queer villains and the death of media literacy 

He has the same handle on Blue Sky but his bsky is pretty empty. God i wish he'd ditch that transphobe billionaire's shit house.

There are problems with your subtitles, they seem computer-generated. one telltale sign is that the subtitles don’t know the show is called “helluva boss”, it consistently mishears it as “hell of a boss”. Why don’t you just paste your script into the subtitle generator rather than letting an algorithm guess your words from the audio??

i assumed it was because of heathers lmao

@@porter9494this is not the kind of conversation to start on an essay about queer representation and themes. Please reconsider your welcome here

@@porter9494 This barely relates to anything talked abt at all in this vid, your literally talking to a fucking strawman? Is the creator of this video in anyway making their sexuality their personality: No, not in the slightest. Go comment this shit on a video that's at least related instead of seeing queer in a title and dropping some random word vomit, good luck with your son who definitely exists!

I can only think of two off the top of my head

they don't kiss but tbh lego batman

They do hold hands though 😂

My queer heroine can't even kiss the queer villainess to save herself sigh

This, this is the take

Reminds me I watched a reaction to that movie and they really REALLY wanted Lady Eboshi to die. Like I get you don’t have to like her, that’s the beauty of fictional characters, but damn it just felt uncomfortable how much they hated her.

@@TabbyWithMittens the people who have the pristine green dream, were humans go back to being their evolutionary ancestors 9 milion years ago?

The sad thing is, whenever I hear someone say patriarchy it is clearly from someone who has never experienced such a thing before. I don't believe Lady Eboshi necessarily defies the patriarchy more than she defies the culture who has outcasted its own people. Patriarchy isn't just being a strong woman or anything like that as I feel you will see that kind of person throughout rural areas in droves. Patriarchy is more the religious political system like in Islamic countries, which I personally came from, that literally view women as second class citizens and provide them less rights than men. Such as, half of inheritance that men receive, men capable of taking numerous wives while the women cannot take numerous husbands, and things like marital rape not even considered 'real'. I think there is a stark difference between the two. I want to see what you mean by defying the patriarchy as I think you will realize, that isn't necessarily defying the patriarchy as society has rules bestowed by a wide variety of different classes, religious beliefs, the sexes and etc. The rich being one of the most influential groups and not necessarily being a patriacrhy but I agree that greed can certainly affect our entertainment. We are seeing it now with star wars and marvel at the moment.

I think a lot of times people tend get villain and antagonist mixed up.

@@goddamnit7230 just because the patriarchal slant of a culture isnt that extreme doesnt mean theres no patriarchy present in a society. also there were a lot of hints that eboshi was taking care of women who were outcast by their culture, ie, discarded women of a patriarchal culture such as widows.

Oh thank god, I thought it was me 😅

​@@EmmaDelamareI am yet another unhinged sapphic slipping into the comments to admit that I see myself in the depraved bisexual, lol.

You can count me as one too, girlie

Dun dun DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN!!!!! I hope that was dramatic enough for you.

And That's... Pretty hot Tom.

Another fun fact about lions: While having a black mane is considered more attractive among female lions(I hate autocorrect), a major downside is having a darker mane means getting physical hotter, which causes lower sperm counts(Thanks Casual Geographic).

Well, Disney couldn't allow a villain too be popular with women (or in this case Lionesses) inan animated movie.

​@@thisrandomperson1843suffering from success

@@seeleunit2000*cough cough* Gaston *cough cough*

I mean also, in real life it's very very common for lion brothers to share the same pride. Adult Simba is the one who would have to leave to find unrelated mates. Scar and Mufasa don't get along because they're Hamlet Sr and Claudius in lion suits, not because they're lions.

I had this guy present the idea that movies can have deeper meanings that we can relate to real life as though it wasn't the entire purpose of most narratives. The example he used was Avatar. I had to hold back laughter. He was like "there's some real stuff there y'know? Like native Americans actually had their lands taken". He didn't manage to think a little further about how the movie ends and who the heroes were.

As someone who has seen a LOT of people apparently watching the same show I have, with things blatantly laid out in front of them, and they run with something that has nothing to do with ANY of what was going on, or miss that key information altogether and ask questions like "Why was X character doing Y?" ...a lot of the times it's the former.

@@FabulousSquidward bro discovered the purpose of art

I feel like there is a lot of overlap between the two.

I think in terms of "media literacy is dead" from what I'm seeing, is that people lack the ability to critically think for themselves. The point of media literacy is to have the ability to dissect what you witnessed. Think for yourself. People just don't know how to do that anymore. And with the next generation specifically, they're gonna get sht that's spoon fed to them because they don't understand or have the mental fortitude to grasp nuance and subtext. Here's an example: In Avatar the Last Airbender, there's a shot of Zuko in his bed in his ship looking up at a tapestry that has the Fire Nation sigil on it. We know now up to this point he has been OBSESSED with going back home and restoring his honor. But after his incident with Aang in the forest, where Aang wondered if in another life they could've been friends...he looks at that symbol of everything he thought he knew...and turned away from it. They were planting the seeds of his redemption even before we knew it. Meanwhile in the remake, they have Aang and Zuko have this long drawn out conversation that just does nothing to add to the connection between the two, other than just telling the audience "HEY GUESS WHAT THEY'RE GONNA BE FRIENDS ONE DAY".

