| Michael as Miles Maitland in Bright Young Things, 2003 vs. Michael talking about David on The Assembly, 2024.

About poison and love. Noah the Gorgon and Harper Sayles (and Dean, Cas, Jack, Michael)

Jack, I’m already writing. Isn’t that crazy? I’m not crazy. But our love is so vivid. I can’t wait to find you. You are the first man to ever get me to leave McCook. Now I’m in the world. I’m sorry I have to kill you for what you did to Vance but then I can bring you back so that we can be together again. It’s gonna be perfect. See you soon. Love, Harper

I have already talked about how Harper Sayles is a dark mirror for Dean: he thinks his love for people has the same effect on the people he loves as Harper does. Dean believes that his attachment to people in harmful to them, that he “kills” the people he loves in the sense that he destroys their chance to be their own selves and pursue their own paths, and that there’s something toxic in the way he clings to people instead of letting them go (remember when Sam explicitly directed these accusations to Dean after the Gadreel incident? That was the textualization of a long-living fear of Dean’s, that he destroys people because he cannot bear to be without them).

And now we have a new mirror for Dean that presents interesting parallels to Harper. Noah the Gorgon and Harper Sayles both play a sort of game where they flirt with a man, or let him flirt with them, and then they get the men killed. There’s emphasis on the fact that they kill men: “she's lost people--not people, men” the waitress says, then echoed by other patrons who also say “men”. The conversation between the Gorgon and his latest victim also emphasizes how Noah’s most recent victims are all men - in fact “a pretty biased sample at this point, really”.

They both rely on a cute attractiveness (Harper’s charming attitude, Noah’s campy appearance) to appear harmless, although not everyone falls for it - several women and one guy affirm that Harper is “bad luck”, and apparently Noah has been having a hard time getting close to women because they wouldn’t trust a stranger. Basically, they both have a specific kind of victim: men who are looking for romantic or sexual connections.

Obviously, Harper is living a typical heterosexual romance, while Noah’s field is queer, and this brings us to the next point. We have been talking about how Harper basically lives her life like it were a story from a book, but the wrong genre: she mistakes horror for romance. I’d say that the main difference between Harper and Noah is that Noah appears to be more aware than Harper of the genre he lives in, although he does seem to be trying to live in a different genre. I’d say that, while Harper acts like she’s in a typical romance novel, Noah acts like he’s in a NBC Hannibal-esque show, which is a fascinating choice from Steve Yockey and Amyn Kaderali. The initial scene of the episode is obviously filmed to be reminiscent of Hannibal, with just that more Supernatural-like flavor in the aesthetic - not the high-end classy style of Hannibal Lecter, but something campier. There are similarities between Hannibal and Noah, including their unconventional (feminine-coded) styles in physical fighting (see also the connotations of poison as a weapon) and a tendency to get into your head with speeches about metaphors...

But now let’s get back to Harper and Noah. As I was saying, unlike Harper, Noah is aware that the genre he’s living in is not a romance; and maybe there’s something here about the fact that straight people will interpret anything where there’s a man and a woman as a romance (including violence and abuse), while queer people will always find themselves in tragic narratives... Maybe Harper and Noah do represent the stereotypical genres women and queer men are stuck into - romance and tragic narratives of isolation and death. Obviously, they both bring twists to those roles, because Harper is a necromancer that killed and turned her boyfriend into a zombie, and Noah a demigod that eats human flesh and will snack on your eyes. Stereotypes are too narrow, Supernatural says, as it gleefully gets its little horror hands on everything.

Anyway, Noah does seem to be more aware of the reality of his existence: when hunters come, unlike Harper who just substitutes Jack as the hero of her romance novel, Noah warns Dean to stay away from him. And here we get to a very interesting point: Noah also writes a letter to Dean, like Harper did to Jack.

Dean, I see you standing alone by the truck reading this note. I see you and the tall man and the red-headed witch chasing me. I will always see you. Stop, or I will make you stop. Regards, Noah.

