Queerbaiting or Shipkilling?

At ComicCon the Exec Producer of Once Upon a Time caused an uproar when he announced the show has plans for a gay relationship on the series. The angry mob wasn't the religious right, but fans of the show who ship Swan Queen (a relationship between the Evil Queen and Snow White's adult daughter Emma Swan) because along with the announcement of this future character was an official statement that Swan Queen was never going to happen and that any romantic interest between them was not intentionally written this way.

On Tumblr and Twitter Swan Queen fans are very upset, tweeting messages to the shows creators saying "I'm not intentionally saying this. Fuck You." The Swan Queen ship is one of the most vocal in the Once fandom, and have accused non-shippers of homophobia. This post, resulting from when one of the show actors stated that SQ wasn't going to happen, is a good example of some of the things the fandom says.

As a Once fan, I do NOT get Swan Queen as a couple. Both characters have had exclusively heterosexual relationships, they are constantly at odds, and the Queen tried to kill Emma at least once. That doesn't necessarily mean they can't get together. Spike and Buffy happened so anything is possible! But I never saw the obvious signs that the SQ shippers did.

What I did see was the potential for a different show. Emma is the biological mother of Henry, a child she placed for adoption. Regina is Henry's adoptive mother. Emma and Regina both are emotionally damaged people. Emma was separated from her parents and believed she was abandoned. Regina's mother killed her fiance and forced her to marry a man she didn't love. A lot of the fandom stories stripped away the fairytale background of the series to focus on a modern world where two mothers try to find a family with each other. That's what SQ fans want.

It's just that they are trying to find it in a series that is all about the fairytale background.
 
I can't speak about the difficulty of not being represented in the media. I'm a cis, white, straight, female. I have plenty of characters that represent me. I might hate what that representation is much of the time (like in rom coms) but I have Kitty Pryde and Veronica Mars, and the cat lady from The Simpsons. My grandmother was the daughter of Polish immigrants in a poor Chicago neighborhood. She used to tell me that she was so excited to see any movie where the brunette wasn't the bad girl. She wasn't going to see someone who looked like her or lived like her, but she took her media representations where she could. Some GLBT have told me of similar things in their own life. They didn't have shows that really represented their lives so they'd watch Saved by the Bell viewing Zach as being gay and hooking up with AC Slater.

And even though there is more queer characters in the media now, they still are not representative to the whole community. Finding representation where you can still happens. Sometimes shows take advantage of it and intentionally play up the subtext in order to get LBGT fans to tune in. This is called Queerbaiting.

That Feminist Dyke has a great overview of Queer baiting, although I disagree about the idea that Sherlock started Queer baiting in the first episode. I felt that the "we aren't a couple" was an attempt to make it clear to fans that they weren't going to be a couple. This is because many of the modern readings have included the homosexual context (such as The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes). I do believe that by the second series the show was queerbaiting, possibly because the talk about them not being a couple didn't stop the world from shipping it anyway.

Anyway, Queer baiting is a thing. It's a real thing and a real problem. Rizzoli and Isles admits that they play up the lesbian subtext even though they don't plan to ever have the girls set together. This was their promo poster for a news season.

The Once statement at SDCC seems to be the opposite of Queer baiting.  It's officially not happening. To be fair, there were plenty of reasons to not think it was going to happen before now (like the statement of other writers and actors on the show and the fact that they keep trying to murder one another). And yet people are furious with the series in a way that I haven't seen people angry with Rizzoli and Isles. They are hurt that the show has ruined their ship. I shipped Marian/Guy from Robin Hood. I know about shows killing your ship (literally). But I just didn't watch the final season of the show and went into fanfiction world where they lived happily ever after. I didn't tweet threats to the producers.

But then again, Marian and Guy were a ship for me, not a representation of me. It's natural for SQ fans to be more upset. Still, I don't know what shows are supposed to do when they find out about GBLT fans who are finding unintentional subtext in their work. If they play it up they or continue they are Queer baiting. If they come out and say that it isn't going to happen then they are accused of being homophobic (because they don't come out and state that other non-canon ships aren't real) or killing the ship. 

The answer, of course, if to have more representations of GLBT characters and relationships so that people didn't need to search subtext for characters that they relate with. Of course, that comes with its own set of issues I'll have to write about one day. I will point out that it is hard for me to agree with the charges of Buffy playing into the dead lesbian cliche when EVERY couple on the series met an unhappy ending. If they allowed Willow/Tara to be the only couple to be together it would be awfully paternalistic and pandering of the series.

Upon Emergent Occasions: GOP Edition

 Meditation 17:



PERCHANCE he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill as that he knows not it tolls for him. Well that is what he gets for not planning in advance to have someone legally obligated to tell him that information. That could never happen to me. The church is limited to only the chosen few REAL TRUE CHRISTIANS. The ones who come every week to services, but not all of them because some of them might be divorced or gay or something. When the church baptizes a child, that action doesn't concern me unless I know the people. I don't have time to care for every random kid that gets baptized. And when the church buries a man, I don't care unless it is someone I know or the death somehow benefits me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; and if that author wanted me to care about other people then he'd have those people somehow involved in my life. When one man dies, we can rip out that chapter because the book is too long if we have chapters for everyone. I mean, if it was me or someone I liked we should keep the chapter. But not random people who aren't us. The torn out chapters liter the floor to be stepped on by people coming to read the books about us important people.