Yeah, its a little odd to me how people automatically assume these characters being queer and in hell have anything to do with eachother😭. Especially in Angel’s case, I feel like him being a former gangster is fairly obvious. Him being a demon has nothing to do with him liking men or his current profession.

It’s also made clear that whoever is in charge of who goes to heaven and hell isn’t a good person, or a good judge of character, so even if that were the case, it still wouldn’t matter.

Idk man I only recently got into it (I watched the pilot when it came out but so did everyone on the internet) and I inherently understood everything just by watching the shows. I just think they might’ve been on their phone while watching it or something. People need to be more autistic (ie aware of the fact that they can’t multitask so they give their undivided attention to whatever they’re doing)

Heaven has so much in the way of queer aesthetic too! The fact that Vaggie is a lesbian and used to be an angel, only cast out for sparing sinners during an extermination, not being gay. People say more about their own ideas and biases than the show’s when they try to use it as a critique

@@randomhuman_05I assume the assumption comes from when there was only the pilot, so there was no heaven to compare it to. And even if the info was stated, it seems LOTS is said in livestreams aka not the best medium for diffusing informatiob

Absolutely. Their relationship is so engaging because it's portrayed as just as messy and complicated as a straight one.

While I think that the show itself does a pretty good job portraying the characters and their relationship, the FANDOM is a whole other story. It’s legitimately disappointing to see people saying “oh, they should just get together already” or treating the characters like they are little beans that could do no wrong.

Exactly!! The problem is that neither of them had the skills to connect healthily with others

it's not "messy" dawg blitzo is being emotionally manipulated into getting with his abuser

Can I throw in Marceline and Bubblegum, all their messy baggage is because they were polar opposite people with there own traumas and problems and refused to communicate or did so poorly. It took time and growth for them to be good for each other.

Heroes are 99% protagonist but not all protagonist are heroes Villains are 99% antagonist but not all antagonist are villains. It's still messy but a simple way of putting this.

HOOOLY shit is that prospero?? 😭😭🫶🫶🫶my fav comic omg

Legit, she only got mad and retaliated when she was attacked. Otherwise she was on a focused march to her death.

in the original comic she murders a bunch of people and tries to kill ballister, forcing him to kill her

@@user-vw9lj1yn1b valid point though I am specifically talking about the film and not the comic and I have never read the comic and I should’ve noted that in my original comment

@@user-vw9lj1yn1bright… the comic and the movie a very different stories

​@@user-vw9lj1yn1b okay, and? We're obviously not talking about the comic, so why bring it up?

Notably Magenta isn’t straight though. I’m not sure how that fits the narrative.

@@gentlerat she does a little bit of fooling around with Columbia but i don't think that changes the interpretation all that much either way. when she comes in at the end it's explicitly as an agent of Transylvanian order, and by Dr. Scott's description, proper, decent society as a whole. She clearly doesn't feel any particular affection towards Colombia and whatever queerness she was indulging in previously, she's happy to throw it away to get rid of that troublemaker Frank 'N' Furter, go back home, and restore the proper order of things.

​@@NotPigeonV2 I think your original analysis is really poignant, but as another trans person, i see order/queerness in the film as far more compelling than straightness/queerness. I've been reminded over the past couple years that there are some queer people who will throw us under the bus. I think Magenta can remain queer through the film and have the rest of your analysis remain true -- there are in fact some cis gays who stand against "gender nonconformity" as they see it. tldr i think that in this analysis, magenta could be a terf :'D no offense meant to people who identify/identified with her, this is only one reading :)

Wow, pride month

That's an excellent point.

I get that. Also the hyper intelligent asexual often feels to me like really bad autistic "rep"

I also feel that. Many ace characters are shown as emotionless, as if not having sexual desires would lead us to be ripped off any feeling. That's one reason I'm mad at Alastor's character: he is my fave because of his humor, but I'd never see him as representation, since his sadistic and sociopathic nature being linked with his asexuality feels borderline offensive.

@@LettiKiss But is it ever stated that he is that way because he's ace? or is that just how he is, and he's also ace. Representation can be representation even if you don't identify with the character in question. You're the one attributing these traits to the asexuality, instead of just seeing it as another individual aspect of the character.

@@Charbifiedthat’s exactly how I see it. I didn’t even connect the two. Also we don’t know much about him yet. His backstory is still mysterious and we don’t know what brought him to where he is. The whole act seems like a mask. And it has nothing to do with his sexuality. Adam is just as depraved and narcissistic and he’s straight. And his straightness has nothing to do with him being a villain.

I would only describe Todd as one of those things and that's pixie child. He cuts off the main character for his(todd's) own good and doesn't really help BoJack realize anything, he just says what BoJack's been told many times in the past and it doesn't help, i'd say it actually drives BoJack down a worse path*. Todd is not naive (unless with mpb) and he's not innocent, being very flawed with relationships like his family, ex-partners and even friends. Todd doesn't have anxiety either. Honestly the character you are describing sounds much more like Mr Peanutbutter, he hits every one of those except for the anxiety. *not saying he was wrong though, everything he said was right, I just don't think he should have said it at that time. Especially to someone he knows is likely suicidal and was clearly having a mental breakdown. I just don't want anyone thinking I'm defending BoJack even if I think Todd had poor timing and none of Bojacks actions afterwards are on todd. Like Todd said "You are all the things that are wrong with you."

