[Elisabeth Sladen, RIP] Will I Ever See You Again?

Before I post actual content, I want to once again mention the gutting loss of Elisabeth Sladen, who died yesterday after what appears to have been a long combat with cancer.

Coming late to Who Fandom, watching Elisabeth Sladen being Sarah Jane Smith, as I said yesterday, made me feel as though I were a part of something bigger. A bigger world, a greater myth.

Beyond that, that we are all bigger on the inside for our love and our loss.

I never got to watch "The Sarah Jane Adventures", but this clip encapsulates all that I feel about losing such a supreme actress and personality like Ms. Sladen.

It's not a personal loss, but she was there for ME, because Sarah Jane, she was left behind by her Doctor and continued to know and love the world that she discovered with him.

She became much like the Doctor herself, introducing a younger generation to the wonders of stories about the world and showing us all, that we are bigger on the inside.

Good bye Ms. Sladen.

Good bye Sarah Jane.

Are you sick of the Glee angst yet?

Glee isn't my fandom. I'm not all that interested in Glee outside of the canon (except for a select few fics that caught my attention) and far more interested in the Meta of the show.

I spoke to two people, two people about a textual incidence that just wouldn't leave me alone and which touched a nerve of the personal kind.

I chatted with my ex-gf for some perspective and with verasteine for a more fannishly focused thought, as I tried to pinpoint what the hell was bugging me.

See, someone tweeted the other day, regarding their interest in Glee canon, that "I really am interested in how Santana develops, but I like my queers queerer than that. So, Klaine shipping lesbian. FTW."

I had replied asking what "queerer" meant. The reply was that girly women weren't as easy to identify with and implied that they were less interesting than butch women and/or camp men. It felt like a punch in the gut to read that. Not because I know this tweeter/blogger beyond the textual platform, but the sentiment is one that I've had to deal with more often than not, in fandom and out of it.

At this point I would like to explicitly say that this isn't a personal attack against this tweeter/blogger. I like her and what she has to say about Glee. I've enjoyed a chat with her and pretty much rely on her for all my Glee News. Those tweets are part, I feel, of a larger problem in fandom and something endemic in the culture at large and in a fandom like Glee in particular, which is very much hit and miss in the way it treats characters and the way the fandom follows the patterns the culture indoctrinates us to treat female characters and queer female characters in particular.

On a personal level, as a girly (not quite femme, but definitely feminine) queer girl, being told that that there is a hierarchy of "queer" offends me. The visibility of queer people relies in heteronormative standards of beauty and judgement. Camp men and butch women will often pay a hefty price for standing up for who they are, because our to present ourselves as we truly are and spitting in the face of what are considered straight beauty standards is very brave. Not passing, whether on purpose or not, can be dangerous.

As a girly queer - longish hair, curvy physique, feminine clothes and feminine mannerisms - despite being sometimes hairy, sometimes not - I am sometimes passed over by "gaydars", though I've been told that once I speak it cannot be missed how queer I actually am.

So, yes, I have privilege in heteronormative society. But reading about "queerer queers"? The devaluation I suddenly felt was something I'd only felt once before. When an old friend asked me whether I really was bisexual? Because, hey, I didn't "act like one".
Whatever the fuck that meant.
Really?
Is there a litmus test of gayness? Are lesbians more "real" if they're big bull dykes?
Is Coach Beiste less straight because she's butch?

But whatever. The thing is, there is this trend with queer characters where it's assumed that queer men can represent all queers, while queer women are, you know, specific. Queer women can only represent queer women and if they're not queer in a certain way, well, they're just not good enough.

Kurt and Baline can be either camp or not. Santana just isn't up to scratch, what with her having been with both guys and girls and Brittany staying with Artie.
Santana doesn't look any different from any other pretty girl, she just doesn't count as much.

Kurt is written in a way that's a cut above the rest, even with inconsistency when it comes to his characterisation, he was always more complex, more challenging than other characters.

This has to do, I think, with the cultural notion that girls are worth less than boys. This is doubly so when it comes to queer girls in a mixed show, mixed being a show that isn't focused on female characters as a rule. This is something that was noticeable in Queer as Folk (both versions), Torchwood, Will & Grace, Shameless, I guess I can go on.
All the above shows have both queer men and women, I think you can guess who gets more focus in the show itself and in the various fandoms.
Not only that, a lot of the times, the women's queer identity will more often be either challenged or ridiculed in a certain way.

In fandom boys trump girls, always. You don't need to look at the size of femmslash fandom as opposed to slash fandom to see it.
I am also guilty of this kind of focus.

P.S.
I've been spoiled regarding Santana standing up to the homophobic/secretly gay bully Korofsky with Kurt and Blaine. I'm looking forward to seeing the ep. It still smarts that after Santana and Brittany have been treated like comic relief and straight boy titillation that we're seeing some female queer content than matters in this phenomenon that is Glee.

As I said Glee isn't my fandom, but it is my show. So I care. A lot.