We need to talk about GAY PEOPLE

[comicsandus]

Если вдруг кто-то всё ещё не в курсе: последние полторы-две недели околокомиксный мир говорит об ЛГБТ. Говорит настолько много и так интенсивно, что попутно взбудоражились и просто СМИ (и не только, но об этом ниже).

Происходит всё это потому, что как-то очень одновременно (почему - вопрос отдельный, о котором я говорить не буду, в основном потому, что мне всё равно) случились два события. И, поскольку сейчас уже очевидно, что это не просто ещё одна интересная вспышка-импульс, пронёсшаяся по переплетающимся каналам информационных потоков, а самая настоящая История, об этом надо написать отдельно и подробно. Если без ёрничания и кокетства: всё это действительно интересно и, пожалуй, действительно важно, но, во многом к моему собственному удивлению, лично меня (пока?) оставляет на удивление равнодушной.

Часть ссылок уже была использована в последнем линкспаме, но я решила, что полноты расрытия темы ради можно и повториться.

Итак:

Событие номер раз: DC

Событие номер раз:

Давным-давно (почти год назад) Соиздатель DC Comics ДэнДидио в своём интервью журналу The Advocate, отвечая на вопрос о пост-Ребутной Вселенной DC сказал, что хотя издательство и готово увеличить количество присутствующих "в кадре" гомосексуальных персонажей, менять кого-то из персонажей существующих авторы не хотят, и речь в любом случае будет идти о ком-то совершенно новом.


Десять дней назад, двадцатого мая, на панели DC на лондонской конвенции Kapow отвечая на вопрос из зала, ДиДио неожиданно сообщил, что издательство изменило свою позицию, и что в скором времени один из пока после Ребута не появлявшийся широко известный ("iconic") персонаж вновь будет представлен публике уже как, помимо прочего, гомосексуал.

Джим Ли, другой Соиздатель DC Comics и художник, которого вы скорее всего знаете, выдал чуть больше информации, в целом сводящейся к "мы давно планировали сделать это, времена меняются и мы хотим меняться вместе с ними":

"There was no master plan behind it all; we certainly had that character storyline in motion months ago... Dan's answer came out of someone asking, 'In the New 52, you've had a chance to change heroes ages and their origins and their race -- why didn't you change any sexual orientation? ...Basically Dan decided, you know what, maybe this was an opportunity to do some of that. The storyline comes out of that rethinking of what our standard policy was before... I know it's controversial, but we always felt that it was part of our books, to try to best reflect the readership and the entirety of people in general"

Поскольку в происходящем в комиксах мейнстримные СМИ разбираются не то чтобы хорошо, реакция их была предсказуема: Is Batman gay?, Could Superman be gay? . По ссылкам можно и не ходить: заголовки - самое интересное, что там есть.

Предсказуемо возбудились... члены общества, не кажущиеся образцами терпимости, вежливости а иногда и психического здоровья: , One Million Moms targets DC, Marvel over gay storylines. Особая радость, по слухам, творилась на странице Дэна ДиДио в Фейсбуке, но пойти туда у меня духу не хватило.

Ответом на гомофобию были как очень понятные слова, так и несколько блее спокойные размышления:

Secret Identities : Who is What, and Does It Matter?: If one reads the old Golden Age stories of Superman or Batman (pre-1960), and assumes the main characters were gay, would it change the stories any?

И картинка:

Но, если продолжать говорить только о DC, гораздо больше публику занимал понятный вопрос: кто?

Догадки разной степени (не)серьёзности посыпались сразу же, и среди них были как откровенно издевательские:

My best guess?

ComicsAlliance's Betting Odds on DC's Next Gay Character

Большая картинка-1

Большая картинка-2

Так и более-менее вдумчивые и не лишённые доказательной базы:

Do DC’s solicitations out the LGBT superhero?

Will Alan Scott, DC’s Original Green Lantern, Be Reintroduced As A Gay Man?


