"Yuri on Ice - How Gay is Gay Enough?" Transcript

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Yuri on Ice is a 2016 anime about Yuri Katsukai^{[sic: Yuuri Katsuki]}, a 2423 year old figure skater from Japan whose^{[sic: who's]} pretty much convinced that he’s past his prime. Until his idol, world famous Russian figure skater Victor Nikiforov shows up in Yuri’s small town to coach him into being a champion himself.

I’ve been told for almost an entire year that I need to watch Yuri on Ice. People on YouTube. People on Twitter. People on Facebook. All telling me that I need to watch it. That I’d love it, and that it’s super gay. When I mentioned it to a few friends they were honestly shocked that I hasn’thadn't seen it. So, finally, begrudgingly, I watched it. Spoilers ahead.

And I want to be absolutely blunt, before we get into this. I’ve made a kind of career here on YouTube talking about queer coding in media. How gay characters are almost never shown, and just hinted at. And it’s incredibly frustrating, queer coding that is. And I was warned before watching Yuri on Ice that it was total queer bait, but I watched it anyway. And after watching both the sub’d and dub’d versions, I can say that this is actually the kind of representation that I’ve been asking for.

Could it have used an actual on-screen kiss? I mean sure. The arm-in-front-of-the-mouth felt a little forced when it’s abundantly clear what was's going on. But… it didn’t really need two men kissing in public. Because its queerness… wasn’t subtle at all.

In fact the subtlety was lacking to such an extent that it boggles my mind that there are fans online who argue that Yuri and Victor are straight. Straight. Yes. Absolutely. This is… pique^{[sic: peak]} heterosexuality. You don't get much straighter than this boys. Stop playing football, it's over.

Granted, the English voice dub is much more homosexually explicit, whereas the subtitled version is less textual. Granted, a key component of creative licence in Japanese media is for the audience to take implicit details for granted. So, in the culture of media consumption in Japan, yes, those little gay cues are meant to be read into.

Going through it three times total, the gay…ness of the whole thing became so much more apparent each time that the only way I can possibly account for anyone saying that this is straight is a bunch of women and girls who are exercisingexperiencing the most willful ignorance I’ve had the displeasure of being exposed toever seen.

Which, honestly, if the complete lack of women in this sausage fest isn’t a tip off, the literal only textual antagonist in this first season is the only one who refuses to stop shoving his heterosexual lifestyle in everyone’s faces. I can understand why a lot of North American viewers wouldn’t get the message though. There’s no grand, bombastic soapbox moment where either Yuri or Victor stand in front of a crowd to declare their sexuality… except the scene where Yuri declares his love for Victor on live TV. But besides that.

And neither was there a whole media push to promote these gay characters, in which the network and creator can pat themselves on the back, Disney “first gay character” style. If a studio or network isn’t blasting their own self-promotional circle-jerk across the internet, how do we know for certain that a character is gay? And even if they are gay, how do we know it’s gay representation if a giant, money-grubbing straight, family-values corporation isn’t telling a swarm of queers that this is gay representation? How gay is gay enough for it to be gay… without us having to be told it is?

Now, I know what you’re thinking. I’ve spent most of my tenure on YouTube railing against media producers for using copouts when it comes to any kind of representation. Using the whole ‘it’s there if you look for it’ queer coding and baiting doesn’t really fly with me in most cases. But at some point, the question of ‘how gay is gay enough’ must become ‘why do we have to project our gayness all the way back to the cheap seats in the back?’ How gay does something need to be for people to appreciate it’s^{[sic: its]} gayness? Not even that. At what point are straight people gonna stop telling gay people what is or isn’t a gay experience? Because you have something, Yuri!!! On ICE, in which the story benefits from subtlety. But apparently, we’re not allowed to have nuanced depictions of gay experiences because unless we’re showing up on a pride float weraring^{[sic: wearing]} a leather harness and puppy hood, there’s a whole swath of people who will insist that we don’t exist. And a lot of them don't want us showing up in a puppy hood either.

