activism, advice, community, everyone is gay, gender, gender expression, inter community nonsense, kristin russo, lesbian, lgbt, lgbt advice, representation, television
"Do you think Glee’s Santana/Brittany and Grey’s Anatomy’s Arizona/Callie storylines would’ve been received by audiences as well if the characters were less feminine?"
- Question submitted by Anonymous
Dannielle Says:
OMG YOU GUYS I WAS JUST TALKING ABOUT THIS AND HOW I DONT THINK THAT SOME PEOPLE WOULD BE OKAY WITH THE LEZBEES IF THEY WEREN’T SO LONG-HAIRD N PRETTY.
YOU KNOW ABC TRIED TO HAVE A LEZBEE STORY LINE BEFORE ARIZONA, WITH CALLIE AND DR. HAHN AND APPARENTLY EVERYONE WAS PEEVED SO THEY CUT DR. HAHN OUT OF THE SHOW. BUT NOW ARIZONA IS HERE AND HAS LONG WAVY HAIR AND LOOKS LIKE A ‘STRAIGHTIE’ AND EVERYONE IS OKAY WITH IT?!?!
Sorry, I only meant to all-caps that first thing. But anyway. Someone needs to put me on TV .
Kristin Says:
No, anonymous, probably not.
I feel like audiences in this country have the weirdest relationship with respect to gender presentation. Generally speaking, these ‘audiences’ you refer to seem very receptive to long-haired, ‘feminine’ girls making out with other long-haired, ‘feminine’ girls. Also, generally speaking, those same audiences tend to back away from characters who don’t conform as well to certain gender stereotypes.
HERE’S WHERE THINGS GET TRICKY THOUGH. I think that America, in genderal (#omg #besttypoever), likes to be able to place things/people/characters in identifiable boxes. So, I think that if there were a gay boy character who didn’t act masculine, but who was over-the-top flamboyant, audiences would be like, ‘Oh, he’s SUPERGAY, hahahaha, HE’S SO CUTE I GET IT.’ That gay boy character, I think, gets to be loved and adored by a good amount of audiences… until his character becomes sexualized and then a lot of people are like, “WAIT HE’S JUST CUTE HE DOESN’T HAVE A PENIS GROSS.”
With female characters, however, I think there is a lot less tolerance for gender-non-conforming (whatever the fuck that even means). ‘Girls’ who are ‘masculine’ really seem to fuck people up. The combination of ‘masculine female’ seems to make sooooo many people fall over themselves with desire, and also fall over themselves with confusion… and a lot of times I think those feelings (either one or both) do one of two things: 1) twist into the biggest crush that ever existed, or b) twist into a hardened dislike/hatred/fear.
Why? I don’t know. Am I even right? I have no idea. What I can say is that I think there is a bigger mix of emotions when it comes to gender identity and presentation then when it comes to sexuality alone… and I think that in general, most major networks are still a bit scared of what will come of genderqueering television shows/characters/etc.
SORRY FOR ALL THE WORDS. #MONDAYMORNINGFEELINGS
