... E Outras Manias

Over the decades, numerous investigations have exposed how Israeli intelligence targets LGBTQ+ people. In 2013, Vice published an investigation detailing how the Palestinian Authority’s preventative security forces, under the direction of the IDF, had isolated gay Palestinians from their communities, kept files on them, and exploited them for intelligence. In 2015, news reports revealed that a surveillance technology company run by a former Unit 8200 official had helped provide Uganda with malware allegedly used against LGBTQ+ activists.

Since Mark Carney is trending, mostly for admitting the liberal “rules based order” of freedom, human rights and democracy has always been a western fiction and he’s shocked that after all the raping and pillaging of weaker countries Canada participates in with US-led empire the American leopard is still planning on eating his country’s face, now’s a good time to talk about the Canadian government funded project, Heated Rivalry.

This TikTok’er is extending her critique of BBC’s Merlin to ask questions of western media in general, and specifically interrogating viewers’ reluctance to engage with everything but the deeper, structural subtext of a show, opting instead to fixate on the superficial aesthetics - camera language, colour palettes, sex scenes, identity representation.

The answer is to be found in the fact that lifelong indoctrination into liberal and more recently neoliberal philosophy means blanket acceptance of a raft of crimes against the majority of humanity by the imperial west, has been so naturalised as to become the water the fish are swimming in. We accept them not only because they confirm our existing biases but also because the subjugation of large swathes of the Global South is the source of exorbitant material wealth and privilege in the imperial north.

Some friends and I have been asking these same questions about Heated Rivalry - everyone’s talking about whether the copious sex scenes are gratuitous but no-one is mentioning the avalanche of homononationalism and queer imperialism, which is the very point of why the Canadian Government wanted to invest in this show. What are the aesthetics, the representation, the messages really in service of?

Samantha Youssef takes our avoidance of the structural load-bearing work the narrative is subtly doing, one step further by educating us why we should be more aware of the intention behind funders of first and second cinema. We all need to pay much more attention to the ideas embedded under the literal text which is the real goal of the production - *shaping our world view*, not the queer romance that’s sold on the surface.

The fact that viewers of western filmmaking have been trained in specific, often anti-humane and usually anti-collectivist ways to consume media is precisely why film productions like Heated Rivalry bear far more scrutiny than we typically give fictional queer works.

In Heated Rivalry we’re so busy rooting for the four key individuals, the “Russia bad” narrative doesn’t even need prior explanation, or even logic for that matter, to implant securely in our brains that Russia is the villain of the gay hockey show.

We see that Ilya has negative feelings about his Russian family and his status as a bi-sexual man in Russia while ignoring that the other two professional hockey players are both not out to their friends and family either even though they’re not backwards or primitive Russians. We’re supposed to get that the discovery of someone like Ilya having gay sex in Russia could be a life and death matter for him there yet ignore that it’s Ilya who has actually had gay sex in Russia as a vulnerable teenager while in the enlightened Canada Shane had never. We see Scott having a panic attack that strangers might suspect he’s not straight, despite not having a law against homosexual propaganda on the books in either Canada or the US but we’re encouraged to conveniently forget that’s because homophobia is a global phenomenon and doesn’t need a law for public discovery of one’s sexuality to ruin the career of any high-profile professional, which is why in 2026 most still guard that information carefully wherever they’re from.

Shane isn’t white, in a notoriously racist Canadian society, but we never see any racial or sexual animosity directed towards his Asianness, instead all the homophobic, identity-based aggressions in Heated Rivalry are directed solely to Ilya, whether he’s in Russia or in North America, as the only character deserving of homophobic violence in the entire series - I wonder why.

All these contradictions and more have to be memory-holed by already primed viewers, to maintain the orientalist fiction of “Russia bad” that Western Europe has woven about Russia for 200 years; it becomes critical at this present moment when Canada and its fellow NATO gang members have catastrophically lost their proxy war against Russia using Ukraine.

This isn’t internationalism. It’s queer imperialism dressed up as “solidarity” all aimed at winning the psychological warfare for hearts and minds, over a lost war carefully orchestrated by the U.S.-led west for more than a decade between Russia and Ukraine. A high stakes operation involving regime change colour revolutions; two USAID/NED-engineered coups; billions of dollars spent on political, ideological and military subversion; 1.4 million Ukrainians dead and a Ukrainian population left bereft at how they explicitly voted for a President who would be neutral (not join NATO) and make peace with Russia, but got the exact opposite. Someone has done a post with resources on the origins of the ongoing Russia/Ukraine conflict in a more detailed dive here:

These factual and illogical atrocities under cover of a rainbow flag are employed to hijack our natural human empathy for marginalised people and underdog nations to intensify enmity and hatred, not for the NATO countries Canada is supporting multiple genocides alongside - but Russia, in an attempt to make gains in psychological warfare they’ve been unable to make in military warfare against a meticulously manufactured enemy.

