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Straightwashing and Placement Theory · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Smantha. I'm welcome to Steffan
0:08
Speaker 1: never told you protection. I heart radio, And today we
0:20
Speaker 1: are just continuing my journey of coming to terms with
0:24
Speaker 1: being ceirbated, which by the way, happened five months ago,
0:30
Speaker 1: and I'm still wrestling with the fallout. And yeah, I
0:38
Speaker 1: was looking through the presentation I gave to my friend
0:42
Speaker 1: if he missed that episode where I talked about that.
0:46
Speaker 1: I gave it two and a half hour presentation to
0:49
Speaker 1: my friend about how I had been queerbaited, which by
0:53
Speaker 1: the way, she agreed at the end. And so I'm
0:57
Speaker 1: going through some of the beats I haven't hit yet.
1:01
Speaker 1: But yes, that being said, I have been working through
1:04
Speaker 1: this for a while. See our episodes on internalized homophobia,
1:09
Speaker 1: compat Our compulsory headosexuality, and the Happy Hour where I
1:13
Speaker 1: talked about being queerbaited and how miserable it has made me.
1:18
Speaker 1: I will also add the episode we did with Joey
1:20
Speaker 1: on pink washing kind of comes up with this. And
1:24
Speaker 1: obviously today we're talking about two major beats. One of
1:31
Speaker 1: them the first one we're going to get into a
1:33
Speaker 1: straight washing. Obviously, straight washing is related to whitewashing. This
1:38
Speaker 1: is a very similar idea, so you're gonna hear similar things.
1:43
Speaker 1: But I wanted to make that clear. So let us
1:47
Speaker 1: get into a definition of straight washing, since this is
1:51
Speaker 1: the first topic we're going to tackle. Straight washing, also
1:54
Speaker 1: called heat washing, is a pretty straightforward thing, no pun intended.
2:02
Speaker 1: It refers to the practice of making a queer character
2:05
Speaker 1: appear straight like, just kind of erasing that whole part
2:11
Speaker 1: of their identity. This often includes changing personal information on
2:16
Speaker 1: fictional or historical characters and making them fit into heteronormative narratives.
2:22
Speaker 1: Straightwa washing shows up in the news too, which we
2:24
Speaker 1: are going to talk about a little bit. Even as
2:28
Speaker 1: we've seen more queer storylines in media, a lot of
2:32
Speaker 1: times they are careful and safe on sidelines. Often the
2:38
Speaker 1: cowardliness ooh my emotions are coming through of not giving
2:43
Speaker 1: a queer storyline space or backing off entirely from the
2:48
Speaker 1: storyline are not including any at all are attributed to
2:52
Speaker 1: producers and studios, which could both be true and also
2:56
Speaker 1: an excuse. I think both can be true. According to
3:01
Speaker 1: these powers that be, audiences don't want these stories, and
3:06
Speaker 1: if they do, only in a very heteronormative way. And
3:11
Speaker 1: right now, with Trump and the FCC. We've seen some things.
3:17
Speaker 1: There have been clear instances of things being canceled, likely
3:21
Speaker 1: because of the inclusion of a queer storyline. It's one
3:24
Speaker 1: of those things it's hard to prove outright, but several
3:29
Speaker 1: examples were doing well and got canceled, and one thing
3:34
Speaker 1: they had in common queer storylines. There's also ciswashing or
3:39
Speaker 1: portraying trans or non binary actors at CIS. That's an
3:43
Speaker 1: offshoot of this. And all of this continues to utter
3:48
Speaker 1: the gay experience because essentially you're saying the heteronormative experience
3:54
Speaker 1: is the normal one, and this is outside the realm
3:58
Speaker 1: of that, and we don't want to freak people out,
4:02
Speaker 1: so they'll they'll be on the outskirts of this whole thing.
