You still gonna keep writing clexa, right?
Listen up, my precious little gay ducklings.
I want to say a few things. I haven’t watched the episode yet, but because of an onslaught of these messages, I can damn well guess what happened, and I am fairly disappointed. Not because I was innately invested in this ship. In all honesty I rarely am. I just thoroughly enjoy writing and providing positive spaces for queer representation as it is, this case is just further proof, incredibly lacking. But I’m disappointed for you. For all the lil gay cubs who keep seeing portrayals that just break their hearts. I’m disappointed for you because I would hope that by now there would be a couple, a canon, lesbian couple that you could sigh and think, ‘yeah, I’m gonna have that.’
I’m not old, but in internet terms, I’m ancient. Which is why I feel like it’s my duty (also the duty of the ‘Elders’) to try to provide all ya’ll frightened little baby otters some reassurance.
When I was a kid, I can honestly say I don’t remember hearing the word lesbian for a large portion of my life. It wasn’t that I was sheltered, they just didn’t exist. The first inkling of representation I had in my life was when Olivia Wilde did the seduce-the-straight-girl trope on The OC. Yeah. I was nearly in high school when that happened. And let me just tell you, that was a train-wreck and a half. But that was my first experience, and it set the tone.
And I’m not saying that dreaded ‘kids these days don’t appreciate what they got,’ because that’s not true. I see how much you cling to and love what y’all have. What I am saying is be fucking tore up about this. You’re allowed. The shows we watch and the movies we see are supposed to mirror our lives, they’re supposed to be inclusive and universal and innately human, perhaps the most thorough understandings of how complex humanity is, put together in little blocks for us to chew on, swish through our teeth, spit out, share with our friends, that we’re meant to inhabit and become better people through viewing, and if not become better people, we’re supposed to at least be able to turn off the real world, turn off bills and hate and violence and suffering and that fight we had with our parents, and purely get enjoyment. The most enjoyable shows are the most complex, the most vibrant, the messiest hodge-podges of human experiences that sleep in the crevices of your brain and really make you think, whether it be deep thinking or it be simply chuckling because you can’t forget. Television shows are the new novel. They’re the new literary. And thus, should be treated as such, should stand up to the rigors of analysis and hold up under scrutiny.
What I am saying though, is that you won’t appreciate this now, but the fucking progress that has been made is astounding. I’ve come from Olivia Wilde basically showing up in shows and making out with a chick and that’s all, to literally having a plethora, an entire television lineup in which one can scroll through, throw a dart at TV guide, and find lesbians. Granted, it is often problematic and we suffer these tired tropes, but it is a goddamn mesmerizing thing to see when I think about it.
So, yes, we are finally reaching that point of saturation where it is not novel to simply have a gay character. Great. I’m celebrating the fuck out of that, and so should you.
Step Two: getting well-rounded, fully developed, sexuality-independent characters who are not cannon-fodder (canon-fodder? see that pun?). We’re getting there.
I think why this specific instance is so harmful and so upsetting is because it was some of the best female-driven characters, regardless of sexuality. Not only did we get two bad-ass chicks who were fucking leaders and so incredibly relatable, we got them to kiss!
Weirdly enough, one of the best examples of a lesbian relationship right now is on The Walking Dead. In a zombie-fueled wasteland filled with a plethora of survival issues, there is a couple who just… they exist. They contribute and do their jobs and are important have had great development (for the most part for being secondary characters) and they’re just doing it, man. That’s what I want. I want a world in which this happy couple exists, even if it is fueled by zombies. And get this. If one of them did die, it’d be completely normal! So there’s that. To be fair, there have been like 752053 straight couple deaths vs. 1 gay death (as far as I can remember).
But I digress. This entire thing is a digression, but that’s not the point. What I want to say to you lil precious porcupines, is that it’s going to be okay. We don’t all die. We get older, we find pretty girls to kiss and take to baseball games and sit quietly for hours around and plan futures, we get divorced, we get 25 year anniversary parties, we get all those things. I promise. And listen, right now we don’t get good representation in television shows. That’s true. But it’s coming.
And until it does come, keep demanding better. Keep supporting indie movie and show makers, and writers (like me! and I don’t mean financially. okay, like a little i mean it, but mostly, I get off on reading tags and getting feedback), and artists who create amazing images and content. Support them. Shower them in love and shower them in support. Uplift the content you want to see.
The point of this was to validate your hurt, yes, but to also promise that it’s getting so much better. To try to, in my vain attempt to be a better human, tell you that we don’t all die.
And yes, I will keep writing. As best I can. As long as I can. With as much success as I can to provide a safe, good space of content where the same two people fall in love in stupid ways and struggle to be real. I only want to make real things. And real life is fights and kisses and dirty make outs with too much whiskey and falling in love with a stranger.