Noah’s message to Dean is coded as a love letter of sorts, too. Dean himself points out - a little awkwardly, kind of like he also gets the vibe - that there’s something strangely intimate in how the letter places them in a first-name basis towards each other (Sam and Rowena, on the other hand, are not mentioned by name - which is bizarre since Noah knows Dean’s name, but is less bizarre if you consider the subtext). When Cas wonders why the letter doesn’t mention him (in an exchange where neither Jack, Sam or Rowena are mentioned), Dean suggests that’s because he’s not Noah’s type - implying that Dean is.

Noah is doing what he’d rather do as “a lover, not a fighter”: send Dean away from him, rather than fight him. Noah is aware of what he does to people, unlike Harper who consider her zombie-ification of her boyfriend as an act of love.

Honestly, it’s not like I enjoy eating people. It’s a lonely way to live, and there’s only so many ways you can cook human. But sometimes fate is cruel and boring.

In his own twisted, murderous human-eating demigod way, the Gorgon laments his condition. It’s a lonely way to live, being unable to connect with people because you’ll poison them and will eat them... which brings us to the initial point of this post.

Come on, man. Can’t you see? I’m... I’m poison, Sam. People get close to me, they get killed... or worse. You know, I tell myself that I... I help more people than I hurt. And I tell myself that I’m... I’m doing it all for the right reasons, and I... I believe that. But I can’t – I won’t... drag anybody through the muck with me. Not anymore.

Dean believes he’s poison to the people around him, and while he obviously isn’t in the same mindset he was in 9x10 when he said the above line, he has always carried this fear within himself, that he drags people down. And that counts especially with Castiel, a literal angel that literally fell because of Dean. While Cas considers getting close to humanity (insert double meaning here) an act of elevation for a non-human creature, Dean - while he has no delusions about how bad heaven and angels can be - sees Cas’ descent into the pain and suffering that comes from getting close to humanity (to him, really) in negative terms. Awful, Jack calls the experience of loving something that will die. Living, Cas calls it. Remember his words when they gave the demon cure to Dean: only humans can feel real joy, but also such profound pain... Now we can add, a non-human creature can feel real joy and profound pain by loving humans. And while avoiding that is “easier”, it is no real living.

Cas’ speech is the opposite of the speech Michael gave Jack in the hotel in Kansas City:

My uncle's in the cage. And you -- you’re not family. Well, not literally, no. Our connection, our relation is more a matter of scale... of power. Haven’t you learned yet? In this reality, monsters, humans, even angels -- they are insects, atoms compared to us. But you -- you’re just a child, a mere infant. For you, the past two years -- the entirety of your existence -- feel like eons. You don’t even know what time is. But you will. Real time, the time that makes mountains, that wipes out species. You’ll see it all... with me. No. Year by year, century by century, and as your power returns and grows, we’ll only become more alike. Oh, I know. Your loyalty to Castiel, the Winchesters, the rest of humanity? It will fade. And so will the minor differences -- angel armies versus monster armies, this Kansas City or that Kansas City, one world from another -- they'll fade, too.

And that’s the deeper meaning of Jack yelling to Michael, before killing him, that he’s not a child. He reiterates his loyalty to humanity and to the Winchesters.

Michael is a parallel to Noah too - makes sense, both dark mirrors for Dean (plus Jack, of course). He also basically lamented an existence without connections, too powerful, too alien from everything else to be able to connect to them. Michael probably never enjoyed his version of “eating people” - cleansing the worlds, destroying everything - either, but he felt like it was his nature to do so, because he saw no meaning in getting attached to something ephemeral and fleeting.

As Noah says, it’s a cruel fate one that forces you to live a lonely life with no connections. And Cas tells Jack that, no matter how much it hurts, it’ll always be better to have loved a human and lost them, than not having gotten close to them at all.

