When I watch hetero dramas, I often unconsciously place myself in the female lead’s position.sjay:
You're not the first person to say this and I find it very interesting since I can't relate to this so it gives me a new perspective to consider for why het women watch BL, which is exactly what I was looking for!
women are often written as the damsel in distress
No but it's just a fact that women in media are poorly written MOST of the time. I don't know why, but they're eye rolling to endure in most shows. I rarely watch shows/movies with female leads/protagonists because I end up disliking or being irritated with them.
Does that make sense?
I may not personally relate to your points but I can see why they make sense, although I feel like once again this viewpoint is in some way connected to the recent 'men are toxic' things trending online? I may be wrong, but you say some things you want to see men portrayed as experiencing that you'd likely complain about/have disliked seeing women portrayed as experiences and yet SOMEHOW you've actually described it positively, like you want to see them enjoying those 'soft' things that would be disliked and viewed as a typical weak female thing in a het portrayal. Very interesting.
Thanks for sharing your perspectives and reasoning!
No but it's just a fact that women in media are poorly written MOST of the time. I don't know why, but they're eye rolling to endure in most shows. I rarely watch shows/movies with female leads/protagonists because I end up disliking or being irritated with them.Lyson:
'Most' depends on country and genre but that's why I gave up on US movies - especially rom coms - IDK must be close to twenty years ago.
Opting out of women altogether is one way of ignoring the problem but it's just trading one expression of heteronormative conditioning for another. Even the best BL by definition reinforces the normalised assumption that women are secondary to matters and should prioritise men's happiness and well-being over their own. It's a bandage not a remedy.
On a series by series basis, no big deal - a diversity of stories is good. But when (edited for clarity) the genre is a viewer's primary or entire focus? That's creating a different normalisation. It has to do something to viewers' psyches, especially girls and young women, to see themselves coming in second at best, if they're there at all.
And when BL is just het sexism recast with boys? Uff.
'Most' depends on country and genre but, that's why I gave up on US movies - especially rom coms - IDK must be close to twenty years ago.Elisheva:
I actually did mean in all countries, I watch western media more than BL, always have, and whether it's comics/anime/movies/TV series, whether it's het or LGBTQ, most of the time the femake characters are completely unlikable. I can name a handful of female characters I've ever liked, really liked, in media and that's about it. They're just poorly written at a foundational level, whether they're written by men or women imo, both equally bad, most of the time.
Even the best BL by definition reinforces the normalised assumption that women are secondary to matters and should prioritise men's happiness and well-being over their own
Are you saying this because of how the females are portrayed or because they're not actually necessarily important to the plot and are basically NPC's?
But when that's the main focus?
In which BLs have you found this to be the focus? Curious. Keep in mind, I watch way less BLs, and drop a lot of BLs, compared to other viewers, so I may not know the ones you mention and may not have seen what you're talking about for myself. My tolerance and attention span for what passes as a BL plot is generally quite limited.
because historically and to date, it's been and is still het people (not only women mind you) who created/creates most gay media/content, but yeah, it's changing, as it should with progressiveness gradually spreading worldwide.
You sound like you're done talking about this now so I'm not going to push much more, but I still think that's just an assumption you're making. It's a common refrain, but I never see any proof for it.
What would be the reasoning for that being true?
Either A, in the past, queer people weren't as interested in writing queer stuff as they are now, or B, in the past, there were fewer queer people than there are now.
To me what sounds much more likely is C, in the past, the queer people who wrote the queer stuff were less comfortable being open about the fact that they were queer. Or D, the queerness of people in the past often gets erased, doubted and forgotten. Or maybe even E, in the past, there was a higher barrier to entry, and the people who managed to get their queer writings published either were straight or had to pretend to be, for respectability politics' sake.