Litterally the second time Rowan has gotten his name wrong 😅

Jate Stevenson

Oh I LOVED The Corinthian even in the graphic novel! Such a good villain!

Well _The Sandman_ was created by Neil Gaiman. He’s always been great about LGBTQ stuff. And he’s a great writer.

Yesss the Corinthian ❤ I love this character so much. He’s be gay, do crimes personified haha

As I have aversions regarding the eyes stuff, I wouldn't say he's a fav of mine overall, but his characterization is exemplary of why we have more broadly embraced Neil Gaiman. Regarding the aspect of queer characters existing, a huge part of that will come down to proportions, as with all representation, because part of why the Hayes code and other facets have been so detrimental is not only by restricting queer characters almost completely, but also by pidgeonholing the characters who were permitted, into the boxes discussed in the video. I hope for a day when the proportions reach a point where we no longer need to fear the likely weaponization of fictional characters against us, but I suspect that it will still be a while till that can genuinely be achieved.

​@@haeherfeder0221I'm pretty sure Neil Gaiman also made the two neighbor ladies a couple in Coraline, and that wasn't even recent. The book was already being written back in the 90s and the movie was released in 2009. So yeah, he's always been good about that stuff 👍

That's sort of true but not that relevant to how toxic communities are forming and doing harm.

I’ve been in fandom spaces for years and this isn’t true. It is much much worse now. There’s a big cult like community that’s formed around ideas of policing the kinds of characters and stories people are allowed to like and watch that never existed a few years ago. That used to be the domain of the normie conservative old people, not 19 year olds. But now it’s young people that are the biggest proponents of the idea that depiction = endorsement and they endlessly harass people in fandom spaces and even professional reviewers of books and movies for disagreeing

As an Elfen Lied fan I disagree. A long time ago people realized quite often many of the nuances and understood that portrayals of abuse in Elfen Lied are not endorsements of abuse. Infact Elfen Lied takes a strong line stance against sexualization of minors. It's one of the few anime to boldly do so. But this ultimately is lost on so many people these days that the anime gets acused of being "law lee pr0n" all the time... which is absurd. Among other things many aspects of Elfen Lied people ask about that could easily be answered by simply watching the series and paying attention. But people barely get these things now days and it's dramatically shifted the opinions of an anime series once well known for being an example of anti-discrimination and anti-abuse.

You make a fair point, but I think that we also need to hold education systems and cultural trends to account for the underdevelopment of media literacy skills. Mandatory education in humanities, history, and social sciences in public education have often been cut back or condensed in many jurisdictions in North America for example. That compounded with increasing anti-intellectualist rhetoric in politics internationally has created a populace that hasn't been given much direction in development of many critical analysis skills. Yes, media literacy is a skill, but as with all skills, it requires direction and practice - it's very difficult to develop on one's own

​@@FranBunnyFFXIIthis seems like a case worth digging into

i feel like he'd consider "depraved bisexual" as a compliment tbh lol

What?

Yeah, that’s a good point, and I would say he fully steps into the “promiscuous bisexual with grey morals” role in Torchwood. He’s not a villain, but he’s definitely not a hero.

@@middlenerd178 He's so Jesus coded by the end of season 1 that calling him morally grey is just giving the writer's too much good faith.

@@middlenerd178 Have you seen Torchwood? Dude is literally Jesus in that show; like yeah, his framing in Doctor Who is a little sus, but if you think Torchwood doesn't worship the ground Jack walks (as it should), we watched a different show

this explains most wars tbh

The real villains are still the ones who condemn us, btw

But it did happen. Dune (the novel) is a pretty good example. Making the baron a pedophile to emphasize his greed was a good idea, but he's also just fat, and his mentat is explicitly called "effeminate" without that really appearing as a character trait aside from it's literary connection to slyness. With the hindsight of Herbert being perfectly fine with his halo character Duncan Idaho screwing a horny 14 year-old, and Herbert's less-than-flattering relationship with his gay son, you get the impression that there was a definite "gay men are all predatory, pedophilic sex pests" thing going on, particularly to contrast the manly virtues of the Atreides.

thats for the best honestly I can already see people caling nimona "bad representation" and the main gay couple "toxic and abusive" if it was more complex.

This is my fav part about the old Disney villains. They are already outcasts and just say 'fuck it' and have FUN with it. You want evil? Fine here is a song about how evil I am

Same here I remember as a child relating heavily to characters like the evil queen and then slightly later in my childhood to Elsa because of the position of feeling inferior and then saying fuck it. Nimona perfectly embodied this punk rock spirit for me more than anyone I've seen before her.

Now I'm very curious, as somebody who has seen Silence of the Lambs, but not the Hannibal show. Is Lecter the "super masculine cishet"? Probably, right? He's not European, is he? I'm so bad with regional accents in English. But tbh "super masculine" is not the first descriptor of Hannibal Lecter that would come to my mind. Does the show even exist in the same universe as the movie? Because it doesn't really sound like it tbh.

@@baguettegott3409 Hannibal’s European in the show and pretty sure he is in the books too. And yeah, the show diverges a lot from source material.

