"Straight-washing"?

zolambrosine · Jun 6, 2011

First of all: HOLYCRAPXMENWASSOF'INGOOD!

Okay. Now, has anyone heard of the term "white-washing"? Is there a similar term for "straight-washing"? Because, in the film, I did notice that after a while (WARNING SPOILER!) Hank became more ambigious in his feelings for Raven... but at the same time, the man is supposed to be gay.

Do I not know enough about the series? Does he realize that he's gay after a few more comics? Is it like Dumbledore, where we realize he's gay after the whole film?

And, even if this is the case (I really don't know), do you guys have any experience with "straight-washing"? For example: writing a queer character, only to be asked by an agent or editor to make them more heteronormative. Literature professors ignoring the strong undertones of queer relationships, such as that in PASSING and THE COLOR PURPLE?

Yeah. I just wanna talk about "straight-washing" for a second.

absitinvidia · Jun 6, 2011

I have composed an answer six or seven times and deleted it each time. This question to me is, and I refer to the question, not the person who asked it, borderline offensive.

I think it's safe to say that "straight-washing" has permeated every aspect of American life, from sexual health classes in middle school to history classes in high school to literature classes at university to the ridiculous notion that there are no gays serving in the military.

Again, not attacking the OP. I just think the question needs to be more focused than, "have you ever noticed that gays tend to be marginalized?" The answer, by definition, is yes. Marginalized segment of population is marginalized.

Kitty Pryde · Jun 6, 2011

I haven't seen the new X-Men movie, but Beast is never gay in the comics. He dates lots of ladies!

zolambrosine · Jun 6, 2011

Kitty Pryde said:
I haven't seen the new X-Men movie, but Beast is never gay in the comics. He dates lots of ladies!

Saaaaay whaaaaaat?

You know, now that I think of it, I learned that he was gay from wikipedia.

... Never trust wikipedia.

Well, if he's not gay, that's a bad example.

absintivia: I really, truly, wholehearedly appreciate your response. I very strongly believe in attacking the question/action rather than the person, if anyone ever finds anything offensive. So thank you.

I understand everything you've said - but at the same time, white-washing is seen as a real term. I suppose I could say the same thing about people of color being marginalized - in terms of how the media tends to find paler skin, etc. more beautiful, for example. Characters on covers, though with dark skin, are pictured with lighter skin. Is it because people of color aren't considered as marginalized as queer people that "white-washing" would be more acceptable? Because it's something that's happening to a very real, very viewed community - so viewed that even the "non-others" are witness to this?

I guess the problem with me comes in with the suggestion that queer people are so marginalized that "straight-washing" can't be considered in the same light. Maybe it's because I surround myself with a queer community, and am surprised when people tell me that they're straight, that I see "straight-washing" in a similar light as "white-washing." Does that make sense? I'm still really hyped about X-Men so it's perfectly possible that I'm not making any sense.

Deleted member 42 · Jun 6, 2011

kcallender said:
?

Yeah. I just wanna talk about "straight-washing" for a second.

Oh for crying out loud -- I don't even know where to begin with this.

It's . . . Christ.

Yeah, I think most people have caught on to the fact that we live in heteronormative societies.

There's the revision of history, and literature, going back to the middle ages and the alternating desire to avoid talking about same-sex relationships, to delete / excise/ ignore (especially wrt to women) or transform them.

Probably the latest most head-lined instance is the Jessica Verday Wicked Pretty Things anthology imbroglio, with an idiotic heteronormative editor—but a warming response from Verday and other authors.

zolambrosine · Jun 6, 2011

Medievalist said:
Oh for crying out loud -- I don't even know where to begin with this.

It's . . . Christ.

Yeah, I think most people have caught on to the fact that we live in heteronormative societies.

There's the revision of history, and literature, going back to the middle ages and the alternating desire to avoid talking about same-sex relationships, to delete / excise/ ignore (especially wrt to women) or transform them.

Probably the latest most head-lined instance is the Jessica Verday Wicked Pretty Things anthology imbroglio, with an idiotic heteronormative editor--but a warming response from Verday and other authors.

Well, see my response above - people have also caught on that we live in a racialized society. Yet a lot of people are open to talking about white-washing, how to get more characters of color into plots... in fact, I'd assume that we're further along in getting more characters of colors into the main casts of stories than queer stories - at least, when the story isn't an "issues" story, and the character just happens to be queer.

Seriously, have I missed something? Why are these two subjects so different, and "straight-washing" considered offensive? In my mind, it's the other fighting to be heard. That's all I want to talk about.

Nice link, btws.