4:07
Speaker 1: So I did want to talk about some examples of
4:12
Speaker 1: how this has played out in different ways. First of all, entertainment,
4:16
Speaker 1: so the Motion Picture Production Code or the Hayes Code,
4:19
Speaker 1: caused major studios to avoid any representation of queerness due
4:24
Speaker 1: to their ban on quote any inference of sex perversion,
4:29
Speaker 1: and this was in place from nineteen thirty to nineteen
4:31
Speaker 1: sixty eight. The nineteen ninety five documentary The Celluloid closet
4:36
Speaker 1: details how writers and directors tried to find ways around
4:41
Speaker 1: this whole thing, and how they tried to maybe convince
4:48
Speaker 1: audiences that it wasn't so strange at all, and you know,
4:54
Speaker 1: get them to not reject the queer storyline. One of
4:58
Speaker 1: the examples of the documentary highlighted was how in the
5:01
Speaker 1: film been Her, Gorvidal wrote ben Her and Massala as
5:06
Speaker 1: past lovers. I'm sorry if I mispronounced that I have
5:09
Speaker 1: never seen been Her, something that actor Charlton Heston later
5:15
Speaker 1: revealed he knew nothing about. He didn't know this was
5:17
Speaker 1: a whole thing. Queerness was still something largely avoided by
5:22
Speaker 1: the major studios. Even after the code was dismissed. It
5:26
Speaker 1: was like still in place. It kind of was dismissed,
5:29
Speaker 1: but it was still in place. Smaller productions were putting
5:32
Speaker 1: out some pretty great stuff. And then the nineteen ninety
5:36
Speaker 1: three film Philadelphia, which was a major studio movie featuring
5:40
Speaker 1: Tom Hanks that came out decidedly after the peak of
5:44
Speaker 1: the AIDS crisis, but it was close, was one of
5:48
Speaker 1: the first mainstream films to center a gay plot. It
5:52
Speaker 1: was about a man who had HIV AIDS and was
5:55
Speaker 1: fired from his job because of it. He took the
5:58
Speaker 1: company to court and was represented by homophobic lawyer. However,
6:03
Speaker 1: this movie was very much about gay grief and pity,
6:06
Speaker 1: almost like not gay joy. Look how sad? This is
6:11
Speaker 1: kind of vibe the nineteen fifty eight film adaptation of Tennessee.
6:15
Speaker 1: Williams work Kat on a hot tin roof, erased gay
6:19
Speaker 1: storylines that were at the core of the story and
6:22
Speaker 1: the emotional beats. It went on to earn several Academy
6:26
Speaker 1: Award nominations. Anyway, I recommend reading more about that because
6:30
Speaker 1: I was kind of shocked that they took out what
6:32
Speaker 1: if they took out?
6:33
Speaker 2: Wait? What did they take out?
6:35
Speaker 1: So I have never seen or read this, so I'm
6:39
Speaker 1: going off of the research I did.
6:42
Speaker 2: I love that movie.
6:43
Speaker 1: Okay, well, I've clearly it was well loved, and you
6:47
Speaker 1: correct me if I'm wrong. In the movie, there's a
6:50
Speaker 1: character that dies due to a football like injury. Oh,
6:57
Speaker 1: and they're oh yeah, and there's one that's never mentioned, well,
7:02
Speaker 1: is mentioned but never seen. Yes, they were in the play.
7:07
Speaker 1: One of them confessed his love to the other, was rejected,
7:12
Speaker 1: and they both died. And it's implied it was because
7:17
Speaker 1: they didn't get together, they were shoving things down.
7:23
Speaker 3: Okay, well I do remember now that you say this,
7:26
Speaker 3: there is because it's been a minute. There is this
7:29
Speaker 3: connotation that he did not love his wife because he
7:32
Speaker 3: had been in love with his best friend.
7:34
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, they had like a senseless marriage and she
7:39
Speaker 1: loved him, and.
7:41
Speaker 3: It didn't make sense because she's the most beautiful woman
7:43
Speaker 3: in the world and his father very toxic masculine character.
7:48
Speaker 2: Really like they go at it.
7:49
Speaker 1: Yes.
7:50
Speaker 3: In the Paul Newman adaptation with Elizabeth Taylor, burl Ives
7:54
Speaker 3: as placed the father who is.
7:57
Speaker 2: Known as Frosty the Snowman.
7:59
Speaker 3: I know, not Faly, I'm sorry, the Snowman in the
8:02
Speaker 3: root off the Red Nows Reindeer.
8:04
Speaker 1: Yes, I knew we're talking about.
8:05
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, but yeah, I kind of forgot that plot
8:09
Speaker 3: when I was very young.
8:10
Speaker 2: So but yes, that does yeah, that does go. Yeah,
8:14
Speaker 2: yeah that is implied for sure.
8:16
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, okay, Well one of the things we're
8:19
Speaker 1: talking about are things that are maybe implied in the
8:25
Speaker 1: film adaptation but were more explicit in the written word. Yeah.
8:29
Speaker 2: Yes, and that would make sense for Tennessee Williams for sure.