The thing is… rubbing our sexuality in everyone’s faces just to prove we exist does get exhausting for us, and in order to prove our existence, we get stuck in a cycle where our existence is based solely on our sexuality and sex. And so, our existence is deemed not appropriate for all audiences. Victor shouldn’t NEED to have Yuri bent over a bench in order to justify and demonstrate their sexual and romantic leanings when the emotional simplicity is focused on a much more wholesome depiction.

Mostly. To the point where… yeah I think this is better queer representation than the overwhelming bulk of American filmsmovies, televisionTV shows, and even comic books have had to offer in recent memory. At which point before going on, I feel obliged to erase any shadow of a doubt to confirm that, yes, even through inference only, this is qualifiabley^{[sic:qualifiably]} gay — and maybe even queer - representation.

Now To The Network’s credit, they did everything they could to keep as much of the gay out of Yuri!!! On ICE as possible. From arms-in-front-of-kisses to obscuring as much of the romantic details as possible. There’s no plausible deniability that there are a slew of gay characters in this show though… but it is possible. Not plausible, but possible. Straights are great at that.

As I mentioned, Japanese media is meant to be read into — where heavy-handed details are generally frowned upon. What’s inferred is meant to be taken for granted. Both Kristoff^{[sic: Christophe]} and Victor, almost naked, jumping into Yuri’s bed in Barcelona itself is not meant to be dismissed as a ‘just friends thing.’ After all, we here in continental America have a joke about male figure skaters all being gay — I can’t imagine that there isn’t that reputation elsewhere. So I’m comfortable saying that the show’s displays of affection and romance are meant to co-incide with an already-present expectation offor male figure skaters. Because scenes like this, with no dialogue contains a visual language which does not need translation. Seriously… this scene was basically lifted from a 2000s Kate Hudson romance.... Julia Roberts could never.

Personally, as a visual learner, and a film director, I’m a little disappointed that we are apparently so incapable of trusting visual language here in the West. But that’s a whole other video on its own. Because the vast majority of queer content in Yuri!!! On ICE is visual language. I mean… we’ve been demanding to be seen, right? And if a gay person saying: “Hey, this is a pretty gay experience” isn’t enough, there’s more than enough textual evidence to indicate that this is a cast of gay and bi figure skaters. Except for JJ. The straights can have himkeep JJ. Because aside from the airport scene, the engagement, and an overall comfort with nudity, Victor and Yuri routinely share a bed. And then there’s the repudiative public almost-love declarations that are projected at the public during broadcasts. I mean I get that dismantling toxic masculinity involves a process of making it acceptable to tell your best bro that you love him, but there’s a difference between wanting the best for your bro and wanting to $#^% him.

The engagement scene, and it is an engagement scene, is really the only part of the series that I disliked... bothered me. It just reads like a no-homo copout that the network made the creators slip in there. Probably as a compromise so that they could have a gay engagement in the first place.

But you also get a scene where two naked men jump into Yuri’s bed and his only objection is about how cold their feet are. Which maybe you could argue this is a straight boy thing, but then we’re getting desperately close to the territory of staged straight-bait porn. [Unknown clip plays, presumably from "staged straight-bait porn"?]

And couple that with the yearning, the pining, the numerous confessions, the hand, holding, the hugging, the emotional support crying, the complete lack of female love interests. And like. Sure. Take a couple of these things and you can argue that maybe it’s straight? If you wanna be mean. But Why do you want the gays to have FEWER icons? Jesus. We can still get fired for being gay in most states, can you at least let us have some anime male figure skaters? But add all of it together and it simply does not fit the bill for plausible deniability.

And it’s not like Yuri and Victor are the only queer ones— The show makes it abundantly clear when a figure skater has alleged heterosexual inclinations. Also the… brother and sister who are… very committed. But as for other characters… is it possible for catboys to be straight? [Yurio with the ears.] No really, are there any straight catboys? I’m curious. Aside from joking around though, I can’t really think of any other excuse for why a 15 year old, bereft of adult supervision, would so vehemently flee a swarm of rabid fangirls only to wind up riding bitch for a hunky slav. Followed by this scene. On a vista overlooking the sun setting and everything. I mean Come on. What more does it have to take? Why is it that not until boys are literally putting their bodies together for skin-on-skin contact that some people will insist that this type of situation is completely hetero.