Now, I sincerely doubt that Cas’ story will develop the way he expects it to - no one’s really living in the exact genre they act like they were in, are they? - so we’ll see who’s really going to lose whom now... and which kind of ending this genre entails.

gay things up

We should acklowledge more often the importance of queer represantation in mainstream media. (For the right reasons)

Sure, I can binge watch all six seasons of the L Word - and, trust me, I have - but I still have this undying thirst to gay things up a little. I feel unbalanced occasionally, as if there are still parts of my sexuality I haven’t really addressed, understood and embraced, which consequently urges me to focus more on my gay side rather than my sexuality as a whole: my preferrences in the type of people I sleep with, the type of sexual relationships I form, the things I (dis)like in bed, you know, the list is endless. It makes me think that all these years of repressing my sexuality have made me keep it in a box and just narrow it down to the gender I’d rather have sexual encounters with, which is a rabbit hole itself, all things (gender norms and stereotypes, personal beliefs etc) considered, and just get elated even by the implication that two men or women on TV are queer; neither examining if I like them as people, nor caring about their chemstry or the quality of their relationship, no. 

Just keep my standards to the lowest point possible and MAKE IT GAY AS FUUUUUCK.

Being queer in a world of heteronormativity is sometimes a double-edged knife; even your best LGBTQ+ allies are ignorant of your reality. 

Yeah well, my straight friends support me on my same sex relationships. But they also don’t really get them most of the time. “What are you talking about?” you will asked surprised, “romantic relationships don’t differ based on the gender of the people involved. It’s the personalitites that matter”. 

Well, yes. But also no. 

My straight friends can’t really understand the consequenses of being closeted for years, the fear of stigma, the fact that even in 2019 there are still people wishing all of us “degenerates” a slow and painful death (just watch Ellen Page’s amazing show called “Gaycation”; during the Brazil episode, the two hosts interview a serial killer who specifically targets gay people, because he believes that they’re worse than animals and the world should be cleansed by their filthy presense).

There are several bagages following us around, issues that straight people (thankfully) never had to face, like the fear of flirting with the wrong person (especially while being closeted), the fact that our sexual orientation is often times not being taken seriously, the fact that for ages there was a very small amount of LGBTQ+ representation in media, and sometimes it was played out for laughs, or even blatantly killed off (lately, there’s also the issue of “queercoding”or “queerbating”, which is rather complex itself), the fear of violence used against us on the street just for holding hands with someone; being marginalized at any level, a minority, ANY KIND of minority, sucks. Because the majority doesn’t even see you, at times.

But we exist. This should be written in enormous neon letters, and not in 8-sized Arial Narrow ones, as it very often is right now. 

No, J. K. Rowlling, I don’t want to have to wear rainbow-coloured strap-ons covered in glitter (wink wink, Sense8) and do my YMCA dance in order to have the revelation that Albus Dumbledore is fucking gay back in 2007. It’s not on print, it’s only a few words said during a sold-out book reading. You had your moment of gay-friendly glory and inclusiveness, but that’s it. During an entire franchise with dosens of presumably heterosexual characters, the single outed person (and one of the most important for plot progression purposes, too) doesn’t even get to have their own moment of gayness. Not even in the prequel, apparently (if you’re new to this, please watch the videos on queercoding I’ve linked above and you’ll be right on track). And you have the audacity to keep on doing it.

No, I don’t want to fucking speculate if Captain Marvel is queer either. No, I don’t want to wonder if Thor: Ragnarok’s Valkyrie is indeed bisexual. (Fun fact: It is being speculated that the two aforementioned characters will hit it off in the new Avengers: Endgame movie). Or the two Teen Wolf guys. Or Dean and Michael from Supernatural. Or several characters from Riverdale. Ugh, it’s exhausting. 

And even though it might come off as just another lesbian who’s trying to make it all about her sexuality, shoving it in straight people’s faces, I have to say that heterosexual people are pretty ignorant regarding even their own sexuality from time to time. And that’s problematic for everyone. 

Please, let me explain.

Not fully exploring and “owning” one’s sexuality primarily means that they’re missing out experiences they could, in fact, enjoy A LOT. From having sexual partners of all genders to being the proud owner of the best buttplug collection in an entire city, a good sexual experience that never takes place is a missed opportunity. I personally wouldn’t like to miss out on that, like the dirty, dirty hedonist I am. 

This missing-outness, self-deception and ignorance can go on for years, decades even. Just simply ask popular YouTubers or my (formerly gold star lesbian) ex-girlfriend (yes, the opposite is also possible). 

