Apparently an unpopular opinion on London Spy - post finale.
After watching the finale with the brilliant @kinneykid and @drinkbloodlikewine, and after scrolling through endless almost childish screaming regarding the finale, we have a few unpopular opinions to share below the cut.
Yes, spoilers will be mentioned.
Sure, discussion is encouraged.
But be prepared for us sticking by our guns.
Firstly, this was in no way a story that is homophobic. Why? Because beyond a few characters bringing it up in slurs, it was never the center of the story. The center of the story was about a character who is a spy, and a character who is his lover. They happen to be gay.
This, I think, is what has so many people foaming at the mouth; they can’t differentiate.
Never once was this story set out to “hurt the queers” or “be deliberately subversively homophobic”. How do I know? Replace one of the boys with a female character. Their relationship is never brought to bad light unless it’s in the interrogation room where everything either have ever done is brought into a bad light.
This is a story of a shitty situation and scary circumstances with characters that happen to be gay. That’s it. It’s not a plot to hate the gays, it certainly isn’t one to undermine anything we go, it’s a story, a very good story, a painfully sad story, where the main characters are gay, period.
People are unhappy that the ending was “so sad”, and are growing more and more angry about how that is a deliberate jibe at how homosexual relationships cannot be happy.
In truth, would you have been satisfied with Alex being alive and well, welcoming Danny into his arms and riding off into the sunset in their nice car?
Doubtful. Why? Because it’s unrealistic. And it would continue to be even if the main characters weren’t gay. It was ending that this story not only deserved but needed. It was a story that, from the beginning, was not a walk in the park. Everything both boys did was painful for them, for their families, for everyone around them. And again, not because they were gay.
The thing people seem to be the most angry about is that, honestly. That they didn’t get their happy ending. That Scottie died. That his lover died. That everyone was “punished” for being gay, and the only people who didn’t die were not gay. And Danny.
Step back a moment and wonder why. Not because they were gay, but because they were the ones that unrelentingly continued with their story, with their message and need to do something. Alex died because he would not give up his work or Danny. He died, ironically, by his own work, because of it. Never once was it implied that his death was a deliberate homosexual killing. Not once.
Why did Scottie die? Because he helped Danny. After he was told not to, after he was warned not to, after he continued to push a boy who had been told not to. He was in the way of dangerous work and was working very hard to not keep Danny silent. He did not die because he was gay. He died because he wouldn’t stop, just like Danny wouldn’t, and Alex wouldn’t.
The people who backed out, who didn’t help, who did what they were told, they stayed alive.
Not because they were straight.
This was a story about shitty circumstances and scary situations, and the main characters happened to be gay. For people who keep howling on about wanting exposure in the media, who don’t want to be seen as fetishes or stereotypes? This is it, this is your show. Danny and Alex are two men in love. They live in different parts of London, they go to work, they meet together, they make love, they go to dinner. They are not the epitome of the “fluffy rainbows and sunshine” that things such as fanfiction make these relationships sometimes.
That’s what fanfiction is for.
A life of being gay? It’s hardly that pretty. You still have bills to pay, you get into arguments with your friends, with your partner, you have to feed the cat and vacuum the house. You have to go out sometimes so you don’t lose your mind. Being gay and being straight or bi or trans or anyone on any spectrum of their becoming, is not a fairytale storybook. It’s life. And life sucks.
So for anyone seeking “genuine representation” in the media, you needn’t look further honestly, this is it.