Kitty Pryde · Jun 6, 2011

I watched "Fried Green Tomatoes" and it was a pretty good movie about friendship between women, but imagine my shock upon reading Fried Green Tomatoes At The Whistlestop Cafe, the novel the film was based on, which is in fact about two ladies in love :O

JohnnyGottaKeyboard · Jun 6, 2011

Ooh, someone tweeked my nose a while back in the tv forum about a comment I made re: the new Sherlock Holmes. I offered a joking comment (which often leads to my nose being tweeked--especially lately!) and they responded with something along the lines of "Making Holmes and Watson gay for each other would have kept me from watching." While certainly a tenable enough position for a Doyle purist to take, the conversation deginerated and the result was my shortlist of "straightwashed" movie adaptions. This was off the top of my head so by no means complete.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5460049&postcount=34

Deleted member 42 · Jun 6, 2011

kcallender said:
Seriously, have I missed something? Why are these two subjects so different, and "straight-washing" considered offensive? In my mind, it's the other fighting to be heard. That's all I want to talk about.

I suspect it's because I'm old and jaded, in some respects.

This is a topic that was old in the 1970s. It's gotten slightly better—see the reactions of all sorts of people who are genuinely horrified wrt to Wicked Pretty Things, and the way a moronic semi-literate heteronormative asshat editor's screwup became a point where a lot of people stopped and thought about what they were writing and reading.

There's also a generation gap, too; maybe we can get Ben Panced to stick his very wise head in.

zolambrosine · Jun 6, 2011

Kitty Pryde said:
I watched "Fried Green Tomatoes" and it was a pretty good movie about friendship between women, but imagine my shock upon reading Fried Green Tomatoes At The Whistlestop Cafe, the novel the film was based on, which is in fact about two ladies in love :O

Seriously. I watched the film BECAUSE someone told me it was about lesbians. I looked very, very hard for the lesbians in that movie.

Also! Interview with the Vampire! I love Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles to death. The relationships are openly sensual. First few pages, Louis describes Lestat as "lying down beside him so intimately, it was as though they're lovers."

So what happened to the movie? Anyone? Anyone?

Deleted member 42 · Jun 6, 2011

JohnnyGottaKeyboard said:
While certainly a tenable enough position for a Doyle purist to take, the conversation deginerated and the result was my shortlist of "straightwashed" movie adaptions. This was off the top of my head so by no means complete.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5460049&postcount=34

That's actually a great example; Doyle scholars were writing about the homoeroticism of Doyle's oervre in the 1980s. The first queer lit class I ever took, mumble mumble years ago included Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles and . . . I think it was League of Red Headed Men. Delany's written about it in one of his critical anthologies, in the context of fetish and homoeroticism. Feminist critics have written about Holmes and Watson, and there's huge amounts of Holmes/Watson slash fic, written by all sorts of people.

Veinglory is bit of a scholar wrt to Sherlock and m/m. And there's an entire blog about it from Arachne Jerico I can go find.

So much of queer culture is invisible against a backdrop of heteronormative dominance too--hence queer readings of ostensibly straight texts.

Deleted member 42 · Jun 6, 2011

kcallender said:
Seriously. I watched the film BECAUSE someone told me it was about lesbians. I looked very, very hard for the lesbians in that movie.

Well, it's pretty clear if you're used to a culture wherein lesbians are/were invisible, frankly, where the nod is a crucial signal.

Fannie Flagg wimped out. The book Fried Green Tomatoes is absolutely about lesbians. It's one of the things that caused a furore when the film came out. Flagg practically tripped over her tongue and choked to death in her haste to avoid the queer taint. Mary Stuart Masterson was refreshingly frank in interviews.

It's changed a lot since 1991, in some ways; in some we're headed right back to the 1950s.

If you watch 1994's Go Fish, and talk to lesbians who were out then, or weren't and went to see it with a girl friend in a theater in the next county (just, you know, in case) you can get an idea of what's changed, and what's the same, and the horrifically familiar yawning pits of identity politics that aren't dead yet.

Reading some of the Advocate reviews/responses in 2005 to Brokeback Mountain is pretty interesting, too.

Deleted member 42 · Jun 6, 2011

Sherlockian links:

Veinglory's Gay Sherlock Holmes

Arachne Jericho on Sherlock Holmes in the 21st century

I still haven't seen the film; it's On The List of things to see.

mscelina · Jun 6, 2011

Interesting story to share here--I did summer stock a few seasons with *thought better of naming the actor; not quite fair in this instance but this source was a principal* in Fried Green Tomatoes, and we had a discussion about this only a year or so after the movie came out. What I gathered is that the original plan was changed after principal shooting began and that a lot of the 'uncomfortable scenes' were either re-shot in a less...erm...gay way or ended up on the cutting room floor.

