fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3732 ]

[ SECRET POST #3732 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3732 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 12 secrets from Secret Submission Post #533.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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Here's a hint: The fact that a bunch of bisexual cis girls (and it is overwhelmingly bisexual cis girls, that is the vast majority of queer women in fandom) feel a story about gay men is "personal" to them doesn't override the fact that a lot of actual gay and bi men, cis and trans, have mentioned that it feels fetishistic and very "female gaze-y" to them. And it should be pretty fucking clear it's made for the female gaze when you compare it to works done by and for actual gay men. Like the anon said below, people are ignoring actual groundbreaking work (supporting an openly gay author writing openly gay characters is going to do A LOT MORE for actual representation than jilling off over pretty ice skating boys). YOI is packaged to appeal to the lowest common denominator (like most popular animes are), so acting like it's some groundbreaking thing when a)it isn't even the first time it's been done, and b)for a lot of LGBT people it feels like "teh yaoiz 2.0" is pretty stupid.

Like the damn show. But stop pretending it isn't explicitly made for the female gaze and it doesn't represent LGBT people correctly in Japan OR the US. The Japanese fandom is overwhelmingly cis girls too lol. The actual LGBT community in Japan has been pretty lukewarm on it. I follow a ton of male LGBT anime fans on twitter and the response was underwhelming.

I didn't go into this show looking to hate it. I wish I felt it represented queer men better and didn't feel more like titillating fanservice for the girl who has Free! burnout.

Oh god this whining. Real life gay person here, and chill the fuck out. It's not about gay strip clubs. It's about ice skating, and has somewhat subtle romance between the two leads. Any alleged gay person who claims this so so "fetishy and female gazey" (and I'm pretty sure these criticisms don't even actually exist) needs to chill the fuck out. There's literally no fetish in the anime.

And we get it, you're super edgy with your "lowest common denominator" shrieking, but no one is obligated to like anything. No one is obligated to go out and support certain works for social justice purposes, if anything, that is tacky and fake as fuck. It's fandom, people can like whatever the hell they like, and anyone who claims Yuri on Ice is somehow offensive clearly has never had real problems in life, let alone real queer problems.

AYRT

It's not about gay strip clubs.

Holy fuck is that all gay people are to you? What a weird fucking criticism.

Any alleged gay person who claims this so so "fetishy and female gazey" (and I'm pretty sure these criticisms don't even actually exist) needs to chill the fuck out.

Lol k.

There's literally no fetish in the anime.

Lmfao the entire anime is basically "look super cute queer boys with queer subtext". The gratuitous ass shot and hot springs scenes and the strip club scenes...

I don't know about the other gay people you hang out with but my friends don't hang out at gay strip clubs or get uber drunk and perform female-gazey strip teases (that the artists for the show traced from existing photos that they didn't have licenses for without permission anyway lol).

But no fetish. Right.

You aren't reading my comment correctly.

For all the soap-boxing you do whenever this show comes up, you can't even bring up actual evidence of this supposed "fetish". As I said, it's not about a strip club, it's not about gay dudes having orgies and being sexual victims in front of cameras for the pleasure of straight women. It's literally just about ice skating. It has ass shots, oooh, big fucking deal? Gay media has ass shots, too. And pardon me if I refuse to get up in arms about the occasional male ass shot in anime when female ass shots are a normal thing throughout every medium of storytelling. I cannot for the life of me find a single thing wrong with the occasional male ass shot, especially if it's tied to showing off how athletic the guy is (and since these are professional figure skaters, they are indeed athletic).

It's like you have zero concept of what actual gay media is like. It's fucking hilarious how you have this righteous crusade against Yuri on Ice and are actually whinging about a handful of male ass shots.

AYRT

For all the soap-boxing you do whenever this show comes up,

...I've never commented about this show before on F!S. I was changing jobs when YOI came out and there was an influx of secrets about it.

you can't even bring up actual evidence of this supposed "fetish". As I said, it's not about a strip club, it's not about gay dudes having orgies and being sexual victims in front of cameras for the pleasure of straight women.

That's so much hyperbole I'm not even going to address it. Fetishization is more than taking it to Viewfinder levels of blatant rape porn and homoerotica for the female gaze. Just like queer baiting is more than explicitly going "we're totes making X character gay so all you queers should totally support this thing--okay lol we lied".