But, such a personal issue becomes public when queerness and gender & sexuality spectrums are not even seen as something that can be part of anyone’s psyche, especially in the majority of the population. Hence the marginalizing. LGBTQ+ substance, accodring to many people, is something out of this world. 

That’s what makes queercoding so annoying. Because it sends off the message that LGBTQ+ characters, romances and storylines are not important enough to be portrayed as openly and clearly as their heteronormative counterparts; they’re pictured as something that will never fully grow and be explored, since it isn’t as significant. 

So,why does mainstream representation matter?

In a world soaked in and based onto heteronormativity and whiteness, being LGBTQ+ inclusive has been mislabeled as “pushing an agenda”, where even childhood is being used as a deterrent, a queerness-repellant, which can also breed internalized homophobia.

“Don’t publicly show pictures of faggots kissing, children might see them”. “Dykes shouldn’t be allowed to adopt children, because they [the children] won’t have the right role-models, I mean, who will be the mom and who will be the dad? Plus they will also be bullied by other children”.

I was watching an Ellen Page interview on Stephen Colbert that took place almost two months ago, and I couldn’t help but notice how emotional she still gets every time she talks about LGBTQ+ problems (she has been very vocal about them since she came out as gay in 2014). “This needs to fucking stop” she says. 

And, goodness, it does. When the, among others, argument that equality for everyone shouldn’t be debatable still is seen as “cringey activism” by some, it becomes more than apparent why representation of any minority in the mainstream media matters.

Pop culture is like a huge educator. We tend to internalize images shown to us from an early age, we learn to normalize toxic behaviors and worldviews in the exact same way, and even if we can’t really control anyone’s parenting (and homophobia and lack of understanding and acceptance, unless it becomes abusive for the minor, and this abuse is apparent to other adults), there’s still hope that pop culture can bring the bigger picture, all the vieriety of human identity and experience, into our homes. 

As I’m thinking about it, I realize that I had never seen a (happy) lesbian couple on television or movies until I was about fourteen or sixteen. Ever. Like, ever. Needless to say, I have my fair share of images depicting straight couples in multiple situations.

So, if you’re not a queer person, a trans person or a person of colour or someone with special needs or mentally ill, and you’re also not convinced by my long-ass rant, consider this: What if you had never ever seen someone like you in a film before until you were fifteen? Or what if you had only seen stereotypical images and expectations of people like you, as a side story to someone else’s bigger and more “important” story? A side story as seen and perceived by the heteronormative gaze?

Or maybe as a joke? A joke that wasn’t made by people like you, people who truly understand what it’s like being you and the actually funny aspects of your own identity and struggles.

Wouldn’t you grow up thinking that you’re a little bit of a monster?

"Like when someone says he wants to watch the world burn. You only get to watch when you have the privilege of not being on fire. It's edgy, but it's not The Darkness. The Darkness is finding a way to laugh about being on fire".  - Natalie Wynn

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PS: I know that I’ve used too many embeded referrences, but if you’re interested in this topic, please take your time to examine them. They have broadened my horizons a lot, and gave me comfort and the validation that I’m not insane for feeling and seeing life that way.

I saw three movies in the last week. They were pretty different to each other, but I quite enjoyed all of them, so I'm resurrecting my film blog to write reviews of them. To 2018, and resolutions to write more!

Call Me By Your Name (2017) Dir: Luca Guadagnino

I was very interested in this pre-release, even though I had never read the book. Luca Guadagnino caught my eye with 2015's A Bigger Splash, which is stylistically very familiar to CMBYN, and which I really enjoyed. Guadagnino shines in the aesthetic of his films, in the beautiful scenery and silences between sparse dialogue. Both create a languid, sumptuous mood - wealth and privilege on show, yet somehow not ostentatious to the viewer.

But where this mood creates distance and miscommunication between the characters of ABS, it brings the characters of CMBYN closer, creates warmth between them, bringing the viewer into Elio's extended family as easily as they welcome Oliver. The film is set over a summer in Northern Italy in 1983, and Guadagino skillfully captures the feeling of a slow, lazy summer pre-internet, where all there is for the teenaged main character, Elio (Timothée Chalamet), to do is lie around the pool swimming or reading, long family meals, piano practice or biking into town.  