Here’s an excellent historical summary of Europe’s long goal to isolate, invade and Balkanise, in order to degrade Russia’s development and sovereignty which started way before its communism revolution and goes all the way back to Napoleon:

The name Donbass comes from the Donets coal basin. The coal industry is at the heart of the history of Donbass and the Donbass people; it is the center of our identity, our culture, our cuisine, our traditions. From birth, you understand that as a resident of Donbass, whether you work in a mine or not, you are a Donbass miner who never sees the Ukrainian sky. Everything Ukraine does, from the bombing of mines, which they neglected for two decades, while people were are inside, to the renaming of our region, is aimed at stripping us of our identity, as it is perceived as contradictory and dangerous to a pan-Ukrainian identity. Donchane understand that we built Donbass with our own labor, and that anyone who builds Donbasss with their own labor becomes someone who is of Donbass. If you want to create an ethnically pure society, this doctrine of identity will become an obstacle.

One of the most famous poems about Donbass, which was widely used on posters and brochures during the Russian Spring, describes this:

“As long as a miner's heart beats in his chest,

And the blood of its sons runs warm,

I want our song to befriend the coal-cutter,

To forge the steel and lead deep into the mine shaft,

To rivet the mine cages, and raise up buildings,

And upon the scaffolding of great creation,

To stand as an example of the highest valor.

Donbass shall live! One siren sends to another

The steel chimes of a miner's brotherhood:

No one has brought Donbass to its knees,

And no one ever shall!

There is no land more beautiful, more inspired,

Where everything is built by the creator-people.

No one has brought Donbass to its knees,

And no one ever shall!

And there is no Fatherland purer or more sacred,

Where all hearts merge into one...

And this heart is illuminated by Lenin

The great guiding beacon of our native Party!”

Literally the perfect encapsulation of how americans legitimately don't conceptualize the violence and terror that the US military enacts as a real thing simply because they're used to thinking of the victims as faceless offscreen abstract masses.

Our grandparents tell us stories about the birds that used to be here and how the seasons were predictable and the weather less extreme.

HM

Like I get why *they're* posting about that shit. They view women as a political class à la the proletariat and misogyny as the Original Bigotry older than all others. These posts are completely on brand for them.

What I don't get is like.... why aren't the non-transphobes getting in on this shit??? It's not like trans people or trans allies don't care about misogyny. I saw plenty of non-transphobes posting about the disastrous consequences of Dobbs v Jackson and how disgusting the treatment of Amber Heard was during the Depp trial but it feels like if I wanna post about other related issues the radfems are the only ones bringing the content.

It's extremely frustrating because I know for a FACT that y'all care about these issues so why the fuck has this ground been ceded to a bunch of exclusionist dickheads??? Is it fear of being gender essentialist? Is it concerns about a lack of intersectionality? Is it that things like rape culture and Patriarchy were the issues du jour back in 2014 but have received less screen time in recent years as conservatives have gotten more openly fascist and more violently transphobic? Literally what the FUCK is going on???

This feels new. Like last 2-3 years new, and I also hear it offline and from people who have influence outside just social media. And I think it probably contributes to this dynamic of “only TERFs want to talk about women as a class” when obviously the vast majority of society is still organized around the idea that everyone is either a man or a woman (and cis, implicitly) and anyone who’s trans or nonbinary is seen as an anomaly. But there’s this defensive writing and speaking style that people adopt when they’re anticipating that someone online might come out of the woodwork to say “your statement about how mothers are treated is offensive because not everyone who gives birth is a woman” even when the original statement in context is obviously talking about the majority of people and not taking into account every edge case. (I also have a side thought about how Twitter and other short formats encourage sweeping generalizations without context or nuance, but if I get into that we’ll be here all day.)

