#gaycoding

[ufonaut]

Sam Rohdie on homosexual subtext in Luchino Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers (1960), from BFI Film Classics: Rocco and his Brothers (Rocco e i suoi Fratelli).

[susansontag]

not to start a war but I actually do think, insofar as media/film studies goes, there is such a thing as a ‘romantic friendship’ between two central female characters, honestly especially in films made by men about two female friends. by this I mean it’s not uncommon to find one more ‘masculine’ (by this I simply mean, more assertive) and one more ‘feminine’ female friend in these pairings, specifically because this dynamic mirrors heterosexual partnerships and is thus easily digestible to viewers who are primed to interpret pairings in this particular way.

this isn’t to say female directors/writers/artists don’t similarly adopt this coding, because ultimately it’s familiar and archetypal, and they often do. I’m also not giving any kind of value judgement on whether this is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, in some ways it could be argued positively as it has encouraged the writing of more assertive female characters, but it also necessarily relies on there being a weaker, more stereotypical female character for her to play off of. I also wouldn’t say ‘feminine/feminine’ female friendships are somehow better representation, because that requires being a gender essentialist about women lol. it’s also not really related to butch/femme dating dynamics in lesbian history, though they’ve also been subject to critique on some similar grounds.

it’s just interesting because heteronormativity has its tendrils in so much art, it’s basically inextricable from it, but this phenomenon has also somewhat opened up avenues to explore lesbian-coding in female/female character dynamics of the past. it’s sort of ironic, but there you go.

[mercutiodidntdieforthis]

There needs to be a word for when the content itself doesn’t queerbait you, but the fanbase does. Do you know how many shows/movies/etc. I’ve gotten into because there’s “literally a canon gay couple” and it’s just two guys who are good friends? Or because there’s “an actual canon trans character included” and it’s just a skinny boy with fragile masculinity? Like...LGBT headcanons are great, but people will insist they’re canon because of “the subtext” when there’s hardly anything there and you can interpret it as LGBT if you really try to. And I’m talking about when it clearly wasn’t the writer’s intent, but something becomes so fanon that people just spread around that it’s real representation.

Idk it’s frustrating as hell and I really want people to stop doing it. I’m so tired of it lmao

[transbilliam]

gay coding ≠ fandom headcanons. fandom headcanons are different events or ideas that you can imagine happening in the same universe that maybe do or maybe don’t contradict the storyline, but it doesn’t matter because it’s purely fandom. whereas on the contrary, gay coding is integrated in the text/screentime of the subject matter by the writers of the book/movie.

eddie kaspbrak being coded as gay isn’t a headcanon. it’s not some thought that fans decided was a cool nice thought and went, hey, i like that! it’s deliberate gay coding throughout the novel and 1990 movie that is IN the canon. it’s not made up by the fandom.

that is all.

[sinchronicity]

yesterday i learned that victor skated to a song called “the lilac fairy” by tchaikovsky as his junior world championships short program and like. i just. these baby gay Moves

[transbilliam]

YEAH SURE obviously this isn’t going to be totally complete especially because i’m not like suuuper well versed in the novel, i only got about 1/3 of the way in but you know!

just a disclaimer, all quotes used are NOT exact quotes, since i read the novel on an audiobook i can’t look up exact wording!