It's literally just about ice skating. It has ass shots, oooh, big fucking deal?

The ass shots are part of the wider problem with this series (or I guess more accurately a combination of the series and it's fans). One ass shot does not "problematic" make, but combined with the other elements it's heaping on the fetishization.

And pardon me if I refuse to get up in arms about the occasional male ass shot in anime when female ass shots are a normal thing throughout every medium of storytelling.

I love this deflection. So because women are treated in a fucked up fetishy way by straight guys, queer men have to just shut up when they're being fetishized? Awesome. Protip: Both can be wrong at the same time.

I cannot for the life of me find a single thing wrong with the occasional male ass shot, especially if it's tied to showing off how athletic the guy is (and since these are professional figure skaters, they are indeed athletic).

Oh my god, this is a special level of delusion to pretend THIS:

https://68.media.tumblr.com/ad648ce7bcc173344f8d79c70698129a/tumblr_inline_og6xhhsgUe1qd0kq0_540.gif

Is showing off how "athletic" he is. It's pure fanservice.

Dude if everything else about this anime wasn't pure yaoi-lite fanservice I wouldn't give a flying fuck about his ass shot. (It's admittedly a well rendered ass.) It's just part of the overall "gay men are female fanservice" pile though.

+ 5 to my internet!

<3 thank you!

No, YOI isn't trying to be a show about representation (and let's be honest here, no anime or manga will have the right kind of representation western audience want); yes, it's made for a female audience.

And? It's not pretending to be something that it isn't.

I get you're annoyed at fans that put the show on a pedestal, but that's on those fans, not on the show.

If you want something about LGBT community and representation in Japan, then read manga created for that purpose instead of commercial stuff.

AYRT

The problem is like 90% of the fanbase isn't nearly this reasonable. I disagree with almost nothing you've said, but when 90% of the fandom wants to pretend it's a totally legit queer LGBT romance representation extravaganza that is the best thing ever and any LGBT person who takes issue with it is just a big meanie or (my favourite) not REALLY LGBT, you can't say that's a welcoming or productive environment.

I do think YOI isn't above criticism, and I also think pretending like it's some big cultural divide thing is doing a huge disservice when we already have some shows that feature queer characters that don't do the things LGBT people have taken issue with, but that's another thing entirely.

I do read manga created "for that purpose", but that's the whole point about representation, LGBT people shouldn't be relegated to a special bookshelf and special indy production companies.

We're allowed to be commercial and mainstream while still having authentic LGBT storylines that aren't created to pander solely to fujoshis or horny straight dudes.

90% of the fandom wants to pretend it's a totally legit queer LGBT romance representation extravaganza

Made-up statistics don't prove anything about the fandom. js.

And tbh I'm pretty sure most people who jumped to the "it's so progressive!" boat did it because it's the "right" thing to do in the current environment on tumblr.
It's a way to not get attacked by antis that go after all evil cis-fujoshis who dare to watch something for the wrong (aka not SJ approved) reasons.

Also:

I do think YOI isn't above criticism

And no one is saying otherwise? The problem here is people like you acting like the show is offensive by not having the perfect, realistic representation you want to see.
It didn't try to be that from the first place (which is my point), and enjoying it instead of complaining that it isn't something else is perfectly ok.

(FWIW IA with " LGBT people shouldn't be relegated to a special bookshelf and special indy production companies" but I also think that, in entertainment media, normalization is far better than realistic representation, so I'm pretty sure what each of us want to see in media is pretty different)

Another gay dude and married (commented someone above as well). This show is not much of a queer bait as ... pro figure skating is same (be it for any sexuality, looks same, it's always pandering and some sort of art / dance / sport mix where flashier, campier routines and costumes are favoured). My mum's a fun of figure skating so grown up with it. Unfortunately, that anime kind of butchered the skating parts at some point (as said above - seen 4 episodes) that they seemed chaotic to me and boring. Found this portrayal same as shortened versions of competitions but just too yawny.

Now, you do make a good point on female-gaze in general. Yaoi is a protest made by Japanese women to tackle toxic tropes as hentai and at some point it just got popular elesewhere but the idea was 'let's subject dudes to same tropes we see'. 90s had most of plotty gay manga - some not realistic like "Fake" and some a tiny bit better like "Banana Fish". The one that a total mix was "Cruel Got Reigns". Forgot who made "Devilman" but that's been very male-gazey psychological horror - did not read as drawing style bothers me for some reason.