Deleted member 42 · Jun 6, 2011

There really are clues in the film Fried Green Tomatoes, if you're accustomed to a society where for any number of reasons you are/need to be invisible; see for instance Roger Ebert's comments, and then the official studio take in the comments in this EW piece.

Think about the willingness of the studio to take queer money—quietly.

And then think about things like The L Word (2004), and the fascination that it held for a lot of people—despite/because of, the absence of reality. There's a point where exploitation is often confused with acceptance.

Bartholomew · Jun 6, 2011

The term straight-washing sounds far too much like some bizarre form of hygiene.

mccardey · Jun 6, 2011

Interesting, America....

Does anyone remember the Australian soap opera Number 96? Played prime time tv in Australia from 1972 for many many years - and one of its best-loved characters was gay lawyer Don Finlayson (played by Joe Hasham) who was played pretty much as a kind and thoroughly dependable lawyer with (male) lovers. That caused far less of an uproar at the time than the fact that TV startlet Abigail appeared gloriously and buxomly topless from time to time.

Just strange how our culture seems to have differed from yours at that time.

Disclaimer - my husband's father-in-law produced it... and he was American. Go figure....

Deleted member 42 · Jun 6, 2011

Bartholomew said:
The term straight-washing sounds far too much like some bizarre form of hygiene.

It's not new though; and yes, it's a riff on white-washing, also not new.

Deleted member 42 · Jun 6, 2011

mccardey said:
Just strange how our culture seems to have differed from yours at that time.

That's because Oz wasn't settled by religious nutbars, fanatics, and obsessives.

mccardey · Jun 6, 2011

Medievalist said:
That's because Oz wasn't settled by religious nut bars, fanatics, and obsessives.

Nah.... just convicts and crims

I found a wiki quote:

The show featured a multiracial cast, had frequent nude scenes, and featured a long-running gay male relationship that drew no particular interest from any of the show's other characters. It is believed that the series was the world's first to include a portrayal of a gay couple as normal people fully accepted by and integrated into their community.

Goodonya father-in-law!!

Deleted member 42 · Jun 6, 2011

mccardey said:
Nah.... just convicts and crims

I found a wiki quote:

Goodonya father-in-law!!

I remember getting letters about it from Aussie friends.

mscelina · Jun 6, 2011

Gotta admit--one of the things I'm really enjoying about True Blood and Game of Thrones on HBO is the unabashed way they're embracing homosexuality--even beyond that expressed in the original books. For American TV before, the closest you could get was Will and Grace or Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

Or the Teletubbies. *grin* Sorry, couldn't resist.

Mara · Jun 6, 2011

The only two gay male X-men characters I know of are Northstar (Marvel's first openly gay male mutant) and Colossus (but only in the Ultimates alternate reality, not the original reality.)

And yes, straight-washing is a pretty big thing and gets sorta ridiculous at times. In part, I've noticed that some people who identify as straight don't even notice gay content, and I think that contributes. For example, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Willow and Tara had been a couple for like 6-8 episodes and some fans were still denying there was anything romantic going on and were shocked when the characters told the rest of the cast about their relationship.

poetinahat · Jun 6, 2011

Medievalist said:
That's because Oz wasn't settled by religious nut bars, fanatics, and obsessives.

Nope... we came here later.

[interlope]
I remember watching FGT, loving it, and thinking - without having any particular political interest - that, well, of course they were 'together'. I'd just thought that, unlike many other American films, the point was made subtly. Whether it was made too subtly for some, or whether the characters should've been 'allowed' to show more explicit affection, is another question. And, I suppose, that's the OP's question, innit?

Just sayin', I guess.
[/interlope]

mccardey · Jun 6, 2011

This is a totally honest question, but now I feel a bit awkward asking it.

I do remember explaining to my babes that Sesame Street's Bert and Ernie were a gay couple who just happened to have separate beds - probably because one of them snored.

Was I wrong about that? I think they were widely percieved down here to be gay. Or maybe it was just me. Maybe they were just *gulp* puppets...?

"Straight-washing"?

zolambrosine

absitinvidia

A bit of a wallflower

Kitty Pryde

i luv you giant bear statue

zolambrosine

Deleted member 42

zolambrosine

Kitty Pryde

i luv you giant bear statue

JohnnyGottaKeyboard

Who let this guy in...?

Deleted member 42

zolambrosine

Deleted member 42

Deleted member 42

Deleted member 42

mscelina

Teh doommobile, drivin' rite by you

Deleted member 42

Bartholomew

Comic guy

mccardey

Deleted member 42

Deleted member 42

mccardey

Deleted member 42

mscelina

Teh doommobile, drivin' rite by you

Mara

Clever User Title

poetinahat

say it loud

mccardey