December meme: queer subtext and queer text

[kindkit]

lilacsigil asked me to talk about finding queer subtext and queer text and what each one means to me. I'm going to focus on male/male subtext and text because that's what I'm into.

For me it all started, literally, with subtext. When I was a younker and beginning to be interested in stories about men together, there wasn't much actual queer text to be found. The rare ones that existed were mostly biographies; I was probably the only ninth grader in history who went around reading a biography of Tennessee Williams. And it was actually some discussion in a Beatles biography of Brian Epstein's homosexuality that made me consciously realize that I was drawn to the idea of men having sex with men and/or loving men. But I'd been unconsciously drawn long before that, in everything from buddy shows to war stories. My first ship, unaware though I was, was probably Snoopy and the Red Baron. *facepalm*

In fiction in those long-ago days of the early 1980s, even when queerness was text it was usually subtext. Brideshead Revisited, for example. As someone hungry for queer stories, I learned to read skillfully and attentively for subtext, which did me some good later when I decided to study literature. I didn't have great access to texts (I grew up in the country with only the school library and whatever books my parents acquired at yard sales and the like, we didn't yet have a VCR, and television was three network channels--whose reception was unreliable where I lived--and PBS), so I worked with what I had, such as The Guns of Navarone and even Katherine Kurtz's Deryni novels, which happen to include a few mentions of an intense lifelong friendship between two priests. These limitations were frustrating, but also gave me the thrill of longing and discovery, and the deep and dangerous pleasure of having a secret.

When I turned fifteen I left home through a charity that picked bright kids from bad schools and sent them to highly-regarded schools instead. I ended up in a suburb of Minneapolis in the mid 1980s, and there were bookstores and movie theaters and suddenly, actual queer texts to be had. I found The Charioteer while browsing in a chain bookstore and eventually worked up the courage to buy it. I saw Another Country and sighed over the lovely romantic tragedy. I even got interested in music based on how gay I thought it was; I listened to a lot of The Smiths and The Style Council. Every single queer text I found was a treasure, with the result that I have a lingering affection for certain things whose portrayal of queer characters is not really all that good.

It's different now, of course, to an extent. There are many more queer texts than there used to be, although still not as many as there should be, especially in the genres I happen to like such as sff.

The thing is, as much as I love queer texts and value them and want there to be more of them, and I deeply do, I also still love subtext. Part of it's a readerly thing: I get a kick out of reading for subtext and finding the hidden, the coded, the suggested. Part of it's a fanficcy impulse: I like to extend the story, even if it's only in my imagination. And part of it's that I like relationships that arise naturally out of the chemistry between two actors or two characters better than relationships that feel "forced" on the text because someone decided they should happen, which is how canonical romance can feel. I've tried to watch gay romcoms and read m/m romance, and often I don't get what the characters are supposed to see in each other.

My love for subtext isn't unconditional. I like for subtext to turn into text, or at least not to be denied, either by the characters getting into other relationships (usually heterosexual) or by some kind of canonical No Homo moment. And I much prefer subtext that's just there, that just happens, to subtext that's deliberately fostered as a shiptease when the canon has no intention of making it real. One reason I'm so drawn to older canons is that subtext is usually left alone, neither teasingly highlighted nor denied. It helps that older canons were generally not so obsessive about proving male characters aren't gay. The reasons for this may not have been good--I think it had a lot to do with a level of societal homophobia so high that most people assumed heroic characters couldn't possibly be queer--but the result is canons that give a lot more room for relationships between male characters to be deep and complex and for subtext to flourish.

It's also the case that the genres I prefer are more likely to have queer subtext than queer text. I sometimes feel guilty about that, but not enough to try and alter my taste to favor those genres (sitcoms, soaps, contemporary realistic dramas) that are more likely to have queer characters. I like what I like. I'll be over here watching my war movies and reading sff and waiting for queer inclusion to catch up.

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

thanks for this.

[lilacsigil]

the result is canons that give a lot more room for relationships between male characters to be deep and complex and for subtext to flourish

Yes, I think that (with the exception of most queer authors) this is often a better place for me than actual text. And, like you, I agree that there's a genre issue here, too: the kind of texts I like are often very much lacking in open queerness.

Every single queer text I found was a treasure, with the result that I have a lingering affection for certain things whose portrayal of queer characters is not really all that good.


I remember this stage! I read a lot of Marion Zimmer Bradley anthologies. And books about the Beatles that included Brian Epstein and sometimes a bit of John Lennon/Stuart Sutcliffe. And some really homoerotic early Star Trek novels.