Toeing the Line of Love ["Ha'i'ole" Meta]
Sep. 22nd, 2011 05:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eumeliaIt feels weird waiting for another episode of "Hawaii Five-0".
I mainlined the whole first season in less than two weeks over the summer and fell in love with it in a way I didn't think I would.
One of the reasons for this new love and obsession is that a mainstream action, adventure and "let's blow shit up" show, is managing to convey a camaraderie between two male leads that toes the line between platonic and erotic.
And when I say toe, I mean there's a line they can't cross, but they're going "Look, look, we're not touching!" with their toes.
Do I have your attention?
Good, because I'd like to ask, taking into account the huge amount of information we learned in the premiere; are there any actual queer people in the "Hawaii Five-0" universe?
On the surface, no, really not.
The way sexuality is depicted and thought about in the general social scheme; is that heterosexuality is "normal", while everything else is "other". You don't need to be a social science scholar to get this. In fact, if you're some shade of queer you know this instinctively.
Heterosexuality in "Hawaii Five-0" is established for each of the main characters throughout the first season; Danny had Rachel, Steve had Catherine, Chin had Malia and Kono had Ben.
Because of the aforementioned social scheme, should any of the characters, in canon, deviate from the compulsory heterosexuality they've been placed in, it would be a big deal, an event, the portrayal of queerness is always "special" on television. It has to be explicit (as in, there must be same-sex kissing at the very least, even a peck) and not implicit, because there can be no ambiguity when it comes to who is gay and who is not.
For instance, did you know that Jenna is gay? No really, she is! You know why? Well, she never specifies the gender of her dead fiancé, she has a pixie hair cut and she wears flannel:
*wink wink nudge nudge*
Do all lesbians look like that? Duh, no, of course not. But Jenna is portrayed in a well known short hand aimed at letting us know, if we know, that yeah, it's known.
It is, however, still a code to be cracked. Because the assumption is, unless said otherwise, a person is straight.
"Hawaii Five-0" does something with that assumption.
The queerness bleeds through. It bleeds through in a way I have never seen a mainstream show bleed through before. I kind of want the DVD's just so I can watch the outtakes and see what was kept and what wasn't kept – like the deleted scenes of episode 24 of the first season, "Oia'i'o":
As I mentioned on someone else's post1, "Whoa, that is some explicit shit going on there!"
But that's an out take and thus not canon, the sentiment is apparent throughout 01.24 and in 02.01 it looks like a whole lot more bled through between the lines. This subtext, were it not the rigorous supremacy of the heterosexual default would have been read by one and all as a homoerotic interaction.
It also bleeds through by who is often placed as a sex object on screen. Very often it is Steve who is put in front of the lens as an object to be looked at2.
In a way that Danny and Chin are not.
It's a position usually (but not always) reserved for female characters; Kono is often portrayed like that.
Though she subverts it beautifully by kicking ass and taking names.
However, a queer reading is still only that. An interpretation. And we have to work pretty damn hard to open up the celluloid closet that holds this show together.
It's a code we crack. It's a code queers, fans, queer fans and fannish queers, use all the time, with overlapping results. Slash goggles are another way to open up the text.
Steve loves Danny. Danny loves Steve. This is fact. This is part of their friendship and partnership. So, what makes their love so erotic, as opposed to platonic?
Well, in the new episode we have one the most erotically charged exchanges I have ever seen. The use of the mirrors in this scene, is brilliant. It is actually breathtaking, because of everything that is said and not said between Steve and Danny:
Steve: You don't look happy.
Danny: I'm happy on the inside.
Steve: You're a bad liar.
And cue the eyes:
Danny's eyes are sad. I know, huge revelation.
Fandom has called that scene an "eye fucking" scene; "Hawaii Five-0" has a lot of those going on between Steve and Danny. Beyond the banter and the casual touching (which happens between friends, and close friends to boot), it is the gazing that really sells the erotica between the two men. They can't kiss, so they gaze.
Danny, in this scene, is very discomforted by Steve, beyond him being a fugitive and Danny breaking the law so very hard here; Danny doesn't want to talk about his failed relationship with Rachel and he really can't handle the affection Steve is throwing his way:
Steve: I'm sorry Danny.
Danny: I'm fine. It didn't work out the first time, so who's to say this time would be any different, right?
Cue the gaze:
Danny: Please don't look at me like that. I asked you – I said I'm fine, and I'm asking you not to look at me, don't give me that look, I'm more worried about my car.
I emphasised that line because Danny knows what Steve will see if they keep looking at each other like that; longing, love and lust.
Did you hear his voice crack, when you watch that scene? For reference, this is the look Danny can't handle:
Steve emotes. Boy does he emote. And you know when he emotes the most? When he's looking at Danny. Longing gazes, within the context of a buddy cop show, in which the heterosexual couple has been broken up so that we can see two men being tender with each other?
