the cancellation of Our Flag Means Death
you know, i don't normally write this sort of stuff, but it's been tearing me apart since i found out about the cancellation
this show meant so much to so many people, myself included. so often, the extent of queer representation in a show is one stereotypical gay white man. and when (or if) that stereotypical gay man falls in love, it very quickly becomes clear that there is no love.
sure, they'll kiss or hug, but there's no depth, no meaning and certainly no feeling.
more often than not, our queer representation is entirely subtext, and only if we're lucky do we get actors agreeing that characters would make a good couple (misha collins and destiel). usually, we're not that lucky (martin freeman and johnlock).
but it feels as though for once, we had a queer show with love, with real bonafide love.
ofmd had diverse relationships, diverse characters and diverse representation.
for once, we didn't have to hide behind screens trying to read between the lines of every line. we weren't screen recording clips trying to find gentle looks, a graze of the hand or going half crazy thinking a wall colour means something (cough cough supernatural cough cough)
we didn't have to hide our love for fear of ridicule because we knew the whole cast and production team put the love out there.
now i know that ofmd didn't have the healthiest of relationships sometimes, but the love the characters felt for each other was palpable
seeing ed touch his foot to stedes when the english boarded in the end of s1, Jim saying their favourite colour was teal after Olu's earring, izzy's walls finally breaking down and telling ed of the love he felt, hell even pete and lucius 24 hour fuck fest, every moment of that show was just full of love and compassion.
our flag means death deserved so much better than it got.
our community deserved so much better than we got.
to david jenkins and the cast and crew, i thank you from the bottom of my heart. i know for so many people, there will never be another show like ofmd. there will never be characters that mean so much as the characters from ofmd. we are devastated, but we are so glad to have gone through this experience with everyone.
and although everyone's heartbroken about the cancellation, we can take solace in the fact that we can talk it through.
gummygunk
germansingergirl
snowghoul
areudirty