Before I go any further, I have to discuss the opening credits, which go on for at least ten minutes and effortlessly set the tone for the casual opulence of the world of the film. Gentle, upbeat classical music plays over photos of classical sculptures - something that Elio's academic father and the grad student who he invites to work with him over the summer seem to be working in the field of - while the credits are written in a messy but elegant script, in a warm yellow shade. All of this somehow worked to already create the mood that pervades the rest of the film - casual wealth and intelligence, warmth and inclusion - before you even meet the Perlmans, and the beautiful villa they spend holidays in.

Some viewers might dislike watching films with wealthy people languishing in villas on holidays, but in the way that Guadagnino presents it, it's enchanting. I loved the feeling of seeing the easy, comfortable way the Perlmans (Elio's family) live on holiday, with their freshly made apricot juice and their family meals in a shaded grove. As I mentioned earlier, it creates a very welcoming vibe that helps you understand the mindset of the newcomer to this idyll, grad student Oliver (Armie Hammer).

The movie is really Chalamet's, and more on him below, but Hammer does quite well in a less showy role as Oliver - who has been invited to spend six weeks at an Italian villa working with an academic he seems to not have personally met before arriving. A great honour, clearly, but it's also awkward, and Hammer plays this slight dissonance well -  he's a non-European American (like the rest of the Perlmans) which is both exciting and awkward to the gathered family and friends of the Perlman. Hammer's Oliver is a lot of contrasts, both interested and scared/offended by Elio, both very confident towards him and very hesitant, both cool and dorky. Armie Hammer's being doing a few lower budget indie, and more off the wall projects since the Lone Ranger debacle didn't launch him into the leading man blockbuster stratosphere, and personally, I think he's much better in these than attempting to be another leading man type. (And for that matter, I am genuinely annoyed both he and Michael Stuhlbarg were passed over for Oscar noms, so they could give two to Three Billboards. It's not like Hammer would have got it, but I think he certainly deserved the nomination.)

As I said though, Chalamet is the standout - it's his story and he does a lot with it. His Elio is very reminiscent of the frustrating uncomfortableness of being a teenager - he's awkward, moody, bitter, cheeky, afraid, delicate and above all, real. What was beautiful about this film is how much everyone loves Elio - he's not always kind and good, but he is also a teenage boy - but his sexuality doesn't shut him off from other people. It's not an isolationist story, like a lot of queer film narratives are. While I can understand the urge to show that side of things, it's incredibly gratifying to see a film about a queer boy in the eighties, where if everyone doesn't know for certain they probably are aware of it in some respect, and they don't seem to care. They just love him, and Chalamet plays Elio's connections with everyone (not just Oliver) beautifully. He certainly deserves his Oscar nomination, even though he's not the favourite to win. He's also in the Oscar nominated Lady Bird, and my feeling is that (hot take alert) he's gonna be big.

Further from this, I love how tactile the characters in this film are. Elio is very cuddly and childlike sometimes with his parents, who are very affectionate to him - and no one tells him "a seventeen year old boy shouldn't do that" which is a blessing. He's very affectionate with the girls he's friends with. His later dynamic with Oliver - once they've admitted to feeling something  for each other - is very affectionate too, kind of awkward but in a sweet way. Not all their encounters are just these highly eroticised moments (which is not to say that none of them are). This makes their burgeoning relationship very real, like a seventeen year old boy fumbling his way toward a relationship that will always be meaningful, a first love more than just lust. Not that his dynamic with his sort-of girlfriend Marzia is unloving, just different, but no less sweet in its newness to the both of them.

On that note, I'm sure some people will say that there was a “lack of explicit sex scenes” in this movie. To that, I say PAH. It’s not like this movie is sanitised and sexless (hello, peach scene. yep.) It’s quite erotic in parts, quite good at conveying Elio's attraction to Oliver, and vice versa. But it feels like (unlike hetero love stories) that queer media is often all or nothing: either completely sexless, even affectionless even in a good relationship (Mitch and Cam on Modern Family didn’t even kiss on screen till like mid season two or three) or incredibly sexualised, and featuring intense sex scenes. This movie walks the rare line between the two - very affectionate (in private, natch) but allowing them the dignity of not being watched - as they always are, even by relatively benign eyes around them - in the moment of consummation. (For more on this - Jason Adams' delicate and moving review, Call Me With Kindness) It’s not even as though there are no on-screen sex acts in the film, either, so I'll say that I think it was a good, well-done balance.

