Does the queer character live?

I really like web comics. I tend to assume they’ll be more broadly informed about the world, since people who spend time on the web interact with views they’re unfamiliar with as almost par for the course, and queer people are well represented in the art world. This comic... doesn’t seem to get it. 

Let’s lay it down. 

There is one gay character in this comic. He’s called Jamie, and before you meet him, you learn he is already dead. 

Yikes. 

The rest of the next chapter is dedicated to his dad being possessed, and encouraged to forgive himself for the responsibility he feels over Jamie’s suicide. Jamie’s narrative purpose is his father’s emotional arc. This is... not good. It’s not good writing, and honestly it made me feel a little physically ill. Jamie is a set piece in this story. In his first appearance he is a corpse. 

That’s him, in the white suit. It is at this point that you learn that Jamie is a young Black man. 

I had wondered how this would play out, and in the end, Jamie possibly forgives his abusive father and disappears. 

Which is a very magnanimous ending for the author (who expresses no minority identity, I checked) to express. 

This, in and of itself is well-intentioned but tired writing. The part that really kicked me in the teeth was this:

And on the author’s tumblr...

... excuse me. 

The gay character... the only gay character, and first important person of color... is dead... and his death is... fabulous. 

After this his father ascends to heaven and possibly is eaten by a dragon, but I stopped reading. 

When I reviewed Blue Exorcist they had some very nasty tropes as well, but I felt that maybe people could read that comic and enjoy it if they skipped the chapter in question. You can’t skip this arc because it covers two and a bit chapters, and there’s a lot of plot heavy writing going on. I would say, if you plan on reading this, you need to examine whether this will be a dealbreaker for you or not. For some people it won’t be. I did not appreciate the author’s flippant approach to Jamie’s death outside the comic, and I was bothered by seeing the first character with known intersecting minority identities being treated this way, so I won’t be reading any further. 

There are a few other things to be aware of. The comic is good at having a generally diverse supporting cast, while the main cast includes a character who is mixed race (in the fantasy sense), a white elf, an orc, and the main character, who hides her face. However, there are drow in the first chapter of the comic, who are matriarchal cannibals with dark brown skin, tattoos and loincloths. This is another example of writing (and character design) which falls into distasteful tropes at best and racism at worst (the face tattoos in particular remind me of Maori Ta Moko, which is distressing). I was uncomfortable at that point but I know for some PoC this would be an immediate cause for closing the tab. I kept reading for the purpose of this blog, but perhaps I shouldn’t have?

I haven’t written one of these in a while after stalling on a trend I’ve noticed in a few indie comics, so, this particular entry will be short and not comprehensive.

The creators of Voltron made a very big deal about the fact that one of the main characters in the show was a gay man, who had a partner that he had broken up with. There was the implication you’d get to meet the partner, and see whether the two of them reconciled. 

Instead of doing so, this character was killed shortly after introduction. 

In a very out of character digression on my part, I haven’t actually seen this episode. It got spoiled for me, and I was glad, because I was very upset to find out this had happened. I can’t help but feel there was a sort of purposeful nature to this narrative choice, and cynically I suspect it has something to do with foreign markets, and how it’s much easier to edit out a queer relationship if it exists in a short timespan and you kill one of the characters off. 

The ‘kill your gays’ trope is an old, tired one, and I honestly thought we all knew better by now. I’m too tired of seeing my own people suffer (in a professional capacity and otherwise) to endure it in a show which, despite more regular dramatic moments than it once had, is a relatively deathless series. 

The fact that the man who dies is also a person of colour adds to the sting, frankly. I don’t like the idea that a bunch of young queer people were buoyed up with the false flag of representation only to be shown our true place in the narrative, once again. 

Big Mouth is a show about puberty, which is a horrible, awkward word, and I guess that’s fitting. I’ve watched this show in its entirety, and I still don’t entirely know how I feel about it. It does manage to do some things quite well; there’s a very early, very odd, conversation about how homosexuality is all well and good... 

And so is sexual experimentation, though the ‘B’ word is, of course, not mentioned (the ‘B’ word is bisexuality). The oddness of the conversation is not under any criticism here, because it’s a weird show. So, you know, it’s a little bit SNL meets PSA, but that’s tonally consistent.

However, it also aims for some targets that aren’t as broadly acceptable as they used to be. Once upon a time, a writer might be able to argue that they didn’t know any better. Those days are past. Meet this guy:

Hello indeed! 

Up to this point, most characters’ names are mentioned at least in passing. They have their own little quirks (Andrew and his Hormone Monster), and their interests (Missy with her Social Studies themed dance, and Jay with his magic tricks). This young man is the first person outside the main and supporting-main cast to show up. What’s his thing?

He’s gay. His thing is that he’s gay. 

It’s a very specific gay though. He’s sassy and out, and exists entirely to dress well and throw out pithy one liners. He’s not a person, he’s a pint-sized stereotype. It was better than nothing in the nineties, and it was old in the oughts (fucking Modern Family). I had hoped we’d seen the last his ilk on our screens. 