There was a contention as far as a suit (in which, piety and dignity, religion and estimation, were mingled) which of the religious orders should ring to prayers first in the morning; and it was determined, that they should ring first that had the least money, resources, or fortune. They don't deserve to stay in bed if they don't have some money. In fact, why should we ring the bell at all? Bell ringing should be done by the poor and unfortunate so that they can be motivated to make better lives for themselves so that don't have to ring it anymore.




Great men are islands all alone in the world. Some lesser man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe should be happy. It is better off without that worthless clod. Any clod worthy of being Europe wouldn't be able to be washed away be the sea. No man's death diminishes me, because I believe that life is some zero-sum Highlander style game. When someone else loses then I must win! And I know that the bell isn't tolling for me. I'm way past that bell tolling stuff.

The People Meant to Be Alone Forever

I want to be happy for the happiness of other people. And yet, I find that hard to do. I am the person who reads through my Facebook Newsfeed and the stories of people getting married, pictures of their children, and news of their happy events with growing resentment.

It isn't that I don't WANT them to be happy. It is envy. Purse and simple. I want those things too. I want to be able to point to people who love me and things that I'm good at. Alas, my skills fall under areas that are not very skillful. I read 5 newspapers a day. I'm quite good at remembering details of old movies.

I am not lovely nor charming nor interesting, at least not in any positive sense. I am interesting in the way you may use the word to describe the short story a friend made you read, one where all the characters are actually dead the whole time.

I just want to feel like I have some type of direction in my life. Be it a partner or a family or a career. Something with the gravity to keep me from floating away through the emptiness of space as I currently do.

"There's someone for EVERYONE," the old saying goes. Even Hitler had a girlfriend! And so I go drifting in the hope that eventually I will find the thing that is meant for me.

Yeah. Well, I realized that it doesn't exist.

Have you read Aristophanes section of Plato's Symposium. Go read it. It's great. Here's the wiki-synopses.

His speech is an explanation of why people in love say they feel "whole" when they have found their love partner. He begins by explaining that people must understand human nature before they can interpret the origins of love and how it affects the then present time. It is, he says, because in primal times people had doubled bodies, with faces and limbs turned away from one another. As somewhat spherical creatures who wheeled around like clowns doing cartwheels, these original people were very powerful. There were three sexes: the all male, the all female, and the "androgynous," who was half male, half female. The males were said to have descended from the sun, the females from the earth and the androgynous couples from the moon. The creatures tried to scale the heights of heaven and planned to set upon the gods. Zeus thought about blasting them to death with thunderbolts, but did not want to deprive himself of their devotions and offerings, so he decided to cripple them by chopping them in half, in effect separating the two bodies.
Zeus then commanded Apollo to turn their faces around and pulled the skin tight and stitched it up to form the navel which he chose not to heal so Man would always be reminded of this event. Ever since that time, people run around saying they are looking for their other half because they are really trying to recover their primal nature...Aristophanes then claims that when two people who were separated from each other find each other, they never again want to be separated.

Sweet, right?

But I feel like he leaves out one group. A people who didn't come from these groups. Men and women born singular and without any partner. They did not threaten the Gods and so they were left alone, ignored and forgotten. I know that this group exists because I am one of them. I do not feel that I am not whole as I am, I just feel that I am directionless and powerless. Just as the primal singletons would have felt in a world filled with these joined creatures that took on the Gods.

I'm convinced that there are those of us who really are meant to be alone forever. There is not another person who can fulfill us. And we certainly are unable to make them whole. Those looking for their missing piece may stay with use for a time. We may be fun and fabulous and amazing people, be we are not their lost piece. We can't even make them happy.

The sad part is that we of the single group may find happiness with the halflings. We can find happiness with anyone, really. We aren't missing a piece of our soul and so do not understand the call of chemistry and connection. We just wish to find someone to help pass the time and entertain us. The halflings can do that. Sometimes we may hold on to them because they bring us such joy. They may hold on to use because they are afraid to be alone. But in the end we can never make them happy because we are not what they are seeking.

The world understands the lament of the halfling looking to be complete. I'm never going to be able to understand the pain that they experience as they try to find their other half. But there is a pain that comes from being one of the singletons; knowing that you're never going to be one of the majestic pairs that could take on the Gods. Yes, you are complete and whole as you are, but you are also all you are ever going to be. Stop trying to strive for more or greatness. Those things are reserved for others.

That's a painful message, but a hopeful one. It means all the energy you are putting into trying to find someone else is no longer needed. Cancel your online dating profiles and use the money to pay for a trip you always wanted to take. Stop getting up an hour early to look perfect before you leave the house (unless you enjoy it). Sleep in and know that you aren't going to scare away your soulmate. They don't exist! Stop fretting about what you are missing out on. You aren't missing it at all. It was never meant for you. Find joy in the joy of others without wondering what it means for you. It means nothing. You are COMPLETE. You are WHOLE. You are exactly who you were always meant to be.