8:32
Speaker 1: Yes. Another thing I wanted to mention is the nineteen
8:36
Speaker 1: eighty five Steven Spielberg adaptation of Alice Walker's The Color Purple,
8:40
Speaker 1: which seriously watered down the lesbian connection between the two characters,
8:45
Speaker 1: and that was a hugely important and transformative thing in
8:49
Speaker 1: the book. Another big example, well, oh no, actually several
8:54
Speaker 1: big examples, the film Breakfast at Tiffany's, famously written by
9:00
Speaker 1: Truman Capoti, who was gay. The nineteen ninety four film
9:06
Speaker 1: Interview with a Vampire Winter's Bone, of past feminist movie
9:11
Speaker 1: Friday pic Fried Green Tomatoes, which we did talk about
9:15
Speaker 1: in that episode. There is subtext and the director called
9:20
Speaker 1: the food fight scene between the two leading women in
9:23
Speaker 1: that movie as he called it a love scene. But
9:26
Speaker 1: we want something explicitly romantic, and in the book it
9:30
Speaker 1: was explicitly romantic. English translations of Sailor Moon, which, if
9:36
Speaker 1: you don't know, is an anime and manga series. The
9:40
Speaker 1: English translations minimized the sexual orientations and identities of the characters,
9:45
Speaker 1: and a number of the characters were queer, and they
9:48
Speaker 1: just kind of got erased. A lot of stuff that
9:53
Speaker 1: came out after that, especially media around gay historical figures,
9:57
Speaker 1: minimized their sexuality, if not erasing it at all a
10:01
Speaker 1: few quick examples, and I do want to reiterate these
10:04
Speaker 1: are just a few, because there are some big ones
10:08
Speaker 1: that I'm not going to mention, but you can find
10:11
Speaker 1: more about. In John Nash's two thousand and one work
10:16
Speaker 1: A Beautiful Mind, his sexuality and gay affairs were omitted,
10:21
Speaker 1: and the two thousand and four film Troy, the long
10:23
Speaker 1: speculated romantic relationship between Achilles and Patrick Culis was instead
10:28
Speaker 1: turned into a non romantic cousin relationship. There is so
10:33
Speaker 1: much at academic writing on that you can read to
10:37
Speaker 1: your heart's content if you would like. Speculation abounds. Twenty
10:44
Speaker 1: thirteen Russian biopic on composer Tchaikowsky rushed aside the largely
10:49
Speaker 1: held belief that he was gay, which would have been
10:52
Speaker 1: against Russia's anti LGBTQ plus laws. Similar to A Beautiful Mind,
10:58
Speaker 1: the twenty fourteen film The Imageation Game about Alan Turing
11:02
Speaker 1: was accused of downplaying during sexuality, especially when he was
11:06
Speaker 1: living in a time when homosexuality was illegal, and he
11:10
Speaker 1: was convicted for gross indecency. He was given the option
11:15
Speaker 1: of imprisonment or chemical castration, and he chose chemical castration,
11:21
Speaker 1: but died a year later in a believed suicide. The
11:25
Speaker 1: film only romantically depicts him with a woman. Then in
11:31
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, we have the film Stonewall about Stonewall Riots,
11:36
Speaker 1: but the filmmakers faced backlash for ciswashing and whitewashing by
11:41
Speaker 1: sidelining the black transactivist who led the riots, Marcia P.
11:46
Speaker 1: Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. I haven't seen this film, and
11:51
Speaker 1: I'm told I should not, but it did not get
11:57
Speaker 1: a lot of positive feedback. That same year, Sony Uk
12:03
Speaker 1: got called out for straightwa washing a promotional poster for
12:06
Speaker 1: the film Call Me by Your Name, which is about
12:09
Speaker 1: a gay relationship between a boy and an older man,
12:12
Speaker 1: by making it seem like it was about a straight relationship.
12:16
Speaker 1: And yeah, looking at the poster, I can see it.
12:19
Speaker 1: I have a picture in here for you, Samantha that
12:23
Speaker 1: looks like a straight couple.
12:26
Speaker 2: There was a lot about this movie that was like controversial.
12:30
Speaker 2: But yeah, that's a problem.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a problem in a lot of ways because
12:36
Speaker 1: you're going in with confused expectations. M M. Yeah. Yeah.
12:42
Speaker 1: But clearly the idea they well the idea I believe
12:46
Speaker 1: they had was more people would come in if they
12:48
Speaker 1: thought it was a straight relationship. But I don't see
12:50
Speaker 1: how you think it would turn out positively when it
12:52
Speaker 1: turns out it's not right. Yeah, oh, which is kind
12:59
Speaker 1: of related. In twenty fifteen, The Guardian reported on the
13:03
Speaker 1: fact that the USDBD distributors airbrushed the back cover of Pride,
13:10
Speaker 1: which yes, is about It's about folks who are gay
13:15
Speaker 1: in the UK who were campaigning protesting on the part
13:21
Speaker 1: of miners. Miners as in people who mine, not young
13:26
Speaker 1: people in the United Kingdom, and it was kind of
13:32
Speaker 1: a big movement in the UK. And this the distributors
13:38
Speaker 1: removed a sign on the cover that read lesbians and
13:43
Speaker 1: gays support the miners, and they edited the blurb to
13:48
Speaker 1: read a group of London based activists, whereas before it
13:51
Speaker 1: had said specifically like these are gay people who are
13:55
Speaker 1: fighting for the rights of other people. They erased all
14:00
Speaker 1: mention of queerness. This was a whole thing. It blew up.