I’ve actually heard this is pretty bad forwhen it comes to sports anime.

But that's a whole other video... Yeah, it's coming. [The second Christophe clip plays again.]

At which point I consider it a failure of Western ’queer representation’, where Western audiences cannot recognize queer characters by inference alone. And so… one has to wonder… what is causing this denial in media analysis? What makes some American audiences require their media to be so much more… explicit?

Subtlety as a staple of Japanese storytelling extends not only to modern media but also the mythological cycle, the very way in which ancient Japanese historians recorded their legends, and then re-recorded those documents. Small gentures, like nods or turning one’s head slightly, were recorded in detail, and were meant to signify a clear, nonverbal message. Which not only was used to characterize the individuals in the story, whether fiction, history, or fictionalized history, but to explain and justify the actions of characters or figures. In many instances, a piece of media is meant to be read into.

This isn’t to say that every piece of Japanese media is meant to be subtle and deeply enriching. [Clip of Goku screaming.] But this does say that this is an audience that has been conditioned to seek out smaller inferences and put it into the context of the work as a whole. An audience which is conditioned to be aware that all aspects of a given piece of fiction are placed there deliberately by the creator, and therefore are meant to ask why that is. And as a result, in order to fully appreciate the media, you, the observer, are invited to extract details. That’s one of the reasons fandom culture is so intense in Japan.

So… scenes which are implicitly romantic in setting, emotional context, and body language seem out of place in an anime which is seemingly exclusively about figure skating. Why is that? No really, would it not seem super weird to dedicate so much time and energy to depicting the ‘platonic’ relationship between a figure skater and a coach in such a sensual way in straight media? As far as implicit gay content goes, Yuri!!! On ICE has the writing written more clearly on the wall than some most explicit queer content. Due to the complexity of the models and expressions, there is greater permission for more of the story and characters to exist in visual language alone. Because visual language does not require a translation, I’d also be willing to say that this is a significant reason for the growing global popularity of Anime. This is especially true when we factor in an over-arching element of Japanese culture, which is much more reserved when it comes to public displays of affection — at least next to America. And especially next to Switzerland, apparently. [The Christophe clip, again.]

However, as I mentioned, audiences conditioned to expect American media to be very blunt are at the same time more cynical, and unwilling to read into the subtext of a given property. The english voice-dub of Yuri!!! On ICE is much more explicit in it’s^{[sic: its]} depictions of queerness — which matches the sensibilities of audiences in Americanized nations. And I’m not trying to say that one version of Yuri!!! On ICE is better than the other. Honestly the difference in translation is so subtle, that it isn’t that noticeable. But The instances of visual language make up the bulk of queer coding in either version.

American audiences though, are far more conditioned to overt messaging. Cue another person who thinks that Fightclub is a celebration of toxic masculinity. And I mean it’s not really our fault. Euro-American media as a whole seems to be driven more and more towards an elimination of nuance. Whether that’s because of Hollywood or whether Hollywood has been responding to andthe demand. But it seems that American media has been edging more and more towards a situation where the audience is encouraged to do as little as possible to engage with their media. I hear stories about people going to movie theatres in America, and am justa little shocked to hear just how… frequently people will have whole conversations while a movie is going on, or just be on their phone the entire time. I don’t know how you guys function. Where I am, being in a movie theatre is kinda… sacred. You’re there to watch a movie, not to have a conversation. And put your damn phone away.

Granted, this culture of movie-theatre discussions goes back to the beginning of movie theatres in generalAmerica, where people in city centres would escape summer heat in cinemas — one of the only structures at the time that was well air-conditioned.

A necessity due the toto the flammability of early nitrate based film. And, as people weren’t necessarily paying attention to what was going on on the screen, a film wouldcould still be received negatively by movie goers if they didn’t know what was going on or if they didn’t pick up on certain details. This lead to a trend in films to reach for grand spectacles instead of nuanced character dramas. Enter Cecil B Demill^{[sic: DeMille]} and his biblical epics.