Да, Алан Скотт. Первый Зелёный фонарь, отец Обсидиана и Джейд, член JSA. Это пока ещё просто догадка, но есть люди, которым она уже не нравится:

Report: New gay D.C. Comics superhero is…: Does the Green Lantern really qualify as one of “the major iconic D.C. characters”? I have only a passing knowledge of comics but my impression is that he’s the second-lamest “major” superhero there is, aside of course from you-know-who.


Кое-кому эта догадка, правда, не нравится по более соотносимым с реальностью причинам:

"Major" DC Character To Be Revealed As Gay Is... Um, The Original Green Lantern From the 1940s:

You ever see that Greatest American Hero were Bill & Ralph met the people who had the Greatest American Hero super-suit before them? Couple of old guys. Anyway, Alan Scott's like that. You would call him a Green Lantern, but never the Green Lantern.

This really is not "major" at all. There are three other Green Lanterns besides Hal Jordan who are more important than Alan Scott -- Kyle Rayner (the young one), John Stewart (the black one), and Guy Gardner (the hot-headed comic relief one).
This is DC taking a character who doesn't have his own book (and hasn't, for sixty years) and making a splash with him, because, really, who cares about Alan Scott?
I mean, I think it's a marginally interesting thing (marginally), but then, I can recite the Green Lantern oath and tell you what Sector of the Galaxy Earth is located in.
...
I thought I saw on Twitter it would be Kyle Rayner, which made sense, except it was too... um, stereotypical. Rayner is a slender, single young graphic artist with a whimsical imagination, living in New York City.
They'd be crucified for that.
Kyle Rayner is the one person in the DC Universe who can never be gay.


Есть и осторожное одобрение:

Thoughts On DC's Latest Decision

Alan Scott might not be as famous to the general public as some, but in comics terms, he's definitely an elder statesman of the DCU, and one with a long and storied history. This is definitely a better choice than some of the ones rumored (like, say, Vibe.) I still think that the most seamless and most audacious decision would have been to go with Batman, because he doesn't really have a history of strong female relationships--his relationship with Vicki Vale has never had the same kind of iconic status as Superman and Lois Lane, and his girlfriends are frequently shown as "beards" to explain away his late-night disappearances and eccentricities--but I suspect they were concerned about the potential insinuations of child molestation.
…
Well, certainly people are going to point to Jade and Obsidian, but if having kids disqualifies you from ever being gay, nobody ever told my uncle. Molly Mayne is a bit of a stronger counter-argument, but again, she's not an iconic part of his history in the way that Joan Garrick is with Jay.
…
I'm not sure if they handled this well...but I'm certain that they could have done it a lot worse.


Одно можно сказать точно - если это действительно окажется Алан Скотт, человек, задавший ДиДио изначальный вопрос, очень удачно совпал (я, если что, ни на что не намекаю) с издательством: "You make Green Lantern gay and he’s the dude that patrols space with a magic ring, who reignited the sun, went mad and killed the whole Corps, and who just happens to like dudes. It may be a subtle difference to some, but believe me, for my community it’s quite the coup".

Событие номер два: Marvel

С DC пока закончили, перейдём к Marvel и событию номер два:

Нортстар, быший член Alpha Flight и иксмен, считающийся первым открытым геем в мейнстримной супергероике собрался жениться. Э... выйти замуж. Да, вот в такие моменты понимаешь, насколько гетеронормативен наш язык. Вступить в брак. Нортстар собирается вступить в брак в следующем пятидесятом, номере Astonishing X-Men.

О самом Нортстаре и его истории в контексте истории ЛГБТ в комиксах неплохо написано тут:
Northstar's Same-Sex Wedding and Comic Books' Uncomfortable History With Gay Heroes, но об общем мы ещё поговорим чуть ниже, а пока вернёмся к конкретному событию.

В очередной раз разумеется, люди Имеют Мнение. Помимо уже упоминавшихся выше людей против этого брака возражают с позиций, которые гомофобными назвать язык не повернётся:

Fairytale gay wedding vs gay marriage - показать свадьбу - значит привлечь внимание, но настоящая поддержка прав ЛГБТ должна выражаться в демонстрации их повседневного существования как обыденной реальности. И "повседневное существование" в данном случае значит в том числе супергероические приключения, а значит свадьба с "обычным человеком" - тем более плохая идея.

