the LGB representation bingo card

[kindkit]

I've decided that the world needs a lesbian, gay, and bisexual¹ representation bingo card for all those oh-so-reasonable answers some people like to give when one asks why a particular text contains no characters who are identified as LGB. I'm probably not the first person to think of this, but a quick google didn't reveal an existing card except for a comics-specific one.

So, wanna help me brainstorm squares?

Ideas so far (mine and others'):

It's a children's/YA story.

It's not important to mention the characters' sexualities.

Lesbian/gay/bisexual people only make up X percent of the population, so statistically it makes sense that all the characters are straight.

The creator is at the start of their career and obviously can't risk including queer characters.

Wasn't that one character who had two lines in episode eight gay?

The author said Chracter Y is LGB but it just wasn't specifically mentioned.

It's set in [historical period or historical event] and there's no evidence of any queer people then (and if there was, they were all in the closet).

The creator is gay, why are you singling out their sexuality?

It contains [other minority group], why does it have to have queer people too?

The character is bisexual, they just happen to be attracted to the opposite sex for the whole of this canon.

Why do you have to make everything about sex?

The creator is straight, how can you expect them to write about something they haven't experienced?

It's fantasy! And this universe just doesn't have any queer people in.

There are queer people in my universe.. I just didn't think any of them were worth writing about.

In my universe, nobody cares about sexuality.

They'd just mess it up anyway.

It's about [common setting for situational homosexuality] so that would be stereotyping.

They're as good as dating already!

It just never came up!

The creator is gay, so I'm sure they know what they're doing.

We all know [Character X] and [Character Y] are doing it, anyway

Your contributions are encouraged!



¹I'm aware that the list does not cover the entirety of the queer spectrum. That is because I think the issues of visibility and inclusion around, for example, trans* or asexual characters are sufficiently different from those around LGB characters that one bingo card will not fit all. For that matter, there could probably be separate bingo cards for gay men, bisexual men, bisexual women, and lesbians, if someone wanted to make them.

Comments

[lilacsigil]

It's set in [historical period or historical event] and there's no evidence of any queer people then (and if there was, they were all in the closet).

The creator is gay, why are you singling out their sexuality?

It contains [other minority group], why does it have to have queer people too?

The character is bisexual, they just happen to be attracted to the opposite sex for the whole of this canon.

Why do you have to make everything about sex?

[sebastienne]

It's fantasy! And this universe just doesn't have any queer people in.

Or

There are queer people in my universe.. I just didn't think any of them were worth writing about.

Or

In my universe, nobody cares about sexuality

[kindkit]

Ooh, excellent! Thanks.

[lilacsigil]

A few more...

They'd just mess it up anyway.

It's about [common setting for situational homosexuality] so that would be stereotyping.

They're as good as dating already!

[chalcopyrite]

What about "If it's not specified, can't you just assign them whatever orientation you'd like?"

I came up with "It's not relevant to the plot," but that's basically your second point above.

"Why do you insist on having queer people in everything?"

And the non-specific but always good chestnut: "Aren't there more important things to worry about?"

[magnetic_pole]

Ah! Fun to see all these together.

It just never came up!

The creator is gay, so I'm sure they know what they're doing. [This might be more for shows where the representation is problematic rather than nonexistent...]

We all know [Character X] and [Character Y] are doing it, anyway.

[kindkit]

Ah, yes, the famous "in my universe all sexualities are okay and nobody cares, therefore no one ever mentions a same-sex partner! Because of TOLERANCE!"

Thanks!

[kindkit]

Good ones, thanks!

[kindkit]

Ooh, thank you! I think "Aren't there more important things to worry about?" may need to be the center square, because it really is the all-purpose excuse for any kind of representation problem.

[chalcopyrite]

Exactly! Why are you worrying about [anything] when you could be solving global warming???

[kindkit]

Thank you!

[wisdomeagle]

Author didn't want to let politics/being PC get in the way of telling a good story!

Author's muse told them all the characters were straight. Cannot fight the muse!

Is very important to plot that everyone be straight because of the rules of the universe that author... made up.

[halotolerant]

It's a children's/YA story
Oh god yes this excuse *headdesks* I have seen it trotted out so so often. As if 'queer character' was the same as 'explicit sex' because QUEER IS DIRTY, or, tbh, I think the line is 'If you tell the kiddies there is queerness they might take it into their heads to be queer' which is depressingly fail on so, so many levels and basically exposes a very deep homophobia.

And the one about 'character is bisexual but happens to be attracted to opposite sex for now' is I find so much used for women in particular, because bisexual women are waiting for the right man (of course they are, all women are waiting for the right man! *headdesks moar*)

My contributions:

- If there were queer characters no one would buy it/if this possibly subtextually queer was explicitly outed no one would buy it so we're better off with a wink and nod

- There was that time there was a bodyswap and a same-sex kiss biologically happened although actually the person involved choosing to do the kissing was acting on a het attraction (see: most of Star Trek)

- There's already 'Queer as Folk', how many damn queer TV shows do you need?

- Queer people don't join the navy/army/starfleet/medical services/fire brigade so logically there wouldn't be any in this story

ALSO I think an honourable mention should go to anything where one character is mentioned to be canonically queer and then never dates ever, because ew...

