let me preface this by saying I don’t watch much television. and the other night, I saw something that reminded me why. it was a sitcom - you know the kind. the ones where the man is a clumsy, bumbling, unthoughtful doofus who can barely tie his own shoes. who manages to fuck up everything he touches and who constantly has to be pulled out of the messes he creates by his long-suffering wife. the wife who puts up with him - though no one is quite sure why, as she is far more traditionally attractive and intelligent and capable than he is. it’s always clear she’s settling in these scenarios. lowering herself because she certainly deserves better, could easily find better, but she endures her husband’s antics with a shake of her head and an indulgent roll of her eyes because “boys will be boys.” cue laughter.
he’s not especially happy with her because GOSH she’s just no fun, always telling him to put his socks away, and she’s not especially happy with him because he’s a man-child who can’t be allowed to operate the dishwasher on his own lest he destroy the entire house. it’s perhaps the most insidious of heteronormative tropes because it is everywhere and has been for years. it’s unfunny and inescapable and you know where you can find plenty of it?
kylux fandom.
every time hux refers to kylo as an “ox” or “oaf” we’re playing right into this trope. every time kylo is painted as incompetent and incapable we’re saying this is what we want to see more of. every time we write or draw kylo as this ham-handed giant who can’t be trusted to handle anything breakable because his pawing is sure to shatter it, we’re signing off on some really blatant heteronormativity. and it only gets worse if we consider how hux is so often played in fanon as well. organized and eloquent to kylo’s messy, booming ruckus. efficient and intellectual to kylo’s utter lack of self-discipline. refined and well-put together and attractive to kylo’s crudely-hewn hugeness. the one who picks up behind kylo with a put upon sigh.
like, maybe if these were the characters we were given, I could understand writing/drawing them this way. but they aren’t! instead, we are stripping away the kylo who is self-disciplined to the point of self-destruction, who has spent years living an ascetic lifestyle (which takes self-control to an extreme where it becomes dangerous) and replacing him with someone unrecognizable. we are taking a character who, when he wasn’t melting down, was soft-spoken and quite clearly intelligent and introverted and making him into what? a mindless jock archetype? quite literally the opposite of the character were were presented with in tfa.
and why? for what? because we, apparently, somehow have not gotten enough of this trope from the movies and television it has occupied since who knows when?
that’s… not especially progressive, if you ask me.
