Funny first email of the morning. I have folks across the spectrum in my life, including some Canadian conservatives who like to think they're centrists.
One is undergoing a friend break-up. The ex-friend has come out of her egg, is undergoing transition, and no longer wants to be associated with someone who views women the way she feels that this person does.
I'm happy for her. It's also really fascinating to study how this in-denial-about-how-conservative-he-is fellow is processing the news.
I'll be writing more about Pride tomorrow for the newsletter, precisely because as someone who "passes" in many ways, I get to hear things from "the straights" that many would never say the same way in the presence of people they see as "overtly" queer...
And as much as it's taxing at times, it also reminds me of our richly muddled humanity. How many of us go our whole lives without figuring out how to live well together. How we struggle to get past abstracted fears to see the human in us all.
@MLClark Personally, I think everyone is "queer" to everyone else. It's just a different way of saying "unique."
The word has been fascinatingly weaponized.
When I was a baby queer, the elder lesbians hated the term, because in their era it had been a slur. "Oh no, you're not queer!" they'd say. "There's nothing wrong with you!"
Which was funny, because queer was just a better catch-all than getting caught up in bi/pansexual debates, and genderqueer vs. agender vs. enby.
Labels are all very silly.
I love who I love, and to me, gender's just something people dump on my junk. Easy peasy!
@MLClark Yesterday we watched David Lean's 1946 classic "Great Expectations," based of course on the Dickens novel. Several characters referred to themselves as "gay." "I'm a gay man."
They couldn't say that today. The audience would giggle like 12-year olds looking at Playboy.
It shows up in fun places!
🎶 Flintstones, meet the Flintstones
They're the modern stone-age family
From the town of Bedrock
They're a page right out of history
Let's ride with the family down the street
Through the courtesy of Fred's two feet
When you're with the Flintstones
Have a yabba-dabba-doo time
A dabba-doo time
We'll have a gay old time~!
@MLClark In the TOS episode "The Savage Curtain," an illusion of Lincoln meets Uhura and calls her a "negress." He immediately apologizes but she replies that, in her century, people are no longer offended by words.
If only that were true ...
(I'd like to think there's a clip on the cutting room floor where Nichelle replied, "No problem, you inbred dumbass hick!" 🤣 )
Oh, if only there were an episode filled with off-the-cuff classic Uhura moments... :) But I guess we have SNW to fill in some gaps in that canon!
I'm sorely looking forward to rewatching the last season in full to prep for S3. I've been missing that crew something fierce!
@MLClark Moi aussi ... Curious to hear your thoughts about the Disco finale.
It did the best it could to wrap up the world it created. Kudos to costuming & other effects, along with many of the actors for giving us a season of visually pleasing action-SF.
In TNG, the Progenitors brought many species together to hear a message. In DISCO, they were ready to leave their tech with one person who speaks for all: an utter waste of the Breen storyline. But that's all in keeping with how much DISCO was *never* an ensemble story. Glad it brought us SNW, at least!
@MLClark To me, it was surprisingly sedate. The formula typically is to build up to a big battle at the end, but instead we got an hour of farewells and reflections.
I couldn't figure out what was going on with Burnham and the ship. It looked like they restored it to its original configuration so she could go off on a classified mission for Daniels?! What about her family?!
Maybe it ties into the upcoming "Section 31" movie with Michelle Yeoh.
Oh, right, I forgot to mention - that ending was forced by an episode of "Short Treks" a few years ago: S1E02 "Calypso". The team was boxed in by that storyline when trying to imagine a future for the ship.
@MLClark Just watched "Calypso." Thanks for the explanation. Nice acting job by Aldis Hodge. TPTB should have just ignored this, pretended it was a "lost tale" in Disco's earlier history rather than trying to retcon the whole thing.
Why is it that alien intelligences always fixate on Earth entertainment, food, clothing, etc.? In particular, entertainment whose rights are owned by the producing studio? 🤔