Owen Carvour Apologist

these are great tags @ dr-docktor and you bring up a great point.

It shouldn't be on the actors to "confirm" things about the characters they play but rather the writers who wrote those characters in the first place. Furthermore, retroactively "confirming" queerness of characters doesn't change how they are still continually presented as a joke in their canon. The actors don't have that much sway over how their characters are written, they're still beholden to the writers and director choice.

That is not true for starkid (and theatre has historically always been the place to take those risks and explore queer stories more fully to begin with!). Starkid are the creatives *and* the executives. Advertisers don't fund those shows-- fans do, and many of those fans are queer and might appreciate being treated like their stories and relationships are more than just afterthoughts or punchlines

Starkid doesn't have those same external pressures to produce a widely marketable economic product, so frankly it seems like they just can't be bothered to think about the existence of queer people at all, and certainly not with the kind of heart, depth, and intentionality they give to their many, many straight relationships. In the last ten years, starkid has had more man + car possessed by his dead wife, or man + troll in a dead human girl skinsuit, or boy droid and girl droid content then we've had onstage/onscreen gay relationship. Queer people rate below "man fucks car wife" I guess?

And it's sad to me how many people just eagerly accept this, because they headcanon Richie as queer, or Mariah headcanons her characters as pan or Joey thinks Ted is so horny that he's probably bisexual (don't love that this and canonically bi Ruth seem to share the bisexual = extra horny premise), or MacNamara is gay according to a tweet or livestream or a cut scene or whatever. What we actually have on stage/screen is like 20 seconds of Deb and Alice in a series that has three full length musicals AND two webseries seasons AND several very well developed canon straight relationships (plus more from VHSCCs and now Tomb Quest)

I think another part of the problem is that there's a tendency to say "oh, well starkid are all good kind-hearted liberals, so we know they're actually cool with queer people!!" Great. Where are they then? It's like a perpetual "Oh don't worry, we know Starkid is good for it!" I grew up in actual, literal small town Michigan and knew more queer people than are currently confirmed to exist in Hatchetfield

And I think another issue is that the general fandom has no problem treating TCB like a separate entity when it comes to (not) promoting TCB stuff or (not) contributing to TCB kickstarters, but because of the overlap between the two companies (Corey, Brian Rosenthal, and Joey obviously, but also people who've been in TCB shows like Lauren Lopez and Curt Mega) I do think people tend to count TCB's heavy focus on queer characters/relationships as "basically starkid." Like TCB is the spinoff channel where Starkid puts their gay stuff. And that makes me really irritated, because whatever critiques I have of TCB, they at least make the conscious choice to center queer characters and stories and even (gasp!) romances (even if they all end in misery and/or death, at least they fucking exist man). Starkid may have Curt and Joey in their shows, but they do not have Agent Curt Mega and Owen Carvour, yknow?

Art Study for Owen Carvour from Spies are Forever