It wasn’t until the 60s that acting, plots, and direction style shifted to a more natural, humanistic level of expression. The film version of Who’s Afraid of Virginia WoofWoolf was a marked shift in popular styles of filmmaking towards a more subtle style of realistic nuance. Coupled with the american culture of consuming Television programming, and entertainment was very much something that was there to be on in the background while people went about their daily lives. Repeating information to make sure that the message got across. That’s why so many TV shows actually repeat the last bit of the last scene after a commercial break. To this very day. And it wasn’t until recently in American TelevisionTV that shows were designed for you to pick up on subtlety, with examples like Arrested Development, the first few seasons of Game of Thrones, and especially Breaking Bad.

It may go deeper than Hollywood though. Compare Japanese mythological storytelling conventions to ‘western’ ones. Modern stories, in one way or another, are always constructed on the foundation of ancient mythological cycles. For this, European stories were made on a tradition stemming from Roman and Greek poems, as well as Abrahamic parables. In either case, the narrative convention of these styles very much lean towards the explicit. Dialogue is over-rought, clear in it’s^{[sic: its]} delivery, with the intention to convey complete meaning in theits spoken word alone. Though… it’s really hit or miss with that now. Turns out that after 2500 years of the bible, some of the old meaning has been lost in translation.

European theatrical conventions also focused exclusively on an actor’s ability to deliver lines, and what the lines themselves say. In the Elizabethan era, it was common to simply not have a set or props for a given production at all. And so, some of you may have noticed that Shakespeare goes to great lengths to have his actors describe what a given set looks like, what the weather is like, how dark it is. The responsibility of the actors was not to show this via acting, but telling via dialogue. They couldn’t really afford to “show don’t tell” until film came along.

Compare and contrast to a Japanese performance art like Kabuki… which has markedly less dialogue and which the audience is more encouraged to read into how a given performer is carrying themselves, their gestures, their expressions. How they move. Why they move. A single look can mean as much as, or more than, a Shakespearean sonnet. That’s why a lot of Western audiences really don’t get why people love things like ballet and fashion. That’s ALL show and no tell. In both of those cases — they are not seen as ‘accessable’ because most people have not developed the sensibilities needed to analyze how well a given balerina is pretending to be a swan.

So yes, among Western audiences there is an expectation that media will hold their hand and guide them through every element of the plot. Thought process being ‘if the creator wants me to know about something in their media, they will tell me that itwhat is important.’ Hitchcock famously got around this by SHOWING you something important three times, but not necessarily talking about it even once. That way it’s hard to miss but he’s not spilling the whole mystery for the viewers who are actually paying attention. Conversely, the argument for nuance goes: ‘if the creator has something important to say in this media, they will reward me by letting me figure it out for myself.’ Basically the golden rule of David Lynch. Which way is better? Depends on the storyteller, the story, and the audience.

There’s actually been a centuries-long debate within art criticism. Do we, as art critics, observe the work as it was intended, only factoring in the cultural attitudes that the author was deliberately feeding into their art. Or do we analyze in spite of the author’s intentions, factoring other iconographic connections that the author was not necessarily intending, but that enriches the work nevertheless. Many authors, in biographies and interviews will often speak to assumptions of their work: symbolic value, allegory, allusion — and oftentimes they admit that what is being read into their work was never intended.

For instance, after being consistently questioned on the feminist power of Carrie, Stephen King admitted that he had never intended for it to be viewed under such a feminist lens. Instead, he said that after reading his first draft, he noticed a reoccurring pattern of blood. And in subsequent drafts, highlighted these elements further. The result was a story which, under a certain interpretation, spoke to a way that women find power because of and in spite of suffering. Does King’s lack of deliberate intention diminish the art or the artist? I would argue: no. The ability for an artist to focus on developing a good story, while subliminally including elements that speak to a culture at large is an outstanding talent.

And sadly, many who have this talent are often plagued with lifelong inadequacy issues, imposter complexes, and frequently opt to give up before they hit their stride because others hold them up against artists who at least appear to do it all seamlessly… Those who, also, would have openly admitted to not having the slightest clue what they’re were doing, but happen to do the right thing so nobody bothers to ask. And in this respect, Yuri!!! On ICE exists as a triumph of gay representation. Before it set out to do anything, it was going to tell a good story. Where most stories function around telling people how to succeed, Yuri!!! On ICE was primarily about how not to give up.