The show is screaming at us to see what it cannot tell. It would be sad, if it wasn't so cleverly delivered.
It is cleverly delivered because, as I mentioned in my initial reaction post, were it not for the in built deniability and the constructed necessity of explicitness when it comes to sexuality that isn't heterosexual, Danny and Steve's love would be seen as it is implied; romantic, sexual and desirous.
One of the classic signs of romantic and erotic love is being the object of someone's gaze. As mentioned above, Steve is often the object of the camera lens' gaze; Danny is usually the one who will objectify other people, that is, women, in the context of the show. But the scene in the car, in which they swap gazes at each other through the mirror, and we the audience, catch and interpret those looks via our own desiring gaze, will read the subtext of that scene out loud.
Of course, that is the very reason there aren't any explicitly queer characters on the show. Never mind the prevalent homophobia of Hollywood and American network television, the minute there is canon slash3, then all bets are off. If the possibility of same sex desire actually happens on the show, the text will have to deal with it head on.
It'll never happen of course, because "gay television" is a very specific animal and as a hero of mine once said: "You people and your quaint little categories". Obviously, if a show is about gay people then it has to be about, you know, gay issues: coming out, depression, substance abuse, child abuse, AIDS, Pride, parenting, you name it – it's been done.
"Hawaii Five-0" almost pretends there is no heterosexual assumption. That kind of leeway allows us to see Jenna as the tomboy dyke that she is, the queer desire between Steve and Danny to develop in spite of their heterosexual histories and explains why is it showing, rather than telling. And that is always a better way of telling a story.
I say almost, because it's no "Torchwood" of the 2006-2008 era, nor do I expect or want it to be.
But man, that line is so close to the surface, I can only hope it doesn't backfire.
Footnotes:
1) At![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
delicatale's post, where I found the video.
Back to text.
2) Something both Alex O'Loughlin and Scott Caan played with, much to our delight:
Back to text.
3) A term I have issues with. As slash has historically meant non canonical same sex pairings and actual portrayal of same sex desire is queer representation. These two are not the same thing and they're not treated the same by the media at large and fandom in general. But that's for another post.
Back to text.
Credits: All screencaps from episode 2.01 "Ha'i'ole" were taken from Demon-Cry.net.
All other pics, screencaps and gifds were taken random Google Image search and prowling fandom comms.
I mainlined the whole first season in less than two weeks over the summer and fell in love with it in a way I didn't think I would.
One of the reasons for this new love and obsession is that a mainstream action, adventure and "let's blow shit up" show, is managing to convey a camaraderie between two male leads that toes the line between platonic and erotic.
And when I say toe, I mean there's a line they can't cross, but they're going "Look, look, we're not touching!" with their toes.
Do I have your attention?
Good, because I'd like to ask, taking into account the huge amount of information we learned in the premiere; are there any actual queer people in the "Hawaii Five-0" universe?
On the surface, no, really not.
The way sexuality is depicted and thought about in the general social scheme; is that heterosexuality is "normal", while everything else is "other". You don't need to be a social science scholar to get this. In fact, if you're some shade of queer you know this instinctively.
Heterosexuality in "Hawaii Five-0" is established for each of the main characters throughout the first season; Danny had Rachel, Steve had Catherine, Chin had Malia and Kono had Ben.
Because of the aforementioned social scheme, should any of the characters, in canon, deviate from the compulsory heterosexuality they've been placed in, it would be a big deal, an event, the portrayal of queerness is always "special" on television. It has to be explicit (as in, there must be same-sex kissing at the very least, even a peck) and not implicit, because there can be no ambiguity when it comes to who is gay and who is not.
For instance, did you know that Jenna is gay? No really, she is! You know why? Well, she never specifies the gender of her dead fiancé, she has a pixie hair cut and she wears flannel:
*wink wink nudge nudge*
Do all lesbians look like that? Duh, no, of course not. But Jenna is portrayed in a well known short hand aimed at letting us know, if we know, that yeah, it's known.
It is, however, still a code to be cracked. Because the assumption is, unless said otherwise, a person is straight.
"Hawaii Five-0" does something with that assumption.
The queerness bleeds through. It bleeds through in a way I have never seen a mainstream show bleed through before. I kind of want the DVD's just so I can watch the outtakes and see what was kept and what wasn't kept – like the deleted scenes of episode 24 of the first season, "Oia'i'o":
As I mentioned on someone else's post1, "Whoa, that is some explicit shit going on there!"
But that's an out take and thus not canon, the sentiment is apparent throughout 01.24 and in 02.01 it looks like a whole lot more bled through between the lines. This subtext, were it not the rigorous supremacy of the heterosexual default would have been read by one and all as a homoerotic interaction.
