Friendly Neghborhood

If you’ll all pardon my Americentrism for a moment, the amount, visibility, and flamboyance of Pride merch available in clothing, home goods, and comestibles stores is a DIRECT reflection of how safe it is to be queer in public in the United States.

How? Simple. Out groups aren’t profitable. If you’re not “acceptable” in the current social climate, big franchise businesses will not market to you. (Prime example - Look how quickly Target dropped all their Pride merch after having been wall-to-wall rainbows every June for almost a decade prior.)

Sure, capitalism sucks and being viewed as an exploitable marketing demographic isn’t a fun concept.

HOWEVER.

The grim truth is that being normalized enough to be considered profitable by corporations IS A GOOD THING in terms of the barometer of social acceptance.

Same thing goes for smaller businesses that throw kitschy Pride events or even just put a token rainbow flag in the window or somewhere inside the shop. That’s a level of acceptance that DID NOT EXIST thirty years ago, and I can tell you because I was there.

The fact that we can scoff and bitch about being an exploitable marketing demographic nowadays means we have made GIGANTIC strides since the 1990s. It also speaks to the fact that the drive and the conversation surrounding LGBTQ+ rights and acceptance are continuing. And getting louder.

You can be cynical about it if you want. But I will take a store that puts out lip-service rainbow merch over a world that pretends we don’t exist any day of the week. Because that will always mean something.

Masculanized an Asian character

Became a heartthrob as a POC

Gave an award-winning performance for a neurodivergent character

Is dating a woman after playing a gay man

Gets just as much praise as his white costar

Doesn't censor himself to fit in

Does the swastika thing feel good as a Jew? No. But it was when he was a kid and it’s more of a reflection on the people who drew it than him. Especially if he really didn’t know it was there. And I’m more interested in who they are now that they’re not stupid teenagers than who they were as stupid teenagers. I think he apologized sufficiently and without excuses.

I think people are way more willing to forgive grownup white actors who do blackface than an Asian actor who didn’t know about the problem and was also a stupid teenager because racism.

I’m not willing to just excuse everything an actor does because I like their work. But I think there’s enough information here to not immolate him on sight.

God, I’m so glad the only evidence of my stupid teenage years was captured on disposable cameras that half of us promptly lost and half of the pictures didn’t come out due to over exposure. It must be a fucking nightmare having every stupid thing you’ve ever done captured for posterity.

Tempted to actually put this on spotify so I can secretly stream it at work...