The Fosters will melt your heart! (a review)

Last month my partner and I started watch The Fosters on netflix.

It has some problematic elements (like siding with the cops, sappy lingering on teenage romance, and comically flat portrayals of poverty/non-middle-class people) but if you're a sucker for Very Special Episodes then you should definitely watch this show. Every episode is very special. Just like all seven of the principle characters. The Fosters addresses many real life issues that other light hearted family shows are unwilling to associate themselves with.

I was particularly impressed with this show's portrayal of rape and the social aftermath and personal trauma that it causes. I've also been impressed with the way that it portrays the subtlety with which most bullying and exclusion happens. While it is still made more obvious for the show, its presentation is more subtle than I have seen before. It's much closer to the realities of discrimination.

All that said, it's an incredibly schmaltzy show that knows how to stick its tear-jerking claws into your heart strings. The writers are masters at making you think the worst is coming and then softening the dramatic blow so you feel sweet sweet relief (in fact I suspect one of the cliffhangers of the most recent midseason finale will pan out this way). The turn of events can also surprise with very dramatic stuff that seems to come out of nowhere and hit you in the guts.

Just based on the amount of principal characters and the vast array of diverse and subversive topics it covers, The Fosters could have been an awful mess of cute faces and progressive Hallmark moments. Diversity Soup if you will. And I'm not gonna lie, it feels a bit like that in the beginning. But by the 5th episode you are fully in love with every character and you physically twitch when they make the wrong choice for loving reasons. Which is basically what drives the plot of this show.

You watch it for the characters. Because you love them, pretend they are your friends, and want them to be happy. The characters and their motivations all ring pretty true and the actors work exceptionally well together. The way they avoid, sublimate, and misread their stresses and anxieties is painfully realistic. Some of the "drama" of the show is definitely played up in a way that is unrealistic, but that's not really what you watch the show for right?

Also for a show that centers around a lesbian couple and their family, we see a whole lot more of the teens doing sex things than we do the moms. I think that what The Fosters need the most is more sexy lesbian mom sex. This is my biggest critique of the show. Not enough gay sex.

I guess my point here is, if you liked watching Boy Meets world and My So-Called Life and if you get tired of every LGBTQ show out there being "gritty" and "edgy" then this is the show for you. It doesn't turn away from tougher issues but still leaves you feeling good about the world. Enjoy!

PS: I tried to keep spoilers to a minimum in this review but if you want to read more about the show and don't mind spoilers Autostraddle has some amazing posts about it.

Thinness and Gender Fluidity: breaking androgyny's rules (WITH SELFIES!)

I asked this question last night after another friend of mine asked facebook who was the most high-profile non-bianry/agender/genderqueer person.

I asked this question because all the people I thought of as symbols in terms of my ideals for gender bending are all pretty thin. 

  

Lack of symbols has been a serious problem for gender minorities for pretty much all of modern western/white history. Fortunately and finally trans folks are showing up in media outlets. Not in droves, but in high enough numbers that gender minorities now have at least some known individuals to identify themselves with and see as role models.

The problem of invisibility for gender minorities is slowly but successfully being resolved. The hitch for me though is that, as a conspicuously not-thin genderqueer person, I have can't find any modern role models who look like me. It's often a tough sort of work to feel comfortable loving my own body. And I think this is part of why.

The images of these gender benders, which I am endlessly thankful for in so many way, transmit to me (along with many other valuable things!) two very harsh messages about gender nonconforming:

1. In order to be visible to others as androgynous/genderqueer one must be thin. 
2. The masculine must always be given more prominence, and physically feminine qualities (like curves) should be played down or not there at all. Femininity is best expressed through makeup or outfit choices and not though the body or facial/emotive expressions.

These are the unspoken rules of androgyny (as I receive them). They're held together by a crude mix of masculine centrism and fat phobia. 

For me these rules mean that my hips, breasts, and butt should be either insubstantial or easily hidden. Which they aren't and probably never will be. The last time I was svelte by any means was when I was 14. Then the estrogen fairy visited me. It's taken me a while to get here, but today I love the curvier parts of my body. I love they way they look and feel.

But this love is brought into a false challenge when I try to express my atypical gender. When I dress masculinely I feel reflexively critical of the fact that my breasts are a visible bulge under my button down and that my hips are obvious even in mens jeans. It seems wrong. It goes against the rules I learned about gender bending.

As a champion of selfies I notice this in the way that I have staged/posed photos I've taken of myself and in how I view them:

Note how in the first photo I seem somehow "less androgynous" with my butt stuck out and the very obvious curving of my body (and also the kick-ass pump)? I could be wrong but I think most people who saw that photo out of context would not assume I'm genderqueer. 

