onyourleftbooob:

dykeschur:

tv shows helmed by heterosexuals only know how to make existing characters gay in one way: by introducing the character to a new side character who appears visibly gay or mentions a past same-gender partner or whatever in one of their first conversations, then letting that dynamic develop at a rapid pace until they finally have an emotionally charged kiss. bonus points if the side character never meets any of the other main characters and if the main character they’re flirting with is at a point of feeling isolated from the main group, allowing the two of them to spend more time together. 

you see this script everywhere: veep, the bold type, crazy ex-girlfriend (with darryl, but honestly it seems like maybe with valencia too), the 100, supergirl (really great job with this shit, the CW), etc. clearly i’m familiar with these arcs in a lot of lowbrow shit but i’m confident it appears at the prestige level too.

sticking to the same plot beats so predictably is a waste of the natural ability to analyze media that all gay viewers innately have. historically gays have been reading texts with a fine-toothed gay fucking comb to find lines loaded with extra intimacy and assessing that dynamic in a way straights don’t know how to. it is an insult to our intelligence to make everything so blatant and soapy. also this script reinforces some bad ideas. for one thing, the idea that gay people act and look “just like them,” but at some point in their lives they fall for one specific person who happens to be their same gender. this does happen, but making it the dominant narrative creates the impression that being gay is circumstantial; that without having met that one special person, they could have lived quite happily in hetero relationships until the end of time. this script also overlooks the huge amount of lgbt people for whom their identity is a huge part of their experience, and who came out not because they met that one special gay person but because they never could have missed that they were gay because every part of their personality screamed it at them since childhood. in crafting these somehow sexless yet overly romanticized friendships that develop along the same beats, straights neglect to understand that being gay isn’t a RELATIONSHIP, but a LIFE EXPERIENCE AND IDENTITY. it is not, for most people, a narrative arc that starts at 30 when we meet that one nice girl with short hair.

This is why it’s important to have non-cishet people writing LGBT characters. Straight people can never properly write the experiences LGBT people go through unless they check in with LGBT people.