Not a bar, but plays one on TV

Derpy

08:17

A Call of Cthulhu

BESW

Oh, if we're going there...

A Picture in a House

Derpy

A Battle That Ended A Century

BESW

A Book

Derpy

A Wonderful Wizard of Oz

BESW

Beyond a Wall of Sleep

Derpy

08:21

Charlie and a Chocolate Factory

BESW

08:43

Varney a Vampire; or, a Feast of Blood

trogdor

I keep thinking of ones people already did

Derpy

A Vampire Lestat

doppelgreener

10:38

A Village

BESW

13:42

@Rubiksmoose Queer coded villains, in particular, are a thing that once you see, you won't un-see.

doppelgreener

O, yes.

BESW

Here's a villain from a famous movie in 1995:

Here's a villain from the same studio in 2016:

Rubiksmoose

@BESW oh my goodness....

BESW

Fat selfish lisping men with an obsession for glitter? Check.

Rubiksmoose

:-/

BESW

13:45

Here's a villain from a recent very popular British TV series:

Rubiksmoose

First of all you blew my mind just by talking about [insert Pocahontas villain name] just being coded as gay. Like I would have never in a million years have thought of that on my own, but it immediately struck me as being true and obvious once you said it.

BESW

Derpy

out of curiosity @BESW, did you ever happened to see "Tokyo Godfathers"?

BESW

Nope.

@Rubiksmoose See also Scar, but the real toast of the town is Ursula the Sea Witch, who was actually inspired by the drag queen Divine:

Rubiksmoose

@BESW holy crap

BESW

13:51

#Divine was the inspiration for Ursula the Sea Witch from @Disney’s #TheLittleMermaid (1989)

Tweeted by DivineOfficial on September 16, 2015 at 5:35 PM

Derpy

@BESW there is a "transgender?" character in the movie. Said character not only is one of the main characters.... she also get a pretty decent depiction. PS: the fact I had "transgender" between quotes is because the movie isn't even very clear in stating which her actual "biological" gender is - the information is treated as "not relevant - she consider herself as female and that is all that matters."

BTW, the plot is based on an old "western" movie called "(The) Three Godfathers"

BESW

At least as long ago as the 1870s, deviation from the heteronormative was a villainous trait; check out Le Fanu's Carmilla, in which a vampiress killing the local peasants for their blood is treated as less remarkably evil than seducing the nobleman's daughter for sexytimes.

Derpy

same premise, different context.

user15026

@Derpy that's not really necessarily good Rep. It's less bad, though by a long shot

Derpy

@Ash You meant the "pretty decent" thing? Let me expand on it.

There are flaws, some stereotypes are still there. For example, she does act a little like your average drama queen (even if you could also argue she is probably doing that on purpose to mock the ones who expect her to act that way)

but she is also the one who don't think twice about jumping down a palace to try to save a falling child.

doppelgreener

14:00

I am relieved that gay people and trans people are on fewer acceptable target lists, and the few still considering them acceptable targets are getting more and more crap for it

But there's still a bunch of problems, and they're still not normalised

user15026

Right, but the lack of acknowledgement of her trans status is kinda important to note - not mentioning it and just going "you are who you say you are" feels good a lot but it also feels like a little bit "your fullness of humanity experience is not relevant"

doppelgreener

@Ash validation of a person being unambiguously trans and that being OK is helpful

user15026

@doppelgreener emphatic nod

Derpy

@Ash no. Sorry, I was pretty unclear there.

user15026

@doppelgreener yes thank you for saying what I was trying to say

user15026

14:01

I am bad at words sometimes

BESW

@Ash Did you read the Broken Earth trilogy? I can't remember.

user15026

@BESW I did!

BESW

What did you think of Tonkee in that regard?

user15026

@BESW it was reasonably good, at least to me.

BESW

Her transness is textual and nobody cares, except to notice that the apocalypse has made it hard for her to keep up her doses.

user15026

14:03

@BESW yeah, it was nicely contextualized without being weird

user15026

Because sometimes people draw attention to it with like spotlights and neon and dancing humans begging for cookies and that's not good either

BESW

But she's also one of the weirdest personalities in a long line of weird people, and has terrible grooming habits, and her thoughtlessness causes several tragedies.

doppelgreener

Binti briefly features a trans person in the start of the second book. She's explicitly stated as being trans. She has about a page or two as she helps the main character on the starting leg of her trip back home, and is about the best handled trans person I've ever read.

