Great post. Been ruminating on it for a while and have some thoughts:
(1) At some point this merely becomes the curse of being a minority, no? I keep on substituting "gay" for other minorities and finding the overall points seems to apply to them, too. For example, popular stories wont convey the "authentic" mathematician's perspective because the number of people actually able to understand this is small enough such that it will never get traction in a large audience. As a kind of structural characteristic, this seems somewhat insuperable? Gay stories that our about our perspectives on our problems in our lives may always be sub-cultural rather pop cultural simply, but this seems like a concern that is about as futile as complaining about the absence of those mathematician stories.
(2) Maybe the illegibility of gay stories is a good thing? If the downside of this illegibility is they don't get traction in the pop culture, the upside is that they serve to facilitate conversation within the community without having to deal with incomprehensible, harmful, etc. "outsider" perspectives, and this protection happens not through some heavy-handed act of coercion of gatekeepinf but simply because outsiders won't know or be interested in these stories. This seems like it could be a pretty good thing, in its own way.
(3). I keep trying to think through the implications of having stories like Heated Rivalry, stories that might be seen as misleading by gay people, in the popular culture. Will it lead to misunderstanding among gay men about their own lives? I think probably now. They have their own personal and second-hand experiences to draw on. Maybe it can lead to popular audiences misunderstanding gay men? But to the extent that this misunderstanding frames the relationships between gay men in terms that makes them more palatable to straight audiences, this may be a kind of benign lie that predisposes audiences to see gay men as being "more like them". Maybe this isn't a great model for relationships between different communities—one would hope for mutual understanding—bjt it may in the end make for a more amicable existence between these communities.
I simply cannot accept this characterization. It poses her as a Walter White or Man With No Name when she’s more like Ursula from Little Mermaid. She’s an unalloyed villain.
Observation that the Times had "Heated Rivalry" in a "book adaptations to look forward to" story back in January. The TV critics have been dealing with something else for the entire run.
Great post. Been ruminating on it for a while and have some thoughts:
(1) At some point this merely becomes the curse of being a minority, no? I keep on substituting "gay" for other minorities and finding the overall points seems to apply to them, too. For example, popular stories wont convey the "authentic" mathematician's perspective because the number of people actually able to understand this is small enough such that it will never get traction in a large audience. As a kind of structural characteristic, this seems somewhat insuperable? Gay stories that our about our perspectives on our problems in our lives may always be sub-cultural rather pop cultural simply, but this seems like a concern that is about as futile as complaining about the absence of those mathematician stories.
(2) Maybe the illegibility of gay stories is a good thing? If the downside of this illegibility is they don't get traction in the pop culture, the upside is that they serve to facilitate conversation within the community without having to deal with incomprehensible, harmful, etc. "outsider" perspectives, and this protection happens not through some heavy-handed act of coercion of gatekeepinf but simply because outsiders won't know or be interested in these stories. This seems like it could be a pretty good thing, in its own way.
(3). I keep trying to think through the implications of having stories like Heated Rivalry, stories that might be seen as misleading by gay people, in the popular culture. Will it lead to misunderstanding among gay men about their own lives? I think probably now. They have their own personal and second-hand experiences to draw on. Maybe it can lead to popular audiences misunderstanding gay men? But to the extent that this misunderstanding frames the relationships between gay men in terms that makes them more palatable to straight audiences, this may be a kind of benign lie that predisposes audiences to see gay men as being "more like them". Maybe this isn't a great model for relationships between different communities—one would hope for mutual understanding—bjt it may in the end make for a more amicable existence between these communities.
My view is that the more gay sex is shown, the less tropey it will feel. But to an extent, sex in the mainstream is a trope in itself. I also just wrote about how I hope gay sex in zeitgeist means a hornier 2026 overall in the face of a deeply repressed fascist regime: https://open.substack.com/pub/madscribble/p/no-mergers-more-gay-sex?r=3e2699&utm_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=overlay
“gay-rights anti-hero Kim Davis”
I simply cannot accept this characterization. It poses her as a Walter White or Man With No Name when she’s more like Ursula from Little Mermaid. She’s an unalloyed villain.
You're correct! I totally used this term for the sound of it and didn't even think about its actual meaning.
It does have a ring to it.
Hope all is well as we enter the new year. Looking forward to your thoughts.
Observation that the Times had "Heated Rivalry" in a "book adaptations to look forward to" story back in January. The TV critics have been dealing with something else for the entire run.
https://www.nytimes.com/article/book-movie-tv-adaptations-2025.html
(My embarrassingly small goal is to actually watch "KPop Demon Hunters" before New Year's Eve)
Just watched it last night. Finally. Entertaining, slightly less trope-y than expected, genuinely catchy songs. Hope you enjoy it!