14:03
Speaker 1: The director had to comment on it. Some people, allies
14:08
Speaker 1: queer people, argued that this was the best course of
14:11
Speaker 1: action because it would increase the chance that it would
14:14
Speaker 1: reach a wider audience. Others argued that it suggested shame
14:18
Speaker 1: and was a form of a rasure and the director
14:22
Speaker 1: was kind of I could tell when I was reading
14:24
Speaker 1: the comments was a little on a tightrope about that.
14:33
Speaker 1: I guess I can see the point. But if it's
14:36
Speaker 1: called Pride and we know what it's about, I just don't.
14:41
Speaker 1: I don't know. If it feels like we're tricking straight
14:43
Speaker 1: people into going to see a movie, maybe that's the
14:48
Speaker 1: best way. I don't know what it is. The twenty
15:02
Speaker 1: eighteen film chronicling Freddie Mercury called Bohemian Rhapsody, was also
15:08
Speaker 1: called out for straightwa washing and by erasure that got
15:12
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff written about it. Also in twenty eighteen,
15:17
Speaker 1: the short lived NBC show Rise got a lot of
15:21
Speaker 1: heat for straight washing. The lead character, who was a
15:23
Speaker 1: high school theater director based on a real teacher, and
15:28
Speaker 1: the real teacher was gay. He'd been closeted for a
15:30
Speaker 1: long time, but he had come out as gay. The
15:34
Speaker 1: explanation given for this was that it was quote inspired
15:39
Speaker 1: by and the head writer wanted to make it his
15:43
Speaker 1: own story, which I have to say is not the
15:46
Speaker 1: best quote. Let me take your story and make it mine, right.
15:54
Speaker 1: Some people have written about this and said it was
15:56
Speaker 1: taken out of context. I read it and I really
15:59
Speaker 1: don't feel like it was sticking out of context. They
16:03
Speaker 1: also said like, well, there are other queer plot lines
16:09
Speaker 1: in the show, which is true. To be clear, I've
16:12
Speaker 1: never seen the show, but I did read a lot
16:13
Speaker 1: about it doing this research, and I read an article
16:17
Speaker 1: where I felt they made the point that I agree with.
16:20
Speaker 1: That's great. The author of that article said, you know,
16:24
Speaker 1: these are they were pretty good representations of queer people,
16:30
Speaker 1: but they were side characters who weren't you know, like
16:35
Speaker 1: you might not even be following their story, whereas this
16:39
Speaker 1: was the main character and it was his story, and
16:42
Speaker 1: you're basically saying, we didn't give you that, but you
16:47
Speaker 1: can have this.
16:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, then all right.
16:55
Speaker 1: Recently, again this is just like a handful of examples.
17:00
Speaker 1: There have been a lot of articles written about it
17:03
Speaker 1: this week about how it has gotten worse and worse,
17:07
Speaker 1: this straightwashing actually, and some actors being really vocal about
17:12
Speaker 1: reversing it. There was also a spait of straightwashing and
17:16
Speaker 1: adaptations of comics. One of the most infamous ones is
17:21
Speaker 1: Mystique from X Men. In the comics, she is portrayed
17:25
Speaker 1: as bisexual, and the movies that she has portrayed in
17:28
Speaker 1: she has been depicted as straight, or at the very
17:31
Speaker 1: least the part of her identity. That part of her
17:33
Speaker 1: identity is never mentioned and never explored. The same could
17:38
Speaker 1: be said of Deadpool. Also in the Guardians of the
17:42
Speaker 1: Galaxy comics, star Lord is polyamorous and by but that
17:46
Speaker 1: is not something we've seen in the films. Another thing
17:50
Speaker 1: that got a lot of attention in the Black Panther comics,
17:54
Speaker 1: two of Black Panther's protectors, both women, were in a
17:58
Speaker 1: gay relationship Koye and Io if You're interested, But in
18:04
Speaker 1: the movies people were disappointed to find their relationship was
18:07
Speaker 1: not explored at all. On top of that, early screenings
18:11
Speaker 1: featured a scene that showed the pair flirtatiously dancing with
18:15
Speaker 1: each other. When it was deleted, Marvel released an official
18:20
Speaker 1: statement that their relationship was not a romantic one. There
18:26
Speaker 1: was a whole campaign Samantha Online give Ao a Girlfriend,
18:31
Speaker 1: which was similar to the previous campaign Give Captain America
18:35
Speaker 1: a Boyfriend, both of which did not work, and a
18:39
Speaker 1: Koye ended up in a straight relationship. Also, Roxanne gay
18:45
Speaker 1: I believe wrote their relationship and she was not invited
18:51
Speaker 1: to the premiere of Black Panther and said like I cannot.