I actually think it’s counterproductive to use overly inclusive language when talking about things like stereotypes and socially prescribed roles because it obscures the way overly broad generalizations target those who are perceived to be in a group even when they don’t identify with it personally.

for example a kid will share a meme that features pepe or the feels guy or whatever else has been Officially Claimed By Fascism According To Vox and their parents have to sit them down and have a solemn discussion about how there’s this bad man Richard Spencer who also likes pepe and so if you like it too it means you’re the wrong kind of white person and you’re making mummy look bad in front of the other parents so knock it off.

obviously this is not a principled argument that illuminates and breaks down racial prejudice, it’s another reminder that authority figures are useless kill joys who just don’t get online culture so the kids share memes more surreptitiously in the future and this Richard Spencer dude whoever the fuck he is gets a minor status boost.

or the kid will ask “why is X problematic?” out of genuine curiosity and let’s be real nobody can explain this shit in any way that makes sense so they get back another imposition of authority telling them that it just is and they’re a bad person for asking, yet another reminder that their Friendly Online Pals are far more laid back and generally less insane than their parents and teachers.

for example a kid will share a meme that features pepe or the feels guy or whatever else has been Officially Claimed By Fascism According To Vox and their parents have to sit them down and have a solemn discussion about how there’s this bad man Richard Spencer who also likes pepe and so if you like it too it means you’re the wrong kind of white person and you’re making mummy look bad in front of the other parents so knock it off.

obviously this is not a principled argument that illuminates and breaks down racial prejudice, it’s another reminder that authority figures are useless kill joys who just don’t get online culture so the kids share memes more surreptitiously in the future and this Richard Spencer dude whoever the fuck he is gets a minor status boost.

or the kid will ask “why is X problematic?” out of genuine curiosity and let’s be real nobody can explain this shit in any way that makes sense so they get back another imposition of authority telling them that it just is and they’re a bad person for asking, yet another reminder that their Friendly Online Pals are far more laid back and generally less insane than their parents and teachers.

No, the red DOESN’T mean love or violence or passion, however the creators set it up so that in this particular work red means OH NO A SCARY GHOST IS HERE.

When I was in college (as a lit major) I ended up sitting down and talking to a returning student who was having trouble in one of our classes. He liked books, and he had GI bill money so he decided to be a lit major.

He was VERY confused about the “The Curtains Are Blue And It Means Something” approach to symbolism and I remember that he very seriously got out a notebook and a pen, sat down, and asked me “Okay so what to stars mean as a symbol?” 

And I was at a loss because of course I was! Stars-as-a-symbol can mean a thousand things and are heavily dependent on context. Are you reading a book about sea travel? Stars mean a map. Are you reading Maus? Stars represent faith and community and the way that the Nazis dehumanized Jewish people. Are you reading something by a romantic author who has a thing for the classics? Stars probably have something to do with heroism and destiny. Are you reading science fiction? Stars are probably just stars but if you’re reading Whipping Star by Frank Herbert they are literally people and our entire conception of stars is reexamined.

So one one the things that I think a lot of people are missing in their high school English classes is that whether the curtains are blue matters or not depends on the work.

The fact that Hamlet is wearing black is an important part of the story and the antagonist commenting on it it is almost the first thing that happens in the play.

What color dress is Lizzy wearing at the first dance in Pride & Prejudice? It doesn’t matter, the curtains are just blue.

And that’s one of those things that it takes a lot of time and a lot of exposure to different kinds of stories to learn and when you’re in high school you just don’t have that experience and your teachers are just now telling you for the first time “sometimes it matters why the curtains are blue” and I know you’re going “okay, sounds fake” but the goal is to get you to look at blue curtains and ask if they do matter, which is why they hand you books with big obvious examples of the kind of shit they’re talking about. You read A Tale of Two Cities because it’s full of binaries and line motifs and it’s the perfect thing to teach a fifteen year old how to look for a motif because there are a shitload of them. You read  The Scarlet Letter to look for color symbolism and to ferret out biblical allusions.

“The curtains are just blue” is just “yet another day has gone by and I haven’t needed algebra.” Most people aren’t going to need algebra in their day-to-day lives but it’s handy to know how to do a bit when you need it and it’s good to learn that the concept exists.

If you’re reading books just because they’re fun and you like them then that is cool and I’m glad you’re having a good time and you absolutely do not have to give a fuck about symbolism.

But I am going to laugh my ass off at you if you’re one of those folks who is like “the curtains are just blue it doesn’t matter” and then whines about why scifi and comics and cartoons and video games are all political these days. They were always political, you just couldn’t tell because the curtains were red.