With Wu being pulled from Gaga, I’m not shocked but I am disgusted because the reactions from some of these BL fans is getting incredibly concerning, I speculate part of the reason these fans are mad is irritation and frustration at Skynani getting opportunities that their faves don’t ( a practice inherited from Kpop stan culture- the whole my faves are being mistreated bit), I think some fans are punishing Skynani for refusing to do a BL, to be shipped and forced to do the song and dance BL couples normally have to do. I’ve been a fan of Sky since the beginning of his career and I think if not for the shipping aspect of the package, the way that being in a koojin limits actors into only being able to do projects with their partners, Sky would do a BL- same with Nani. Both Sky and Nani are leaps above the majority of the actors in Gmmtv in terms of fame, Sky has been famous for far longer than the majority of actors at Gmmtv have been at the company, Nani is part of the F4 and best friends with Bright and Win so he’s not new to this level of intense parasocial fame. I think these companies have to implement a system that keeps these fans in check because it’s starting to become concerning, remember when fans were sending Force and Book so much hate, they changed the script of Only Friends after 3 episodes, you have to let the actors and production team tell their stories before you make a judgement. Crying queerbaiting at this point is mad, what if one of the characters is queer, what if there’s queer subtext? These fans would be the type to call the Picture of Dorian queerbaiting, it’s honestly ridiculous. Acting like actors are secretly gay or straight depending on whatever narrative fits them then acting like gay men are predators for existing then deciding no actually gay men must be protected, forgetting gay men are not the only group in the lgbt umbrella. This black and white thinking is ruining creative expression. I’m sick of fujoshis! Also I thought companies sign a contract when their shows get distribution, why is Gagoolala allowed to get rid of shows when they feel like it?
*breathese deeply* *reminds self there are bigger problems in the world than queer media labels*
But ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Like, yes, Gaga and gmmtv would’ve needed to enter into a contract for distribution rights. So someone had to break it to make this happen (but I could see gaga and gmmtv coming to a mutual agreement that doesn’t hurt either of them too much, especially if it was gaga deciding it). This would’ve likely been a great addition to Gaga’s catalog. I’d also guess Gmmtv could’ve gotten better offers from other streaming services, too. They had an an angle on this, and it pisses me off that a populist BL-bait wave petitioned for its removal.
Gaga’s official message stated they were eager to add an action series to their catalog, and they’re SO. FUCKING. RIGHT. to be excited. Because it’s rare to get queerness in action. It’s one of the reasons I got pumped about this series. I fantasize about an explicitly queer-centered superhero series—I don’t even need high quality. I want BL Sky High. And my fandom journey started in reading and writing meta and slash fic for avatar the last airbender, and I’m deeply fascinated by the queer subtext in HxH and the queer text in Sailor Moon. I also recently started Bang Brave Bang Bravern, a queer mecha series, and I’m loving it. Wu had me fucking AMPED.
And not because I thought SkyNani were going to kiss. It was because I trusted Waa to weave queer themes into the narrative. When I saw Great, Singha, Godji, and Sea there, I got even more pumped. Because those are members of the party, some officially and others make it apparent for those with eyes to see. Godji even states her character is canonically trans in the special episode, which tells me that’s a major element. It’s actually pretty rare for our kathoey actors to play characters whose gender identity is made an explicit part of the story; 3 Will Be Free is significant for that alone. Reports about the novel were that it was queer. Gaga took it under their wing. Everything was saying it was queer except the trailer which notably did not sell queerness or BL tropes—so very much not baiting.
Queerness as an experience or a genre does not begin and end at romance, at a kiss, at true love’s stop at same-sex fuck station. There are so many other things that bind us queer people beyond same-sex love—not because they are inherent to queerness but because they are inherent to queerness at certain historical moments and therefore become part of our lore, our anxieties, our celebrations, our understandings of our shared queer history and our belonging to one another!!! It’s not all our specific culture or our specific institutions, but there’s the understanding that if I lived there at that time, that could’ve been something like my life simply because of who I’m attracted to, the people I would associate with, or even the people I’d be afraid to be associated with because of what the dangers could be if others found out about how I feel inside.
People need to extend their ideas of queerness beyond love. You don’t have to be a fan of all the series and films or in the right place to watch all of them, but that personal preference is quite a difference than demanding a series be removed from queer identification (without even having seen it!). I posted about the 1987 shirt in the Wu trailer already, but you have to understand what the 1980s immediately mean to the global queer populations. This show is primed to do some delicate queer storytelling.
I’m so pissed off because I trust Gaga knew what they were doing. I trust gmmtv knew what they were doing—you know, the gmmtv that’s the host to multiple directors and producers who worked on a two season gay series for an HIV education and prevention organization? Yeah, I trust they knew what the fuck they’re talking about regarding queerness.
I’m generous to the sao-Y and fujoshis and BL fandom cuz I think many of them are much more nuanced with their understandings and experiences of queerness than they’re given credit for within the popular discourse. However, the setting of happy-endings and BL onto a pedestal of proper queerness (the former of which happens beyond BL, too) needs to stop. The refusal of so many people to watch queer series from Thailand that aren’t BL…It’s not cute.
LGBT+ media is so much bigger than gay romance. Let queerness gallop across every genre, let it ford every stream, follow every rainbow, baby! Let it stretch a bridge the breadth of the Sky-Nani hyphen so we can see what’s in-between. We know it’s not BL (and that was Gaga’s biggest misstep, here) but what other lgbt+ shades could Wu bring?
Below: an actual image of me holding myself back about people’s “queer” takes