BESW

I also can't wait for you to see Dreamer in the next season of Supergirl.

doppelgreener

There's certainly other equally-or-better handled trans people in other stories, this is just the best handled one I've read. And it's very well handled.

user15026

14:07

@doppelgreener yessssssss

user15026

@BESW tell Netflix they better hurry and give it all to meeeee

BESW

@doppelgreener Have you read An Unkindness of Ghosts? I've been putting it off because I'm pretty sure it'll unmake me, but I'll read it eventually!

user15026

@BESW I wanna read that so many but it will turn me so inside out and I can't really do more undoing than my life is currently undoing at me

doppelgreener

@BESW I have not

BESW

@Ash Yeah, at least wait 'til Wes is there to hold you while you're a puddle.

user15026

14:10

@BESW sooooooooooooooon

BESW

@doppelgreener The main character is black, intersex, genderqueer, neuroatypical, and multilingual. This is central to the novel's themes and her own agency and ability to meet the problems of the setting.

doppelgreener

Oh, @Rubiksmoose, on this: it's definitely still happening. Shows are still burying their gays, and depicting trans people poorly. Mostly what's changed is LGBT voices are becoming more audible, and studios are more often avoiding depicting them when they can't do so well. There's more pressure for gay or trans roles to be portrayed by gay or trans actors.

Derpy

@Ash - to further elaborate: The problem is the original japanese script she refers to herself as "okama". Problem: that actually doesn't mean nothing in Japanese as it is commonly used to describe someone who "is expected to adhere to masculine standards of behaviour and doesn’t’". This isn't exactly clear-cut and I only noticed when someone pointed out that apparently some dubs gave her a male voice while other gave her a female voice instead.
My point is that the plot never makes it a relevant point since it is not relevant to the story. They didn't try to add in any scene whose only pur…

BESW

(In fact, her entire community is considered intersex/genderqueer by the higher caste.)

Derpy

@doppelgreener I am still pretty happy by the fact that during season 8 of MLP:FiM in the Heart&Hoves episode (read: Valentine episode) you can clearly see Bon Bon and Lyra sitting together at a table among all the others couples.

doppelgreener

14:14

Last year Scarlet Johansson was chosen to play a trans man mobster until public pressure forced her to step down (a good call because that was a terrible choice) and now the entire film's in question. Meanwhile the same year, Supergirl chose a trans woman actress to play a trans woman character, which was met with loud applause. This is kind of amazing.

BESW

@doppelgreener I've really enjoyed that Supergirl character.

doppelgreener

@BESW I'm so glad. I'm happy she's going well.

Or gone well? I don't know.

@BESW Wow! Ok, I want to read this.

BESW

@doppelgreener The last episode of this season is next week.

doppelgreener

Aha

BESW

So far they've only had one story where Dreamer's transness itself was the center of a plot, and that's because her sister is upset that Dreamer inherited a power which only passes from mother to daughter in their family, and her sister thought that meant it would be hers.

But her experience is shown to inform her choices and how she relates to people, it's not ignored. It's treated as just as important as any other part of her character.

doppelgreener

14:38

@BESW omg. I love that.

[entire theatre standing up with roaring applause.gif]

Derpy

14:56

@BESW from the same guys that taught you that princesses are good and queens are bad.

Rubiksmoose

@doppelgreener Burying your gays is one of the unfortunate tropes that I actually have cottoned onto. And boy is it everywhere.

:(

Derpy

BTW, since we are at it... It is just me or in many children animated show (but maybe it is just a Carton Network thing) cuckoolander seems to be a synonym of "the character is neurodiverse so let's make an idiot out of him"?

doppelgreener

@Rubiksmoose It really is. Very few TV shows or movies present gay people in a positive and affirming light and give them a good ending, let alone multiple gay people.

@Derpy I don't know what this cuckoolander thing is, but neurodiverse people do get a lot of poor representation

It used to be very common and very transparent. 90's and mid-2000's I saw it a lot.

Discovery both giving us positive wholesome representation of a gay couple and then burying them gave me whiplash.

Derpy

@doppelgreener as TV Tropes defines them "A character with their head in the clouds."

Think Pinkie Pie for example.