It also bleeds through by who is often placed as a sex object on screen. Very often it is Steve who is put in front of the lens as an object to be looked at2.
In a way that Danny and Chin are not.
It's a position usually (but not always) reserved for female characters; Kono is often portrayed like that.
Though she subverts it beautifully by kicking ass and taking names.
However, a queer reading is still only that. An interpretation. And we have to work pretty damn hard to open up the celluloid closet that holds this show together.
It's a code we crack. It's a code queers, fans, queer fans and fannish queers, use all the time, with overlapping results. Slash goggles are another way to open up the text.
Steve loves Danny. Danny loves Steve. This is fact. This is part of their friendship and partnership. So, what makes their love so erotic, as opposed to platonic?
Well, in the new episode we have one the most erotically charged exchanges I have ever seen. The use of the mirrors in this scene, is brilliant. It is actually breathtaking, because of everything that is said and not said between Steve and Danny:
Steve: You don't look happy.
Danny: I'm happy on the inside.
Steve: You're a bad liar.
And cue the eyes:
Danny's eyes are sad. I know, huge revelation.
Fandom has called that scene an "eye fucking" scene; "Hawaii Five-0" has a lot of those going on between Steve and Danny. Beyond the banter and the casual touching (which happens between friends, and close friends to boot), it is the gazing that really sells the erotica between the two men. They can't kiss, so they gaze.
Danny, in this scene, is very discomforted by Steve, beyond him being a fugitive and Danny breaking the law so very hard here; Danny doesn't want to talk about his failed relationship with Rachel and he really can't handle the affection Steve is throwing his way:
Steve: I'm sorry Danny.
Danny: I'm fine. It didn't work out the first time, so who's to say this time would be any different, right?
Cue the gaze:
Danny: Please don't look at me like that. I asked you – I said I'm fine, and I'm asking you not to look at me, don't give me that look, I'm more worried about my car.
I emphasised that line because Danny knows what Steve will see if they keep looking at each other like that; longing, love and lust.
Did you hear his voice crack, when you watch that scene? For reference, this is the look Danny can't handle:
Steve emotes. Boy does he emote. And you know when he emotes the most? When he's looking at Danny. Longing gazes, within the context of a buddy cop show, in which the heterosexual couple has been broken up so that we can see two men being tender with each other?
The show is screaming at us to see what it cannot tell. It would be sad, if it wasn't so cleverly delivered.
It is cleverly delivered because, as I mentioned in my initial reaction post, were it not for the in built deniability and the constructed necessity of explicitness when it comes to sexuality that isn't heterosexual, Danny and Steve's love would be seen as it is implied; romantic, sexual and desirous.
One of the classic signs of romantic and erotic love is being the object of someone's gaze. As mentioned above, Steve is often the object of the camera lens' gaze; Danny is usually the one who will objectify other people, that is, women, in the context of the show. But the scene in the car, in which they swap gazes at each other through the mirror, and we the audience, catch and interpret those looks via our own desiring gaze, will read the subtext of that scene out loud.
Of course, that is the very reason there aren't any explicitly queer characters on the show. Never mind the prevalent homophobia of Hollywood and American network television, the minute there is canon slash3, then all bets are off. If the possibility of same sex desire actually happens on the show, the text will have to deal with it head on.
It'll never happen of course, because "gay television" is a very specific animal and as a hero of mine once said: "You people and your quaint little categories". Obviously, if a show is about gay people then it has to be about, you know, gay issues: coming out, depression, substance abuse, child abuse, AIDS, Pride, parenting, you name it – it's been done.
"Hawaii Five-0" almost pretends there is no heterosexual assumption. That kind of leeway allows us to see Jenna as the tomboy dyke that she is, the queer desire between Steve and Danny to develop in spite of their heterosexual histories and explains why is it showing, rather than telling. And that is always a better way of telling a story.
I say almost, because it's no "Torchwood" of the 2006-2008 era, nor do I expect or want it to be.
But man, that line is so close to the surface, I can only hope it doesn't backfire.
Footnotes:
1) At
delicatale's post, where I found the video.Back to text.
2) Something both Alex O'Loughlin and Scott Caan played with, much to our delight:
Back to text.
3) A term I have issues with. As slash has historically meant non canonical same sex pairings and actual portrayal of same sex desire is queer representation. These two are not the same thing and they're not treated the same by the media at large and fandom in general. But that's for another post.
Back to text.
Credits: All screencaps from episode 2.01 "Ha'i'ole" were taken from Demon-Cry.net.
All other pics, screencaps and gifds were taken random Google Image search and prowling fandom comms.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-22 03:11 pm (UTC)"403 Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /eumelia/pic/00028wts on this server."