If I had any slight problem with the narrative, it was that I found it hard to understand the progression of Elio and Oliver's relationship pre the mutual reveal of feelings - but that seemed to be a stylistic choice, and ABS was much the same, where the characters barely verbally communicated for a lot of the beginning arc of the film. It could be deliberately unclear- neither of them really know what the other thinks of them until they admit things together, while they're alone for once. Either way, it didn't much mar my enjoyment of their story which is emotional and complex but also very sweet.

The last thing I have to talk about is Michael Stuhlbarg, who is rapidly becoming one of my favourite actors (and who again, I am furious has not picked up any Oscar nominations for any of the great work he did in 2017). He was in two thirds of the films I saw recently, and he managed to be very moving in two small-ish roles. The scene where he tells Elio not to mock his friend and his male partner, that if he can be as knowledgeable as him and as good he'll be "a credit to him". Elio's father is a good man, and you can tell from this moment he doesn't care who Elio loves as long as he doesn't grow up boorish and ignorant. In fact, as much as the love story is engaging, my favourite scene of the file is when Elio and his father discuss Oliver after he has left. It was incredibly affecting to me - Elio's father doesn't come out and say he knew for certain about them, but refers to their "friendship" in the kindest, most respectful way, possibly even hinting about his own sexuality - not necessarily that he's closeted, but that he may have had an Oliver in his past he was too afraid to have anything happen with. Stuhlbarg is just so good, so affecting and plays really well off Chalamét, who allows Elio just the right amount of vulnerability and emotion.

Not to mention, Sufjan Stevens' two gorgeous original songs for the film, but I'll close this out by saying that there's a certain kind of idea about the kind of queer romance film that gets the Academy's attention - that it has to be sad, that the characters have to suffer and end up unhappy, and everyone can discuss how tragic it was. That sort of story is fine, because yes historically many LGBT people couldn't be open or take chances, and many did suffer. But that's not the only LGBT narrative to be told, even when set decades ago - and I'm thrilled to see films like 2016's Carol, 2017's Best Picture Winner Moonlight, and CMBYN tell a new kind of queer narrative where the characters are allowed to be happy even in an oppressive time, where the characters can break up and be miserable because of that (and not because of illness or bigoted violence), where the focus is just the love story. It gives me hope for the generation of younger LGBT viewers to see themselves outside of misery narratives.

4/5 stars

End Verbal Queer Discrimination

*DISCLAIMER: This article is the full, unedited, uncut, uncensored version of a column (opinion article) written for my school newspaper in regards to a situation that has started to cause problems around my school. This article is the opinion of the writer and does not reflect the view of my newspaper staff. If you were wondering, this article is also written by an LGBT+ person. Opinions expressed are focused towards my school, our USD, and the State of Kansas laws but can be taken into context for other places. Sources are bolded*

End verbal queer discrimination

Jordan Lutz

Blue M Business Manager

When we were younger, everyone heard the idiom, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” As grew older we realized that phrase was not true. We know now that words can hurt. Most people seem to know what words hurt and avoid saying them when needed. Yet, there are words and phrases people use despite knowledge that they cause harm. Words and phrases such as “faggot”, “dyke”, “That’s so gay” and many more. These words have increased in usage a Manhattan High and it is only appropriate that the student body be informed of the harm they could be causing others who hear them.

In an article posted to the American Psychological Association, Kevin L. Nadal, associate professor of psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, of wrote about microaggressions with a focus on the LGBT+ community.

“Microaggressions are the everyday encounters of subtle discrimination that people of various marginalized groups experience throughout their lives,” Nadal said.

