rambling asides

notunwise:

miss-lady-bat:

notunwise:

dcugays:

One question asked at the DC panel today at Kapow, was about Dan’s interview with the Advocate in the USA. Specifically over the decision not to change any character’s sexual orientation when relaunching the DC Universe. At the time Dan stated they would introduce new LGBT characters rather than switch orientation, but the question asked why DC would switch race, size, age, all sorts of identifying features, but not orientation.

Surprisingly, DiDio stated that they had changed DC’s policy in this regard. And they ae about to reintroduce a previously existing DC character who was previously straight and now will be “one of our most prominent gay characters.”

As Bob Wayne explained that, just like the President of the United States, the co-publisher’s policy on this “has evolved.”

And despite his best efforts to stem Dan, we also got the very strong impression that the death of Superman on Earth Two many not have been as final as portrayed…

#Wat #I’m all for equality in comics in terms of LGBT issues #I support Apollo and Midnighter and Bunker and Batwoman and Question II#Hell even Marvel’s little band of gay characters #But are they REALLY going to change the SO of a pre-existing formerly straight character? #As much as even I love slash and such #Please stop fucking up comic book characters’ lives DC#Because if this fandom gets anymore fucking insane #The slash fangirls are already nuts #we don’t need to feed the fanimals

Fffffff Christ making a character LGBT is not about freaking fangirls, it’s about maybe, MAYBE being able to answer a name people will recognise when they ask me if there are any LGBT superheroes. DC SHOULD have used the reboot to increase the amount of minorities, and if they have to do it retroactively because they sucked at first, well at least it’s better than nothing.

Making a character gay is not “fucking up” a comic book character’s life. Man this looks like the arguments racist people were having about how making Nick Fury black in some universes was “destroying” his character. Do these people realise the language they’re using? 

Anyway, DC having basically NO prominent LGBT character, any C-lister would be their “most prominent” so I’m not really entertaining the hope that it’s really going to be anyone whose name people will recognise. But one more is better than nothing, and the fact they’ve acknowledge there is a problem is a first step.

If they make Batman or Superman, or even a lesser character, like Blue-Beetle or Booster Gold homosexual, they will, indeed, fuck up their lives in the sense that they might as well just make a brand new character. Their entire back-story will be flipped over, and every heterosexual relation they’ve had will be erased or called into question. They might as well just burn any archives they have, and for what? Maybe instead of creating a fictional character who allies with LGBT, they should actually do something to help real LGBT people. Lord knows they have the funds, maybe not the sway in the politcal arena, but the funds.

Personally, I find it to be a spit in the face of LGBT to take a previously straight character and just “make them gay,” like it’s really that simple. Yeah, because that’s how it works. At any time, anyone can just choose their sexuality. Sounds more like an appeal to the right wing gay-bashers than anything that would help the community.

And I take issue with the emboldened statement.

Are you saying that Apollo, Midnighter, Batwoman, the Question II, and Bunker are not prominent characters? Pft, you must not read a lot of comics then~

It certainly depends how they bring it up, but considering the very high number of people who are in the closet for a very, very long time, the fact that they’ve dated people of the opposite sex can be dealt with very realistically. I do volunteer work where I go into high schools to talk about bisexuality and homosexuality and answer students’ questions about my life, always alongside another LGB person, and doing that got me to hear first-hand the life story of a hundred other LGB people and more than half of the gay guys did have relationships with women for a very long time, plenty of them got married and then had a divorce twenty years later. Not to mention that if the character just makes his coming out as bisexual — because bisexuality does, indeed, exist — this won’t be an issue at all.

And the reboot’s point was to burn the archives and rewrite entire characters’ background. What they’d have to ‘write over’ at this point is 10 issues worth of canon, except for like, Batman, who got basically no reboot. So most of them haven’t HAD any relationship that is canon right now and don’t have backstory to erase :/ People are currently ASSUMING that most of these characters are straight, and nothing has actually shown it in these 10 issues of canon. DC was probably assuming they were all straight, which is why they’re talking about ‘changing’ their sexual orientation, but people need to stop assuming this out of every character. Damn, in real life, people need to stop assuming that everyone is straight until proven the opposite, and even then, if they’re dating someone of the opposite sex, no one can assume that they’re not bisexual. 

And yes, as much as I love Apollo and Midnighter and Batwoman, they’re recognisable if you read comics, but that is not the same at all as ‘prominent’. People who are vaguely into comics won’t recognise the names (they’ll recognise ‘Batwoman’ because of Batman but won’t know who that is), and let’s not even get into how faaaaar away from ‘prominent’ Bunker and Renee are. Bunker especially, that even most comic book geeks will not recognise. None of them are characters that, when I talk to someone who isn’t a huge geek, will ring a bell. When I tell people I give conferences on homosexuality in superheroes comic books, I don’t want them ALL to answer “oh? there are gay superheroes?” and then not know any of the ones I name. I want them to answer “oh, like _____”. SO MUCH WISHFUL THINKING.

So anyway, that’s a lot of words to say that I like that DC has chosen to use the reboot to do this, even if it’s a year later, but I have to say that I’m part of the people who believe that ANY representation of LGBT in the media is usually better than none, which is a hot topic in the LGBT community itself. A lot of how I feel in this situation is pretty much gut-feelings of “damn, I want some more representation of people who are like I am”.

Agreeing with notunwise here - that is a good reply. They just hit the reset button on the universe, the archives have already been burned, and it’s not going to “ruin” any characters to give them a non-heterosexual orientation.

(Source: bleedingcool.com)

nataleeleoalways:

(via vikun)