[ SECRET POST #4566 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4566 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 45 secrets from Secret Submission Post #654.
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.

Comments

[fscom]

03. https://i.imgur.com/x0FZl14.png

[(Anonymous)]

It's been interesting to see the response to Good Omens' representation (or lack thereof, whichever way you want to view it) vs. Grindeldore. The latter is more explicitly portrayed IMO, but the former is held up as a greater example of representation, which is kind of confusing to me.

[(Anonymous)]

How do you think Grindledore is explicitly portrayed? What do you mean by "explicit"

[(Anonymous)]

I think possibly an important difference here is that Gaiman was fairly upfront and specific about what was going on and how it was going to be portrayed, and then the fans are responding to it in a certain way on their own. Whereas Rowling went out and said Dumbledore was super gay, and then the follow-up was a bit of a wet fart.

[(Anonymous)]

Lol what? How is Grindledore explicit in FB2?

[(Anonymous)]

The way I approach it is:

Per the book, angels (and deamons?) are sexless unless they make an effort, and per Gaiman, Aziraphale and Crowley are not gay in the sense that they are not male humans, but they do love each other. So, sexual orientation doesn't really apply and who is to say what an explicit romance would even look like between these characters. In that light, I would agree that it's not great representation since it's not about what humans experience.

That said, they are two beings who - Word of God - love each other, who definitely appear to be in love with each other, and who have the appearance of male humans and are played by male human actors, and if people see that and like it or find it empowering, then that's cool and I'm not going to rain on their parade because the romance isn't explicit by some measure. Good Omens is a far cry from most of the "It's totally canon" claims about shows where it totally isn't canon.

It's also possible people are responding to the way the show plays with gender presentation among angels, demons, and the Horsemen, as far as LGBT representation goes.

[(Anonymous)]

+1

[(Anonymous)]

and that imo is a goddamn cop-out, they're not gay BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT GAY, not bc they're not human.

like jfc how is anyone taking these baity white men as rep- oh, that's why...

[(Anonymous)]

A comparison I've seen a lot, and like, about it is with Shadwell/Madame Tracy: they get about as much "confirmation" of a budding romantic relationship (much less, come to think of it!) as Aziraphale and Crowley, but as they're a man and a woman, nobody has any problem reading it as explicitly romantic.

If we're judging the two relationships in a similar way as viewers, we can't say one is more canon than the other, but they are both equally implied.

I know that obviously not all viewers are going to go in and actually make that comparison, but it's an interesting one.

[(Anonymous)]

I never noticed Crowley's snake belt until just now!

[(Anonymous)]

Or maybe the bit where Neil basically made it as a tribute to Terry - who is dead - and didn't want to introduce such a hard change to a text that was originally collaborative when, if you'll recall, his friend and co-author is dead.

[(Anonymous)]

They're not gay because they're NOT MEN

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think the Good Omens miniseries should be placed in the same negative category as the whole Grindelwald mess. If anything, it comes off as a better example to follow. One was a post-series footnote topped off by a movie that refused to go there (feel correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't seen it), whereas the Good Omens production had a strong romantic thread running through the whole thing. By the end they read quite loud and clear as an older ace couple finally able to celebrate their freedom and ability to be in the world with the apocalypse as a backdrop and the antichrist functioning as a McGuffin.

It's not like I was wearing shipping goggles either--I watched it with my family and it seemed to work that way for everyone else in the room watching, none of whom were familiar with the text or Gaiman's statements regarding them.

Sure I'd like to see more variety in media, and I think there's plenty of room for positive male leads in sexual gay relationships--but I also don't think they should be at the expense of other positive examples of other queer relationships. As much as I feel like it started out as a good thing, and some important points were made that needed to be in the beginning, this whole argument about representation has increasingly devolved into a shitty zero-sum game where nobody gets nice things.

[(Anonymous)]

the Good Omens production had a strong romantic thread running through the whole thing

tbh it feels less like "a thread" and more like the main fabric of the show.

And +1000000 on the "this whole argument about representation has increasingly devolved into a shitty zero-sum game where nobody gets nice things"

[feotakahari]

The responses to this series have been aphobic as fuck. Literally. Ace fans are loving this couple, and everyone else just wants to know if they fork as well as spoon.

[(Anonymous)]

Nobody owes you head canons that are compatible with yours. Signed, an asexual.

[erinptah]

Regardless of how you feel about the forking, they're not in a confirmed-canon romance either, and "close friends who are neither in love nor sleeping together" isn't some kind of rare dynamic that ace fans struggle to find represented in the rest of the media.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm a little confused. Are you saying that interpreting Aziraphale and Crowley as anything other than ace is ace erasure? Because I'm ace, and I do wish we were more represented in the media, but I really don't agree with that at all.

[(Anonymous)]

Um, you do know that seeing LGBTQ themes in work isn't just about who's fucking, or forking?

[(Anonymous)]

yeah pretty much, these two are nothing new, nothing i haven't seen a thousand times before but bc ppl are shipping it real hard they're now trying to give a series, that doesn't deserve it, praise for 'rep' that doesn't exist.

but hey fandom and baity white-guys, what else is new?

[(Anonymous)]

Fandom has long since fallen into people trying to argue whatever they ship is "not perfect, but here's a whole essay on how it's totally progressive in some ways" (which is fine, but it gets taken too far when people start calling things canon) while whatever they don't ship is "overrated because the rep isn't that good." I want to say the issue is compatible with secret #4...good representation isn't automatically what touches your emotions, it's just...good representation of real people.

[(Anonymous)]

My view is that Good Omens (TV) is one of those rare cases where the subtext is at least plausible. The miniseries ends with Aziraphale and Crowley admitting their relationship with each other is stronger than with their former "sides."

This is in stark contrast to the rest of fandom's favorite ships which are mostly tinhatting bullshit.

[(Anonymous)]

Fandom is prone to hyperbole. Film at 11:00.

[(Anonymous)]

Or maybe it's 20-fucking-19 and we don't need a "LOOK THEY'RE FUCKING GAY." If they were a man and a woman, no one would be fucking questioning their relationship and I'm sick of this being questioned as a gay woman myself.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think that's a fair assessment of this show. Mostly because Neil Gaimen made it pretty clear he was not making any big changes that he had not discussed with Terry Pratchet before his death, and that included turning two characters they wrote as lacking sexuality into having an explicit romance with each other (and I'm going to assume you mean kissing, because literally everything else about them was romantic). And while he didn't have them kiss, he invited everyone to have whatever ship/headcanoned they liked and defended shippers to those who tried to go after them.

And while the script doesn't have them kissing or calling each other boyfriends, it also doesn't have them displaying interest in *anyone* that way, because again, angel and a demon. What they do do is stare adoringly at each other, have couples spats, do everything for each other. The actors/directors/editors certainly played it romantic, and I'm fine with how it ended up.

To say they shied away "to maintain the straight viewers" is a massive, massive misreading of the situation. I'm pretty sure if they wanted not to offend the kind of people who *would* be offended at that, they probably wouldn't have delighted in making God a woman (like just having her be "the voice over" instead of explicitly having her speak to Aziraphale as God and having them refer to God as "her") or having Adam and Eve be black.