Why I Personally Feel the SQM/OUAT is Important
I needed to get this off my chest... It's written for an outside person to read, which may help explaining it to others as well as keeping things objective. I find a lot of the problems I run into is with people who don't watch the show, or simply don't understand the impact of media. *Many of the quotes are paraphrased as best I could remember.
A lot of people may say that it's just a TV show, don't take it so seriously, it's goofy writing, and so on... many of these people are even fans of the show. But that doesn't mean it isn't important and culturally relevant. Media shapes peoples' viewpoints, and is also a reflection on what society deems popular and worthy of their time and money. A network won't pay for a show that isn't popular after all. Seeing marginalized characters on both the big and small screen play a huge role in inspiring youth to reach whatever goals they may have. Because regardless of what that goal is, seeing someone like you on TV, being adored by other characters and then fans of the show gives you a sense that you are not small or insignificant. Your dreams are valid, and in this particular case: you deserve a happy ending too.
Let's do a bit of basic recap, in case you are coming into this completely blind. OUAT is a primetime drama on ABC that just finished its third season. It's about fairytale characters being brought to "the real world" via a curse, and is a delightful combination of magical fantasy and relatable human drama and life. However, one of the twists has sparked a huge movement within the fandom and it is now even growing beyond it.
That twist is: One of the main female leads - Emma - is the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, she is the product of True Love (a recurring motif) but was sent to the real world to avoid being cursed. While here, she gave up her baby for adoption when she was 18. Now, the other lead, Regina, is the Evil Queen from the Snow White fairytale. She was the one who cast the curse to bring them here in order to take away Snow's happy ending. But after living here some time and still feeling empty, she adopted a child: Emma's baby that she gave up for adoption. Flash forward to the present time in the story, and you now have an eleven year old boy with two mothers.
That alone was enough to imply the potential for a homosexual relationship. Even with Season One's premise being Emma "The Saviour" Swan vs Regina "The Evil Queen" Mills; they still were forced to work together in some cases and in fact acted VERY similar to divorced parents. Sharing visitation, discussing parenting styles, and ultimately prioritizing him above themselves. Season Two then gave us more magic-related drama, in which a murder had taken place and everyone in the town blamed Regina for it... Except Emma. Granted, at the time Regina was a bit more of a morally grey character, but she was innocent in this case and was well on her way to a properly written redemption arc for the sake of being a good mother to her son. And in Season Three, we've come quite a long way and now Regina and Emma are co-parenting quite well, even when Henry (their son)'s biological father was introduced into the story. They went from "My Son" to "Our Son" and worked together multiple times to save him.
These two women have fought against each other and side by side, overcome tragic (and similar) pasts, lost loves, save each others' lives (on multiple occasions) and are the only ones - of their respective love triangle male interests group - who have made magic together. Note: Within the context of the show, magic is synonymous with emotion; when reading a OUAT script it would not be out of bounds to replace the word magic with emotion, and you would have three years of Emma and Regina making emotions together - I'll leave that to sit with you for a bit.
They have literally saved the world, moved the heavens, and given each other their happy endings. Regina finally got her happy ending when she adopted Henry and had someone to love, and then at the end of Season 3A, when Emma and Henry's memories would be erased, Regina rewrote them so that it would be happy. To quote the scene: "That [losing our memories] doesn't sound like a happy ending." "It's not, but I can give you one."
The core of this TV Series has always been "True Love" and "Family". The "True Love's Kiss" is this sort of... incredibly special magical power that is only pulled out in the most dire of circumstances - as it is very rare and "the only magic powerful enough to transcend any realm or break any curse." There have in fact only been three TLKs on the show thus far (or four? I forget if Aurora and Philip did as well, to wake her from the sleeping curse): Snow White and Prince Charming, when he wakes her from the sleeping curse; Emma and Henry, when she wakes him from a sleeping curse; and finally, Regina and Henry, when he regains his memories and they are reunited - which breaks the then -active curse on the town. The point being, OUAT has already expressed a level of importance for family for their show.