Sometimes these acts are done without knowledge or intent. This is something that plagues many of us without realizing it. Studying the effects of microaggressions on LGBT+ individuals with colleagues Melissa Corpus and David Rivera, they saw that ⅔ of LGBT+ high school students felt unsafe in their environment due to the usage of homophobic and transphobic terminology. They linked to other studies that showed people’s negative words was a major cause of depression, psychological distress and possible physical health issues that could be traced to stress. These transgressions pile up and could lead to suicide, which, according to an article updated in March by the CDC, found that LGBT+ students were more than twice as likely to commit suicide when compared to heterosexual peers due to verbal and/or physical violence.

People may not realize it, but the hurt does not only happen at school but it could happen at home as well. The fact that the verbal goes on in school only piles onto the stress that could be affecting a person. According to psychologist Michael Friedman, 85% of LGBT+ people are verbally abused at school. Most may not think this but simple words can be abusive with or without intention. Throwing words like “faggot”, “fairy”, “butch” and more are, in fact, abusive words. They are thrown around by celebrities as if they are nothing but they are something. They are words that shows the disregard shown to the queer population over centuries. Using those words despite being asked to stop is abuse and disrespect to that person. No one knows another story without being told. If someone asks for a word not to be said because they find it offensive, stop saying it. Pure and simple. Don’t go and use other, equally, offensive words to replace the one blocked. That is not how it works. Unless you are in the LGBT+ community, you have no rights to those words. Before anything is said, no. Allies are not included in having any rights to use offensive words. Even queer people don’t always have a claim to these words.

Now, students are not the only ones who have been causing this problem. School faculty has played a role in encouraging this behavior by not stopping it. According to our school handbook, MHS’ mission is to “ equip all students to become successful, productive citizens” with two ways to accomplish said mission being to “provide a safe and secure learning environment” and “support each students’ social and emotional growth.” Words that are condemned by most of the LGBT+ community can have devastating consequences to queer students if they hear them. According to “A Psychosocial Perspective on Violence and Youth,” written by A.R D'Augelli and L. J. Dark, queer students are put at risk because they do not seek support from faculty due to the belief that staff may be intolerant and not provide confidential help. In the “From Teasing to Torment: School Climate in America, A Survey of Students and Teachers,” published by GLSEN, four out of five students knew that they did not have any support at their respective schools. Now put this into perspective at our school. Students are careful to not say such things in front of staff but there have been instances where derogatory terms are used in front of faculty but nothing is done. Lack of reaction or quick put down of the use of derogatory queer words shows LGBT+ students that faculty really do not care. It shows that the support at MHS is lacking. How can the school expect to support a student’s emotional growth if actions like this are left unpunished?  How can the school provide a safe learning environment if they allow hurtful actions like this, no matter how small, be openly shown? Let us not forget the queer students who refuse to participate in sports due to the overuse of such words and people being scared to share a locker room with queers, which is an unlawful discrimination according to the 2016 Title IX Department of Justice and Department of Education letter which states that schools must, “provide an environment free of harassment.” Having students be afraid to join a school activity due to verbal harassment is in direct violation of this Title IX viewing.

MHS is certainly one of the most supporting school I have seen but there is so much room for improvement here. Stopping words like “faggot/fag,” “dyke,” “That’s so gay,” and “tranny” is the first step of many for positive reform. Training teachers in how to handle situations where a queer student feels ostracized from their peers due to words like these being thrown around is a solution. Adding an LGBT+ section to anti-bullying presentations could be another possible step. There is so much more that this school could, and should, be doing to help integrate acceptance for its queer population.

Consumer Guide / No.46 / writer & translator (and inaugural Translator in Residence at the British Library) Jen Calleja with Mark Watkins.

MW: Where’s home?

JC: I live in Brixton, London with my partner and our cat Ludo. I’ve lived in London for nearly ten years in total (including university), but I’m originally from Shoreham-By-Sea in West Sussex, which is where my parents still live.

MW: Tell me about your work...

JC: Well, I’m a jack of all trades really, and I’ve worked hard to be able to do that; to do a bit of everything I love and feel passionate about. I’m a writer of fiction and poetry; a literary translator from German; the inaugural translator in residence at the British Library; a columnist on translated literature; and a co-coordinator, spokesperson and workshop leader for an independent campaign tackling sexual harassment in the night time economy.