Выдержки

Выдержки:

When there are weddings, they are the payoff, the money shot, and definitely the grand finale of the fairytale. No one wants to read a fairytale that begins with a wedding, because then it would be about domestic tedium, heated discussions about whose turn it is to fold the laundry or change the diapers. Weddings are how fairytales end.
...
Truly, if Marvel and DC really want us to believe that they care about making gay marriage seem mundane and ”normal” then they need to show us two established, gay, married superheroes who work together to fight evil. They need to depict a same-sex marriage between working heroes, not as being some kind of unique, magical, unicorn of an event that merits ludicrous and totally unseemly announcements on The View.
...
It is important to me that mainstream media depict committed gay marriage as a facet of life and I’m very happy that this is happening. This is how capitalism works I suppose; nothing changes until big businesses believe that they’ll make a lot of money out of it. Unfortunately, this is just another example of a superhero marrying a member of the public and it just doesn’t carry the weight and importance of a relationship between heroes because it will never be the focus of the comic book (quite reasonably of course, because domesticity is not the stuff of superhero comic books.) If Marvel and DC are to truly embrace same-sex marriage, then instead of focusing on an obviously irrelevant event wedding, they need to give us a same-sex couple of heroes, who we get to see interact every day (and please don’t assume I’m talking about Batman and Robin, I personally think the age difference would make that much too divisive and creepy.)



Northstar's Nuptials: The Only Same-Sex Marriage I'm Opposed To - свадьба - конец сказки, состоящие в браке персонажи неинтересны читателям и, в особенности если вспомнить, как руководство Marvel объясняло необходимость "развести" Питера и Мэри Джейн Паркер, авторам, а значит брак прикончит потенциал Нортстара как интересного персонжа. А этот потенциал у Нортстара есть, и его жалко.

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This is clearly going to be one of the most heavily publicized weddings in superhero comic history, up there with the wedding of Clark Kent and Lois Lane in 1996 and the wedding of Peter Parker and Mary-Jane Watson in 1987. But look at how those marriages turned out. One was erased from history when three timelines were merged together; the other was wiped out because Spider-Man made a deal with the devil. I think that the way those weddings were annulled was sloppy, but I also think that letting those characters get married in the first place was a bigger mistake, because the writers and editors at those companies found those marriages limiting. That is why I don't want Northstar to get married.
...
Weddings force endings on characters who aren't meant to have endings. It ties up love stories and limits interactions. Marriage does create some new story ideas of its own, but perhaps not enough to balance out the story opportunities that are lost. Certainly Marvel and DC both believe that marriage shifts a character's status quo in a way that is fundamentally reductive. That's why they undid the marriages of their biggest name marquee characters.
...
Northstar is a character ripe with potential. He's arrogant. He has swagger. He's an orphan; he's gay, and he's a mutant, so he's been angry his whole life at a world that doesn't love him and he still fights to save it. He doesn't want to rely on anyone but himself -- he plays on teams, but as an athlete he prefers solo sports. And he's a former brainwashed Hand assassin. That was a terrible storyline, but it can't be ignored; he's a trained killer with a dark streak, and that makes him a bloody-handed badass. Any writer who can't find good stories to tell about a character with that complexity lacks the imagination to do the job, yet Northstar has spent most of the past thirty years on the bench. This is a character who is ready to step up to the spotlight, and we're finally in an age when Marvel might conceivably do it, but marrying him off feels like a good way to push him back into the shadows, and this time for good.


Мысли о проданном дьяволу браке Человека-Паука витали в воздухе у Тома Бревурта спросили о том, чем же лучше гораздо более внезапный брак Нортстара, и не лицемерно ли отношение Марвел к браку вообще: Tom Brevoort on why Northstar’s wedding will not have to be nullified. Ответ Бревурта вкратце: нет, потому что с разными персонажами имеет смысл делать разные вещи.