18:56
Speaker 1: My feelings are hurt. I feel a certain type of way. Yeah, yes,
19:02
Speaker 1: Constantine in the show and movie versus the comic and
19:07
Speaker 1: the comic he's by, but he that has not been
19:10
Speaker 1: demonstrated outside of that. After Archie Comics hammered Home the
19:15
Speaker 1: fact that jack Head Jones was Ace, the TV show
19:19
Speaker 1: adaptation of Riverdale pretty much ignored that whole thing and
19:23
Speaker 1: put him in some heteronormative relationships. The actor that played
19:27
Speaker 1: the character, Cole Sprouse, advocated for the character to maintain
19:31
Speaker 1: his Ace identity, but they just did not do it.
19:34
Speaker 1: I would also add all the build up to Tessa
19:37
Speaker 1: Thompson's character Valkyrie, where we were promised this gay romance
19:42
Speaker 1: and we absolutely did not get it at all.
19:46
Speaker 3: Was there an implication when we were watching the whichever
19:50
Speaker 3: one where Natalie Portman becomes kind of the youth door.
19:55
Speaker 1: Yeh, yes, So there was a deleted scene. Again with
20:01
Speaker 1: these deleted scenes, there was a deleted scene that pretty
20:06
Speaker 1: much was like a woman leaving her a Valkyrie's room,
20:11
Speaker 1: very clear what they had been doing. She she is
20:17
Speaker 1: open that she is by and she's looking for her queen.
20:21
Speaker 1: But that's it. It doesn't go beyond that, which is
20:25
Speaker 1: kind of what we keep running into is like, sure,
20:30
Speaker 1: you've got this character, but they don't ever get to
20:34
Speaker 1: go beyond that part. And yes, this is just a
20:39
Speaker 1: few of many, many examples. There has recently been discussion
20:45
Speaker 1: around straight washing and video games, particularly in the game Undertail,
20:50
Speaker 1: which I love this game. If you aren't familiar. Undertail
20:53
Speaker 1: is a critically acclaimed and beloved game that is really creative,
20:57
Speaker 1: it's really innovative, and it features a lot of queer content.
21:03
Speaker 1: This led to a lot of people speculating and hoping
21:06
Speaker 1: that it might nudge the gaming world towards inclusivity. But no,
21:11
Speaker 1: of course not. Instead it got straight washed by a
21:16
Speaker 1: lot of the players and even some of the writers,
21:20
Speaker 1: which does happen. So that's just to say audiences can
21:24
Speaker 1: straight wash too. I think gaming is an interesting case
21:27
Speaker 1: because you're interacting kind of on that direct level. I
21:32
Speaker 1: did not know this about Undertail. It doesn't surprise me.
21:36
Speaker 1: I was a little shocked when I was researching straight
21:38
Speaker 1: washing and the first result was Undertail. But unfortunately, because
21:46
Speaker 1: there's like research papers actually written about it, and it's basically,
21:52
Speaker 1: you know, straight white men being No, not this game
21:57
Speaker 1: that I love so much that cannot be gay. Yeah, yeah,
22:02
Speaker 1: it is. It is one note before we move on.
22:07
Speaker 1: Sometimes creators and actors claim that audiences are reading too
22:10
Speaker 1: much into things. I talked about this in my queer
22:12
Speaker 1: Baiting episode, which if you haven't listened to it, just
22:17
Speaker 1: as small. I'm really sorry, but I was panicking through
22:20
Speaker 1: that whole episode, so I was reading it very quickly.
22:25
Speaker 1: But yes, you can go listen to that. What annoys
22:30
Speaker 1: me about this argument is a lot of times there
22:33
Speaker 1: is past content and interviews saying the opposite, and they're
22:38
Speaker 1: trying to convince you your delusional. When it's been there.
22:42
Speaker 1: It's like, sometimes yes, I get it. Sometimes no, that
22:47
Speaker 1: was there and you said it wasn't there, and now
22:49
Speaker 1: you're trying to convince me you didn't. And that can
22:54
Speaker 1: be going back to the corporations intervening and telling telling
23:00
Speaker 1: writers like no, we don't want that, and sometimes they'll give,
23:07
Speaker 1: you know, the bare minimum a gay character and that's it.