But I'll wholeheartedly agree with you that it's fine for whoever to write and watch whatever they want. The more the merrier indeed.
comfortable being open about the fact that they were queer. Or D, the queerness of people in the past often gets erased, doubted and forgotten. Or maybe even E, in the past, there was a higher barrier to entry, and the people who managed to get their queer writings published either were straight or had to pretend to be, for respectability politics' sake.Ryn:
I won't disagree that any of these could have been true of the past, but it doesn't change the fact that historically, the gay media and other gay content that was created are largely still now, created by het people.
but I never see any proof for it.
I find this odd that you don't know this? I mean, this is a basic thing we can see just see as evidence by the gay content that already exists and is still being made, and who it's been created by. Just as we see now that more and more content is being created by LGBTQ people nowadays, because we can search up and see who makes it.
You sound like you're done talking about this now so I'm not going to push much more
Nah, I just really don't care to get into all that stuff about the different sexual orientations and whatever issues they have with each other. I ain't got no problem with who anyone wants to fuck or what content they want to watch and who's fucking in it, so long as everyone involved is of age and consenting and enjoying themselves. 😂 Ain't nobody (me) got time for all that drama.
because we can search up and see who makes it.
When you search someone up, how do you know their orientation? Do you assume they're straight unless they explicitly said otherwise? Do they have to have a same sex partner? How would you know if they were ace?
What I keep seeing is that people who write gay content are widely assumed to be straight, and then I do the smallest bit of digging and woops nope they were queer all along.
Becky Albertalli is the posterchild of this, right? 'Love, Simon' is widely criticized for being 'a gay movie made by and for straight people' or whatever. And I mean she has a husband, sure. But she's bi, and she's very pissed that nobody is willing to acknowledge that fact about her. 'Heartstopper' and 'Red White Royal Blue' are similar examples.
It's seriously at the point that friggin' Lady Gaga gets called an 'ally to the queer community' all the time. She couldn't possibly be more vocal about the fact that she's bi herself.
Moving over to contemporary Asia, at this point it feels like just about half of Thai GL actresses have explicitly come out about being attracted to women, and STILL audiences keep complaining that there aren't any queer people in Thai GL production. Why? Because they're femme, so their queerness is easily erased. Apparently you have to look obviously queer before you count. (I personally do really want more masc GL actresses, but that's no reason to erase anyone's queerness.)
I keep seeing queer women in this space having to fight for their identities to be recognized, and I can't imagine that having been any easier in the past. I know what it's like to have your identity erased, so yeah, it frustrates me when I see it happen to others.
Nah, I just really don't care to get into all that stuff about the different sexual orientations and whatever issues they have with each other. I ain't got no problem with who anyone wants to fuck or what content they want to watch and who's fucking in it, so long as everyone involved is of age and consenting and enjoying themselves. 😂 Ain't nobody (me) got time for all that drama.
This I agree with.
I actually did mean in all countries
And I'm disagreeing with you on how far you went with that. I've been criticising portrayals of women in media for 40 some years now and have seen enough to know it's not as total as you're making out. It's certainly not in Europe and the UK. Not rom coms though of course, they tend to be a shite genre for women everywhere. Action is mixed. SF is mixed. UK comedy is mixed. Won't argue for the US, my viewing of theirs was limited to what UK channels chose to get rights for. Amongst the MDL countries, I won't argue for China or Korea either. Instead Japan and Thailand. But I'm sure you'll find a reason to dislike those so c'est la vie.
Are you saying this because of how the females are portrayed or because they're not actually necessarily important to the plot and are basically NPC's?
At worst, both. At best, the latter.
In which BLs have you found this to be the focus?
Not a specific BL, though it is common to all which aren't paired with a het romance as well (GMMTV used to do that in some of their youth programming). I meant for viewers whose focus is primarily or entirely on BL. I'll edit so it's clearer in case anyone else is reading the whole thread.