​@@baguettegott3409canonically Hannibal was born and spent his childhood in Lithuania. In the show he's played by Mads Mikkelsen who is from Denmark though, so the accent is danish.

I’ve also heard somewhere that the director for silence of the lambs said that buffalo bill was meant to be a homophobe mocking/imitating trans people but he admitted that it didn’t come across well

@@somethingcooliguess8959 It's been a long time since I've read the book, but I felt like it came across in the text, better. It's like he was repulsed by transgender people but obsessed with them or something.

See also: Undue Villainous Influence

Same. I never saw him as a villain (but I didnt see him as a hero either tbh). To me, he just owned the movie and was all the „roles“ at once.

Lestat isn't bisexual he's an Anne Rice Vampire human sexuality isn't that relevant right?

Absolutely agree with you. And I'd go further to say that in the books, vampirism is post-sexuality. Granted I read it quite young and waaaay before any movies or shows, but almost every vampire character felt asexual and omni romantic. (Gabrielle being the one really aro character.) In the new show, yes sexuality is very much a thing but every single one of the vampires is queer. If not explicitly then in spirit. And they are all seriously messed up people! Not because of the queerness per se but because any issues a person has pre-death are magnified many times over after being vamped. So a vampire like Louis with internalized homophobia and shame is going to be even more that as a vamp. Lestat was bi as a human and as a vampire... well, sex addicted doesn't quite cover it. But it's part of his personality of utter excess in everything. Lestat is sex, drugs, and rock and roll to the _nth_ degree. And if people have a problem with all the queer people in the show (all vampires) being messed up... well welcome to the queer community. We are all messed up first by being human, and second by the ongoing systemic, familial, and social trauma that we experience. Issues are not a rare thing in the community and it's nice to see messy queers on screen. It's validating. Lol

I agree with everything you said, and if anything, show!Lestat's problems are depicted as stemming from his latent white supremacy, not his queer identity. I think that aspect makes his character very compelling because it truly grapples with the fact that one's identity as an oppressed minority doesn't act like a "fix-it" for other kinds of bigotry and prejudice. Edit: ALSO, what makes this kind of multi-layered critique and character-exploration is just that: it's multi-layered! Lestat is a complex character that reflects a lot of the ways that humans in real life are complex, just with the heightened framework of vampirism. I feel like if people treat him like he's just a caricature of an "evil bisexual" then that just lets them avoid actually thinking more deeply about all the dynamics at play, and therefore miss the actual themes of the show.

@@AC-dk4fpIn the books, yes. In the AMC adaptation they have explicit sexualities and also engage in sexual acts. This was one of several aspects of the books changed for the tv adaptation. A good choice for the medium imo.

I'm pretty sure literally all the vampires are bi 😂

Get closer, the music covers can be fun to watch.

To me it’s less the fandom which seems pretty chill from a distance. It’s the weird obsessive anti fans who have the kind of rabid hate for it you usually see from white men any time a new Disney remake has a POC lead. I’m totally convinced the majority of the hate is just open homophobia. Even the haters of the show who are queer themselves tend to fall into the very young and reactionary sex negative “antis” camp

those kind of shows are heavily marketed towards children (producers/advertisers well aware of how children interacted with deviantart/tumblr/etc. related adult content over past decades, which those shows are heavily influenced by) that means the fandom is largely people still in grade school

@@mistresslum6682oh definitely, those people are terrifying😭

most of the hazbin memes I see are in relation to school and teachers and I just 💀 I don't want to get involved with a fandom where I'd have to trust the 25% who are 18+ to not just be lying about their age

God yeah, I love their messy relationship. It's a good story..

This ultimately I find is the complexing issue with narratives and fandom; personally I used to like Hellavu but dislike the route Viv's team has gone with the show/characters but often time complexities are cut down because there needs to be more of a sense of winning in discourse rather than willing to separate personal enjoyment with the media. Stolas as a character I think production wise has gone through a lot of changes and because of that people love to rather argue which one is the correct one, with often infantilization of the complex nature of the setting, social dynamics, and overall world. If we look at the original take of Stolas he used power dynamics and often made advances that came off as more harassment then romantic; Blizo was original often grossed out by Stolas' comments and didn't like him. He enjoy partaking in what felt realistic for a powerful demon and yet there was still a lot of nuanced to him. As changes were made, like it or not I don't care, Stolas' arc changed from things like harassment into a genuine relationship but still holds complex aspects of hierarchical dynamics, often lacks the emotional and needed maturity for his actions, and selfishness continues to point out the effects his actions have had daughter. None of this is to say he's a villain but fandom culture often likes to negate these flaws with excuses because of personal connection/enjoyment they feel. Moral purists who shame people for liking villains with negative traits feel like other side of the coin of the fandom who likes to remove the overall complex nature in the goal of self riotousness for liking them. I don't think everyone needs to bring up complexities and the nuanced debate of characterization in every moment, but there is often a very real divide that treatment is given of black and white thinking to characters to justify enjoyment/viewing/etc.

Thank you ! That's what I have been saying. No I find it more sickening than scary, but you're right.

The fandom from Interview with the Vampire is a kind worse. They love Lestat because he is funny and hot, and forget all the things he have done hating all the others characters in the books/movie/show. They are like "Oooh, he just want to be loved", and he just rips someone's head off, wtf.