Now, what's that author being ignored that you mean? Hopefully someone I didn't see but most stuff goes into bara territory and here my vanity kicks in - absolutely can't read any comic where muscly dudes are mains ... or watch such film or show or cartoon. I like guys with long, glorious locks; tall and slim and a bit nerdy *sighs*. Why yes, that's also my husband - within first week we known each other, he sent me a photo of his back with hair flowing down it. Bagged him right there and then :| .

AYRT

Hey, another married queer guy on here! :D

I don't know enough about pro-skating as a sport to comment on the technical aspects of it, but considering it's been proven that stuff they've gotten praised for about the technical aspects of things have been plagiarized (the stripping scenes have been traced directly from licensed photos they don't own the rights to, a bunch of merch features it too, etc, there's a whole website in Japanese that shows a bunch of these issues), I'm surprised they messed up the technical aspects if only because I would have thought they would have just ganked it from somewhere else. o.O

Also, Banana Fish! Boy that's a name I haven't heard in awhile. While I think the ending was bonkers and stupid because the author admitted that she ended it that way because River Phoenix, the guy she based Ash off of, died and not because it was originally going to end that way, I also think Banana Fish was pretty progressive for the time. It was a fragile gay love story with a kid who was badly abused and still had enough trust to reach out, and Eiji was endearingly authentic and neither ever fell into "yaoi trope" territory. The fact that Eiji never really got over Ash and hoarded his memories of him in the epilogue makes things even more bittersweet I think. (The only part of that clusterfuck of an ending and epilogue that I can forgive is that Sing and Akira (the young girl) meet for the first time, and Akira later becomes Sing's wife, Yoshida provided "wedding photos" in some promotional material.)

While I think Banana Fish had a whole lot of "WTF" moments about it, I will say I think it's a good example of how to make a gay love story that doesn't have a "female gaze" to it. The narrative felt very neutral, it had many things that both male and female fans enjoyed. There's a reason it's considered a cult classic by many in Japan.

Someone mentioned Sorairo Flutter above. It's a manga that's based off of a webcomic done by a gay male author. I haven't gotten a chance to go through it yet, but I'll likely get a private translation done of it. It certainly doesn't "baraish" to be though:

https://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=139385
https://myanimelist.cdn-dena.com/images/manga/3/190455l.jpg
https://myanimelist.cdn-dena.com/images/manga/1/192611l.jpg

The main kid is a little on the chunky "cub" side but I think he's neutral as far as that goes, and the other boy is downright pretty.

I feel you about bara. I like some bara-lite authors (Naop and Mentaiko represent) but generally I'm not into hardcore bara either. It doesn't need to be bara in order to not have an explicit "female gaze" thing about it. Hell, look at romance novels, those guys are all ripped as fuck (it's a guilty pleasure to read trashy romance novels for me, whether heterosexual or homosexual), but there's still an immediately ascertainable "female audience" feeling, you know what I mean? The "look" of the characters is only a part of the issue here for me.

I would like more "normal" looking guys in gay representation though, a happy medium between "they're all roided up baras" and "they're all whispy willow bishounen and saucer-eyed ukes".

Yeah, it's all bisexual cis girls and real gay men hate it.

http://tedystaleva.tumblr.com/post/156901516957/yuri-on-ice-reaction-from-olympic-skater-johnny

Oh, but they probably just paid him to praise it, right? Crunchyroll, an online anime site that runs on membership fees, paid a champion skater to promote a show that was already their most popular feature, right? And the livetweets on his twitter about it were all part of the promotion too right? He's barely containing the fact that he really hates it, right?

IKR? And it makes so much sense for Crunchyroll to pay such a well known skater after the show became a hit even among skaters. Of course.

He loves it because he's a skater himself and this is one of the few times media is depicting his sport. That's why so many skaters were so in love with the show, gay or not.

Extrapolating a conclusion from the reaction of skaters is certainly not accurate.

And yet he talks about the revelation of Victor being in love with Yuuri from the beginning as one of his favorite things of the show, instead of talking only about skating.

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[ SECRET POST #3732 ]

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