23:10
Speaker 1: And sometimes it's written by straight writers. A lot of
23:13
Speaker 1: times it's written by straight writers, and it feels more
23:15
Speaker 1: humiliating than empowering. Sometimes this gets used politically as and
23:21
Speaker 1: see how progressive we are when it's not good representation
23:25
Speaker 1: at all. Like it's not that it isn't even what
23:28
Speaker 1: the experience of being gay is. Okay, briefly, we're going
23:33
Speaker 1: to talk about politics, because there are absolutely instances of
23:36
Speaker 1: straight washing and politics Eva Gore Booth and Esther Roper
23:41
Speaker 1: or Suffragettes and Companions in the nineteen hundreds, though a
23:46
Speaker 1: biography on both of them by Gifford Lewis sought to
23:49
Speaker 1: erase this with this statement, you will be pleased to
23:53
Speaker 1: know that I could find it not a trace a
23:55
Speaker 1: perverted sexuality. This despite the fact that the pair published
24:01
Speaker 1: works together about gender and sexuality, including their thoughts on
24:06
Speaker 1: why women shouldn't marry. They have a fascinating story for
24:11
Speaker 1: a different podcast. But I can't believe they had all
24:15
Speaker 1: these works published. And this guy was like, you'll be happy.
24:18
Speaker 2: To know, just kidding, I never saw a video.
24:23
Speaker 1: Yes. Yes. From the end of World War two to
24:28
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight, the New York Times only published two
24:32
Speaker 1: front page pieces referencing just referencing gay folks. Most coverage
24:38
Speaker 1: at the time was negative, and they were in fact
24:41
Speaker 1: tied to security threats related to the Cold War. Of course, worse,
24:47
Speaker 1: it took the New York Times two years after the
24:50
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one outbreak of AIDS to mention it at
24:53
Speaker 1: all until they finally featured it in nineteen eighty three.
24:58
Speaker 1: In general, the media coverage absent are condemning on that
25:01
Speaker 1: whole thing. I don't think that's newsstandybody, But just to reiterate,
25:06
Speaker 1: there are also arguments and articles about how lesbians, trans
25:10
Speaker 1: and non conforming people were completely left out of this
25:13
Speaker 1: whole conversation around AIDS, and the research also probably not surprising.
25:21
Speaker 1: One of the most notable incidences in recent history in
25:25
Speaker 1: straightwashing is what happened in the reporting following the shooting
25:31
Speaker 1: at LGBTQ plus Orlando club Pulse in twenty sixteen. Several
25:37
Speaker 1: politicians outright avoided using the term gay or downplayed the
25:42
Speaker 1: fact that it was a gay establishment and that this
25:45
Speaker 1: was a hate crime. Forty Nine people died as a reminder,
25:49
Speaker 1: and more were injured. Trans erasure is a huge topic
25:54
Speaker 1: in this conversation too, and deserving of its own episode.
25:58
Speaker 1: But essentially, the current administration and not just them, but
26:03
Speaker 1: for today, are doing their best to straight wash society
26:07
Speaker 1: and erase the existence of trans people through legislation. We've
26:12
Speaker 1: talked before about how official US government websites have removed
26:16
Speaker 1: the t from LGBT on their websites and in state parks,
26:22
Speaker 1: and there's even been a fight to keep the gay
26:25
Speaker 1: flag flying its stone wall, Oh my goodness. And you know,
26:31
Speaker 1: we've talked a lot about book banning and what's getting banned,
26:36
Speaker 1: and that that falls in that conversation as well. Not
26:39
Speaker 1: exactly politics, but previous Olympic broadcasts have been called out
26:43
Speaker 1: for straight washing their coverage, not mentioning a gay athlete.
26:47
Speaker 1: Oh once, all right, So another thing I want to
26:52
Speaker 1: mention before we move on to my next topic is
26:56
Speaker 1: liberal homophobia. This is just a very brief mention, but basically,
27:00
Speaker 1: liberal homophobia is the idea of that liberal people are
27:04
Speaker 1: okay with gay people as long as they stay quiet
27:06
Speaker 1: and out of the way. It's acceptable as long as
27:09
Speaker 1: it's not your face, which is kind of funny to
27:11
Speaker 1: me because that sounds like a lot of people who
27:14
Speaker 1: would call themselves moderate conservatives have that same mindset. But
27:20
Speaker 1: one of the big examples that comes up with this
27:23
Speaker 1: is the Trump is gay for putin jokes, Yeah, because
27:27
Speaker 1: the implication is that's so disgusting that he's gay, like
27:32
Speaker 1: you can see what their joke is trying to do, right,
27:36
Speaker 1: But it's also we've talked about this several times about
27:40
Speaker 1: who are you actually hurting? Right, because you're saying that
27:45
Speaker 1: that is a disgusting that if he's gay, that's disgusting.
27:50
Speaker 2: Right.
27:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's liberal homophobian. Now let's move from straightwa
28:07
Speaker 1: washing and talk about placement theory. Okay, So this is
28:14
Speaker 1: gonna be interesting because this, as far as I know,
28:22
Speaker 1: people call this a lot of things. I prefer placement theory.
28:26
Speaker 1: Some people use placeholder theory. Placeholder theory gets used a
28:32
Speaker 1: lot in a different context than what I'm going to
28:35
Speaker 1: be talking about. So you actually I saw an article
28:38
Speaker 1: the other day about placeholder theory, which is essentially, how
28:40
Speaker 1: do you identify that you're you're a placeholder in someone's relationship? Right,
28:47
Speaker 1: like you're not the one and they're gonna move on.