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

Or the Diane Duane variant, when asked whether Tom and Carl are a gay couple: see http://groups.google.com/group/soc.motss/msg/25c9214646dd8589

"Let me suggest a question to those interested in this, instead of
giving a straight answer (ooh, pun). What might be good reasons for
me _not_ getting too definite on this subject in the books themselves?

"Hint A: Discard what will possibly be the first reason to come to
mind (i.e. anything to do with potential sales, marketing, or possibly
being banned anyplace).

"Hint B: I really dislike labels. _Any_ kind. I look forward to the
day when there will be no need for them any more, and nothing left but
people for whom it is OK to love other people in ways that do no harm
to the loved (or others). I much doubt I'll see such a time in this
lifetime, but it's a goal worth working for."

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

Note: http://www.owlspringspartnership.com/about-us "The Owl Springs Partnership is the husband-and-wife writing team of Belfast-born Peter Morwood and New York native Diane Duane, now resident in Ireland for more than twenty years..."

Sounds like some traditional heterosexual-relationship labeling to me.

[kindkit]

Yeah, I'm always intrigued by how certain straight liberals always think it's queer sexualities and relationships that don't need labels and definitions. And cultural recognition and acknowledgement and tedious old-fashioned stuff like that.

[kindkit]

Ah, yes, the muse! The good old Muse of Straightness! Defiant against the horrors of the PC, defending good stories! Because, as we know, good stories never have queer people in them. Or people of color. Or, often, women in any role more significant than love interest/hero's motivation.

[kindkit]

Ooh, yes, these are good. (Though I would argue that on DS9, Jadzia's kiss with her wife-in-a-former-incarnation was not actually very straight--I think they made Jadzia canonically bisexual but without saying the word. Certainly it would've been better if they had dared to say the word, but I think DS9 at least was trying.)

the one about 'character is bisexual but happens to be attracted to opposite sex for now' is I find so much used for women in particular

*nods* It does come up for men too, though, usually in the context of "he's sexually attracted to men and women, but he found Real Love with a woman."

There's already 'Queer as Folk', how many damn queer TV shows do you need?

Oh, yeah, that one. Once I read about a study of men and women in conversation, which noted that if women spoke in mixed groups more than about 1/3 of the time, they were perceived (by both men and women) as dominating the conversation. I think something similar happens with queer characters. When Russell T. Davies was the showrunner for New Who, there was complaint from some quarters about his "gay agenda" and the large number of gay or bisexual characters he included in the show. Which, on counting, turns out to be something like 8 or 9 characters, only one of them recurring, over the course of four series and some specials.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't assume DD is necessarily 100% straight (though she might be for all I know). It's interesting that her very first novel was about a world in which supposedly there are no labels (no straight, gay, bi, etc.), and the sex is pretty free-for-all. But because marriage in that world is tied to childbearing/begetting (NOT to sexual fidelity), it's inherently between men and women, which, in this era of demagogues shouting about Adam'n'Eve-not-Adam'n'-Steve, grates on me. http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/10/door-into-fire

[halotolerant]

In fairness to DS9, they (to a value of 'they' being the creative team but seemingly not the producers) did try, and handled the Trill same-sex attraction storyline much better than the same theme done in TNG with Crusher.

Re: the bisexual men, thinking about this it's sort of what happens in 'Brideshead Revisited' and quite a lot of Dickens, Wilkie Collins albeit with less specifically defined male-male love as a starting point - young man has intense relationship with 'dear friend', young man meets nice woman (who, in many cases, it is made clear is not an intellectual equal like the man or even really 'friend' material, but probably pretty and vulnerable), young man 'grows up' and marries woman whilst also doing things like learning responsibility in business... [I just finished watching the BBC's version of 'Our Mutual Friend', which has such a friendship and whilst the BBC doesn't make the 'abandoned' half of it in any way explicitly queer, they very much present him as in love with his friend and left alone at the end when Sweeping Heterosexual Happiness has engulfed everyone else in all the plot lines. It's an intriguingly bittersweet choice. I suppose I'll have to read the book to see if it echoes Dickens, although I can't say I enjoyed the story much... full of highly creepy male behaviour that was never called out]

I find it very interesting that the 'gay agenda' complaints camp never seem to have anything to say about Thomas in Downton Abbey. I might speculate that this is becuase he is (a) broadly dislikeable (b) constantly 'punished' (c) never has a partner (d) unhappy and also many of the other, otherwise sympathetic, popular characters express a great deal of homophobia about him... But then if I were to start listing my issues with DA I'd run out of comment space.

I had a good conversation once with a boy who was confused as to why I thought there weren't enough women in 'House'. He pointed out that there were two (!), I pointed out that there were, at that time, five central male characters and asked him if he'd feel men were under-represented if the show had 2 men and 5 women. He told me he'd never thought about it like that before, and I had a point...

[kindkit]

Yes, good point, I shouldn't assume she's straight. However, she doesn't publicly identify as anything other than straight so far as I know, and she does publicly identify herself as married to a partner of the other sex. So she's got the heteronormative privilege that goes with that, and therefore I'm troubled by her making pronouncements about how queer people don't need culturally validated identities labels.