![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Another Torchwood post...
Thank you for all your lovely comments on my slightly anti-JB post, I'll just reiterate what's been said elsewhere, what a lovely, friendly fandom this is that we can have these sane, civilised discussions, even when we don't agree. I LOVE YOU ALL.
I'd like to respond to a few things, and they're best summed up by an anonymous comment I received from Max in the post below, and they're pertaining to Torchwood specifically, as opposed to JB, which is really where I'm going with this whole thing. The comment:
On the subject of TW.....
...as opposed to John himself - RTD has had his owm criticism about his protrayal of gay men, in relation to QAF mostly.
There are some gay men who hated the representation of gay men on QAF as pill-popping man-sluts.
Two things to say about that:
1) I think RTD lived that life in his 20's - going out every night, multiple flings etc, so he was writing what HE knew personally.
2) Why does every gay character have to be the definitive role model - an acceptable face to the straight world?
...So some gay men may live to be on the scene, and some may find a partner and never stray. Some may find a partner, and have lovers on the side - and by the way, I'm not even sure this is what JB does in his own life (I get the impression he's monogamous), but it's not my business - but you can't expect every single gay relationship on the the tv (including on TW) to reflect what you think is the ideal.
First off, as I've said, I'm really not particularly interested in what anyone does in their private life, which is why I had trouble posting what I did, because I think it's a bit intrusive, and the reason I brought up JB's private life, specifically, is because I think it has bearing on the characterisation in Torchwood. As Max rightly points out, Russell himself has also been on the receiving end of this sort of criticism, and I think the same thing Max says applies to John, I think both of them have a past in that free-for-all multiple fling gay scene, and I'm sure John is perfectly monogamous at this point in his life, I never meant to imply that I think he isn't. But I think that history has bearing on how the gay relationships in Torchwood play out. As has been pointed out on many occasions by many different people, including myself, but not only by me, the show treads a very fine line and has a tendency towards portraying the homosexual relationships as somehow less emotionally involving than the heterosexual ones. It's not a thing that's been put in intentionally by anyone involved, but it's a piling of small things on top of other small things that leave that impression.
Let's take Ianto. (Yes! Let's! I'll take him! I'll take him right here and now.) On the one hand, Ianto's a hugely refreshing character. For a start, he's canonically bisexual, which, on the GLBT menu, is surely potentially and stereotypically the most slutty thing one can possibly be, omnisexual notwithstanding. Because, let's face it, as a bisexual you're just not ruling anyone out, everyone's a potential target for your advances. (I'm joking. You all know me well enough by know. If you don't, fuck off out my journal.) And yet, Ianto's... kind of dull. Despite his young age, he's not out clubbing and fucking anything on two legs, in fact, if written canon is to be believed, it's been Lisa and now Jack and that's it. It's one of the things I love about Ianto, he's not a stereotype, which is great. But again, with Ianto, they chose to make his one OMGTRUELOVE relationship a heterosexual one (because there is NO denying that Ianto and Lisa were a big thing. We don't really need any more evidence on that front than the evidence we have, which is that, despite not being an idiot and knowing what she had been turned into, he had to save her. He LOVED her. Lots. End of.) and his kind-of-casual-avant-garde-sexytimes relationship a homosexual one. And there we have yet another one of those little things that, working together create that bigger impression of het-serious/homo-casual. And when you add that, and all the other things that have been dissected to death, to this sort of thing:
"But I don’t think he’d settle down with Ianto. He might do, but he’d let Ianto know that he [Jack] has to play around on the side. If he’d commit to Gwen, however, he knows that he’d have to commit completely."
coming from the guy who plays Jack, it makes me mad. Because there is just no canon to back up this assertion, and so I feel the assertion must be coming from John himself, and that worries me. And on that note, as I've said about Barrowman personally and the way he talks about himself, I feel the portrayal of Jack/Ianto and their "innovations" suffers from that same gay=adventurous-and-wild-and-crazy-and-just-that-little-bit-more-relaxed-and-funner-than-het stereotype that I think attitudes like Russell's and John's about gay relationships help perpetuate.
In the end, no, I've said this before and I'll say it again, every gay character DOES NOT have to be the definitive role model or an acceptable face to the straight world, every gay relationship DOES NOT have to be monogamous and serious, Torchwood DOES NOT have to be an after school special on how gay people are just people, too. BUT... I feel it could do with taking a good long look at itself and the trends in its writing that nobody, not even the token gay representatives like Russell and John, seems to be noticing.