The near exclusive centrality of male characters in BL unfortunately reinforces heteronormative conditioning regarding women's place - secondary to the men and prioritising men's happiness above everything else. When it's some BL amongst other genres, no big deal, it's diversity. But when BL is a viewer's primary or entire focus it creates a different normalisation. It has to do something to viewers' psyches, especially girls and young women, to always see themselves coming in second at best, if they're there at all.
When you search someone up, how do you know their orientation? Do you assume they're straight unless they explicitly said otherwise? Do they have to have a same sex partner? How would you know if they were ace?
I mean, again, in history just searching many of the famous ones will reveal marriage histories or you know, the fact that het people never had to hide that they were straight, it wasn't a secret, it was known or discussed so it's like general knowledge for some of them. Unlike how LGBTQ people were oppressed. A fair amount of them were probably closeted though.
It's kind of like you're tryna' get into a debate about people assuming sexuality and sexuality erasure and nah, not something I'm interested in talking about at length. I'm not out here tryna figure out who's gay and straight. Basically, I don't assume the sexuality of someone if they have never made it known one way or another, I might speculate to myself, but unless they flat out choose to state it or make their sexuality known publicly somehow, I'm not fishing to find out or labeling them. On the other hand, for me, there will be some default assumptions regarding those who have relationships that are publicly known. If a publically (famous) woman is married to a man and hasn't stated she is any other orientation, my default assumption is she's straight. Same if a woman is openly dating a woman and she never states that she is bi, I will assume she's a lesbian. Same with men regarding being publicly known as being with the opposite or same sex. The underlying possiblity of them being on some other spectrum of sexuality is possible, I know that, but I ain't spending my time thinking about that. It's not that deep for me. If they end up coming out as bi or something else later, it's like, okay cool for them and I move on.
Anyway.
And I'm disagreeing with you on how far you went with that.
Yeah but even if you disagree, that just means what I find tolerable about female characters and what you find tolerable is probs just not the same. So what I said, I meant, I can't stand them most of them time across all countries media. That said, I will say, European and UK female characters are definitely written VASTLY different in many cases than USA, whether I like them or not is case by case. And yeah, I don't like most of the female characters in Asian media they're usually poorly written in my opinion, but there have been exceptions. There are always exceptions, nothing in any kind of media is ever totally bad or totally good.
At worst, both. At best, the latter.
So are you saying you'd like female characters to have main roles or main line stories in BLs alongside the BL couple? Heh. Did you see how that worked for Heesu in Class 2? Yikes. I enjoyed HiC2 well enough actually, I think it was actually a nice one time watch, but the comment section and the general viewership went into BL WW3 with hate for the het couple. Then again, maybe they'd have been more settled if it'd been a GL pair? As long as it was gay, it would have been okay? I have no idea. Also, can you imagine if the make a BL pair have a more main role alongside the GL couple in a GL series? The fall out and whining will be endless. How dare! hehehe wild. People are very pressed about this stuff.
The near exclusive centrality of male characters in BL unfortunately reinforces heteronormative conditioning regarding women's place -
Ooooh I just call that unrealistic excess gay. GMMTV is disastrous with that shit. They don't even ATTEMPT to make it make sense. Just, everyone and their dog is gay. It's like bad fanfiction. GMMTV is not the standard imo, I drop and pass on so many of their BLs I barely blink these days. But they have a certain following who really go in for that, maybe those are the types of viewers you mean? The females who like to see no females in their media? I'll be real, I always just chalked that up to the unhinged fangirls who can't stand seeing their fave male actors with female characters because it messes up their brain chemistry and makes them feral or something, but maybe it's some other psychological issue about devaluing themselves, anything is possible! :D
but you say some things you want to see men portrayed as experiencing that you'd likely complain about/have disliked seeing women portrayed as experiences and yet SOMEHOW you've actually described it positively, like you want to see them enjoying those 'soft' things that would be disliked and viewed as a typical weak female thing in a het portrayal.