Where does this become a movement, you ask? Well, you see, as much sense as it would make for these two to eventually grow closer romantically, the media is still queasy about having a gay couple on primetime network television. Throughout Season One, a lot of the "shipping" (as it's called on the internet) between Regina and Emma had mostly been borne of the chemistry between actresses, heated tension, a love of the premise that Snow White's child would end up with the Evil Queen, and the thought of a child being raised by two mothers. A lot more was left to the imagination and it was more for fun - because back then, their male love interests were also much better written and were an acceptable part of the show. However, now, it has gone from a show about fairytales, magic, family, and drama, to a show that consistently pushes heteronomativity no matter how poorly written.
The majority of people who want to see Emma and Regina become a couple don't want it simply because they are two women. That is just an added bonus opportunity for some edge/uniqueness, representation of a marginalized group, and so on. Most want it because it is the best written relationship, and if it were the endgame for the series it would be one of the best love stories ever told on TV. There have been three seasons of slow burn build up and character development for both of them individually, as a parenting unit, and then as friends, where it would not be in any way unrealistic for them to develop romantically. It makes sense.
Think about it for a second, this is the narrative:
- Person gives up their son because they feel unfit to be a parent - Person adopts said son - Years later, son finds birth parent and brings them to his home - Adoptive and Birth parents argue (stemming from the magical context of their world as well as custody of son), but adoptive parent still allows birth parent to spend time with son despite the fear of losing him, and despite society's view that birth parent is his "real parent" - Both parents spend a year/two getting closer together, working together for the sake of the son they share in a "complicated" relationship (actual dialogue) - They grow into a functional co-parenting team that, while having different styles, are inherently good at it - Most importantly, the son recognizes them both as his parents and truly loves them both
That is the bare bones of SwanQueen, Emma and Regina's relationship, add in the other fantasy elements if you want, but it all comes down to these slow steps closer together. Add on the looks, the intentional editing choices (zooms, pans, wide or narrow shots), and lines of dialogue such as "With you, Regina, I always know when you're lying [...] There you go, telling the truth again." "You might not be strong enough, but maybe WE are." "I'm talking about OUR magic." and classics from Season One such as: "What are you going to do, punish me?" and "How will I get the saviour to taste my forbidden fruit?"
But this is why it is important. Because that relationship that I just described is actually happening on TV right now. All of those things were actually done, said, directed, edited, and written a certain way to yield this as its end result. Yet, any notion of it ever becoming romantic is seen as delusional. And after it was brought to the attention of the writers (during a ComicCon panel discussion where they claimed the subtext to be "unintentional") male love interests have been forced upon both female leads. Not only that, but they were done in such a way that robbed those women of their strength, independence, and choice; and the men had to be re-written as well.
Hook was introduced in Season Two as a villainous pirate who: risked Henry's life, risked the lives of everyone in the town, spies on her, and made harassing slurs to Emma (ie. -while having a sword to Emma and stealing a compass she needed to get home- "There are much more enjoyable things I'd rather be doing with a woman on her back."). He was on a revenge quest for his love, Milah, but in one week had gone from that to pining after Emma, surprised that he could ever love again. Since then, he has pursued her relentlessly, despite her many rejections. And yet, there is a demographic who find this type of behaviour romantic and appealing. So much so, that at the end of Season Three, after saying that he sold his ship for a way back to see Emma, she kissed him. Effectively reducing the saviour to someone who could be bought and perpetuating the notion that if a man buys you a fancy dinner, you are expected to give him something in return. Nevermind the fact that he neglected to tell her that he risked Prince Eric's (of Eric and Ariel) life for the sake of said ship, that he kidnapped Emma's son to send him "away from danger" (when in fact, he was sending him away from anyone with the power to defeat the evil-doers of that arc), and didn't tell her that he was cursed in such a way that if they kissed she would lose her magic. Oh, and that many years prior he sold a child to a psychopathic demon. He also said that, in reference to Emma's engagement to another man falling through, "I'm glad you got your heart broken, because that means it still works" instead of acknowledging her pain and being of comfort... or understanding the literal definition of "broken" for that matter. Note, has never made magic with Emma, or saved her life.