* okay so first off this isn’t really evidence but eddie is described as being small, quiet, repressed, and has a very overbearing mother that leaves him with no real room to explore things related to growing up maybe the way the other boys have. * at the beginning of the novel, king discusses the murder of adrian mellon as he is out with his boyfriend don haggardy. adrian is one of the only lgbt characters in the novel along with don. adrian mellon is described extremely similar to the way that eddie is described: being smaller, but also fiestier. adrian and eddie are both also THE ONLY asthmatic characters in the novel. they’re ALSO both killed by pennywise. i personally believe king did this purposefully, showing eddie and adrian as foils of each other. * also, in a passage when the losers reconvene in derry as adults, mike talks about how adrian mellon was killed, and describes him as “the victim was a gay and rather childlike man Adrian Mellon. He had a bad case of asthma.” Then, “Eddie’s hand stole out and touched the side of his aspirator.” this COULD be eddie sympathizing with adrian because they’re both asthmatic, but who feels a sense of community or sameness with others because you’ve both got asthma? i feel like it’s something else mike said that made eddie do that… * another BIG thing is eddie’s fear, or what It transforms into for him. it’s different in both the 1990 and 2017 movies, but in the book, the leper speaks to eddie, and the things he says are all sexual, showing that eddie’s fear isn’t just uncleanliness, it’s also sexual interaction (with a MAN). which would make sense, seeing as when this is set, in the 1950s, in a small town, it would be impossible for eddie to be proud of his sexuality in a close minded atmosphere, if he even realized his feelings. it is/was common for gay people to feel afraid or angry at themselves for their sexuality - internalized homophobia. some things that the leper says to eddie: “Come back here, kid! I’ll blow you for free. Come back here!… Want a blow-job for a quarter or a dime? COME BACK ANYTIME!” * another thing is eddie’s relationship when he’s older. eddie marries a woman named myra and king compares her again and again to eddie’s overbearing mother. it’s a loveless marriage and relationship. eddie married someone that was comfortable, familiar, who was the same as what he grew up with, not someone he loved. * on the other hand, as they’re growing up as kids, eddie and richie have an extremely close relationship, even as it’s mocking and humorous most of the time, and in one of my favorite passages, “Eddie hated when Richie called him Eds. But he kind of liked it, too.” * eddie also has a sort of “hero-worship” type relationship/looking up to bill in the book as kids. he assumes anyone else sees bill the same way, and while the other losers definitely all admire bill, i don’t think it comes close to eddie as a 10 year old saying he would easily die for bill. * one of the biggest reasons he’s headcanoned as gay in the book is the way that stephen king wrote his death. going back to his relationship with richie growing up… as eddie’s dying in the sewers, richie holds him in his arms and eddie holds richie’s face. richie assures eddie that he isn’t going to die and calls him “eds”, and eddie says the ever famous words: “for the last time, don’t call me that, richie. you know i…” and dies before finishing the sentence. this is a CLEAR ambiguous and purposeful ending to eddie’s life that keeps the possibility of eddie saying something more open by stephen king. and it’s the ultimate tragedy, because eddie dies before he’s able to tell richie WHAT he truly felt IF he truly felt a certain way about him. * there is definitely more but that’s all that i can think of off the top of my head!

[transbilliam]

since u know everything there is to know about eddie kaspbrak i need to ask u, this fool came on my post and tried to say that eddie liked girls. thoughts?

okay so first of all im really flattered that im thought of as the know all for eddie !! i like to think that im knowledgeable about him bc i spend so much of my time creating content about him/learning more from the movies and book : )

so from what i saw on your blog, people want to bring up eddie’s “crush” on gretta bowie, the bully. first, i’m going to talk about eddie’s gay coding, and then i’m going to talk about why this “crush” doesn’t mean anything.

okay, so, i have two posts on my blog compiling evidence that eddie is gay and direct coding from THE BOOK  and from THE 1990 MOVIE. these are more complete than i’m going to get into on this post, but i highly suggest you give those posts a read if you want more of a substantial argument on why eddie is gay. the point of both of those posts, though, is that there has been SO much gay coding for eddie throughout the history of the It franchise, beginning of course with the book. stephen Ugly king hasn’t directly said that eddie is gay, but he’s given all the coding and implications that eddie is gay, and done pretty much all he can do without outright saying it. with this in mind, let’s talk about eddie’s “crush”:

so… gretta bowie. if we are keeping in mind the fact that eddie is coded to be gay, then his crush on gretta seems like a textbook case of compulsory heterosexuality. all of his friends and peers - especially bill and ben - are developing crushes on girls. he would also feel the need to have a crush on a girl. there’s actually a tricky phenomenon with compulsory heterosexuality where the person experiencing it tends to crush on people who are inaccessible. some examples: if you’re a lesbian experiencing comp. het, you might crush on a guy who very clearly would never like you back - maybe, the hottest guy in school or the captain of the football team. this phenomenon subconsciously happens because the gay person in question will never have to confront the consequences of their crush in real life. it will remain a crush, and have no chance of going on to become a relationship. for eddie, this is gretta bowie. she’s popular, pretty, and somewhat of a “queen bee” of the school. she also dislikes him, and bullies him. gretta bowie is a compulsory heterosexuality crush. 

okay, so that was a lot. but anyway. eddie is gay, and there’s so, so much gay coding for his character throughout the book and miniseries. it frustrates me that people want to use one flimsy crush on gretta bowie to invalidate that. 

[transbilliam]

@yikeswheeler replied your post “the fact that pennywise calls eddie “girly boy” multiple times in 1990...”

i think he calls richie girly boy too if i remember correctly

not in it 1990 ! the transcript of it 1990 is HERE  and if you ctrl+f search “girly boy” it was used twice by pennywise towards just eddie:

1. 

[shower scene - child Eddie]

Pennywise: It's okay, Eddie. Hi! I just wanted to say hello! Hot enough for you up there, is it? This is a little inconvenient, Eddie. Hold on while I make a few adjustments. Here I am, wheezy! You're gonna like it down here. Won't do any good to run, girly boy. See you in your dreams. Come back any time. Bring your friends.

2.

[Eddie visits the pharmacy as an adult]

Eddie: Mr. Keene?

Mr Keene/Pennywise: Get out of Derry while you still can. 

Eddie: Mr. Keene, please.

Mr Keene/Pennywise: Beware, little Eddie. Beware! Girly boy!