Rubiksmoose

I don't know if anyone here watched Doom Patrol (if, not I do recommend it and love it quite a bit). I'd be interested in hearing from an LGBTQ person on how they feel they got represented in there.

user15026

15:10

@doppelgreener Hard yes. I was like "yes they are doing a good! OH WAIT NO WHAT IS THIS STOP IT"

user15026

@BESW delighted yelling

Derpy

The "cuckoolander", characters with their head in the clouds, are very common both in anime and western animation. But for some reason I seem to notice that usually in western animation they are more often depicted very poorly.

doppelgreener

15:31

@Ash ABORT ABORT

[pulls lever]

@Derpy that sounds like poor depiction is intrinsic to the trope. I mean, they're calling them cuckoo.

so, circularly, if they're a cuckoolander they're being depicted poorly, because a style of poor depiction is what gets someone classified as a cuckoolander

@Rubiksmoose It's a spin-off of Titans, which I've completely written off, so I'll likely completely write that one off too.

Rubiksmoose

@doppelgreener Well the way it is written it is actually like Titans is a very very poor spinoff of it. Really they are completely and utterly different is just about every way.

doppelgreener

oh good

user15026

@doppelgreener wrong leverrrrrrr

Rubiksmoose

Doom Patrol is legitimately funny, and has a much better attitude towards how to develop its characters and how dark to be. The acting is superb and the writing is great.

doppelgreener

@Ash noOOOO THAT WAS THE ACCELERATOOOORR

@Rubiksmoose what LGBTQ stuff did you see in it that makes you ask? :O

Rubiksmoose

15:42

If they weren't forced by marketing to be in the same universe I wouldn't believe they were related in any way honestly. (and, in fact, they are unrelated in every way except in the meta fact that you know they are in the same universe).

doppelgreener

@Rubiksmoose thank goodness

Rubiksmoose

@doppelgreener Depends, do you care about spoilers? If so, how much?

doppelgreener

@Rubiksmoose It's in a list where I'll probably never watch it BUT if there's interesting LGBTQ stuff in there, that might get me interested, so it's worth knowing about even if it's a bit spoilery. You could DM me on Discord.

Rubiksmoose

One of the main characters is gay (Negative Man) and they do some tragic things with him (but really everyone is tragic in Doom Patrol). His character arc actually involves him seemingly coming to a happy conclusion with his (former) partner despite the odds.

I was interested in hearing someone that that person was representing how interesting that representation was and if it fell victim to harmful tropes.

It certainly felt good to me towards the end, but I don't have the perspective on it.

Oh and there is a genderqueer sentient street.

doppelgreener

@Rubiksmoose brilliant

The Tick has a gay boat

Rubiksmoose

15:48

DP is genuinely surprising, bizarre, odd, dark, and funny in the best combination.

doppelgreener

that's not a typo

Rubiksmoose

@doppelgreener that's.... amazing.

doppelgreener

@Rubiksmoose happy conclusion with a same-sex partner? awesome

Rubiksmoose

@doppelgreener I was so afraid they were going to go a different direction with it too. And yeah, it seemed happy to me. Fulfilling might be a better term?

doppelgreener

if everyone goes through tragedy then him going through it is par for the course; him coming through it with a happy ending sounds positive and great.

Rubiksmoose

15:50

But now that I think about it maybe they still bury him. :-/

But in a good way?

doppelgreener

the key part of bury your gays is that if someone's gonna die, or get traumatised, or otherwise have a horrific experience and get sidelined, it's them, and it happens to them first, and often it probably happened to them because they were gay. And if multiple people will get this, they will get it the worst and soonest.

Rubiksmoose

because our main character comes through it a more complete and fulfilled person and it was portrayed in a happy light (the partner dies, but they were like 60 years older than our main character because of the way his powers work).

doppelgreener

it's also that if you are a gay character, you're gonna die. nobody gets to have a living, happy, gay character in the show.

Rubiksmoose

@doppelgreener Yeah DP dishes the trauma and tragedy around generously and evenly. Pretty much the definition of the show is a bunch a people trying to live their lives after going through awful things. So it didn't feel like Larry was being picked out.

doppelgreener

The Dragon Prince season 2 has a thing that got met with mixed feelings: we had part of an episode about a gay couple that had already died years ago. TDP's authors put a lot of thought into it though, and at least to me, they mostly avoided the trope because we first found out the characters were dead, and then found out they were gay. They also talked about it at length publicly, fully aware of the BYG trope, and decided it was better than simply not showing any gay characters.