Really, the nail in the coffin should have been the direct message from the show's creator. “Yuri and Victor are gay, and are in a relationship.” She said that— So that really should be thean end ofto it. We’re not gonna do anything else to talk about why Victor and Yuri are queer. It’s a thing. Be mad.

But… Japan has certain laws, such as what time of night a queer-centric show can actually be aired on TV. This show was slated for an earlier timeslot in the night because its^{[sic: it's]} first a foremost a sports anime. In order for the quiet part to be as loud as the creator wanted, it would have have to air much later at nightto have had a much later timeslot than the network wanted. Probably not reach as wide an audience because of it, and definitely not have the same amount of advertising behind it. What the creator did with presenting an obviously gay story while still appeasing the censorship regulations was… just an all round masterclass in network trolling. She had a gay thing that was, more or less approved for all ages—

—And wanted to project it out to as large an audience as possible, while still preserving the queer elements of the story. So, she had to compromise her artistic vision, appease the network demands, and develop a quality program that would appeal to mass audiences. The easiest thing to do in this situation would be to develop a token straight love interest for Yuri and/or Victor. That way, with heterosexuality confirmed, the creator would have a lot more leeway from the studio to do what she wanted. But instead, and I strongly approve of this, she coded elements of queerness so strongly that they are absolutely unmissable, and yet, she can argue to the network that it matches the straight-leaning sensibility of network standards. And it's not like Western countries don't have these kind of laws either. There's a reason that, to this day, most shows that have sexual gay characters don't come on TV until after 10pm.

I don’t know how much you guys know about show business but being able to do that without sacrificing the integrity of the project is absolutely incredible. As a comparison of how things can go terribly wrong, Nickelodeon fought tooth and nail against the creative team of Legend of Korra, who wanted to present a queer woman of colour. Which were, at the time, three words that the network did not want to hear in a pitch. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, there was little effort made to code Korra as ‘queer’ in the earlier seasons — maybe it was even a studio note to force Korra into a number of Love triangles with other menmale characters, and a continuing on-again-off-again relationship with a male supporting character. Eventually going so far as to push the final two seasons of the show onto their web only platform because they knew Korra and Asami were going to hold hands in the final shot and, well, we can’t puthave that on TV, now can we?

And that isn’t to say that Yuri!!! On ICE did not suffer it’s^{[sic: its]} own managerial problems. There were insane deadlines on the animation department so the skating scenes suffer from some painful frame drops, the script for each episode was roughly twice as long as the network permitted, so a lot of character development for smaller characters had to be dropped. And it very well may be that the more explicit gay content had to be cut for time constrains^{[sic: constraints]} as well as network appeasement. And yet, the creative team very masterfully used the time resources they had to advance the already-constricted plot at the same time as dropping some gay bombs. And, maybe even as a happy accident, used nuance to their advantage to make queer content that benefitted from having no explicit discussion of homosexuality.

Because Yuri!!! On ICE is not about queerness. It’s about queer people, but it’s not about qualifying the validity of their personhood based on their capacity for queerness. Their queerness is neither the first nor the second thing that comes to mind when discussing their roles in the plot, and the roles they have to other characters. This includes the relationship between Victor and Yuri. And this isn’t to say you aren’t meant to see the queerness, nor that this story is not meant to be seen as a love story. But it is meant to say that the characters have a purpose beyond letting the audience know that they’re here and they’re queer. Because, speaking from my experiences as a gay person, I can safely say that ‘being gay’ is not what’s on my mind most of the time. I don’t feel the need to qualify my gayness either to a (fictional) partner, family or the rest of society.

In the same way, Yuri and Victor do not need to have an exchange that goes along the lines of:

[A scene from Yuri on Ice plays out with the following voiceover.] “But… I’m a boy like you! W-why are you holding my hand!?!” “Ever since I was young… I knew I was different… and I was drawn to you because… you’re also different — like I saw in myself years ago!”

