…One of the (many) consequences of the CCA and Wertham’s ideology is the reenforcement that queer characters are somehow “adult” and “inappropriate” by default. “What about the children?!” bigoted pearl-clutchers ask.
Yes, what about the children — namely, the queer ones? Do they not deserve the representation — something curative in the face of adversity — that their straight and cis peers get every day on TV, film, and comics?
A great many (though not all) LGBTQ people realize that they’re queer at a young age. Maybe it’s through childhood crushes on fictional characters or an intrinsic knowing that they’re not the gender they’ve been assigned. Many who discover their identities later in life wish they had the language and representation to understand themselves at an earlier age.
Media needs more representation of young LGBTQ kids — Lumberjanes and Steven Universe and Boy in Pink Earmuffs can’t carry that burden alone. That’s why I argue that Jonathan Samuel Kent, current Superboy and ten-year-old child to Lois Lane and Clark Kent, should be queer.
The full article is at Comics Alliance. There’s also The Case For Gay Miles Morales.
Would it inspire DC Comics to do this if some bloggers organized a festival of writing fan fiction sample stories for this new character? It might be useful to try it, as a lobbying campaign, even if DC doesn’t participate. I’m not queer, but I would be interested in reading some dignified stories on this topic.
Please suggest this to some bloggers you know, and see if they would contribute either a short story or a comics plot outline treatment.
The zipper line makes the chest-emblazonment “S” look like “$” (hardly inappropriate for a Time, Inc, property, but still…).
Bruce:
I’ll do that.
It makes me wish I could write fiction.
I can imagine a gay superboy, when he’s out of costume and trying to fit in, getting harrassed in the locker room at school and taking it because if he threw someone through a wall that would be problematic. What would be going through his mind at the time? What kind of conversation would he have with his cat afterward, about the humans? I always figured that one of the skills Supers would have to pick up is: appearing to be hurt and appearing to get beaten up like normals. What’s it like for a young super to have to realize that being fireproof and bulletproof isn’t enough, you have to bleed now and again to keep the humans from freaking out in terror of you?
Marcus:
Those are really good ideas, though! You could certainly float them as an outline for a story, I think. I’d read that story, and I don’t like Superman.
I’d read that story, and I don’t like Superman.
Me too, except I can’t write fiction to save my life. :(
I had an idea the other day I was telling a writer friend of mine about: HERE STEAL THIS!
You know those wretched “pride and prejudice and zombies” books? What about
“A connecticut yankee in a zombie outbreak” by Mark Twain. In which instead of going
back in time into King Arthur’s court, it’s forward in time to a dystopian future -- and of
course Sir Boss pwns everyone. But I can’t write like Mark Twain! Arrgh!
There’s another interesting angle to this. I commented earlier about an incident in which there was some locker-room rough play when I was in 8th grade… One of the kids that got abused a lot for a while was different -- he wasn’t really gay but they called him gay and it was just another weapon in the arsenal of othering.
What if superboy were actually unsure and was getting beaten up by the frosh soph football guys in the locker room, when he started to wonder if maybe they were right and maybe that’s what was so different about him? If you think about it being a super is just another way of being in the closet. I’m sure that superboy would want nothing more than to be able to be like other kids -- to bleed when he skins his knee, to take a hit in sports practice and actually feel it. He’d feel so “othered” all along, I can see adding being “othered” about his sexuality would sort of be a side-note to a long symphony of uncertainty and pain. He’d be pretending he was human. I imagine that gay/trans children experience that feeling all the time. “What am I?”
just another way of being in the closet
(kicks himself)
“Just” is not the right word there; that minimizes the experience. Damn it.
I’m not uncomfortable with the sexuality issues, when I write about this stuff, but I get awkward because it makes me finger-shakingly angry at the humans.
I’m rattling on on this topic but I can’t help it… I’m excited with ideas and I’m frustrated I can’t write fiction for shit. But I can see plot-lines. :/
So I was thinking… Superboy tries out for football (why not, he’s super!) and takes a hit that should have left him injured and marked up. Of course he’s not even so much as bruised. So he realizes he’s got to hide in the shower so the other kids don’t see he’s not so much as bruised. But then they start in on him because they have no idea he’s not dealing with body-shame, he’s dealing with super-shame, and of course the bullies jump to the wrong conclusion and think he’s hiding from the shower because he’s got body issues and then the whole situation explodes upward from there. The incident I remember so vividly from high school it was one boy who was ashamed of his appearance and trying to hide, who was “othered” as gay (he wasn’t!) and they started drubbing him with wet towels until it exploded horizontally at me -- it was his attempt to hide due to body shame that made him a target. There were other boys in the locker room who kept their heads down and were just glad that they weren’t targeted. I wonder if, 40 years later, they are still ashamed of that?
Everyone I talk to has a horror story about high school. It’s as if humans are horrible fucking monsters or something.
Haha! Good one. Everybody knows kids start out normal, and remain pure until indoctrinated into the gayhomo lifestyle through tolerance and anti-bullying campaigns promoted by the Gay Agenda conspiracies embedded in our public school system.
/street preacher
Again, great ideas, Marcus!
“There were other boys in the locker room who kept their heads down and were just glad that they weren’t targeted. I wonder if, 40 years later, they are still ashamed of that?”
Yes, we are. Obviously I was not at your particular high school, but every man I know that wasn’t a jackass bully has an incident where he should have and could have done something, but did nothing, and the shame lingers forever. It’s the real horrible part of high school -- when you realize you might be just as bad as everyone else. Especially if it’s one of your friends being picked on…
Thank you, Jado. That’s important to hear.