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eumeliaI went out with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tamara_russo to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.
Yeah...
More on how it was too fucking long, too fucking boring and one again, too fucking shallow, at a later date.
It was very pretty though.
mao4269 wrote a very concise and gut-feeling review of Torchwood: Children of Earth on her LJ - It is spoilerrific.
As is what I have to say about it.
***Spoilers for Torchwood:Children of Earth... Don't say I didn't warn you!***
There has been a huge amount of discussion whether TW:CoE was homophobic or not. You just have to look at the links in yesterday's![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
torchwood_three's newsletter to see what I mean.
In addition, I had a very fun and interesting discussion withsabotabby on that particular issue on her livejournal if you interested.
Everything is full of spoilers! You were warned.
My own personal viewing of the TW:CoE is that it is not homophobic. Like mentioned in the podcast I linked to, TW:CoE shows that homophobia in the outside world is still alive and kicking. Torchwood series 1 and 2 are very insulated. Their world is tiny and all encompassing, Gwen is the "odd man out" by actually maintaining a relationship outside of Torchwood and even then it is rife with problems that have serious ethical implications.
Torchwood, over all, does not show romantic relationships as being overly successful when one works in a job that the only thing that keeps you from dying is immortality (and being the POV character that is Gwen).
To say that killing off Ianto, a visibly Queer man, is homophobic is not only silly, but completely misses the point of what Ianto meant to Jack and Ianto's own character within the context of Torchwood over-all and CoE specifically.
Jack and Ianto's relationship is fucked up. Not because they are both men, but because these are two very fucked up individuals. The fact that only now they are "public" and Ianto is forced to be put under mainstream scrutiny doesn't make TW:CoE homophobic... it is the telling of the homophobic society in which they are now forced to interact because it's not just Aliens in Cardiff any more; it's all the children of the world and when it's global, it cannot be insular.
Which bring me tomao4269's post linked above.
She wrote, and I quote:
I have to admit that wasn't a direction my mind took with the use of 10%. RTD has used that amount before - see the Master decimate Earth's population in DW Ep The Sound of Drums - I thought it wass just a theme and good large number he liked using, like reusing Smith, Jones, John etc.
However, the parallel of One in Ten when it comes to Queer issues does make a lot of sense if you look at it through the prism presented bymao4269.
It's a very interesting and provocative take on the themes of the show, especially with the preposterous accusations of homophobia being flung in RTD's direction.
It is problematic that a Queer character dies... it can be construed as Too Queer to Live, but Ianto dies heroically and on his own terms. By the way, anyone who says Ianto died a non-heroic death is plain blind, really. Saying "I love you" and in your lover's arms is not anti-heroic, is not sissy and is not, fact, "being a girl" - that's homophobic AND misogynistic, because if anyone had more acceptance of the fact that these were his last days on Earth it was Ianto. Ianto has been waiting to die for years and he waited while trying to save the world and defending those considered powerless and undesired. The way he probably saw himself more often than not.
I think the whole Dead Queer thing is subverted by the fact that he owns his queer identity. For fuck's sake he wears it on his cheek!
I'd also like to mention, that that type of casual homophobia (Johnny's greeting "Hey Gay Boy") is how the majority of us experience the world.
It is casual and sometimes you just don't have the strength to do anything else other than roll your eyes and bear it.
Final thoughts about owning the Queer identity.
In our pomo society, identity is not fixed, it would be easier for us if it were, but most of queer or not, do not remain the same as we go through our lives. I am not who I was three years ago... to be crude, neither is Ianto.
When Ianto says to his sister Rhiannon "It's not men, it's him... it's only him"... this is not Ianto denying his Queer identity, this is Ianto telling his sister he has found love again after his previous love died a very horrible death, you can bet Ianto would say "it's not women, it's her... it's only her" because that is the way Ianto rolls.
He loves.
He's just pretty insecure about other people loving him.
When Clem says he can smell "the Queer" from Ianto, it is in a scene that does not include Jack. Clem does not know of Jack's existence, their relationship, nada.
Clem can smell states of being (apparently), what that scene tells me is that Ianto's sexuality is his own.
He owns it and he makes choices about who he is sexual with, in the series it is with Jack... but Jack didn't Turn him. Ianto has always Been.
That's what Clem's smelling of "the Queer" means.
And that, friends, dead or not, is fucking awesome.
tamara_russo to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.Yeah...
More on how it was too fucking long, too fucking boring and one again, too fucking shallow, at a later date.
It was very pretty though.
mao4269 wrote a very concise and gut-feeling review of Torchwood: Children of Earth on her LJ - It is spoilerrific.As is what I have to say about it.
***Spoilers for Torchwood:Children of Earth... Don't say I didn't warn you!***
There has been a huge amount of discussion whether TW:CoE was homophobic or not. You just have to look at the links in yesterday's
torchwood_three's newsletter to see what I mean. In addition, I had a very fun and interesting discussion with
sabotabby on that particular issue on her livejournal if you interested. Everything is full of spoilers! You were warned.