@@Unhappytimeaper”he’s bad so you can’t like him” vs “I like him so he’s not bad”

reminds me of when some antis were harassing a SA victim or claiming she wasn't a real SA victim because she defended episode 4 of Hazbin Hotel. That type of shit kind of made me realize that people only care about SA victims if it means they can use them for an argument against something they don't like because the minute an SA victim disagrees with them...suddenly it doesn't matter. it like you said. It all about ''slaying the dragon''. Not actually treating the SA victims like human beings. Human beings that have their own way of seeing and portraying their abuses.

Dude I'm so MAD about the Poison discourse, like, if you watched that sequence and didn't cry (or at least choked up) at the end, that's on you, not the creators. Of course it was glamorous, the whole point is that even when Angel is suffering, as soon as the cameras turn on, he has to perform, and make his misery arousing and marketable. It's heartbreaking to watch and listen to every time.

I agree that gen z has a habit of overcorrecting but i think a big factor as well is corporate overcorrection. Weve seen this recently with the netflix atla adaptation where they completely erase sokkas sexism at the start of the series, rather that depict complex characters a lot of productions would rather overcorrect in order to avoid alienating any potential audience members. More and more pieces of media are being simplified in this way that just makes it harder n harder for audiences, especially young ones, to develop a nuanced understanding of media.

@@KicsiFloo Very well said. I always have to wonder if people who have the opinion(? somehow come to the conclusion?) that the song/show glamourises SA have actually watched ANYTHING from the show or actually know the characters or if they have just seen parts of "Poison" or heard of the discourse and always assume the worst… Because I just can’t wrap my head around it, especially when you see how Angel acts around Valentino, Husk and Charlie in this episode. I think Angel Dust is one of the most well-written characters on the show and his “It's not an act! It's who I need to be. And this... This is my escape! Where I can forget about it all! How much I hate... everything. A place where I can get high, and not have to think about how much it hurts. And maybe... If I can ruin myself enough in the process... if I end up broken, I won't be his favorite toy anymore... And maybe he'll let me go..." to Husk at the end was absolutely heartbreaking! I also feel like people immediately want/demand resolutions and a happy ending or a clear answer to something like his abuse and his toxic relationship with Valentino, when it’s clear that this storyline probably won’t be done for the while and there isn’t an easy fix, it’s something not even Charlie (maybe not even Lucifer?) could change about this situation, so the understanding and empathy Husk and Charlie showed to Angel, and him opening up more and letting his masks/act more down, were wonderful first steps. And then we even see him standing up to Valentino for his friends (Angel is so damn protective of people he cares about) in 1x6. I can highly recommend therapist Georgia Dow’s Hazbin Hotel videos btw, she also has one about Angel’s abuse, which would probably be quite eye-opening for some people…

I don't even like HH, but the amount of times I've found myself defending the show over the Poison discourse is exhausting 😭

As someone who has not watched Hazbin Hotel since the pilot came out, I looked up the sequence to see how I felt about the video just based on the imagery and lyrics and. Did we watch the same thing? There is so many gratiutious shots of Angel's assaults. There is literally a shot where we see him c*m from being r*ped. What about that is necessary? It feels fetishistic. It feels even more fetishistic when you learn that the storyboarder actually does have a fetish for r*pe p*rn, specifically with Angel Dust and Valentino. I'm sure we're meant to come away with the message "r*pe bad", that Angel Dust is truly traumatized, but I just came away feeling like the thing was animated with one hand.

She makes the wrong choice each time as pushed by the literal deus ex machina. She wants the easiest life but she's put into situations where she reveals her worst side each time and makes the world as a whole so far worse due to accidental influence.

Not trying to make a bell curve meme here, but it's pretty funny how you have one group of people that will demonize creators for portraying any kind of "bad person" at all... And then you have another, which looks at Metal Gear's Armstrong or Jojo's Funny Valentine, and see those guys as role models. Lack of media literacy is what truly brings us together lmao

mom come pick me up theyre saying tanya's a good person

He is such good bpd rep ❤ and I also like how it not said that he is cis, I feel represented (ignore my name lol)

it really comes through with any of viziepop's work in generaal.

@@Thepoemgirl bro I'm so sorry to tel you this, but VivziePop is transphobic specifically against transmasc and nonbinary people...

This. All of this. The movie came out (haha) at the perfect time and it's bizarre watching my exact healing process play out on screen in front of me

I wish people stuck a lot more to "Don't like, don't read". Really, If I stumble across a fic I really don't like the development of, I take the easy way out: stop reading it and look for a fic I actually like. I really don't care what other write. Does some things creep me out or make me feel disgusted? Sure, but that's not the writer's fault, so I leave them alone and go my merry way elsewhere. It's sad that not everyone feels that way. Think I was more of a purity warrior when a lot younger though. Early twenties, at the most. People behaving in that way as a way of feeling some kind of control sounds logical to me, at least.

always have been

THEYRE PUTTING CHEMICALS IN THE BLOOD

From what I've seen, the inadequate compensation was not true. They were paid industry standard The toxic workplace was new to me

@@gabsnandes7818 To be fair, (while it doesnt have much to do with the criticisms) industry standard *is* inadequate xd

Oh my god there’s two of them!

Twin Fizzies!

​@@artikulv731 twizzies, perhaps?