28:50
Speaker 1: That's not what this is, but some people do occasionally
28:54
Speaker 1: call this placeholder theory.
28:56
Speaker 2: Okay.
28:57
Speaker 1: Also, I could be wrong, but I think this is
29:01
Speaker 1: a new I think this is a topic that doesn't
29:05
Speaker 1: really have a name, but people have talked about a lot,
29:07
Speaker 1: if you know what I mean. So if you look
29:09
Speaker 1: up placement theory. I'm not sure what you'll get, but
29:13
Speaker 1: let me tell you, I've read a lot of essays
29:15
Speaker 1: about it personally, and I just I can't unsee it
29:22
Speaker 1: now that I know about it. Okay, And so going
29:26
Speaker 1: back to that presentation, I gave my poor sweet friend
29:32
Speaker 1: two hours and thirty minutes. Placement theory was the one
29:35
Speaker 1: that sold her, she told me later. So I'm going
29:41
Speaker 1: to give you kind of a hypothetical situation. But I
29:46
Speaker 1: do want to say before we get into this, this
29:49
Speaker 1: can happen in straight Basically, what we're talking about is
29:53
Speaker 1: a love triangle, and so this can happen in a
29:59
Speaker 1: straight love triangle. We're going to be talking about what
30:03
Speaker 1: happens when it's in a gay love triangle. Okay, And
30:09
Speaker 1: I'm gonna specify because it's a little complicated. But let's
30:15
Speaker 1: imagine you have three characters. In this case, we're going
30:19
Speaker 1: to go with one woman, two men. One of the
30:24
Speaker 1: men is gay, and you know it absolutely. One of
30:29
Speaker 1: them you think is probably gay, but you don't know
30:32
Speaker 1: for sure. He's dating the woman, yes, and the gay
30:39
Speaker 1: person and the woman look alike and they wear similar clothes. Yes.
30:48
Speaker 1: So now you bring in the idea of internalized homophobia
30:54
Speaker 1: or compulsory heterosexuality. Have this character who doesn't know, maybe
31:03
Speaker 1: is internalizing that he's not gay, he can't be, so
31:06
Speaker 1: he's dating a woman to prove that he's not right
31:10
Speaker 1: and is desperately hanging on to that, and it just
31:16
Speaker 1: so happens it looks like the gay guy who's his
31:21
Speaker 1: best friend. So placement theory is the idea that this
31:29
Speaker 1: character who you don't know maybe they're gay or not,
31:34
Speaker 1: can't hold these two people in the same space because
31:39
Speaker 1: if he holds them in the same space, he will
31:43
Speaker 1: realize that the dude is filling a romantic space and
31:52
Speaker 1: that if he has internalized homophobia, is gonna make him
31:57
Speaker 1: freak out. It's gonna make him really uncomfortable. It's going
32:00
Speaker 1: to make him close down. So he has to keep
32:03
Speaker 1: them both separated. He can never have them in the
32:06
Speaker 1: same space, yes, but when he is with them on
32:11
Speaker 1: their own he can be present appreciate all of that.
32:19
Speaker 1: He just can't have them in the same space. Yes,
32:25
Speaker 1: And it's because of the internal conflict of like recognizing,
32:31
Speaker 1: why do I feel like one of them is replacing
32:34
Speaker 1: the other in this romantic space. This might mean I'm gay.
32:44
Speaker 2: Okay.
32:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I said, it can happen in queer and
32:50
Speaker 1: non queer spaces. It can happen like that. But I
32:52
Speaker 1: think that the shame and the fear and internalized homophobia
32:58
Speaker 1: of it may it more announced, especially if you're if
33:06
Speaker 1: a character is clinging to a straight relationship when they
33:09
Speaker 1: are not straight, but they're trying to prove it to
33:13
Speaker 1: themselves in any way they can huh. Yes, yes, placement theory.
33:21
Speaker 1: Have many have read many essays on it. But yeah,
33:27
Speaker 1: that's essentially what it is. I could go into a
33:30
Speaker 1: lot more detail, but it's basically, you can't hold two
33:35
Speaker 1: ideas people in your head at once. You have to
33:37
Speaker 1: separate them.
33:39
Speaker 2: Okay, yep, that's in depth.
33:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I promise you won't unsee it. You see
33:47
Speaker 1: it like, yes, you could never have your girlfriend and
33:50
Speaker 1: the guy you love actually in the same spot. God.
33:54
Speaker 2: Trying to think of examples, I don't know.
33:58
Speaker 3: Well, some I.