Roughly ten minutes after his introduction we find out his name is Matthew.

Does he have interests? Does he love anything or anyone? What’s his home life like? I’unno. Pretty much every other minor character has an arc of some kind (Lola gets some moments to herself during the sleepover episode). Matthew doesn’t. He just pops up occasionally, and the more he does the sadder it makes me. I just wanted him to be a person, ok?

Which brings us to episode three, “Am I gay?”. 

This is probably the first plotted story I’ve ever seen about figuring out your sexuality, that wasn’t played for tragedy. The arc begins with Andrew getting a boner over Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson as Paul Bunyan (who doesn’t love the Rock?). Andrew, in spite of his prior interest in women, comes to question whether he is gay. 

1. I acknowledge that the show was trying to normalize exploration of identity. Some of us do think we’re attracted to people not of our gender and at an end of the continuum because that’s what’s modeled to us throughout our entire lives. It happens. It’s not uncommon. It’s ok to explore your identity, and see what labels work for you (if any do). However...

2. We all know what bisexuality is, and it’s never mentioned. I was actually expecting it to be a plot point later in the episode, because the Hormone Monster’s advice is terrible, and so he’d initially leave it out. I was wrong.

3. The fact that the episode doesn’t mention the word bisexuality at all* is bi-erasure. Bisexual people exist, and the show really should’ve had someone tell Andrew that he might be bisexual, and not gay or straight. 

*I lied, bisexuality shows up once in the credits version of the gay song.

There’s a nice arc in there about thinking he’s attracted to his best friend, because he feels close to him. Unfortunately that arc is directly after this:

Freddie Mercury, our Lord and Savior, was a bisexual man. He had well-documented relationships with people of at least two genders. He is one of the most prominent queer icons of the previous century, and his identity should not be erased. We should not be fucking that up in 2017. 

I’m not even going to touch the Antonin Scalia thing. The “if he’s a homophobe, he’s secretly gay” trope can go die in a fire. 

Oh, god damnit... What do you think the ‘B’ stands for??

Freddie’s still bi and trans and intersex people exist...

The final instance of queerness that’s addressed in the show, comes in the form of an affair between Shannon (Jessi’s mother) and another woman. It’s handled pretty well for the most part. Shannon’s issues with her husband Greg, their lack of intimacy, the burden she bears in performing the brunt of the work raising their daughter, and his regular drug use, are juxtaposed with the sacrifices he has made, and the emotionally abusive manner in which she sometimes speaks to him. It is very clear that their relationship has been on a downturn for a very long time, and it is equally clear that Shannon is not performing a morally acceptable act by cheating on her husband, even if her decision is understandable. There is nuance in the relationships involved, and homosexuality is not placed on any pedestal (which... has a tendency to happen in cheating narratives). 

And there’s a very well placed musical number during which people perform the electric slide.

I hope that’s not true, but carry on.

Indeed!

In short, this show is a mixed bag. They do try to address how confusing exploring your sexuality can be. There are no tragic elements to this exploration. Nobody’s killed (you can see what I mean by the unproblematic ‘no’, since Freddie is an historical figure, as are most of the ghosts on the show), but the queer characters on the show are reduced to their queerness, only implied to be bisexual (A WORD THAT WILL NOT BE USED), grossly misrepresented, or committing adultery. Kudos for having more than one queer character, but you know, maybe we could’ve given Matthew an arc? And not erased all the bisexual people? Because bisexual people suffer enough? I have not covered all the casual transphobia with enough depth, but trans people too, deserve better than this. These problems are easily avoidable (Brooklyn 99 puts the effort in).

This post has focused on how Big Mouth treats queer people, but queer people are certainly not the only minorities that get shafted unexpectedly and with little context. Sometimes it’s clearer that the joke is meant to satirize how minorities are treated in society. It’s usually not. Unclear jokes can easily perpetuate inequality. In no particular order:

Nnnnnnnn....

Alright so there’s actually a really long history of Black people not having their names respected and it’s still current so...

Oh god

I don’t want to have to explain how I feel about this scene

Before anyone gets upset, I actually like this comic quite a bit. It has a lot of positive messages about bullying and dealing with mental health issues, and self esteem. The main character is sweet, and he has a pet cat. These are all good things.

However, like a lot of modern comics from Japan that I have enjoyed (one punch man, why?), queer characters are used as an acceptable target. If you’re thinking of reading the comic for the first time, I think that’s worth knowing. 

In chapter four we’re introduced to this guy:

Plus side, he ain’t dead yet. Negative side... I’m fairly sure he’s supposed to be a gay stereotype, in part because of:

Yes, the first canonically queer character we meet is someone who is dead, and simultaneously refers to themselves as having “a girl’s heart” and as being a transvestite (which is a term I don’t hear people using these days). This character has no name, and while their gender identity is not clear, they’re about the worst transphobic trope you can think of. I won’t include more images, but a grown adult chases and attempts to/succeeds at kissing teenage boys. Queer person as predator.