So, this morning I woke up to find that, as usual, I’d emailed myself, the night before. (I often email myself a last minute flash of inspiration just before I pass out for the night. I usually wake up with no memory of what I was talking about, or why I felt so urgently about “WHAT THINGS EAT”.)
However! Today, I know exactly what I was talking about, because it’s all I’ve been talking about, all week, to mump. And now, apparently, it is time for a tumblr post.
Because, okay, the whole point of watching cinema is finding something that you can relate to. Something that makes you go, “Oh. You too?”. That’s what everyone looks for in a viewing experience. Even in outlandish situations - you watch Black Books, it’s funny, because everything that happens is outrageous, but at the same time, everyone goes, “…I’m a little bit like Bernard Black.”
But the problem is, if you’re gay, right up until about five years ago, if you saw yourself in mainstream cinema, you were either the comic relief, or you died. More often than not, both. It’s a weird trope, and I don’t know where it came from, but everyone was using it. Even people who I tend to think of as fairly pro-equality fell back on it (I’M LOOKING AT YOU, JOSS WHEDON). I mean, Alan Moore’s never met the lesbian he couldn’t kill off. And Richard Curtis, lord love him, is a serial murderer of queer characters. Four Weddings and a Funeral is the obvious one (guess who gets a funeral), but the only reason he didn’t get to kill off the gay character in Love Actually is that they (along with their death scene) were deleted from the film entirely.
(Incidentally, when talking about this to mump, earlier, I said, “I don’t think Richard Curtis hates gay people. I just think he wants us all dead.” Which we agreed sounded like the best pathetic defence of homophobia either of us had ever heard.)
(But seriously, I really don’t think he hates gay people.)
(That said, I wouldn’t want to spend a weekend in an off-beat romantic comedy with him.)
The point is, up until very recently, if you were a gay cinematic character, you were going to lose. You were going to lose face or you were going to lose your life.
Which is why I’ve always loved superhero movies. Because all superheroes are gay characters. They’re so often closeted to the people close to them, there’s usually a coming out scene, and there’s a running theme of coming to terms with who they are as a person.
And I’m sure most people spot the parallels, but what’s nice is being able to think about being gay as BEING A SUPERPOWER. As opposed to something that is eventually going to kill you or make you a laughing stock. I LIKE OTHER WOMEN AND IT WOULD PROBABLY BE INAPPROPRIATE TO MENTION MY X-RAY VISION AT THIS JUNCTURE.
There are a lot of superhero films that cash in on this. X Men is the obvious one, of course. (There’s the whole “Have you tried… not being a mutant?” coming out scene, but also the whole franchise has basically been written as a gay parable since the eighties, so if you’re not seeing it, put your glasses on and look again.)
But, okay, my favourite has got to be the coming out scene in Mystery Men, which is so beautifully played with the right balance of defiance and fear:
…and which is almost literally the reason I get out of bed in the morning (I have watched it basically every morning before leaving the house, this week, both because I am crazy and also because I know it’s better than anything that’s going to happen to me at work that day).
Which is the sort of thing I’m talking about! I watch superhero films because they resonate with me on a personal level, and make me feel okay about who I am as a human being. The subtext in no way involves me dying because I happen to have a painfully obvious crush on mump, or being laughed at because I prefer to wear men’s clothing. And that’s awesome! That’s what I look for in a film! And that’s why I like superheroes.
“oh. you too?” perfect.