(And my apologies for not commenting on the meta content itself; that's caused by a mix of feeling exhausted generally and the frustration you get from seeing increasingly blatant subtext but never actual text, but I don't want to rant. Your entry as such is great.)
no subject
Date: 2011-09-22 04:14 pm (UTC)Thank you for commenting :)
I don't mind a rant!
no subject
Date: 2011-09-29 11:15 am (UTC)Thanks for the permission to rant *g* I've thought about this but -- well, I suppose you know what I mean with feeling tired as soon as I'm attempting to write it out? Basically it's all boiling down to the queers getting told they should be happy with some bread crumbs and not make a fuss, we do get our subtext after all! And that topic is so old and we've all been through this a million times, I wouldn't add anything you haven't heard before and I'm just so sick of it altogether.
Then there's the issue further down in comments about wanting to have a relationship that's queer without making it all about THEY'RE GAY GAYS FROM GAYTOWN WHO ARE GAY, and I agree with that insofar as I want the same (i.e. queer relationships that aren't turned into Special Queer Episodes or forced into the niche of Serious QUILTBAG Issue Stories), but they still have to be VISIBLE. There's a difference between not making the gayness the whole plot and not acknowledging it at all, but the system is so fucked up that the two often look the same and suddenly you're championing erasure without meaning to. I'm just FED UP TO THE GILLS with deniability.
(I'm fairly certain you have said exactly that in some essays of yours, and implied it here as well. I'm being Captain Obvious, am I.)
no subject
Date: 2011-09-22 05:28 pm (UTC)Brilliant. I now absolutely understand why you told me in my own meta post that the show is in love with its own subtext.
However, your essay is giving me some thought about my own meta idea. It's something to ponder on.
A disclaimer: I honestly, truly do not think we will suddenly see Steve and Danny actually make the subtext TEXT, get gay married, raise Grace plus surrogate babies and all that. LOL. We still have a lot of conservatives out there and I imagine the media hoopla will be to completely insane levels. I'm sure we'll continue to have the show as it is, with the *wink wink, nudge nudge* nods to the slash fans.
I also honestly don't think we'll have deeper plots than what we're already seeing. The show's a guilty pleasure and entertaining storytelling but it's not exactly "deep" and we know the plot holes can get frankly ridiculous. LOL.
I actually thought out loud - well, why tell those stories when they've been told and done to death?
And then I realized that the way they're telling us the "Epic Romance of Danny and Steve" is EXACTLY the way I'd want to see it done. They're ditching the standard gay storytelling tropes and issues and it's reading to me like your standard heterosexual romance, except you've got two straight guys playing off against each other.
And it works. There's enough plausible deniability for it to work for a broader demographic. It neatly sidesteps a lot of tired cliches. And the story is fresh and interesting because we're not dwelling on the "OMG THEY'RE GAY WTF IS GONNA HAPPEN NOW?!" thing. We're simply enjoying the whole romantic aspect of the relationship - at least, the slash fans are, anyway. XD
I'm beginning to think that the day they actually have Steve and Danny admit to the erotic/romantic angle of their relationship might well be the day the show jumps the shark - lol.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-23 08:21 am (UTC)The *wink wink nudge nudge* of erasing lgbt people is done towards lgbt people, to tell us that they know we're there, but they can't say anything about it, because it destroy the show if they even thought about making same sex desire, relationships and love explicit in this show.
It wouldn't be jumping the shark, it would a bullet to the head.
The in built plausible deniability keeps subtext in line.
As for "standard gay storytelling"; yeah my point wasn't that they're cliché, but that they're niched and marginalised, which further marginalises the depiction and portrayal of gay people on television and culture as a whole - Danny and Steve can't be read as a heterosexual romance for the very fact that they are both men and the romance will never be textual due to the homophobia of the industry, which keeps gay story-lines from being anything other than gay.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-23 04:22 pm (UTC)Yes, I understand that they are simply and subtly acknowledging LGBT people. Yes, I understand that this is all simply subtext and that we are meant to assume that all of the characters in Five-0 so far are heterosexual. Yes, I understand that for them to actually make all this subtext explicit may well kill the show.
What I am saying is that if I, as a viewer/audience member, wanted to erase the subtext from the show and simply pretend that I am watching the "Epic Romance of Danny Williams and Steve McGarrett" - then this is quite possibly the way I'd want it to be portrayed on television. The issue of being gay is not blown up out of proportion - we are simply watching two very interesting characters, who happen to be male, establish a relationship that is slowly but surely inching towards romantic love.
Again, I stress that this is me just pretending to see the show differently. I know perfectly well it's never going to happen and that we will see Danny and Steve establishing heterosexual romantic relationships with female leads. For the moment, I'm just enjoying the slash subtext and using fan fic instead for the more wishful parts of our thinking.
Of course, that doesn't stop me from wondering if they'd ever make the leap from subtext and making all of these hints a reality and get away with it but that's just me. :)
no subject
Date: 2011-09-26 04:37 am (UTC)