When I mentioned those, I don't necessarily see them as weak. However, it is something that I find to be cliche and something I can pretty much expect to see in most dramas. It gets annoying at some point. Like, it's cute and all, but why are we always the clumsy ones? Why are we the ones who often get portrayed as needing protection (physically or mentally)? Why are we the ones who can get to play cute, fluffy, emotional, or adorable characters? So, when I started seeing male characters portraying roles like this, it gave me a sense of satisfaction. Idk why, but it just does🤷♀️
When I mentioned those, I don't necessarily see them as weak. However, it is something that I find to be cliche and something I can pretty much expect to see in most dramas. It gets annoying at some point. Like, it's cute and all, but why are we always the clumsy ones? Why are we the ones who often get portrayed as needing protection (physically or mentally)? Why are we the ones who can get to play cute, fluffy, emotional, or adorable characters? So, when I started seeing male characters portraying roles like this, it gave me a sense of satisfaction. Idk why, but it just does🤷♀️
Well it's another reason to add to the list! And I doubt you're alone, there are probably some others who see it similarly, enjoying seeing men in 'softer' roles I mean.
No but it's just a fact that women in media are poorly written MOST of the time.
I actually did mean in all countries,
Yeah but even if you disagree, that just means what I find tolerable about female characters and what you find tolerable is probs just not the same. So what I said, I meant, I can't stand them most of them time across all countries media.
Do you see the difference? The last one - where it is framed (finally) as your opinion, I won't disagree with except to point out that "all countries" is very likely overstating the breadth of your experience, and certainly the depth.
There are times in this when I've thought we might share some significant agreement, except for your all or nothing and binary ways of framing things. But maybe it's more like you dislike so much there's necessarily some overlap with some of my criticisms?
So are you saying you'd like female characters to have main roles or main line stories in BLs alongside the BL couple?
No. I've been talking about VIEWERS who watch BL predominantly or exclusively. THAT creates a different normalisation. And one which unfortunately reinforces conventional heteronormative sexist conditioning.
Please stop trying to sledgehammer that into individual series. Two different things. Wee corner of the world, real or imagined, where the majority of central characters are gay - fine. Not a problem, whether it's a realistic depiction about a social gathering of gay men or a predominantly queer friends group, or the less realistic ones you scoff at. A VARIETY OF STORIES IS GOOD.
It's what happens to our ways of understanding things when we limit the variety of stories and characters we take in and how that creates or reinforces different aspects of heteronormativity.
I don't know how else to say this. Maybe I should delete that middle paragraph so you can't jump on it again.
Do you see the difference? The last one - where it is framed (finally) as your opinion, I won't disagree with except to point out that "all countries" is very likely overstating the breadth of your experience, and certainly the depth.
Are you thinking me saying 'all countries' is implying I've watched everything there is to offer, or that I mean every single country in existence? If that's what you thought I meant, that seems a bit silly. I thought it was obvious, but okay, I'm referring to popular well known media and some lesser known media from major countries that create LGBTQ content (different countries in Europe, the UK, North America, Asia, from Australia and I've even watched something from Southern Africa. I have been into slash since I was 13 years old, I won't be specific but that was a long time ago for me. I have consumed a lot of stuff, written, drawn, tv shows, movies, etc. and I have my opinion on female characters from what I've watched. So yeah, no change on what I said.
There are times in this when I've thought we might share some significant agreement, except for your all or nothing and binary ways of framing things. But maybe it's more like you dislike so much there's necessarily some overlap with some of my criticisms?
Many people always feel a need to be deep about these things and that's fine, but not all people, I'm the latter, I consume media purely for entertainment. So I either like it or I don't, whether it's the actors, scripts, cinematography, creative choices, etc, if I like it great, if I don't, meh. Me saying I don't like it doesn't make it bad, it just means I don't like it and I think it's bad as per my lack of enjoyment. That's all. As for 'overlap', sure, you could say that, in the same way I could say your personal feelings about the way women are portrayed/percieved in media by the viewers overlaps your critiscisms/opinions. Eh ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Not a problem, whether it's a realistic depiction about a social gathering of gay men or a predominantly queer friends group, or the less realistic ones you scoff at. A VARIETY OF STORIES IS GOOD.