In the photo on the bottom however, because I've reduced the visibility of my breasts, butt, and hips, put on a pair of sunglasses and my best blue steel face, I more closely resemble the culturally accepted idea of gender bending.

Now. I like both of these photos. But honestly I feel the one on the top to be more expressive of me. The sunglasses do play some part in that, but mostly it's because there's a playfulness to the first photo that's missing from the second one. When I look at the one on the bottom I think to myself with a chuckle "geez that guy takes himself way too seriously." I find the masculinity a bit (comically) over the top. But I posed that way because it was fun to try on and also because that is how I have seen androgyny/gender bending portrayed. 

Note the fact that I've posed and framed the second shot in a way that makes me appear thinner and taller and that in the first shot you can see much more of my body and have a sense of its actual size. My hips don't lie. It's the skewed representation and people's subsequent assumptions about gender bending that lie to them about my hips.

So enough with fun and games and selfies:

I'm really starting to hate these rules of androgyny/gender bending. I hate being the only one working to remind myself that yes, my breasts can be masculine and that yes, I can harvest a lot of manly in my big hips. It hurts that there is not room for my curvier parts within the cultural ideals of gender bending and androgyny. 

It stops people from seeing me my gender as transgressive. And I'm fairly certain it stops people from seeing me as transgender, and from getting my pronouns correct. Part of the reason I take so many damn selfies is to create evidence that me, my gender, and my body are not invisible and can all exist simultaneously. So I can see me, in all my impossible glory. 

And fuck, it's tiring being your own role model, so after some googling and with the help of those who answered the question I opened this post with here's photographic evidence of two badass and gorgeously fat genderfuckers:

      

Courtney Trouble is a badass                                  Gladys Bently. Just Awesome.             

maker or queer porn and other

queerly beautiful things!

Orange is the New Black and Trojan Horse Tactics

In a lot of ways Piper was my Trojan Horse. You're not going to go into a network and sell a show on really fascinating tales of black women, and Latina women, and old women and criminals. But if you take this white girl, this sort of fish out of water, and you follow her in, you can then expand your world and tell all of those other stories. But it's a hard sell to just go in and try to sell those stories initially. The girl next door, the cool blonde, is a very easy access point, and it's relatable for a lot of audiences and a lot of networks looking for a certain demographic. It's useful.

- Jenji Kohan, creator of Orange is the New Black

I find the use of the "trojan horse" clever but not heroic. I understand and respect Kohan's use of this tactic. I am incredibly glad that her show Orange is the New Black exists. I love it (and it's problematic elements). What I find unfortunate, nay, deeply annoying is that such a masking maneuver is necessary for those looking to tell the stories of non-white, queer, and otherwise marginalized women of color.

I don't hate the trojan horse tactic of making progressive media. I think it can be a powerful tool, but it is a tool that is primarily used to educate and entertain the kind of people who will be placated by the white, well-off, conventionally attractive, seemingly straight main character. This is important because it squarely aims the show at a white, straight, "conventional" sort of audience.

I guess one of the things I'm upset about is that this show can't really be claimed by women of women of color or poor women as full representations. Non-white and poor characters are featured prominently but the show itself is not about them.

The trojan horse approach to making media is problematic because it does two things simultaneously.

1. In order to be passable to the gatekeepers of Hollywood it puts forth a conventionally acceptable protagonist (white, well off, good looking, seemingly straight) which reinforces the cultural view of who's narratives are acceptable & worth our cultural attention.

2. It panders to the audience of straight, white, well off viewers. The reason Hollywood's gatekeepers give again and again for why people like Piper must be in the foreground is that "it's what the people want".

On this second point I call bull. As someone who has tendency to distrust and dehumanize people with wealth, I don't think that white wealthy straight people (the "they" the gatekeepers are referring to) want to continue to see the boring parade of people who are similar to them dance across their screens. I bet they are bored.

Special letter to the 5 straight white people who read my blog:

Seriously folks, aren't you bored? Aren't you yawning from the painful ease it is to always sympathize with the protagonists Hollywood pushes out? Don't you want to have a protagonist that is viciously different from you? Don't you want to see the world from the eyes of someone the world has insulated you from empathizing with (like say Suzanne AKA Crazy Eyes)? I know you are capable of empathizing with people who are different from you. Can you call up those gatekeepers and tell them you are bored and that you are not as stupid as they think you are? You don't need to be coddled as an audience. Let Hollywood know that having a protagonist with a different race, sexual orientation, or class status than yours will not make you loose your shit? Tell the gatekeepers you're an adult and can handle empathizing with people who don't look like you.

Thanx,
WRM

Dear Stranger: More Nuance less Sensationalism

This morning when I opened the Stranger's website I was initially delighted to see they had a pull out feature specifically highlighting queer voices on the issue of marriage. I got a tingly hopeful feeling in my belly. I read through them in the order listed. I felt increasingly disappointed with each one (that's a bit of an exaggeration there were a few I liked). I definitely do grok the value of folks sharing their stories and experiences surrounding marriage. But man did I find this series lacking and problematic.