And Stolas has the benefit of seeing his mistakes, recognizing that they were wrong, and is taking steps to do the right thing. That's what change and personal growth is for, and everyone is capable of changing for the better, despite what the puritan dogpile brigade wants to think when they dig up ancient posts from upwards of 10-15 years ago to portray someone as a bad person.

@@MasonShmason That last thing is something I hate. It's as if people won't allow others to develop at all. As if one can't ever change their mind on something big because of new information, or anything like that. So many things can influence people in the span of 10-15 years.

For me at least, it’s not that people write queer villains is the problem. It’s when it’s clear in narrative the writer is woobifying them I’m rolling my eyes that they’re not brave enough to actually make them repulsive.

I disagree: first year in college, I had to "debate" some classmates, who viewed him as a "victim" bec. Lolita "seduced" him first. My experience of is that too many pp read Lolita (or watch the movie) and it turns them on: they want to do what HH does and they want to blame their actions on "sexually liberated" pre-teen girls. It was a very disheartening experience.

Yeah, I guess but when I saw it, I was 15 and I was still a kid. It was probably the first time I'd seen a trans person in a movie. It taught me the lie that trans women are criminals and their bodies are disgusting. I have very strong feelings about that movie, and that scene in particular. When we say protect trans kids I guess we should also be protecting them from seeing BS like that.

@@Sarah-James The larger point about it reflecting a transphobic attitude is correct of course, but my biggest issue with some of these bits of film analysis is that they risk suffering from cherry picking (in that there isn't any stated 'criteria' for these movies and not others), and more importantly, theres no sense of these movies 'reflecting' societal attitudes, though Rowan never says so, this kind of plot is obviously generated by writers that were ALREADY transphobic, so the extent to which the film is 'spreading' transphobia to people that would otherwise not have such attitutudes is hard to say. Like, no question theres a feedback loop of some kind, but the 'background' level of transphobia in culture at large in the 90s was probably already pretty high.

OK yes 90s culture not good for trans people. The only times we were visible seemed to be as a joke like in Ace ventura or shock shows like Jerry springer. In drama we were only shown as criminals, or mentally ill victims. It really sucked.

@@Sarah-James But Ray Finkle isn't a trans character. He found out about a missing hiker whose body was never recovered and got surgery to look like her so he wouldn't be thrown back into the mental hospital, and so he could get his revenge. "Einhorn" isn't his own identity, it's just a disguise he uses.

Yes, it was not the first in doing that sort of trope of "outing" a "lie" as a narrative plot twist about an antagonist, Naked Gun did it, and Soap Dish did it years earlier.

Did you shiver in antici- 🫦

Like J.K Rowling

Exactly. The whole problem before wasn't "Queer characters are always villains," it was "Queer characters are one-dimensional." There were just as many 'positive' portrayals of the Queer Best Friend as there were villains, and they suffered from the same problem. They did not feel like real people beyond having a fun surface aesthetic of queerness. Suddenly you have queer characters with dark sides, motivations, and flaws, and people are like, "No, we want unrealistic perfection." Which is exactly what makes so many milk-toast straight heroes boring!

You do realise that you just described Saltburn? A film about how the wealthy aristocracy are dysfunctional, vapid narcissists and that the promise of acquiring their obscene wealth and power turns people into violent sociopaths? A film about how promises of social mobility are lies meant to cover up entrenched inequalities and class conflicts? Saltburn is a really fascinating case study about interpretation and media literacy discourse. On the one hand, so many audience seem to get so distracted by the sex and imagery that they miss vital plot and character beats. On the other, the film relies so heavily on niche cultural and literary references that it ends up being opaque to large sections of the audience. Do we blame the viewers for insisting on shallow readings or do we criticise the filmmakers for making the text too obscure?

@@ralphmoore6413 Nah, I want the villains to the family, not Oliver. Like really show how craven wealth can turn you into a monster. The kind that admits to being evil for no other reason than it is the only thing left they aren't desensitized to. I mean you can read that for sure, but I think you are giving the movie more credit than it deserves: it very much frames Oliver as the villain (especially since he planned it from the beginning, unlike Tom where it spiraled out of control and he just was the kind of person that could commit murder). Like I think your reading is totally valid and fair, I just think the movies subtext is a lot less critical of it's text: I think that reading relies on having much more radical and leftist perspective than I think filmmakers did. I do completely agree with your points about subtext: it feels like more and more people are not engaging with it because they enjoy the spectacle of the text.

@@scottbuck1572 OK, but you do get how the Cattons are villains in the film? How they emotionally and financially abuse each other and their 'friends'/pets in serious and horrifying ways? The twist isn't that Oliver is the villain to their unwitting victims, it's that he's been playing their twisted, manipulative game from the beginning and comes out on top.

@@ralphmoore6413 No I do, but it frames their evil as MOSTLY a byproduct of class dynamics, not that them being on the top of the said class dynamics has fundamentally fucked with their minds (human ego is literally a desire, at its most basic level, to be the absolute master of your life and environment). When you ACTUALLY get that in a society that is already extremely exploitative, you turn into an almost cartoon villain. The movie very much frames the family as being redeemable and while it frames them as the villains, it switches upon the mother getting sick and Oliver explaining his shit. It makes all of commentary up until that point muddled, as it seemingly points to the system as the problem, without recognizing that families like the Catton's are not just active participants of it like us all, but have an active stake in maintaining the current system and have participated DIRECTLY in upholding the status quo much more than even the upper-middle class does. It's very "blame the game not the players," but seemingly doesn't realize/doesn't want to reconcile it's players like the Cattons that keep the game going

Aren’t you a white man who’s at least wealthier than me, a person of color? You must be pretty evil then.