Again, I just don't like it. It's not a problem at all, but I will continue to dislike it while they continue making those kinds of BLs and that's great lol. Variety is great, fiction is all about whatever we want it to be, it means something for everyone and people can choose what they LIKE and DISLIKE and they can talk about it too.
No. I've been talking about VIEWERS who watch BL predominantly or exclusively.
It's what happens to our ways of understanding things when we limit the variety of stories and characters we take in and how that creates or reinforces different aspects of heteronormativity
So these are your main points, about the viewers, I get it. But I...don't care about this. lol Sorry is that seems blunt, but again, I'm watching for entertainment and entertaining discussions about the shows topics. I am sometimes interested in what people are thinking or feeling behind the media, hence why I posted this thread specifically. But when it comes to how viewers narrow media choices affect their views on herertonormativity and women, I can't say I'm interested in it.
Are you thinking me saying 'all countries' is implying I've watched everything there is to offer, or that I mean every single country in existence? If that's what you thought I meant, that seems a bit silly.
Yes, that would be silly. Did you consider other possibilities?
You wrote 'all'. I know with certainty you didn't mean you'd watched everything or from every country. If nothing else you wrote that you "rarely watch shows/movies with female leads/protagonists," which means at some point you chose to limit the range of your viewing. As is your prerogative of course.
But you felt comfortable extrapolating your viewing and your tastes more broadly than is warranted.
I'm referring to popular well known media and some lesser known media from major countries that create LGBTQ content
You had shifted to *women* in MOST media, and weren't limiting it to BL at that point. I wouldn't have said a thing if you were only talking about depictions of female characters in BL, or if you had framed it in terms of your tastes and what you had seen.
No but it's just a fact that women in media are poorly written MOST of the time. I don't know why, but they're eye rolling to endure in most shows. I rarely watch shows/movies with female leads/protagonists because I end up disliking or being irritated with them.
Again, I just don't like it.
You've changed the subject. Again. I was trying to clarify something you had misunderstood twice and you've turned it into your tastes?
But you felt comfortable extrapolating your viewing and your tastes more broadly than is warranted.
Yeah, and still my opinion according to what I've chosen to watch and my tastes. You get that right? I can say I don't like something and mean it, even if that thing I don't like is super popular and to most other peoples tastes or even if that thing is considered widely to be something people should watch in terms of genre or content or story lines, I can still say 'No, not for me' and that's all there is to it. I watch what I like, I don't see the need to force something on myself that most people find likable and popular just because it's the trending or viral or pc thing. I would never do that to myself lol Now maybe I need to specify, since you seem to take some things written very strictly as a blanket statement; I am talking about the media I watch FOR ENTERTAINMENT, not all the media I consume in general. I watch a lot of stuff, but what I watch for pure entertainment, I pick only what I want to see.
You had shifted to *women* in MOST media, and weren't limiting it to BL at that point. I wouldn't have said a thing if you were only talking about depictions of female characters in BL, or if you had framed it in terms of your tastes and what you had seen.
LGBTQ does not equal BL by my standards, BL is LGBTQ, but LGBTQ is much broader as a genre, so I wouldn't say limited to BL. Limited to LGBTQ content maybe.
You've changed the subject. Again. I was trying to clarify something you had misunderstood twice and you've turned it into your tastes?
You brought up a subject unrelated to the thread, and sure, I missed that point at first because I wasn't focused on viewers, I was thinking about the shows and the actors so I answered according to that. That's why at the end of my last message I summed up that I just wasn't interested in the point you were trying to discuss, about viewers narrow media choices affect their views on herertonormativity and women. It came back around to what I'd initially missed in your first comment :) So I hope it's all clearer now.