They know they’re gay. They don’t need to have a heart-to-heart about it because that does not benefit them, as characters. They're in their 20s, they're not teenagers. Doing so is only to benefit an audience andthat would, as a result, break the emotional realism of the scene. And in doing so this speaks to a queer experience that is much more realistic, and identifiable. And so, by keeping the queerness coded — ironically — this moves closer into an experience that is intended to be appreciated by queer people. Rather than presenting a queer experience for the intention of being consumed by straight people.

In fact, the lack of clarity also affords a, perhaps accidental instance of nonbinary representation, specifically from Yuri. As per elements of the show, he is much more comfortable skating his programs as a woman. He spares no expense to clarify that he feels like he doesn’t belong with the other men, and any time the word ‘man’ is used in the entirety of the show, it is always in a period of great anxiety for Yuri himself. Victor also started out his career looking very androgynous, bending the separation between male and female, if not shattering it completely.

So at this point I ask myself — what is the difference between representation, coding, pandering, and baiting? And is drawing a distinction necessary? After all, it would be unfair to act like Yuri on Ice is the only piece of media ever produced to have subtle queer representation. The problem is that in most other cases, the representation isn't so much subtle as it is simply not acknowledged. It would be easy to just drop my series of queer baiting videos right here, but there’s been a few movies that have actually come out since then that I’d ratherprefer to talk about. We’ll drop them into two categories. Queer representation, and Queer Pandering. See if you can tell which is which.

Disney’s Cruella. I wasn’t sure what to expect from Cruella, to be honest. Disney was already trumpeting it as their “First Out Gay Character”, the third or forth such character in the last few years, so I was preparing myself for a big ole eye roll. But it never came. The gay character in question, Arty^{[sic: Artie]}, a fashionista who helps Cruella create her devilish looks throughout the film, didn’t silently pine over any of the male characters, wasn’t abused for his queerness, and didn’t exist just to give Cruella someone to talk to. He was active in the plot, helping her create the looks that she would use to bring down her rival The Baronesse^{[sic: Baroness]}, performs live on stage at an impromptu Cruella fashion show, and isn’t just forgotten when the plot moves past him. In the closing scenes of the film he’s among Cruella’s crew. Jasper and Horace are there, of course, but so is Arty. Meaning he’s probably coming back for the sequel that Disney currently has in development.

Now plenty of queer people have pointed out that it’s never stated in the movie that he is in fact gay, which is true. But he’s pure camp, with his Bowie inspired looks, and even talks about being beaten up for being different. He doesn’t say he’s gay, or show romantic interest in any other characters, but nobody does. Though Jasper might have a crush on Cruella, she doesn’t seem to reciprocate, and it could easily be read a brother/sister type of situation. Jasper’s heterosexuality is just as subtle as Arty^{[sic: Artie]}’s homosexuality. Cruella, on the other hand, never even gives a longing look to anything that isn’t fabric. Leading me to believe that maybe, just maybe, Cruella might fall onto the ACE spectrum. Which, if she was still a puppy killer would be pretty bad ACE representation. But as it seems that she’s reformed her ways from Disney’s last version of her to this onethe last time Disney put her on the big screen, she’s less of a bad guy and more bad ass. 

So the queerness is Cruella is subtle, and does require the audience to understand at least a bit of the history of camp and androgyny, but it’s some of the better queer rep I’ve seen in a mainstream Hollywood movie, especially from Disney. I’m sure they’ll eliminate my current good will once they release that River Cruise movie though.  Next!

Ah, more Disney. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. The live action one. Now this ones^{[sic: one's]} been discussed to death. LeFou, the gay character under our microscope here, is just bad representation. Firstly, his name literally means “The Fool”, so hurray us. Secondly, he pines after the biggest jock in town, whose^{[sic: who's]} an absolute asshole to everyone including him. As if we never grow out theof our bad habits that we pick up in grade school. His character is a villain until he’s suddenly not. When he suddenly has a change of heart, has a heart to heart with Mrs Pots about Gaston, and realizes he deserves a better boyfriend. Or at least someone better to pine over. 

