x_los | In which LOGO doesn't care about women

...and I get a bunk in the morgue next to Iago in the wing for people who've suffered heart attacks and died from Not Surprised.

Now, I know LOGO's raison d'etre is gay and bi men, but if I were going to make a list of ten important, memorable bi and gay characters of sci-fi, here's what I wouldn't do:

1) contend that, in addition to being AWESOME, "Zorro: the Gay Blade" (a tale of Zorro's out and proud twin brother* donning the Mask and kicking ass/going shopping therein) was science fiction,
2) include Andrew from Buffy as my no. 10,
3) have no women or other-gendered characters of -any- kind (LeGuin's coming over to smack you with the Pimp Hand of Darkness, y'all),
4) make smegging Jack Harkness my no. 1,
5) pretend sci-fi is a genre entirely without books. I love my graphic novels, don't get me wrong, but your top ten? Should admit the *existence* of the interesting gender and sexuality dialogue that's taken place in non-graphic speculative fiction.

I think my f-list could come up with a better list standing on their heads while forced to hear disquieting production rumors about what M. Night Shama-llama doing to the Avatar film, personally.

Have Neil Gaimen reading you Blueberry Girl: that's more female-positive, right?

*Incidentally, I love the possibilities of taking the hyper-machismo of Zorro and just... making him gay. Chincano? Chica-yes.** I am not even sorry. Even if it's just played for cheap camp, look at the institutional example of textual reclamation! Official!slash!

**So earlier today I was watching a Four-era Doctor Who episode (you too can have a bed in the Not Surprised wing!!) and there was a singularly beautiful line from T. Baker, who'd just escaped from a yoke by thrusting it at the guards who'd captured him:

Four: I suppose you could say "the yoke's on him", if you were the sort of person who said that sort of thing, which fortunately I'm not.

Reader: I loved this deeply.***

*** Also today, I was thinking that if I were polyamorous, Aishwarya Rai could totally be the Mistress of my Spices, and congratulated myself on getting in both a movie title joke AND a polyamory-community slang joke in one pun. Any day where this is accomplished is automatically a fantastic one.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Well, I don't know, John Barrowman is pretty memorable. XDDD

But yeah, I agree. Pretty fail, as a list.

I kind of vom'd all over Jack's plastic chin and Dramatic Coat a bit, sorry. First place? Jack is the most interesting gay or bi character sci-fi's ever produced? Really? I don't dig Jack/Ianto. I know, it's just like, me and a goat out here while the rest of fandom's in on that shipping party, but there's something "...oh." about it for me. I'm just never Intrigued by their lurve.

Not like I am by the passion between John Cleese and a certain Jonas Brother...

Not that I want to give Jack over into the keeping of Diet Coke!Master over there in the lobster coat: Three/Delgado!Master's my fucking ship, dammit! You can't just take the whole dynamic, hand it into John Barrowman's sweaty, eager hands, and pretend I never saw the episodes you've suddenly smooshed the cast of Torchwood on top of, like a poorly-drawn tattoo of a fat bird covering up the name of your now-ex-boyfriend on your arm...

MORAL: JACK HARKNESS: HE'S LIKE THAT UGLY FAT-BIRD TATTOO.

THE REASONING BY WHICH YOU GOT YOUR MORAL HAS CONFUSED ME IMMENSELY. I am baffled by what seems to be an assertion that Jack and Ianto have the same relationship as Three and Delgado!Master.

I agree about Jack, though. I actually kind of liked him in the original 9 episodes, but the ~*edgy sexuality-bending~* thing Torchwood's got going on is incredibly contrived. I do quite like Ianto, though! I was more playing off of the John-Barrowman-has-the-loudest-and-most-flamboyant-laugh-I-have-ever-heard-ever angle, with the "memorable" comment.

Nonononon, the whole Jack/John thing, NOT Jack/Ianto. I like Series 2 Ianto a good deal, but yes, EVERYONE'S bi is a bit sensationalist. And Barrowman's shitty cover of Your Song, that was pretty memorable too!

The list aside, you know I love the bookses.

i don't find everyone's bi to be a bit sensationalist at all. This is absolutely true in a large subcommunity that I live in (although use the word 'bisexual' and fear lynching), but I would definitely argue that this is even true of 95% of everyone who was at college. I also don't believe that this is college thing, because this seems to keep up among the people I graduate with.

I really believe that this is a foretelling of what society would be like in the future*, people will just loosen up and become less horribly repressed in society.

*the future = educated parts of the world, but appropriate enough for the mainsteam tv

Fair enough, but I think they way they do it is a bit shocking!sex appeal!gimmicky. There's no reference to the fact that it might be slightly difficult or impact a character's life to be gay or bi in modern Wales because these aren't gay and bi characters, they're gay as long as one needs a steamy, provocative 'omg boy kissez!!' scene. Ianto and Jack don't have a relationship--not even a casual or a complex one. They have a series of stagey kisses. I'm not arguing that we're not headed towards a shinier, more pan-sexual future, and I'm FASCINATED by sci-fi's potential to question gender/orientation norms and posit alternatives and extrapolations, I'm just questioning whether Torchwood's (and I quite LIKE S2, even!) exploration and rather played-up treatment of sex/relationships really deserves to be enshrined as providing the most compelling examples in all sci fi. Twice.

NEVERMIND. I GOT IT NOW. UGLY FAT-BIRD TATTOO.

Ahahaha. It's late. Let's just go eat some fucking peeps.

I actually had a moment of "But I liiiike Jack! How is it that I like Jack more than Erin does?" And then my brain went "...you disliked Jack's treatment in the actual shows so much you wrote A COMPREHENSIVE ALTERNATE CANON for him. From, like, cradle to grave." And then I went "Oh YEAH."

So... yeah.

I also find it amusing that they felt the need to list both Jack AND Ianto. Folks! Just because Torchwood is loud about being stuffed to the gills with the gay, does not mean that it is necessarily good!

thanks for the credit for bringing up every single part of this post into your current stream of thought...

Danny, can't we just assume this is always true? It's like the CGI John Hurt Dragon in Merlin says: we're two sides of the same coin!

Evidently a list made by the sort of people who really mean "popular characters we like" when they say "great."

Frankly, if I were GLBT, I would be ashamed to have Constantine on my list. He is memorable, yes, but...my god, he's a monster in that arc. He's not being bi, really, he's being a predator, and sex just happens to be the way he gets what he wants (made only vaguely better by the fact that the other guy deserves it and John's doing it for a friend). I'm not sure I'd want to be represented by a guy who only happens to agree with me because he has a lack of empathy and boundaries bordering on the psychopathic.

Four is beautifully worded LOVE. Other Doctors appeal to me for various reasons, but the language whore in me is head-over-heels for him.

I haven't read Constantine, actually: as a general comics fan and Sandman reader, I hear good things, but there doesn't seem to be a ready entry point into that universe for the uninitiated than... the film.

I love the way several of them use langue different? There's a whole love-post about the way the Doctors use language, sifting around waiting to be written.

'The Hellblazer: Original Sins compilation is a great place to start--both a self-contained, self-explanatory arc, and one of the finest of all Hellblazer stories.

There is, but I may not be the one to write it. I'm usually too busy feeling gooey when they speak.

Great to know, thanks!

In which LOGO doesn't care about women

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