Rubiksmoose

15:55

That also makes it sound very Titan-ish, but I do want to stress that it isn't. Titans is dark to be edgy and show blood and do swears. Doom Patrol is dark because it is interesting and it find humor and light and development in that darkness.

doppelgreener

Not everyone would agree with me on that, and I'd prefer the couple still be alive, but the death was plot-relevant.

Rubiksmoose

@doppelgreener hmmm that does sound complicated.

doppelgreener

It is very. They navigated it very well though.

It was complex and they gave it the amount of thought and care such a complex thing deserved.

... I still want an on-screen alive gay couple though.

Rubiksmoose

At least it sounds like it was a thoughtful choice instead of(un)willful ignorance and carelessness. So I guess that should count for something at the very least?

@doppelgreener beat me to it:)

doppelgreener

@Rubiksmoose Totally. And the representation they gave was great. The public explanation they had for it was also really good.

Rubiksmoose

15:58

oh goodness I can't use my DP abbreviation now lol

doppelgreener

I mean, in that they gave a thoughtful explanation of what went into their decisions around those characters, including an explanation of all the steps they went through, the reasons they had, the conversations they had with various gay people to check and double-check what they were doing, etc.

Rubiksmoose

I've heard really good things about Dragon Prince, both here in chat and outside of it.

doppelgreener

@Rubiksmoose Let's go for DP = Doom Patrol, TDP = The Dragon Prince. :)

Rubiksmoose

Excellent

doppelgreener

@Rubiksmoose It's very enjoyable. Some things to be aware of: the way they pace various kinds of story arcs is hit-or-miss. It is still a show mainly for teenagers. Also, animation in the first season is choppy and you'll probably get used to it but if you don't rest assured they fixed it in the second season.

Rubiksmoose

16:01

If you ever have the chance to see DP, I would highly recommend giving it a try if it sounds at all in your wheelhouse. My wife generally hates these things (she hated and refused to watch Titans) but she absolutely loves DP. Watching the first episode also gives you quite a decent picture of the tone and content of the show, though it is also the darkest by a bit (because of the backstories).

(I grudgingly watched Titans because I was optimistic and hoped it would get better - it really didn't)

It has Alan Tudyk as the amazing villain if that helps at all lol

doppelgreener

16:14

@Rubiksmoose Thanks! Maybe it's on Amazon video or something.

I'll give the first episode a watch and see how that goes.

@Rubiksmoose It does. :D

Rubiksmoose

Ugh. I forgot about that. In the US at least it is only on DC's streaming service [grumble grumble]

doppelgreener

@Rubiksmoose Apparently it's just flatly not available in the UK, so if that bears out as true I'll have to twiddle my thumbs until the fracturing of the streaming market goes past the point of sustainability and collapses and services re-unite again. so about 5-10 years maybe. :P

Rubiksmoose

17:08

Ughhhh. Well we'll talk again after the great streaming wars. :-/

trogdor

20:00

@BESW yeeesss Unkindness of Ghosts, all must read it

@doppelgreener good lord why do they keep doing that?

The first part the second part is obviously great

@doppelgreener ugh Teen Titans Go you mean? good lord is that an annoying show

doppelgreener

@trogdor well it was a pretty progressive set of events at least in some parts. the choice to portray a trans protagonist was progressive even if the casting choice was not appropriate, and her actually choosing to step down was also progressive.

trogdor

@doppelgreener yeah I meant,... You know the studio asking her, it's good that she realized she shouldn't do it

doppelgreener

yeah

having a trans character cast and portrayed inappropriately isn't unusual D':

trogdor

Yeah same as all the other things

doppelgreener

@trogdor no, no. I wish that was true. Instead I mean Titans, a super duper edgy gritty grimdark Teen Titans reboot.

Because that's totally what Teen Titans should be like??

That's the one with the trailer where Robin says "fuck Batman"

trogdor

20:09

You were all also talking about Neurodiverse people and that is something I notice all the time because,.. I can't help but do that

@doppelgreener oh even worse

That thing

You linked it a while back

@doppelgreener yeah at Go isn't,... That

But I wish it was more like the original show

Because now literally none of the characters or plots can be taken seriously for 2 seconds?