My own personal viewing of the TW:CoE is that it is not homophobic. Like mentioned in the podcast I linked to, TW:CoE shows that homophobia in the outside world is still alive and kicking. Torchwood series 1 and 2 are very insulated. Their world is tiny and all encompassing, Gwen is the "odd man out" by actually maintaining a relationship outside of Torchwood and even then it is rife with problems that have serious ethical implications.
Torchwood, over all, does not show romantic relationships as being overly successful when one works in a job that the only thing that keeps you from dying is immortality (and being the POV character that is Gwen).
To say that killing off Ianto, a visibly Queer man, is homophobic is not only silly, but completely misses the point of what Ianto meant to Jack and Ianto's own character within the context of Torchwood over-all and CoE specifically.
Jack and Ianto's relationship is fucked up. Not because they are both men, but because these are two very fucked up individuals. The fact that only now they are "public" and Ianto is forced to be put under mainstream scrutiny doesn't make TW:CoE homophobic... it is the telling of the homophobic society in which they are now forced to interact because it's not just Aliens in Cardiff any more; it's all the children of the world and when it's global, it cannot be insular.
Which bring me to
mao4269's post linked above.She wrote, and I quote:
[O]n another level (this argument may be a stretch, I haven't decided yet), I think that the struggle in CoE paralleled the struggle to get the mainstream to address the AIDS epidemic. Ianto is very visibly gay in CoE. Not only do we see more commentary on his and Jack's relationship than we do in the rest of the show put together, but he even has a freaking scarlet letter on his cheek proclaiming (in the form of a lambda) his queerness! As for the disease, that's the 456. The first to be sacrificed to the 456 are a small number of people who "won't be missed", and even when the numbers grow the government attempts to continue hiding the problem by offering the 456 rejected asylum-seekers and other "undesirables". Similarly, HIV/AIDS wasn't even labeled until the 1980s when it began affecting Westerners. Then, the 456 demanded 10% of the population. Even with so many people affected, policy makers decide that it's better to sacrifice this portion of the population, and specifically target those who don't "help build the future generation of our society". The use of the 10% figure is an obvious parallel to gay issues, and the way that the 10% to be handed to the 456 are described is similar to rhetoric used to deny equal rights to G/L/B folk. And of course, it's Ianto, branded with his queerness, who says that rather than sacrifice the ten percent of the population that's least powerful for the sake of not jeopardizing the majority, they should fight back. In the end, he dies of a virus and his lover stops fighting for the least powerful.Emphasis mine
I have to admit that wasn't a direction my mind took with the use of 10%. RTD has used that amount before - see the Master decimate Earth's population in DW Ep The Sound of Drums - I thought it wass just a theme and good large number he liked using, like reusing Smith, Jones, John etc.
However, the parallel of One in Ten when it comes to Queer issues does make a lot of sense if you look at it through the prism presented by
mao4269. It's a very interesting and provocative take on the themes of the show, especially with the preposterous accusations of homophobia being flung in RTD's direction.
It is problematic that a Queer character dies... it can be construed as Too Queer to Live, but Ianto dies heroically and on his own terms. By the way, anyone who says Ianto died a non-heroic death is plain blind, really. Saying "I love you" and in your lover's arms is not anti-heroic, is not sissy and is not, fact, "being a girl" - that's homophobic AND misogynistic, because if anyone had more acceptance of the fact that these were his last days on Earth it was Ianto. Ianto has been waiting to die for years and he waited while trying to save the world and defending those considered powerless and undesired. The way he probably saw himself more often than not.
I think the whole Dead Queer thing is subverted by the fact that he owns his queer identity. For fuck's sake he wears it on his cheek!
I'd also like to mention, that that type of casual homophobia (Johnny's greeting "Hey Gay Boy") is how the majority of us experience the world.
It is casual and sometimes you just don't have the strength to do anything else other than roll your eyes and bear it.
Final thoughts about owning the Queer identity.
In our pomo society, identity is not fixed, it would be easier for us if it were, but most of queer or not, do not remain the same as we go through our lives. I am not who I was three years ago... to be crude, neither is Ianto.
When Ianto says to his sister Rhiannon "It's not men, it's him... it's only him"... this is not Ianto denying his Queer identity, this is Ianto telling his sister he has found love again after his previous love died a very horrible death, you can bet Ianto would say "it's not women, it's her... it's only her" because that is the way Ianto rolls.
He loves.
He's just pretty insecure about other people loving him.
When Clem says he can smell "the Queer" from Ianto, it is in a scene that does not include Jack. Clem does not know of Jack's existence, their relationship, nada.
Clem can smell states of being (apparently), what that scene tells me is that Ianto's sexuality is his own.
He owns it and he makes choices about who he is sexual with, in the series it is with Jack... but Jack didn't Turn him. Ianto has always Been.
That's what Clem's smelling of "the Queer" means.
And that, friends, dead or not, is fucking awesome.