I was disappointed that the Stranger's marriage articles failed to mention legal benefits in any significant way. Marriage benefits were mentioned briefly in a few of the articles but with very little detail or critique and more as a gimmicks or features. There was no reference to the fact that the reason this step toward marriage equality (and yes same sex marriage is only one step in a long journey) is important might be because our government specifically offers legal benefits to certain types of family structures (straight, cisgendered, monogamous) and excludes others with divergent familial configurations (gay, lesbian, genderqueer, non-monogamous, poly). At best in my mind marriage is the ultimate validation of chosen family. And I think everyone deserves to choose who they call family (and receive equal fucking benefits!).

I find nothing inherently romantic about marriage. I see marriage (and really any sort of commitment stated formally or otherwise) as a container for romance and companionship. It sets the stage for love & companionship to happen. It is scaffolding for repeated and sustainable feelings and acts of love and care. Marriage is not love. Just as a stage is not a play. Historically love and marriage were combined in cultural narratives (fairytales) to sugarcoat the financial, status-driven approach to marriage which was the norm in so many cultures worldwide.
The conflation of love and marriage is old and broken. It uses the individually defined (and socially undefined) mantle of "love" to mask the very real legal and societal benefits being married affords certain citizens.

In a addition to the scant mention actual marriage benefits, I also found this series awash in an overabundance of party/drinking/drug culture. The first three articles listed in the pull out directly describe, and even encourage drinking specifically. I'm not opposed to drinking. But it's not something I want to fly up immediately in the minds of straight folks (and yes TONS of straight folks read the Stranger) when they hear the word "queer". I'm not saying that the Stranger is consciously contributing to this misconception of LGBTQ folks, but seriously, fronting this series with boozy articles is not helping.


Two activities described in these boozy articles are particularly out of line with what I'd consider to be ethical/consensual behavior. In one article there is a lack of communication about the author's intent for inviting "everyone we found attractive" to a party that included donut eating; an activity which the author clearly alludes to as sexually arousing. This is using and objectifying folks without their consent or knowledge. Which is pretty fucking shitty. In another article the author describes being flanked and consequently ogled and felt up by a heterosexual couple. Yes non monogamous couples do this. It's rude and even looked down upon in most poly communities (srsly just google the term unicorn hunters).

The article that turned my stomach the most portrayed folks in open relationships so stereotypically I had to put in eyedrops after reading it. Oh the onslaught of eye rolls it inspired. Publicizing partying/orgies as poly culture is old, needlessly sensational news. The article describes not one but two women in open marriages as "very sexual". Folks in open relationships are represented in these articles as doing nothing more than fucking (or wanting to fuck) more than one partner. Now, I have nothing against promiscuity (& I use this term in sex-positively to mean fucking lots of people), far from it in fact. I think it's super that folks with high sex drives, diverse appetites and the capacity to fuck many and often can peruse their desires, but honestly that's just not me! And it's not most of the poly folks I know and love in my community. There are many motivations for having an open/poly relationship. Sex is one among those many. And quite frankly, I don't want folks to think "orgy" or to think I'm always on the prowl when I tell them I'm poly.

Whenever I come out to a friend as polyamorous I have to work against the sensationalized images portrayed in articles like these. I have to make space to give a small lecture about communication, dates, commitment, balance etc.... I then invite what I hope to be a continuous Q&A about poly ("If you have questions about my relationships you are welcome to ask now or at any time!"). I keep this lecture as dry, sexless, and logistical as possible. When people hear words like "polyamory" and "open relationship" they almost always think about polyfidelity (having sex with multiple people which the articles portray fantastically). While this is part how I run of my romantic relationships it is not the most important and especially not what I want to be the most visible aspect of my relationships. I consider my sex life more private than my romantic life. Which is why I find myself resenting it when folks have (or rather think they have) a representative idea of what my sex life looks like before I've even had a chance to talk about what my relationships actually look like. When I tell you I'm polyamorous it does not mean I am telling you about my wild, wasted sexcapades (trust me, you'll know when I'm telling you about those!) I am telling you about my relationships.

PS: This conversation about polygamous marriage fails to address any concerns or wishes polyamorous/non-monogamous folks actually have about wanting to mary multiple people. (link suggestions?)

PPS: Yes, for folks wondering, I am aware that these articles are meant to show how fucked up "traditional" marriage already is. But is that (backward) approach to supporting same-sex marriage REALLY productive? It's both cynical and childish in a "yeah but your shit's fucked up too" kinda way. This is not dialogue or effective critique of "traditional" marriage. It's sensationalism inviting the judgement of the readers.