В любом случае, новости о свадьбе были встречены фанатами настороженно, но скорее благосклонно. Так что авторам не о чем беспокоиться: на их стороне публика и... э... парламент Шотландии. Нет, правда: Motion S4M-03044: Mary Fee, West Scotland, Scottish Labour, Date Lodged: 24/05/2012 Same-sex Marriage Should not be Confined to Literature and Fantasy .

Как можно было догадаться, по поводу всего случившегося у людей возникли Общие Мысли

Как можно было догадаться, по поводу всего случившегося у людей возникли Общие Мысли:

Marvel and DC just go GAY, all of a sudden! - нет, серьёзно, в Арчи это сделали раньше. С нашей стороны океана это может быть не так заметно, но никакой особой радикальной прогрессивности в действиях Большой Двойки нет.

Выдержки

Выдержки:

DC and Marvel are shouting about going gay with a — well, with a straight face, and they’re doing so in 2012. Read between the lines of the public relations, and essentially the two biggest North American superhero comics publishers (and Hollywood IP farms) are proudly, cluelessly boasting about the fact that they’re not as out of touch with the rest of American pop culture and society as they were last month, and they’re accepting congratulations for it.
It’s a bit embarrassing, really, and not just for DC and Marvel — I mean, all of us readers-of and writers-about these publishers get to share in guilt by association.
I’m not sure which of the Big Two comes off worse in this week’s campaigning.
...
But then, that’s the problem with “outing” any of DC’s characters after the “new 52″ reboot: The publisher has changed everything else about almost all of its characters, and could undo any such change in sexual orientation along with any other changes it chose to un-do in the eventual “Crisis” event that will inevitably un-do the New 52 continuity, either de-rebooting it or re-rebooting it.
In fact, the only thing DC could do on this front that would actually be a big deal given the New 52 reboot of less than a year ago would be to have the two characters whose histories haven’t been rebooted come out as gay: Batman Bruce Wayne and Green Lantern Hal Jordan.
And then have the two of them get married.
...
While I do understand the desire of some readers to have heroes like them to look up to (or, more likely these days, for readers like younger versions of themselves to have heroes to look up to), and I do understand the need for the publishers to provide those heroes. And while I understand the shortcut of outing a pre-existing hero rather than creating a brand-new gay one (or a legacy gay hero) because otherwise the hero will be viewed as inferior (simply because neither publisher seems able to generate a character as strong as the other, older ones in its stable), I still feel like the only honest response to these stunts and the crowing about them is a simple, “So what? You should have done that years ago.”


Avengers, Please Assemble: The Time Has Come To Hurt Sam Henderson’s Feelings - нет, ну серьёзно, Арчи. Но это всё равно здорово, так?

Выдержки

Выдержки:

Why now? Why the sudden promotional muscle by Marvel & DC relating to gay culture?

Some might say society’s attitudes are evolving. Because of Neal Patrick Harris. People love NPH.

Others, more cynically, might say that besides actually being further evidence of mainstream comics’ lack of ideas (see, e.g., the various cries of “Archie Comics did it first” suggesting that mainstream comics are no longer expected to be as daring in their creativity as even a fucking Betty & Veronica Digest), that as comics grow ever more suffocatingly meaningless, thanks to a creative community that seemingly stands for nothing and from whom attempts at any great meaning would likely seem increasingly ridiculous, edited into tatters thanks to Event Comic culture, that sops to comic creators’ liberal sensitivities combined with the cheap publicity that things like black Spider-Men and gay Plastic Men inherently invite form an ideal nexus point between the crass commercial urges and delusions of grandeur that are the twin suns of modern comics writers: “This comic isn’t pointless, meaningless garbage that ends with a page listing the five other comics you have to read to understand the story I’m telling … because my main character is 7/13th’s Hispanic! I’m helping children feel better about themselves! Automatic meaningfulness!”