I am hearing good things on the grapevine about Jack/Ianto in series 3, and I hope this post will be proved absolutely wrong by those things. We'll see.
I'd like to respond to a few things, and they're best summed up by an anonymous comment I received from Max in the post below, and they're pertaining to Torchwood specifically, as opposed to JB, which is really where I'm going with this whole thing. The comment:
On the subject of TW.....
...as opposed to John himself - RTD has had his owm criticism about his protrayal of gay men, in relation to QAF mostly.
There are some gay men who hated the representation of gay men on QAF as pill-popping man-sluts.
Two things to say about that:
1) I think RTD lived that life in his 20's - going out every night, multiple flings etc, so he was writing what HE knew personally.
2) Why does every gay character have to be the definitive role model - an acceptable face to the straight world?
...So some gay men may live to be on the scene, and some may find a partner and never stray. Some may find a partner, and have lovers on the side - and by the way, I'm not even sure this is what JB does in his own life (I get the impression he's monogamous), but it's not my business - but you can't expect every single gay relationship on the the tv (including on TW) to reflect what you think is the ideal.
First off, as I've said, I'm really not particularly interested in what anyone does in their private life, which is why I had trouble posting what I did, because I think it's a bit intrusive, and the reason I brought up JB's private life, specifically, is because I think it has bearing on the characterisation in Torchwood. As Max rightly points out, Russell himself has also been on the receiving end of this sort of criticism, and I think the same thing Max says applies to John, I think both of them have a past in that free-for-all multiple fling gay scene, and I'm sure John is perfectly monogamous at this point in his life, I never meant to imply that I think he isn't. But I think that history has bearing on how the gay relationships in Torchwood play out. As has been pointed out on many occasions by many different people, including myself, but not only by me, the show treads a very fine line and has a tendency towards portraying the homosexual relationships as somehow less emotionally involving than the heterosexual ones. It's not a thing that's been put in intentionally by anyone involved, but it's a piling of small things on top of other small things that leave that impression.
Let's take Ianto. (Yes! Let's! I'll take him! I'll take him right here and now.) On the one hand, Ianto's a hugely refreshing character. For a start, he's canonically bisexual, which, on the GLBT menu, is surely potentially and stereotypically the most slutty thing one can possibly be, omnisexual notwithstanding. Because, let's face it, as a bisexual you're just not ruling anyone out, everyone's a potential target for your advances. (I'm joking. You all know me well enough by know. If you don't, fuck off out my journal.) And yet, Ianto's... kind of dull. Despite his young age, he's not out clubbing and fucking anything on two legs, in fact, if written canon is to be believed, it's been Lisa and now Jack and that's it. It's one of the things I love about Ianto, he's not a stereotype, which is great. But again, with Ianto, they chose to make his one OMGTRUELOVE relationship a heterosexual one (because there is NO denying that Ianto and Lisa were a big thing. We don't really need any more evidence on that front than the evidence we have, which is that, despite not being an idiot and knowing what she had been turned into, he had to save her. He LOVED her. Lots. End of.) and his kind-of-casual-avant-garde-sexytimes relationship a homosexual one. And there we have yet another one of those little things that, working together create that bigger impression of het-serious/homo-casual. And when you add that, and all the other things that have been dissected to death, to this sort of thing:
"But I don’t think he’d settle down with Ianto. He might do, but he’d let Ianto know that he [Jack] has to play around on the side. If he’d commit to Gwen, however, he knows that he’d have to commit completely."
coming from the guy who plays Jack, it makes me mad. Because there is just no canon to back up this assertion, and so I feel the assertion must be coming from John himself, and that worries me. And on that note, as I've said about Barrowman personally and the way he talks about himself, I feel the portrayal of Jack/Ianto and their "innovations" suffers from that same gay=adventurous-and-wild-and-crazy-and-just-that-little-bit-more-relaxed-and-funner-than-het stereotype that I think attitudes like Russell's and John's about gay relationships help perpetuate.
In the end, no, I've said this before and I'll say it again, every gay character DOES NOT have to be the definitive role model or an acceptable face to the straight world, every gay relationship DOES NOT have to be monogamous and serious, Torchwood DOES NOT have to be an after school special on how gay people are just people, too. BUT... I feel it could do with taking a good long look at itself and the trends in its writing that nobody, not even the token gay representatives like Russell and John, seems to be noticing.
I am hearing good things on the grapevine about Jack/Ianto in series 3, and I hope this post will be proved absolutely wrong by those things. We'll see.