[ SECRET POST #5302 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5302 ⌋

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


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 28 secrets from Secret Submission Post #759.
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

[(Anonymous)]

NAYRT, but for me, a large amount of the exhausted eye-rolling I was doing was that he definitely fell back on that old "why can't two men just have a very close friendship?" thing, which... literally, that is all that exists. 99.9% of all m/m ships in the world are based on characters who, in canon, are two men who "just have a very close friendship." There is absolutely no shortage of stories about male friendship and platonic male bonding. So to act like the existence of shipping, or "worse," the existence of a fandom that truly wants/believes their ship to be canon is somehow taking away from that... nah, man. That doesn't sit right with me. That feels like the usual mocking, just with a gentle, condescending pat on the head.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah. It feels like, would you be this sensitive if somebody posited that maybe Sam and Natasha's friendship had a romantic element? We'll never know but I reckon not.

[(Anonymous)]

Turn that around for a second. Would shippers be accusing the man of bigotry if he said that actually he sees Sam and Natasha as really close, platonic friends? We’ll never know, but I reckon not.

[(Anonymous)]

Lol ridiculous

[(Anonymous)]

Apples to oranges but ok.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, and with that 99 percent of male friendships, there are always people in fandom who think they should be a couple because they really can't see any guys as just friends unless those guys are aggressively heterosexual to the point of not being able to pat each other's shoulder without turning to the camera and saying "no homo tho." I am beyond weary of the contradictory illusion in which both toxic masculinity and nontoxic male-male friendships apparently abound in our media.

[(Anonymous)]

But like... fandom doesn't matter here. Fandom makes everyone bang. That goes across the whole board, including het and f/f ships. So that has nothing to do with anything.

What I'm specifically calling out is this insinuation that "everything is gay" when in reality almost nothing is gay. Not really. Again, fanworks don't matter here-- because fanworks aren't the real thing. Fanworks will always be non-canon. Fanworks will always be wishful thinking. The actual canon is overwhelming guys being just friends. So for an actor to complain about this phenomenon that doesn't exist is boggling at best, disappointing at worst.

[(Anonymous)]

This would work as an argument like 20 years ago, but not now. Fandom is in the mainstream alongside everything else, shippers are known about, people don't hide it anymore. Like I already saw people doing the 'they're QB'ing!!' at this show from the trailers, never mind the mess that always ends up exploding when some pet fanon m/m doesn't end up happening like the fans want, even though it was never going to.

This isn't some niche thing kept in the shadows anymore where we keep to ourselves, so I imagine that from the outside it really does seem like there's a large group of people who don't understand that male friendships exist. What with the way QB accusations are thrown around if two men so much as look at one another or have any kind of positive interaction. And yeah, that's not on fandom, but for people who aren't into it and don't get it, how are they meant to understand that? Especially that for all the chill shippers just enjoying stuff there are so many very loud ones demanding canon for every m+m interaction under the sun.

[(Anonymous)]

so I imagine that from the outside it really does seem like there's a large group of people who don't understand that male friendships exist.

But what I'm saying is that literally nothing but male friendships exist. Even with fandom being more mainstream, even if shippers are in the DMs calling for canon relationships, those relationships are not happening. Not once has a fandom's passion for an m/m ship caused that ship to become canon. That's why I say fandom doesn't matter here-- not that it isn't in the forefront, and I'm totally willing to admit that there's the very loud shipper subsection that screams for every m/m ship to be canon, but they never get their way. Male friendships are male friendships. That's it. So I'm not really sympathetic, because no matter what fanon occurs, 99.9% of actual produced canon content for anything is going to be platonic/heterosexual.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with everything you've said here. Fwiw I'm not pissed about Anthony Mackie's comments, I just think they don't reflect actual trends in popular media.

[(Anonymous)]

You're right and you should say it (and keep saying it, because apparently it's difficult for some people to grasp?).

Mainstream media basically never allows characters to develop romantic/sexual feelings for other characters of the same gender, unless they were established as gay-very-gay-ever-so-definitely-gay right from the word go. At best mainstream media is only comfortable with queerness if it is a known quantity that is disclosed immediately so that the audience is never challenged to engage with said queerness any more deeply or personally than they are comfortable with. Mainstream media basically treats queerness like something you warn for: "Yo, just FYI, this character is attracted to people of the same gender, which means there may be Gay Feelings and even Gay Activity at some point in this character's storyline; we just thought you should know that right away, so you don't invest too deeply and personally in the character's storyline and then get caught off guard and made uncomfortable by The Gayness later on."

Of course, I do have to acknowledge that there have been a few exceptions cropping up, mostly in the last few years.

And when it comes to fandom in particular influencing a ship to happen...Will/Hannibal might count? I don't think it was the original plan to make it a romance? I could be mistaken, though, maybe it was the plan all along; I loved the show but I was never in the fandom so I'm not a Hannibal info buff. Admittedly, though, their relationship may not have been sexual. And I'm pretty sure Brittany/Santana on Glee was originally intended as basically a joke, like, "Haha! eVeRyBoDy ExPeRiMeNtS iN hIgHsChOoL!" But then the fans took it seriously and so the writers decided to take it seriously as well.

But it's still suuuper rare, and honestly these examples are pretty tenuous, since I'm not in either of these fandoms and therefore very much not an expert on exactly how these ships came to be.

[(Anonymous)]

Good examples.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah this. When there's a larger percentage of non-straight romances in main stream media I'll give this argument more credit. Until then, the people saying men can't hold hands and the people who want men to hold hands are two mostly different groups.

[(Anonymous)]

As someone who's a whore for accurate characterization, I kind of do see his point... but I admit it came across as verbal diarrhea. I wonder at whom the comments were directed. The shippers? Do they flood his twitter and inbox and approach him at cons with "OMG PLZ MAKE SAM AND BUCKY KISS!!!111 LULZ" Does he have to hear about gay ships all day long? Does he think fans' wishes will have power over the story direction? Is it that Marvel is so big, and he just doesn't want a relationship misrepresented? Is he concerned about something deeper (no pun intended)? So much to unpack. It's just a strange response.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree. It felt to me like "You did not have to get so deep, man." LOL Marvel movies have almost zero canon LGBT characters so it's not likely to develop between Sam & Bucky.