Neal was also introduced in Season Two as Henry's biological father, as well as Baelfire (one of the many storybook characters, although he had come to the real world through different means). He was engaged to another woman by that time, and happily so, and Emma was happy for him. Others' jokes about her being jealous were pushed away with such apathy and neutrality that made their friendship enjoyable and natural. However, when it came to light that Neal's fiancée was using him, he seemed to switch gears unrealistically quickly. There was hardly a grieving period on his end. It went straight into "I've never stopped loving you, Emma." and "I'm not going to give up." and a childish fight with Hook over a lighter during a life or death situation. Emma even said that she had hoped he was dead because it would mean she wouldn't have to see him anymore and relive the pain of when he left her to be arrested for his crimes. Oh right, I forgot about that, didn't I? Neal and Emma had met as teenagers and when a stranger who happened to know of Neal's true identity told him so (literally, he just showed him a piece of paper that said "I know you're Baelfire.") he set her up to take the fall for thievery and never spoke to her again. Even after that same stranger approached him and said Emma was in Storybrooke (the magical town of fairy tale people) and she knew of her destiny as the saviour, Neal made no effort to seek her out. Instead, he got engaged to another woman. Note, has never made magic with Emma, or saved her life.
Robin Hood was actually introduced earlier than Season Three, however he was retconned to serve a purpose as Regina's soulmate. Fairy dust said so. Nevermind that Regina already had a true love in Daniel who she lost because her mother killed him before her eyes. In any case, she was not ready meet her new soulmate at the time, and did not meet Robin Hood at the intended time. Apparently this "ruined his life"... where he went off to meet Maid Marian and love her and have a son with her. Super ruined. But the writers killed her off and had Henry lose his memories so Regina was now "without a son" and Robin was now "without a mother for his son." They spent a cumulative 30-40 minutes of screen time together for an entire season, where the majority of scenes had Robin shooting at Regina with an "arrow that never misses its mark" only to have it miss. Or her complaining that he was still around or that he smelled like forest. It wasn't outright abusive or neglectful like CaptainSwan (Hook/Emma) or SwanFire (Neal/Emma), but it was poorly written and nowhere near developed enough to make the romance believable. The only reason Regina approached him both in the past and in the present was because someone else told her to, yet this is a woman who has consistently had her life decided for her (upbringing, groomed for royalty, arranged marriage to a man twice her age, etc) and then broke free from it. So to believe she would simply go along with following the fairy dust was out of character. It also supported the notion that Henry was not Regina's son, which is false. She raised him and truly loves him, even when he didn't have memories of her. To imply he was replaceable was in poor taste to the show and the characters. Note, he has never made magic with Regina.
Right now, these three heterosexual relationships are what is being portrayed as well-written, healthy, and fulfilling for the two main characters. Rather than taking the revolutionary chance to show that queer people can be fairytale princesses, meet their true love, and live happily ever after as well, this is being presented. It isn't simply neglectful of the demographic, because sad as it may be, queer people are used to being ignored. It doesn't make it right to ignore them, certainly, but to have a heterosexual relationship or love triangle in a TV show does not surprise nor upset us. But the media is sending the message that it is better to be in a relationship with a stalker, a traitor, or someone you just met, over someone you have spent a lot of time and effort building a teamwork with for the sake of uniting your families and parenting your child. Simply because it would be a home headed by two women.
Whether you watch the show or not, Once Upon a Time is present in mainstream culture today, and people are watching it. People are seeing these things and thinking that it's what is okay, normal, and good. That's why it is important to at least know about it. To know about the movement is to know about what is going on in media and the queer community today. It is representative of a societal issue: heteronormativity, the belief that heterosexual relationships are the norm, that everyone is straight until proven otherwise, and bi erasure (particularly, the argument that since neither character has been shown in a relationship with a woman before, they must be heterosexual instead of bi-, poly- or pansexual. Or that they could be questioning, or fluid).
The point of the movement is to make some noise about LGTBQ+ representation in media by using this as a starting point. Too many people have fallen in love with the show and its characters to give up now. Nor will we sit back and take it when abusive relationships are depicted as the better choice to a same sex one. And most of all: we will fight for a real true love happy ending, the one that was written for this show whether it was intentional or not.
