Todd has two dads, and that’s awesome
So, I don’t usually get the typical empowered reaction to representation that gets discussed so often. As a lesbian, I love things with gay characters and have always been drawn to them, but it has never felt as straightforward as wanting to see myself (or what I aspire to be) in the media I consume. Don’t get me wrong: I understand the importance of representation as a direct means of reassuring marginalized people that they are not alone, that people like them have a place in the world. I just don’t usually have that direct of an emotional response.
Ben and Cillian. Specifically, the specific parental tropes that they hit.
Parents who are willing to fight, and even give their lives, to protect their child are a mainstay of fiction. Lily and James Potter fighting an unwinnable fight to save Harry. Darth Vader finally killing Palpatine to save Luke. Katara’s mother in AtLA saying that she was the village’s waterbender in order to save Katara. Fantine trying to care for Cosette (even if that doesn’t always go so well). Motherfucking Mufasa, guys.
Parents who offer their child unwavering, unflagging love and support. Joyce in Stranger Things. Burt in Glee (at least the first two seasons; I can’t comment past that). Hazel’s parents in The Fault in Our Stars. Iroh being Zuko’s dad because his real dad was shit. Jane’s mother and abuela in Jane the Virgin.
Ben and Cillian being given the role of such furiously loving parents fills me with so much joy and gratitude I can barely even express it. They take Todd in after the massacre, knowing full well what this will mean for their lives. They plan to get Todd out of Prentisstown before he is forced to kill, betting their lives on keeping a secret in a world that is fundamentally opposed to secret-keeping. They teach Todd to be good. They watch him learn to talk and walk and grow into his own person, all while knowing exactly when that will have to end. They were never fully expecting to make it out of Prentisstown alive. Every minute throughout that whole 12 year period, they knew exactly what sort of heartbreak they would face.
And then both of Todd’s reunions with Ben. That assurance and unconditional love that Ben has for Todd in spite of all the guilt he carries is just so powerful.
The love that Ben and Cillian have for Todd as parents is so beautiful, and I cannot overstate how much it means to me, as a gay woman who definitely wants kids, that the couple given that story is gay. So much of the narrative around same-gender parents that I faced growing up framed same-gender parents as inadequate at best, and predatory at worst. Discussions of marriage equality and lgbt adoption and fertility treatments would slide rapidly slide into arguments about pedophilia, and even when they did not take that dark of a turn, there was always the view of gay couples having children being fundamentally selfish and harmful to the child. Even as I know that these views are rooted in homophobia, they have stuck with me. Today, the main insecurity I have about my own lesbian-ness is how it may affect my future kids. It is the internalized crap that has its hooks deepest in my brain.
And Ben and Cillian? Their depiction for me is empowering. Reassuring. Even healing, if you want to get really cheesy about it.
Thanks, Nessie. It means a lot.
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