And really the worst thing is that it feels like they don't believe kids are capable of that I guess

But it's still better than "fuck Batman" XD

But like, the original show had some continuity, which I like, it had a certain amount of serious topic type story lines but wasn't too grimdark, and gasp shock, they still had comic relief

It was a relatively nice blend of those things

Looking at Go in that context makes me a bit mad

doppelgreener

Yes but what Robin doesn't say is who he'd marry and who he'd kill

Tweeted by DocShaner on July 19, 2018 at 5:25 PM

trogdor

@doppelgreener XD

I didn't even think of that

doppelgreener

@trogdor Did you hear it's getting a reboot? io9.gizmodo.com/…

> io9 confirmed with Warner Bros. the veracity of the trailer and that Teen Titans Go! Vs. Teen Titans will launch in 2019.

We don't really know anything beyond that though

trogdor

Well except it's saying they will be in a movie together? That's downright scary to me

But anyway, I actually like the animation style of Go, I think both shows are great at that, but the content of the characters and stories it has just,... No thanks

It feels like they are pandering extremely hard to low attention spans because they think all kids are that I guess

@doppelgreener but if they get a show again that could in fact be cool, I'll hold off judgment until we know exactly what they means I guess XD

doppelgreener

20:28

oh, yeah, it's just one movie, but i'm hoping very much it leads to a full-on show

'cause they deserve one

the original even got cancelled for some of the worst, least legitimate reasons

trogdor

Oh I didn't even know why it had gotten cancelled

What was that?

doppelgreener

@trogdor Briefly: at the time, Warner Bros divided the potential audience up into markets. For example, teenage boys and teenage girls were two different markets. Then, they created products specifically targeting those markets.

trogdor

oh

so we are still there then

doppelgreener

Teen Titans was targeted at the teenage boy market. However it had such compelling female character portrayals that it became popular with the teenage girl market too.

trogdor

@doppelgreener oh god so they sorta tanked it for one of the reasons it was good

doppelgreener

20:38

Warner Bros decided that Teen Titans competing against one of its own markets was unacceptable, so they canned it and replaced it with a show that successfully targeted only teenage boys.

@trogdor Yes. They canned it because it was so good, had such broad appeal, that it broke their artificial marketing models which said it must be cancelled.

trogdor

my favorite episode was the one where Starfire and Raven switch bodies, that was a fantastic episode

@doppelgreener god @#$%#$%$ #$%#$% it

doppelgreener

@trogdor It was!

I haven't seen much of it, but a friend gave me an episode list to watch to understand some parts of it.

trogdor

and that was on it? XD

nice

doppelgreener

yes :D

trogdor

there were plenty of good episodes though, maybe not quite that good, and not nearly all of them were important to understand the show but,.. at least they had continuity between each other

in ones after that episode Starfire and Raven definitely showed at least in small ways how they understood each other better

that's one of the reasons I liked the show, when an episode was focused on one character, or better yet specifically two of them and the relationship they had, it usually meant something

like how Robin thinks he's the leader and Cyborg is sort of like the big brother of the group, and they actually have an episode about how that,.. can cause problems for literally everyone and group cohesion

doppelgreener

20:45

awww

trogdor

but they work it out and episodes after that they respect each other more

at the very least the fact that they felt they could have episodes like that, that focused on the characters relationships to each other was nice

GO doesn't look like it does that at all

:/

or at the very least not in a serious contemplative way

doppelgreener

@trogdor that was super

it handled its characters really well in the episodes i saw

trogdor

yeah

doppelgreener

teen titans GO is ... not a TV show i'm interested in watching lol

trogdor

and like, Beast Boy is the comic relief character,.... but he doesn't oooonly do that

he gets serious about stuff when he has to

and I don't mind that he can otherwise be pretty silly because the show isn't all just that constantly

the only thing I would call attention to that wasn't great was how generic they kinda made Starfire later

not entirely but like, it seemed like they chucked out some of her nuance in later seasons?

or at the very least rested on their laurels with her character development

doppelgreener

21:09

oh nooooo

she's pretty cool so

that kinda sucks

though i don't know much about her development 'cuz i don't know much about the series in detail

trogdor

they don't completely destroy her character

but it's not the best they do with her

like she knows a bunch of alien stuff but doesn't know much about Earth stuff

which is cool, and she even occasionally uses some alien cultures ideas to recontextualize Earth stuff

later on they just write her more like she is naive

rather than lacking in knowledge specific to Earth

like they might have replaced a writer or two and someone misinterpreted what they were doing with her

V2Blast

definitely seems like a bit of flanderization

trogdor

yeah that seems like the right trope to use to condense what happened

trogdor

22:43

Even with that though, it was leagues ahead of Go, in my opinion

Transcript for

Not a bar, but plays one on TV