if we're talking movies/TV), it's just subtext. And subtext is not good enough: it can always be reversed or denied.
I agree. I can understand the why, but I can't condone it. Had the article been more critical, then maybe—maybe—there's be a justification for covering him. As it stands, not so much.
What it is about certain strains of cis gay white men that cultures this kind of glorying in disrespect for other queer identities?
I have no idea. The marginalization I've experienced has made me more sympathetic to other queer identities and other forms of discrimination.
Maybe they're trying to integrate themselves into the dominant culture by distancing themselves from other minority groups? Maybe they don't understand how privilege works? Maybe they're just selfish jerks?
I don't know. All I know is that the existence of this article and the fluffy praise it gives fills me with shame and embarrassment.
Fellow cis gay white men: we need to do better than this. Harassment and discrimination against women, trans folk, and people of color is unacceptable. Period.
EDIT: Adding that harassment of any marginalized group is unacceptable. Just in case that's not clear.
That makes perfect sense to me. Queer spaces were so, so important for me back when I came out. They still are, to a degree. I guess that's what brought me to this community on Imzy.
I think LGBT-focused journalism is still important—not just for pop culture but for news in general. Even with increased visibility and mainstream acceptance, there are still news items and stories that pertain to our community that the general public just doesn't care about. It's why I make a point of picking up the local indie queer paper whenever I see it.
"...but also subtext is a fun part of a work and so I do not think there can be too much of it."
I disagree slightly. I also think subtext can be fun—to a point. But there can absolutely be too much of it if the subtext is leading to erasure of actual representation.
The problem is that subtext is always just that: subtext. Readers, creators, and critics are free to ignore it or contradict it if they so choose, because the text can be read either way.
One could use subtext to support a queer reading of Storm and Yukio, for example, but if a heterosexist creator wanted to, they could insist that Storm is straight because she's never had a confirmed same-sex relationship in the canon. Nor has she, to my knowledge, openly identified as bisexual in the comics. (Well, aside from AXIS, but I'm not sure how much that version of Storm counts in main continuity.)
For an X-ample outside the X-books, Elle Collins wrote a great piece about how the portrayal of Koi Boi as a trans superhero in The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is disappointing because it's not obvious to cisgender readers that Koi Boi is trans. (As a cis reader, I can verify this is true: I didn't even notice Koi Boi's binder until Elle pointed it out.)
Here's Elle's article, by the way—I highly recommend it: http://comicsalliance.com/give-em-elle-koi-boi-trans-representation-squirrel-girl/
Subtext is frustrating because it can always be overlooked or ignored. It's frustrating because it leads to a special kind of erasure in which minority groups exist only through coding. It's frustrating for the same reason that the O5 X-Men were a terrible metaphor for racism and anti-semitism (as Jay has pointed out numerous times in the show: the mutant metaphor falls apart when it results in sidelining or erasing actual minority identities).
Mind you, I love me some subtext: as a queer male, it's pretty much how I've learned to see myself in any fictional representation circa 500 AD until the end of the Hayes and the Comics Codes.
But that's the problem: if we're only seeing ourselves in subtext, if we only expect to see ourselves in subtext, then we might as well be invisible. It's still the majority telling us, whether they're doing so consciously or not, that we shouldn't exist, or if we do have to exist, then we should damn well stay invisible.
One of my favorite scenes in X2 is where Noghtcrawler and Mystique talk about passing privilege (let's just call it what it is; subtext be damned). Nightcrawler asks Mystique why, if she can pass as a normal human, she doesn't just walk around that way all the time. Mystique: "Because we shouldn't have to."
We shouldn't have to be invisible. We shouldn't have to exist only as subtext.
So, yes, subtext can be fun, but if I had the choice between a world of subtext and a world of textual representation, I would almost always choose to live in the world of actual diverse representation.
I was just about to make a post about coding vs. representation and how frustrating coding can be at the expense of actual representation. Thanks for beating me to the punch, @HesDeadJim and @Jay!
My disclaimer being that I haven't read the series mentioned in the OP, so I'm not sure which is the case here.
