i genuinely donât get cishet monsterfuckers. for context, in the wake of shape of water i participated in this loving-the-monstrous type discussion event slash publishing party wherein i debuted a short story about a woman who âbefriendsâ a cave monsterâbut that isnt the point. the point is i had to hear straight women talk for hours about how the appeal of monsters is some kind of weird âtaming the beastâ fantasyâloving a monster until it loves you back, sounding like every bad beauty and the beast take ever.
And thereâs my queer ass being like literally none of you get it. this isnât about power, this is about love and alienation and acceptance. you dumbasses, Iâm the monster. this isnât a metaphor for your shitty boyfriend, this is a metaphor for my own alienation from a society that tells me a the way i am and the way I love are grotesque. this is a fantasy of love free of judgement, separate from societal standards that Iâll never live up to anyway. that ghoul doesnât care if Iâm fat, they think itâs hot that I eat well. that immortal fae creature doesnât care if the gender on my birth certificate matches the one I use now, they barely have a concept of gender in the first place. that tentacle monster doesnât care if I shave, they donât have eyes
monsterfucking is queer culture, everyone else go home
Oh. I'm guessing those were all yt women, too. Del Toro isn't Queer, afaik, but he -is- Mexican in the us. It wasn't really that long ago that interracial relationships were just as forbidden and taboo as Queer ones and there's still obviously race tensions going on. The other in Shape of the Water is just as much, and likely written as, being a different race and the feeling of alienation of having a different place of origin. It happens to resonate with everyone who's ever been considered a monster by society, and there's not just one way this has happened.
The whole âlove someone until they're not a monsterâ is extra, super gross in that context because people don't feel BIPOC are actually capable of human emotions who need to be taught to be human by some benevolent yt person who's fetishised their body.
reblog this version pls
Itâs important to remember that disabled people are also included in this other, both by society and textually in Shape of Water. Elisa, the lead, is mute, and deals with a lot of shit because of it, particularly from the cishet white man villain. Her disability is also what allows her to connect to the monster, as sheâs able to teach him ASL signs he can communicate with. Theyâre able to connect because theyâre both different. To this day, disabled people face a lot of barriers to relationships, like potentially losing disability benefits if they get married in the US.Â
Del Toro has a lot of works that boil down to âDifferent is good and the people trying to fight for the status quo are the true evil hereâ (shoutout to Panâs Labyrinth where, in a world full of monsters, the primary antagonist is a white fascist general and abuser).
please don't start gatekeeping monsterfucking. literally anybody can have any kink, can we all just get the fuck along? i've been through the discrimination too, and from my own family no less, but i'm not a dick to white people or to straight people. what do you want them to do, change their race? no, because that would be racist. want them to force themselves to like the same gender or change their gender identity? that's literally what the straights did to us, still sometimes do to us. so what if they're into werewolves or zombies or what-the-fuck-ever? we have something in common with them, is that a fucking problem? two wrongs don't make a right, so stop trying to say that they can't be like us. we are not above them, or vice versa; our value isn't determined by who we love or what we look like, it's determined by how we act, and a lot of people aren't acting very rationally recently.
just be kind, please. stop fighting fire with fire.
