nobody wants to admit it but lgbt representation in almost all media is in a really bad place right now
everybody wants to pretend we’re in a renaissance when in reality we’re in a dark age, where bury your gays, stereotyping, baiting, and “implying” is at an all time high in popular media. The truth is that people have realized because of the abyssmally low bar that LGBT people have for representation in media, most of us will lap up any scraps they give us. LGBT representation isn’t a statement any more, it’s a clever ploy to get the support of a community while giving them so little that they don’t alienate bigots in the process, and the bar needs to be set higher or else we’ll only see this cycle continue
like at the same time that we begin to worry that last-second gays (see legend of korra or adventure time) or constant teasing and not outright saying it (see adventure time again) will become the new norm because of the overwhelming praise minimal effort garners, both LGBT people, allies, and fandoms at large only continue to encourage that behavior.
See the brownie points that the above shows actually got for doing that and suddenly it’s not that much of a mystery why representation has been so stagnant, and see how the “representation” in shows like she-ra and star vs. is given praise despite falling into those exact same patterns.
We already kind of popped the “gays in kids media” and “non-comedic/stereotyped gays in media” cherries so we have to actually raise the bar to a point where we’re actually portrayed with the same mundanity and respect as straight people get.
and b4 anybody hits me with “well a lot of these creators are doing their best with what they’re given” 1) I don’t honestly believe that for a lot of cases and 2) even if they are somebody has to be held accountable for the fact that more isn’t being done and we should and instead of blindly praise the scraps high-ups allow the creators to throw to us we should question why they’re only allowed to throw scraps at all
I found out what lesbian means today, Ella told me at recess. It’s unfair because girls are so much prettier than guys. It’s like comparing a flower to an old shoe. But I’m not a lesbian, almost 99% of my friends are guys.
If a sitting president threatens to hold government employees hostage and shut down the government for years because the other branches of government won’t give him absolute power, then he should be fucking impeached.