Fair point. Personally, those are two of the biggest criticisms I have of President Obama's administration (and the Democratic Party platform as a whole—with the caveat that individual Democrats have divested and/or opposed a militaristic foreign policy). Again: no president is, was, or ever will be perfect.
But I concede the point that his critics usually point to other issues within the Obama Administration.
I respectfully disagree with you on this one. Hillary Clinton does represent feminism: she's a second-wave feminist.
Hillary Clinton grew up during the heyday of the second-wave movement. Feminists back in the '60s and '70s were less concerned with slut-shaming, representation in fiction, and intersectional activism (though many cis, straight, white, middle-class, second-wave feminists did, in fact, protest on behalf of the civil rights movement and the gay liberation movement). They were more concerned with ensuring that the law treated men and women as equals.
Second-wave feminists worked hard to win legal rights for women: the right to work in the same professions as men, the right to choose whether or not to become housewives, the right to choose whether and when to have children, the right to not be raped by their husbands, and so on. They fought for equal pay and for the Equal Rights Act, the first of which we third-wavers are still working to pass.
Was second-wave feminism perfect? Of course not. That lack of intersectionality in particular lead to a lot of racism and homophobia within the women's movement of the '60s and '70s, which is something that feminism as a movement has never fully recovered from.
Was second-wave feminism important? Absolutely. The legal victories the second-wave feminists won gave women legal rights that we now take for granted. More importantly, they gave us a foundation upon which we can continue to push for equality for all people.
Clinton made her reputation championing for women's rights in law school and as a lawyer (she chaired the American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession, which addressed gender biases in US law firms), and she carried the ideals of second-wave feminism throughout her political career: first as a First Lady (she helped create the Justice Department's Office on Violence Against Women), then as a senator (she used her position as leverage to ensure that women and other minorities had access to health care—see citations), and finally as Secretary as State (she made the treatment of women and girls a centerpiece of her approach to foreign policy, including pressing both Saudi Arabia and China on their treatment of women).
Keep in mind that Clinton is 68 years old. The movement has changed since she came of age. The priorities of the feminist movement have shifted, as have tactics. But I can pretty much guarantee that the same thing will happen to us when we're her age.
Has she been a perfect feminist? No, but I challenge you to find me a single person on this planet who is now and has always been perfect under a broad, all-inclusive definition of feminism.
Mind you, there are legitimate criticisms one could make of Hillary Clinton—her past support of relying on military conflict to enforce a domestically-centered foreign policy, for example, and her reluctance to divest from fossil fuels.
That said, she has shown a willingness throughout her career of listening to scientists, teachers, community leaders, and other experts who know more about issues than she does. She's also shown a willingness to change her mind once she's learned more about an issue. For me, that's not "flip-flopping"—that's growth.
To say that "Hillary Clinton isn't a feminist" is, from my perspective, holding her to an impossible standard. It's like, "if you're not 100% perfect and you do not agree 100% with everything I say, then you are a Bad Person."
Isn't the whole point of third-wave feminism that women shouldn't be shamed for their decisions or their past actions? Isn't our goal to hold people accountable without attacking them or writing them off as Bad People?
Also, and this cannot be stressed enough, Clinton has been under intense scrutiny by conservative Republicans and journalists for forty years now. I will be the first to admit that it can be difficult to separate the facts from the rumors surrounding her candidacy. Personally, I take every instance of defamatory criticism of Hillary Clinton with a grain of salt.
And honestly, I feel more saddened by and afraid of your "capitalist lapdog" comment than anything else. To me, that phrase reeks of inherent biases and moral absolutism.
We have a deep-seated problem in American political and social discourse right now that frightens me to my core. It's like we're unwilling to acknowledge each other as people or to treat each other with respect. We refuse to compromise, and we approach every issue as if it's a war between two opposing sides. This terrifies me.
It reminds me of that same refusal to treat people with respect and to work for compromise that I see from both the far right and the far left.
If you're upset about a particular policy, why not mention that specifically? If Clinton did something in particular that you don't agree with, why not find a way to hold her accountable for it without resorting to slander?
As a feminist, I believe we as voters have a responsibility to make this election as civil as possible. That starts here with a respectful, informed debate based on evidence and thoughtful consideration of the other side's views.
