The way the captain is faceless, looking out to sea, and the way that echoes how queer men in the time period in question would have to hide their identity to avoid charges for "buggery," "sodomy," and possible execution. The way the style is fairly appropriate to 19th-century pastoral romanticism, but the captain's coat is patterned in rainbow colors, solemn and strikingly defiant at once. The way the British Royal Navy was simultaneously known as a haven for gay/queer men seeking to avoid family pressures to marry, but was still technically bound to severely and legally punish anyone who was actually caught having same-sex relations. The way the strength of the Navy was also the chief driver of British colonialism, imperialism, and expansion (because think about it, how did a relatively small island in the North Sea exert so much force on global geopolitics?) The way that the captain's race is ambiguous; we aren't sure if he's a white man making a calculated and cynical political statement about "tolerance," like modern-day rainbow capitalism. Or perhaps he is a mixed-race captain like John Perkins, who rose in the ranks despite prejudice, and is silently displaying the intersectionality of his own identity (queer AND a person of color working within a system that generally hates him and wants to erase him, even as it makes ruthless use of his talents).
It's an image that is at once one of both openness and secrecy, tolerance and oppression, the upholding and the dismantling of patriarchal imperial power, the comfort of the anonymous safe haven and the courage of exposing who you really are to an unsympathetic heteronormative world. And it was made by a neural network and could have been entirely goofy or anachronistic or otherwise strange, but instead created this absolutely devastating piece of art that actually speaks strongly to the real queer experience at this point and place in history. Bravo.
turnnoffyourmind
amandla
pixelskylines
discoholicmusic
prguitarman
stormborns