So he ends up dancing with, or at least embracing, one of the townies we spotted for a split second earlier in the film. This was Disney’s “Exclusively gay” moment, by the way. Something that the films^{[sic: film's]} director, out gay filmmaker Bill Condon, played up infor the press for literally months beforehand. Creating much controversy from parents groups and much anticipation from gay fans. After all, Beauty and the Beast was Howard Ashmen^{[sic: Ashman]}’s swan song before his untimely death from complications due to AIDS, so it would be a fitting tribute to him to finally put a real gay character in a Disney movie. And then the scene happened and the audience said… that was it? Yes, that was it. Like Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker would do two years later, the exclusively gay moment was a blink and you miss it shot, not SCENE, a shot. 

But enough about Disney. I don’t expect anything wonderfully gay to come from the Mouse House anytime soon. And no, a sexless married gay superhero with kids in a minor supporting role in The Eternals does not count. I said good representation, not boring representation. So let’s talk about some real gay super heroes.

THE OLD GUARD The Old Guard was a 2020 Netflix action movie about a group of functionally immortal badasses. They think they’re the last of their kind but when a new one of them pops up, seemingly out of nowhere, it leads to a race against time to keep her safe from a conniving capitalist swine. Two of the aforementioned immortal badasses are a gay couple. Joe and Nicky. Characters whose sexuality is so subtle at first its^{[sic: it's]} literally in the background, out of focus. Early on in the film you’re not even likely to notice the knowing looks they give each other, or even notice them spooning in the background of a scene. But then BAM, they’re kidnapped and their lives are seemingly in danger so they declare their literally undying love for one another.

And goddammit it works. This crazy, over the top action movie that would make some of the Fast and Furious movies look subtle has, hands down, the best gay representation I’ve ever seen in a Hollywood movie. The gays don’t die. They’re not depressed about being gay. Nobody wants to kill them specifically for being gay. It’s just… a thing they are. Something that has, really, nothing to do with the plot. They could have just been straight buds but, instead, they’re gay. They just happen to be gay. And it is perfect. Unlike most gay characters they survive to the end and will be in the sequel, which Netflix green-lit earlier this year. The movie was a huge success for Netflix and other than some gay media, almost nobody mentioned Joe and Nicky. Why? Because Netflix didn’t put out a press release declaring “WE HAVE A GAY! TWO OF EM!” They just let the gays exist like they would any straight character. They were just there. Their queerness is completely incidental to the plot, just like every other characters^{[sic:characters']} straightness.

I was so shocked by this that I barely knew what to think when I watched it. An action movie with gay characters. An action movie with gay heroes? An action movie with gay heroes who don’t die? WHAT IS THIS? Opposite land?! Did the pandemic cause asome kind of new reality to open up? Sadly, no. No new reality, just a single ripple in spacetime that felt a bit different. Not a whole lot of incidentally gay characters popping up in action movies since then. But one did come out just before it:

The Birds of Prey and the Fabulous Emancipation of one Harley Quinn DC and Warner Bros managed to make a good movie and then cancelled the sequel. Color me surprised. This rollercoaster of colorful sets, audacious costumes, bonkers action, and off the cuff queer references (Harley is confirmed to have dated women even before the opening title) was the last movie I actually saw in theatres before the pandemic hit. And it was a hell of a ride to go out on. 

Now, as a movie news nerd I followed the production of Birds of Prey pretty closely. So I knew that WBWarner Brothers actually sent this thing back for reshoots at least once because they decided, late in the game, that a certain plot point was a bit too risque for them. You see, originally, Ewan McGregor’s Black Mask was 100% confirmed to be gay in the movie, and the reason that he was after the Bertinelli diamond wasn’t for the money, but because it contained data inside of it. Data that, when read, would reveal him in compromised positions. And his dick pics. I’m not kidding.  Black Mask, or Roman Sianos, was a bit of a kinky bottom you see. And heaven help the woman who let that info leak out to the rest of Gotham’s underworld. But WB got cold feet and called for reshoots. Simplifying the plot and vaguely straight washing Roman and his serial killing henchman / dom top, Victor Zazz^{[sic: Zsasz]}. Oh the movie we could have had if it weren’t for corporate meddling.