And yet others might say that it’s too hard to create comics or read comics year after year about Hawkman and Atom being friends, and continue to believe that Atom doesn’t want to hit that shit. Hawkman’s got those cut lines, Ken-doll-like lines, from working out or hawking it up, I don’t even know how, and between the chest hair and the wings, with those feathers, he’s probably got a musk to him, and that’s really not even a queer-or-straight thing because at least in the really good fan fiction, Atom still thinks he’s straight, at first, which is what makes it so hot, and DC probably wants in on that, and who can blame them.

So who can say who’s right, but it’s probably that third group of people because they just sound like they know which way is up. Regardless of motivations, though, with all the adversity the LGBT community still faces, it’s difficult not to just hope for the best with all this, that a superhero comic featuring a gay superhero or a superhero who’s married to a Canadian might somehow be able to help at least one queer youth cope with the horrendous, overwhelming hatred aimed towards them by people who believe vehemently in a God who loves all of humanity. All we can do for now is hope that someday, through some grace, that young boys or girls, regardless of their sexual orientation, regardless of what bullies say or what their churches might try to tell them, will someday come together and hold hands and learn there is way better shit they can read than Marvel or DC comics. I read Fear Itself AND Flashpoint last year, so believe me, it gets better, just by reading anything else at all.


Marvel and DC Discover The Gay Again - Арчи!!! Инди-комиксы тем более начали делать это гораздо раньше. Но для мейнстрима это прежде всего основанная на скандальности пиар-акциия. Остаётся надеяться, что из этого всё-таки выйдет что-нибудь хорошее.

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Выдержки:

I hope that's what will happen with Northstar's wedding and the approaching revelation of a member of the New 52 being gay. Maybe these stories will be part of a wave of comics that treat sexual identity as just one element in characters' diverse personalities. Maybe this will be the vanguard of an embrace of men and women who encompass multitudes, rather than embracing and exploring stereotypes.
But even if that happens, it will be awfully late. Why is this news at all, and why should this be something that people both inside and outside the comics commentariat feels they must discuss? How is this worthy of being covered on The View, except as a giant promotional effort by the Big Two comics publishers? Real people are gay; therefore some characters created in fictional universes must be gay. Anything else would be completely unrealistic. Where is the controversy?
…
Because we all know people who are gay, and people who are black and people who are Russian and people who are assholes and people who are bad drivers and people who are every other thing that makes them unique. We are all multitudes, embracing all the many, many of sides of our personality. We may be black, we may be a geek, we may like My Little Pony, we may not like coffee. No single aspect of our personalities or lives defines us. But that's what DC and Marvel are doing with this sort of character manipulation – creating characters that are defined by just one characteristic of their personality.
…
In such a divisive world, we only have to declare that some super-heroes are gay in order to generate controversy. Do you honestly think anybody would buy a comic featuring the wedding of a member of a third-rate team like fucking Alpha Flight if it weren't for the fact that Northstar is gay? Their comic has flopped every time it's been reintroduced over the last ten or fifteen years. Nobody really cares about those characters beyond a small cult of fans. But because Northstar is gay, and getting married to his boyfriend, Marvel can use that character to make a statement about the issue of same sex marriage. Marvel has a great chance to show how progressive they are while at the same time selling a shitload of comics.
…
Can we please get complex characters like the ones in Spandex or Batwoman rather than simple, one-dimensional political and marketing chips?

Дополнительные ссылки

Ну и до кучи сборная солянка:

The State of Gay Characters in Comics - гомосексуальные персонажи популярных комиксов: кто они, и как у них дела.

MARVEL ANNOUNCES ‘X-MEN’s’ GAY WEDDING: Does this mean mainstream comics are ‘evolving’? - Майкл Кавна говорит с людьми, работающими в комикс-индустрии о том, как они раскрывают тему однополых браков в комиксах, к которым имеют отношение. Среди отвечающих Джон Голдвотер - CEO издательства Archie Comics, которое, "сделало это раньше".

Да, вот это было то самое место, где я просто сделала ленивый копипейст.

10 LGBT Superheroes and Couples - ещё один список. В основном те же там же.

Fantasy For All: The Evolution of LGBT Characters in Comics, Fandoms and YA Lit - и немного общей истории.