u/Crafter235

When Rowling turned out to be a rich and creepy bigot, many were disappointed and confused, questioning how she could become like that and tried making up excuses. However, upon retrospect and looking back, it’s not really surprising when you consider the neoliberalism when HP was at its peak, the “pick me” mentality among the contemporary mainstream queer communities, 90s-00s respectability politics, and so forth. And compared to other (more progressive stories) around the time, companies felt that HP was safe enough to market as rebellious (and let’s be honest the Satanic Panic over it was a vocal minority that people hyped up because they liked feeling like a victim). And even take a look at others like Joss Whedon, where you can see in older works a lot of his misogyny and fetishizing of strong women and nice guy syndrome.

With that in mind, it made me wonder about with celebrities, then and now, who if we were to carefully view them, it wouldn’t really be a surprise if later on they turned out to not be as progressive as the media makes them out to be. I’m not saying it’s confirmed, but it wouldn’t be surprising if it turned out to be like that.

For with two examples I had in mind:

- Ryan Murphy: I didn’t think of him originally, but what reminded me was with the whole stuff of Lizzie Borden, and just overall his Monster miniseries’s. People like to say he used to do better and was progressive, but when you look at a lot of his work, it always involves torture porn of minorities, a lot of misogyny and racism masked as being “campy”, and overall it just feels like he hides behind queer stereotypes to deflect criticism. With a lot of his representation, it just feels like it’s out of a paternalistic entitlement, especially since people will praise and defend it ignoring the fact that said characters are treated in a bad light. And overall, it just feels like he is a “pick me” gay man who panders to people who THINK they are progressive. Honestly I feel this way for a lot of people who make taboo/shock media, and don’t really like how people frame them as progressive just by virtue. Many people already hate him and criticize, but give a few years and I wouldn’t be surprised if he finally takes off the mask and openly admits having regressive politics.

- Stephen Graham: Recently he has been getting so much glazing and praise for Adolescence and being a “positive role model for boys”, but honestly it all feels like an act, taking advantage of a moral panic. And especially when you consider the fact that he is publicly a supporter AND friends with the abuser Johnny Depp. And before you pull the “separate art from artist”, it’s not surprising when you consider how Adolescence, which he also co-wrote, really is more about “this poor sad boy” and barely even shows us the girl he victimized. It’s essentially a vanity project for Graham, reducing social issues to a black and white morality tale, and it’s concerning when Graham stated he wanted to show that this could happen to even a good family, letting his own character off the hook for his anger and sexism. With interviews and all, it feels like Graham is more interested in making himself look good vs. sending a message, kind of giving off Sean Penn vibes. And I know that the Bechdel Test isn’t meant to be fully taken seriously, but it’s still concerning that a prestige show about violence towards women barely passes it. Also it’s produced by Brad Pitt, not just his company his name is all over it.

Originally, I was going to share a meme I made for r/bi_irl here, but upon checking it out, I found out that the ability to add images is completely disabled. Why is this?

As much as all 3 are interesting to think about, there are still outside factors and conditions that would affect them, and also either happened because they weren’t made or are the reason the films did not get made.

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This has something I have thought about for a while. Don't get me wrong, the Evangelion community is not perfect, as with throughout Reddit there is proof of that stuff. However, when considering being compared to other places, I notice that at least with comparing r/evangelion and its sibling subreddits to like r/CodeGeass, the queerphobia is much less in comparison, especially in regards to the protagonist. Like even if people are heavily defensive about the shipping they prefer, most of them to some extent can at least accept the idea of Shinji being bisexual. However, even at the slightest suggestion of the possibility of Lelouch not being straight, users will go almost feral on you, with the heavy downvotes and whining and insistence that Lelouch is "clearly/totally straight", despite the canon show leaving it open to interpretation on the character's actual sexual orientation and him not really choosing a particular love interest. And even with the queer shippers on their end, amongst them is a huge amount of biphobia, despite the subtext being more open for bi interpretations rather than binary gay/straight.

And I wanted to ask: Why is this? Especially with considering for all the flaws and problems of the Eva community, there is less hostility to a queer protagonist. Don't get me wrong I am well aware of bigoted Eva fans, but they are much less of them in comparison, especially vocally compared to the Code Geass fans. And I know that Shinji of course has the advantage of direct confirmation, but let me remind you of a lot of fandoms and subreddits where queer interpretations of characters are quite popular, even when the canon doesn't fully confirm anything. I mean look at stuff like Class of '09 or even Death Note to some extent.