What really pisses me off…
…apart from climate change deniers, racism, violence against women, capitalism, big pharma, war, the financial industrial complex, dated school systems, the 1% and a few other things… is that Once Upon a Time had so many metaphors about being gay!! What’s up with that, uh?!
When antis talk about SQ shippers being delusional (they are the ones delusioned by heteronormativity), they usually only focus on the relationship between Emma and Regina. The show did so much more than the super obvious subtext between them, though.
If they hadn’t put so many references to CONVERSION THERAPY in the other stories, maybe Emma would have seemed less like a repressed queer woman. (*snorts* I mean, I doubt it, but…) It was always the totality of the show that sold the story of Emma and Regina in denial. And of their queerness (cause sometimes those clues are from them with other women than each other).
In season one, there was the forbidden love of Belle and Rumple - Rumple even says “I’m not a man” at one point. The implication is that he is a monster, but it works on another level too. Not being everything society expects a woman to be, actually makes many queer women feel like they are monsters.
And then look at what the Evil Queen tells Rumple!
Evil Queen: After her stay here – her association with you – no one would want her, of course. Her father shunned her, cut her off, shut her out.
Rumpelstiltskin: So, she needs…a home.
Evil Queen: He was cruel to her. He locked her in a tower and sent in clerics to cleanse her soul with scourges and flaying. After a while, she threw herself off the tower. She died.
Did you really fucking expect me not to think of the conservative father who sent a priest to his daughter’s room after finding her with another girl?!?! Really?? They sent in CLERICS TO CLEANSE her soul, for fuck’s sake!! This is supposed to be a modern fairy tale, so we gotta look for things that are relevant to the present day. Religious conservatives still torture queer people today to get rid of their homosexuality. Then she commits suicide - keeping the suicide rates for LGBTQ+ people in mind…
Then in season 2, we get more of it.
Tamara: Magic does not belong in this world. It’s unholy. We’re here to cleanse this land of it.
Tamara and Greg are super culty, the way they talk sounds religious. Just replace magic with queerness. On top of that, Regina’s being given electroshocks - very commonly used in conversion therapy. Again, how are our minds not supposed to go there?!
Father: You can let Sarah find you a husband or you can live in a hospital.
In OUAT in Wonderland, the same pattern happens. Alice can choose between finding a husband or being locked in a mental hospital (like, WTF?!?!?!). They’re afraid her delusional love will have a negative influence on her half-sister. Ummm… what else is it supposed to mean?! The episode is called “Who is Alice?” and knowing that Emma and Alice are heavily paralleled makes this even more like… Uh yeah, sure.
Mary Margaret: It may seem drastic, but it’s the only way Emma can be sure never to hurt anyone again.
Regina: This could be the worst idea you’ve ever had, and you hired the wicked witch as your nanny.
David: Well, we actually think it’ll be good for her. We… She could be normal.
Everyone remembers Emma’s well-meaning parents thinking being normal - getting rid of her magic - would be better for Emma. The naive homophobic and scared parent who thinks they’re doing what’s best for their child by sending them to conversion therapy.
Dorothy: The first time I visited Oz,, I was just a kid. I wasn’t here long, but when I went back to Kansas, I told my family what happened. They tried to have me committed.
Queer characters Dorothy and Ruby talk about people trying to have them committed and about being shunned by the village. Visiting Oz for the first time is really a metaphor for falling in love for the first time. Having a first queer experience. And people don’t believe it’s real love. Wonderland for Alice and Oz for Dorothy are the same metaphor.
Gideon: She ordered me to feel this pain if I resist again.
Gideon is being tortured in order to change his natural instincts and inclinations. She has his heart - the thing we love with - and he is punished when he resists her reprogramming of his heart. Come on! That is clearly conversion therapy!
Girl: “Did you really think putting on a ball gown made you one of us? What’s under that dress? Scales? You are an abomination.”
In season 7, Gothel’s true nature is being destroyed by bullies using religious rhetoric. They ask what’s under her dress - a clear reference to gender.
…and Gothel has a female friend who hides that she’s like her out of self-preservation. Yeah, they did that.
Am I missing something? I’m pretty sure I am, there were so many thinly veiled metaphors about the queer experience. And no one talks about it!!!
All of this makes me extra angry because it means they actually did research and know some people have terrible experiences and all of us live with this threat… and yet they just exposed us all to bullying and never firmly backed us up against people calling us crazy. They clearly get it or they wouldn’t have written this, so WTF?!