There was an innocent and humorous poll on Tumblr I saw this past week on which was the better queer media: Homestuck or Dykes to Watch Out For, and the entire comments section was just a bunch of people screaming about how if voted for one it meant you were racist/lesbophobic and if you voted for the other you were transphobic based on how problematic the author and content was/is. All I could think about was how we don't need the conservatives to tear the queer community apart, because we're more than happy to do it ourselves.

@@Khotetsu Wild. This and moralized of media interested are going to tear APART the online left. I saw a comment I really liked about media in general; these aren't things that have objectively correct answers, like trans rights being human rights, they are HIGHLY subjective and treating peoples opinions about them as dog whistle/signifiers of moral alignment is not productive. Its like judging someone for a favorite color; its an ephemeral experience of enjoyment, not a moral litmus test.

@@scottbuck1572 I agree. There's something to be said about financially supporting creators who donate money to hate groups through buying their stuff (looking at you, Wizard TERF) or something, which is more of a grey area about trying to be conscientious about where your money goes, but one of the biggest issues in society right now I think is the nature of the internet as a public and permanent record. Especially social media. If somebody says something one time, it's cast in stone and regardless of how their position changes later on, people have already created an opinion based on something they said years ago as a teenager or whatever, and that will follow them for the rest of their lives. Even if they're not a creator of some kind. As I saw somebody say, "Is it any wonder that Gen Z has grown up with so much anxiety?"

You mean like progressives with Harry Potter?

@@morgannyan2738 I mean kind of; its one thing to be unaware of her being a TERF (lots of people who only read the books have no idea) and its another to be aware of it and try to sweep it under the rug as you directly giver her money by buying Hogwarts Legacy and using the excuse "but my fantasy!"

Okay most of the controversy about Vivziepop is either made up or blown way out of proportion. It’s nothing but a bunch of Twitter idiots making bad faith assumptions about things they know nothing about.

That is bs. Vivziepop is not problematic/controversial, people just love to hate her and have and obsession with putting her down because she's a woman who doesn't take crap from others. Stop spreading misinformation.

No but this is literally so true. So often I see people trying to justify not liking something by throwing out all of these bad faith arguments about “morality” and trying to paint the thing they dislike as something evil that shouldn’t be allowed to exist when, like, it’s okay to just not like something and simply disengage from it. To hold this idea that you can respect your own feelings while also being able to look at other people and be able to see their point of view. To let their thoughts exist as well. Except with the way most of these people view life and situations, that’s not really a concept to them. It’s so black and white. There are pieces of media out there that are very problematic and harmful pieces of propaganda and hate, but these shows aren’t on that level at all. They’re just edgy or play off of stereotypes in a unique way. It just feels like these people see something that CAN be problematic and immediately assume it is with no second thought. They just choose to focus on this possible negative to prove a point that might make sense within their personal view of the situation, but often completely disregards nuance and the full picture. No one should be forced to watch or like things like Hazbin Hotel or Q-Force if they get bad vibes from it, but no one should be policing the queer people telling their stories and the people who enjoy those stories over personal feelings of moral superiority. Policing people based solely on your views and feelings NEVER ends well, whether it be over fictional media or the lives of others. It just leads to censorship and erasure. We shouldn’t have to stick to writing purely safe and vanilla concepts simply because we’re queer. Like it is just a little saddening seeing queer people write adult shows and these shows being so avidly hated and ridiculed meanwhile there are so many adult shows that are also “problematic” (sometimes legitimately problematic) that are not written by queer people and are seen as cultural icons.

I mean in Qforce’s it was actually funny and internally consistent. The problem was also it was not afraid to poke fun at the creators own communities (they’re all queer even the voice actors). The dig at white gays for deeming Ariana grande a gay icon was hilarious “shout out to my gay brother Frankie! Who is gay!” “Omg Ariana I’m gay like your brother!”

Omg I just realized she has multiple

Me too, it was a fascinating depiction of a charismatic abusive romantic partner: the escalation from grooming/control to physical violence was really well-paced and hinted at. A very rewatchable season.

Hell yeah, that's awesome. I'm working towards that too rn. Free 🍉

i'm waiting for someone to make a fiction with an analogy inspiration of that, but using fantasy and see if they get labled a hatemonger

Which original version? Nimona is whatever gender their body currently is but barely uses pronouns in the English version of the movie and more ambiguous in the comic because its aimed at an older audience who don't need stuff spelling out. They're not like Double Trouble who has a non-binary true form.

@AC-dk4fp ok i get you, but I was refereing to the fact that Rowan addressed the character with she/her pronouns only (witch i assumed is the case in the english dub), and in the polish dub they explicitly refer to themselves in a neutral form, witch hardly a coincidence, bc of the languages gendered-nature

@@mr.fish666 Sure but precise language is also a lot to expect from a video essayist with ADHD who I think talked about burnout in another video (might be misremembering).