You are free to vote according to your conscience. No one will force you to vote for Hillary Clinton on Election Day. But I respectfully disagree with your statement that she is not a feminist, and I request that you refrain from slandering her as a "capitalist lapdog" without references to specific policies or actions.
Citations: Gerth, Jeff; Van Natta, Don Jr. (2007). Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton
http://www.newnownext.com/hillary-cancer-saved-life-cancer-james-grissom/08/2016/
http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=43
I love the name, though the design for the logo reminds me of Final Fantasy X (which is neither a good nor a bad thing; I'm just sayin').
I'm confused by the "since the MU isn't it" part. Does this mean the X-Men are spinning off into their own universe?
Oh, hell yes! Lindsay Ellis's is my go-to source for film criticism. A Jay & Miles/ Lindsay Ellis team-up would be a recurring dream come true.
Her X-Men and Dying video and her Nightcrawler video are also worth watching:
X-Deaths: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eegVnInQtfo
Nightcrawler: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OdgHMkYQxcQ
"Buy milk" is almost always on my agenda. Maybe I should just buy a cow.
I'm fond of this one:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/68/e2/76/68e276177fd962ce7035ca2afa6ac100.jpg
I know it's been a couple days since you posted this, but I just wanted to let you know that I'm sending you lots of good vibes and support. We like you. We know your marriage and your identity are real. We've got your back.
"Invade"? Hate to break it to you, Limbaugh, but my queer farming friends assure me that lesbian farmers most definitely already exist in your town.
At least we'll always have this Waiting for the Trade strip: http://waitingforthet.tumblr.com/post/115197099196/kitty-usually-only-has-one-special-friend-on-a
I think you two hit the nail on the head. The Code (or at least the heterosexist attitude behind it) still seems to have lingering effects on Marvel editorial. It is so easy to ignore queer subtext, erase queer characters through retcons and reboots, sideline canon queer characters...
"Someday, we'll get the Illyana/Rachel/Kitty love triangle stories we deserve. Or, you know, just write them ourselves."
Thank the queer heavens for Archive of Our Own.
Ah, Neil Gaiman. One of the greatest weird tales writers of the present day.
I'll wholeheartedly second Good Omens. Terry Pratchett is one of my favorite authors as well, and it's neat seeing these two authors blend their styles into a hearty romp toward the end of the world. The humor is very dry, but it's, oh, so funny.
It's been a while since I've read Stardust, but I remember enjoying how it plays with the tropes of traditional fantasy/fairy tale stories. I also preferred the novel's bittersweet ending to the film's patented Hollywood Happy Ending.
My favorite Neil Gaiman books are Coraline and The Graveyard Books. Coraline's a fairy tale in the Grimm's sense: a lone hero who must outwit an otherworldly monster. Fair warning: the book is scarier for parents than for younger readers (i.e. children, teens, and nonparent adults)—at least, that's what I've gathered from anecdotal evidence.
The Graveyard Book is closer to a collection of short stories than a novel, though the stories do build to a climax at the end. Gaiman described it as The Jungle Book if Mogli was raised by ghosts, which is pretty much exactly correct. I loved the Dance Macabre chapter the most, but then again, Celtic-style Halloween is one of my favorite holidays.
I also enjoyed "I, Cthulhu," which you can read for free on his website:
http://www.neilgaiman.com/Cool_Stuff/Short_Stories/I_Cthulhu
It's all the fun of H.P. Lovecraft with at least 60% less purple prose and virtually none of the uncomfortable racism!
I hope this helps! Happy reading!
Interesting article. It's fascinating to read about the ancient world's reaction to the codex.
As for the e-book/print book debate, I think it's fairly safe to say that the codex isn't going anywhere. According to NPR's On The Media (which quoted a survey of the publishing industry as a whole), e-book sales have leveled out at ~30% of total book sales for the past several years. Likewise, most of the serious readers I know prefer to read paper books (and paperbacks at that, though I'm more of a hardback person if I can afford it).
So folks are still reading printed books; it's more that now we have more than one option.
That's just one perspective, though. What do y'all think?



QueeriesTrump Puts Anti-LGBTQ Activist in Charge of Civil Rights OfficeMar 28 at 6:26 PM