34:00
Speaker 1: Could, but I won't. What I will say is that
34:05
Speaker 1: this is related to the gay best friend trope. I
34:11
Speaker 1: think it encompasses a lot more than that. I think
34:14
Speaker 1: it is an evolution of that trope because essentially, in
34:18
Speaker 1: that case, you've got a gay best friend who's trying
34:22
Speaker 1: to build up a straight relationship, perhaps to the detriment
34:26
Speaker 1: of themselves, if they have a crush or love somebody
34:32
Speaker 1: in that relationship. And I know, I can't remember the name.
34:35
Speaker 1: I know a John Hughes movie has that plotline. But
34:38
Speaker 1: that's also like a big issue I have found with
34:42
Speaker 1: my recent queer baiting experience. But of using queer characters
34:46
Speaker 1: to fix straight relationships while the queer character is in
34:49
Speaker 1: love with one of them and then ends up not
34:52
Speaker 1: finding love at all, I think that's pretty sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
34:58
Speaker 1: uh close out? What a thing to close out on.
35:02
Speaker 1: I didn't realize I was doing this. I so, as
35:08
Speaker 1: you know, did a recent fan fiction update. One thing
35:13
Speaker 1: I'm not going to talk about, but I did realize
35:16
Speaker 1: I didn't mention and is a big place of contention
35:22
Speaker 1: is the argument of who tops and bottoms when it
35:27
Speaker 1: comes to fictional characters. It is heated, Samantha, and I
35:32
Speaker 1: didn't realize how heated until one of my favorite stories,
35:35
Speaker 1: the author all caps had a message of like, back off,
35:42
Speaker 1: I have tagged it correctly, leave me alone.
35:47
Speaker 2: What were people upset about?
35:49
Speaker 1: I think, I don't This is so strange to me
35:55
Speaker 1: because obviously I'm not very sexual, so I feel a
36:02
Speaker 1: little confused about the whole thing. But I think people
36:08
Speaker 1: in this case, probably a lot of gay women interestingly,
36:14
Speaker 1: have these attributes that they place on who is the
36:19
Speaker 1: top and who's a bottom, and they get wrapped up
36:25
Speaker 1: in that or this is just how they see that character.
36:29
Speaker 1: So if they if you don't go along with that,
36:34
Speaker 1: then they don't want to read it. And so if
36:36
Speaker 1: they think your tags are not accurate to that and
36:39
Speaker 1: they read it, then they get angry. I will say,
36:44
Speaker 1: the author of this particular story, I think it was
36:46
Speaker 1: appropriate tagged.
36:47
Speaker 2: I don't.
36:48
Speaker 1: I think people were just mad. And I said that
36:51
Speaker 1: when we were doing our fan fiction updates. Sometimes I
36:54
Speaker 1: do think people just don't like where a story went,
36:57
Speaker 1: and then they complain, oh, you didn't tag it correctly,
37:02
Speaker 1: but they did, they did. And yeah, speaking of that's
37:06
Speaker 1: when I learned about weaponized tagging in this space. Damn
37:12
Speaker 1: are like calling people out and saying you didn't tag
37:15
Speaker 1: it and trying to get their whole story taken down.
37:17
Speaker 1: I didn't know this was like such a big, this
37:19
Speaker 1: top bottom debate. I had no idea. I feel a
37:24
Speaker 1: little naive I was gonna look into it for this episode,
37:28
Speaker 1: and then I chickened out. I'm gonna be honest with you,
37:32
Speaker 1: I really chickened out. I didn't want to put it
37:36
Speaker 1: in my search bar, and then I don't. I'll look
37:39
Speaker 1: into it at a future date. This is already a
37:42
Speaker 1: decent episode without it.
37:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, things that come, things to come.
37:56
Speaker 1: Well, listeners, if you have any thoughts about this, any
38:02
Speaker 1: examples I missed of straightw washing. If you know, if
38:06
Speaker 1: there is an actual thing other than a placement theory
38:11
Speaker 1: of what that is called, and you know it, let
38:13
Speaker 1: me know. That's what I've seen it generally called. But yeah,
38:18
Speaker 1: send us all of your thoughts. You can email us
38:21
Speaker 1: at Hello at Stuffwenever Told You dot com. You can
38:23
Speaker 1: find us on blue Sky I'm Mom Stuff podcast, or
38:26
Speaker 1: on Instagram and TikTok at stuff one Never Told You.
38:28
Speaker 1: We're also on YouTube. We have some merchandise at coom Bureau,
38:31
Speaker 1: and we have a book you can get wherever you
38:32
Speaker 1: get your books. Thanks to Casey for helping us out
38:36
Speaker 1: today with production and editing. Thanks to our executive producer Maya,
38:42
Speaker 1: and thanks to you for listening. Stuff I Never Told
38:45
Speaker 1: Me is production by heart Radio. For more podcasts from
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