@AC-dk4fp yeah ofc! My comment wasn't meant to criticize anyone! I was just marveling at my usually pretty homophobic country's pretty cool approach to this wonderful queer story. I want to watch the english dub now to see how it plays out there.

​​@@AC-dk4fpNimona is an interesting character because in the movie the main thing Nimona says is "but im not a girl I'm Nimona" and never makes a big deal out of pronouns just the identity of "girl". I'm not sure if this is just because when Nimona was conceived as a character Stevenson refered to Nimona with she/her or if it's just a reflection of nuance in gender identity. I personally don't care what pronouns are used for me i hate being pigeonholed into the category of "girl".

Eh, bad example. The people calling Pokemon satanic were not the ones playing it, they were the old people viewing scary news in their periphery like our boomers now.

@@jijitters yeah that's a good point

Also maybe it’s just me, but I’ve always found the predatory lesbian stereotype pretty hot. Maybe it’s born from a desire for the queer women in my life to be more forward (with me and with the people they moon to me about) but 🤷🏻‍♀️

tbh I've avoided Hazbin partially due to people yelling about it and partially cause I just never wanna interact with the fandom

People think Angel is the least likely to get redeemed? Did they watch the 6th episode, where the fact that he could be redeemed was THE WHOLE DAMN POINT? And as for Alastor? I don't think he'd even WANT to be redeemed. He's having way too much fun in Hell.

yes, I wanted to say that too! I'm only in season 3 but I really liked Lord John so far!

@@SistersTape yup he's a cutie I wish we had a whole spinoff for him

Abuse hotlines being sent fanart? That sounds super messed up, and I wanted to read more about it, but googling didn't get me anywhere. Do you have a source for it?

​@@Sina-dv1egOh, crud, sounds like I may have repeated hearsay! I'm pretty sure I heard it in the video "Fandom Policing, Purity Culture and the Death of Media Literacy" by E. Link in next reply in case links don't behave here. They do have sources linked in the description, but I didn't find what I was looking for on a skim. *EDIT:* upon googling, *I found an article called "Internet Reporting Hotlines Are Censoring Art as Child Sexual Abuse" that deals with the issue of false reporting in general* (not just fan-related). Here are some notable quotations from it: 'Since the images are illegal to view, the platforms aren’t allowed to share them after reporting them. This means that *there is a risk that lawful content, or content such as cartoons that aren’t images of real child abuse, will also end up on these lists,* and that it will be impossible to get it off again. 'In fact, we know that *this happens regularly* and that the Internet hotlines are complicit in it. When NCMEC, the United States hotline, receives reports to its CyberTipLine that relate to a user in a foreign location, it sends the complete report to the foreign police force, including the personal details (IP address) of the user, without any verification that the content in question is illegal. As a result, *up to 90% of the images passed on by NCMEC are later assessed to be innocent.* '… Yet even flagging “potential concerns” is a determination of potential illegality, which exposes the user to the risk of prosecution. It is natural that foreign police forces will take these “potential concerns” seriously, and it is disingenuous for the Canadian Center to wash its hands of responsibility. Unlike the case of real images of child abuse which directly harm children, the harm caused by drawings of child abuse is entirely subjective and much more difficult for a non-judicial agency to determine.'

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-AFVRjNG1sSk.html

@@Sina-dv1eg Google "Internet Reporting Hotlines Are Censoring Art as Child Sexual Abuse"; it deals with the reporting of art in general, not specifically fan images. I've tried replying a few times and I'm not sure if any of them have gotten through. I heard the claim on the video "Fandom Policing, Purity Culture and the Death of Media Literacy" by E.

I agree so much. I have this with Poor Things. The comments in the RU-vid Shorts are so dumb. Calling people who enjoyed the movie sick or pedophiles because of what the movie depicted. Because in their world the movie endorses it just because nobody outright says in the movie: "Oh thats bad what I am doing" It's R rated not Dora the Explora.

Yeah, the subtitle errors are particularly numerous and distracting. Nimona is written as Pona, Ramona and pneumonia, for example.

Yeah I noticed that too. Very frustrating. The name Lestat also gets mangled in various different ways. It seems like the captions are autogenerated, but show up as CC.

it's fascinating to me, because there are studies regarding homosexual men as particularly sexually driven more so than most sexually inclined groups, which may have something to do with testosterone, culture or any number of things. As far as I could understand, it's mainly because males tend to have a more active/stronger sex drive (given that testosterone is responsible for it in any of the sexes to some degree or another) and males with other males with the same situation would make it happen more often. Who knows if sex drive being tied to being male is more cultural than hormonal or perhaps both, but many people (of various sexes and sexualities) anecdotally have noted that gay guys have sex and are sexually inclined in a higher frequency than most. The idea that being sexually driven is bad, debauched, or anything else is in itself a problem. Only time someone's sex drive or interest should be considered at all is when it is in fact an addiction for that person that disrupts other things in their life or consumes every thought they have. Being "perverted" or sex driven itself doesn't have to be a bad thing. It's weird that it's societies go to. Also, the connotation that if you are very sexually inclined, that you can't perform decently among others or "keep it in your pants" as if restraint and social decorum just fly out the window just because you like and want to engage in sexual acts with consenting parties more than average.