But the queerness of the couple is still abundantly clear. Roman never says he’s queer but when he’s rocking a pink silk kimono while dancing around with a martini, I don’t think it needs be remarked. Ewan McGregor's acting has a campy quality to it that reminds me of a villain in a John Waters movie.

Now, the queer community doesn’t really like the queer coded villains these days, which is pretty understandable. But in this case, exceptions can and should be made.  Some of the Birds of Prey media discussion was focused on how the film despises men or portrays white men as villains. That isn't entirely accurate, but the film does have a slew of terrible men with a similar appearances. What interests me about this is that Roman and Victor are examples of these evil men. They aren't macho clichés of men, and they don't sexualize the female characters in the film. Roman shifting into the Black Mask persona and forcing a woman to pull off her clothing is one example where it doesn't feel like he's doing it for the sexual thrills, but for the control. He also didn't want the dress in his club because it was a crime against fashion. And unlike murder, some laws should never be broken.

So is Black Mask GOOD representation of queer men? No, of course not. But is he an interesting character with more going on for him than just being the gay character. Yes. And that’s what we need. We need characters who are MORE than just the gay one.

This puts me in a bit of a difficult situation, as it may not be clear what I’m advocating for. On one hand, I’m praising the various instances of subtlety in media when it comes to queer representation, while condemning other attempts to make more ‘overtly’ queer media. But what I’m saying is that we don’t necessarily need to chose between one or the other. Our representation would get boring if we, as a group, decided that there was only one way to represent us. In that case, it would be a gross disservice to the vast range of diversity in the queer experience. There isn’t one way to be queer — there isn’t even one way to be gay.

But my problem with ‘explicit’ representation in modern media is that you wouldn’t know that from the way we are representedwe're being presented. Maybe in thise case, it’s best to focus less on depicting queer instances— —and instead place that focus on depicting queer experiences. Making sure we push queer characters into fiction doesn’t seem to be having the desired effect of having our people and communities seen. As the end result is a matter of taking queer characters and making their motives and backgrounds indistinguishable from straight characters. Reminiscent of saying we deserve gay marriage because we’re ‘just like’ heterosexual couples. But We aren’t. We have different social experiences with society at large. Our coming-of-age experiences, as they fit outside the projected norm, are not the norm. And depicting queer characters as being ‘straight characters but gay’ is a disservice to the way that the process of self-discovery and independence shapes us. We’re NOT like everyone else. And that’s what we should be proud of. We’re not even always like each other — and it should be our diversity that society at large values as our most significant strength. Not our ability to buy a house in the suburbs in a prestigious school district.

Because while we’re busy showing how much gay people are ‘just like’ straight people, We’re forgetting about the boss-ass bitch queers who have only ever found acceptance by being better than literally everyone else. So much so that they can’t find where their performance ends and they begin. The angry queers who feel like they’re only worth something if they’re validated by the established order, instead of finding worth in themselves. And the personal improvement queers who struggle to figure out what it is they have to offer the world. Our stories, our experiences, our lives are interesting and relevant. And if you tell an interesting story about a queer person, audiences will cheer for them. Which is what made me love this show. It represents the queer community, specifically queer men, in a way that I very rarely see. And that being... that there are many different types of queer people. Insecure ones like Yuri. Perfectionists like Victor. People who want to be center stage, and people who just want to blend in. Those of us who are comfortable in our skin, and those who are still working on things. Masculine or Feminine. Supportive or Competitive. Tender or painfully horny. We come in many different shapes and sizes. Skin colors, religious backgrounds, nationalities, and beliefs.

But at our best, like the skaters in Yuri on Ice, we are, at the end of the day, a community. There to help one another, and push each other when we need it. So anytime you feel small or lost or ignored… like you’re not good enough. Like you don’t fit in. Think about the queer people who came before us. The artists. The politicians. The power brokers. The creators. The writers. The teachers. The brothers and sisters. The good friends. Who changed things, who told stories, who made an impact. Because they’re important. We’re important, we’re significant, and we were born to make history.