My first collection of poetry, Serious Justice, came out last year and I’m currently finishing writing my first novel. I’ve also published a number of short stories over the years and had a few writing commissions for musical and artistic projects. I’ve been a literary translator for about five years. I lived in Munich for eighteen months before starting my degree in writing and literature, and got my German to a good enough level to translate just through reading German novels and poetry. I’ve translated ten books from German so far, and I’m starting work on number 11 shortly. I’ve supplemented these jobs by editing and translating for magazines, residencies and connected jobs.

The column at The Quietus came about from wanting to be able to promote translated literature on a general literary platform; there are a few amazing translated literature focused journals and websites, but I wanted to help bring those conversations and books into the mainstream. So I pitched it to The Quietus and they enthusiastically accepted. I seek out a different language and different ‘question’ about the process, ethics or significance of a translation for each column, and I’ve always got my eyes peeled for the next one. I currently have three columns on the go.

I’m three months into a year-long one-day-a-week residency at the British Library where I’m promoting translation and the role of the translator. This is through curating a public events programme, exploring the Library’s multilingual staff and visitors through a short film, and even writing a collection of poetry inspired by the archive of poet-translator Michael Hamburger. There’s about a dozen projects I’m working on for it. It’s an amazing opportunity and it’s been incredible so far.

I’ve been volunteering as one of the coordinators and as a paid workshop leader for the Good Night Out Campaign for about a year. The campaign not only raises awareness about the amount of sexual harassment and assault that happens in bars, clubs, venues and pubs but primarily trains staff in participating premises how to react, handle and hopefully prevent harassment. It’s an intense but incredibly worthwhile role and I love doing this work. We’re in the process of rolling out the campaign across London and other cities in the UK. It’s also starting up in the US, Canada, Australia and the Czech Republic.

MW: ... your favourite piece of literature from the past and the present?

JC: In this moment I’m going to say Pale Fire, but basically anything written by Vladimir Nabokov. Could have easily been Lolita or any of his short stories. He is the master of the tragi-comedic and taught me so much about how the smallest difference in someone else and between characters can be enormous and have enormous consequences.

And from right now, even though she’s dead and it’s the centenary of her birth, Leonora Carrington’s collection of short stories The Debutante and Other Stories. It’s just come out with Silver Press in the UK and will make you feel like a child reading fairy tales for the first time.

MW: What have you most enjoyed translating ? How do you ensure such translations remain true to the original?

JC: I love telling great stories, including those that happen to have been written in German by someone else. I read a chapter I’d translated of my favourite German book at a reading event a few weeks ago and people went crazy for it, and couldn’t believe it hadn’t been translated. Literary translation for me, in brief, is getting across the same meaning even if the expressions or words wouldn’t match up in the dictionary. Word for word translation is a myth, languages can’t be mapped onto one another as every word/expression has a different nuance, history, tone in every language. Translation is technically impossible, and yet we do it every day. I could talk forever about translation.

MW: Do you prefer to construct, de-construct or destroy art - why?

JC: I have always wanted to make things and write, to express things and create art; it’s how I think about the world and how to be in it. Deconstructing makes me think of reviewing and I hate reviewing, in the most part (but not always) it’s preachy and there are too many rules to how to do it for me to be good at it or interested in it. You can’t be precious and art objects and all art has the fate of one day being destroyed. The ideas, impetus and energy behind or around something lives on of course, even if the object is gone. More art will come after the art that already exists and will override or usurp what comes before it.

MW: Is 'Girl Power', the spirit of the 90's Britpop age still around, and if so, where can it be found in UK culture today?

JC: I don’t really know much about Britpop, I was a bit too young at the time, though in recent years there’s been a lot written about how macho that period was and how that ‘girl power’ movement tried to rival this.

You won’t find much of a non-male or feminist presence in mainstream music (I’ve written before about how UK festival bills are overwhelmingly male) or if you do see a band with women in they’re treated in a tokenistic and frequently sexist way.

However, the DIY music scene right now is filled with the best punk and DIY bands who are feminist, queer and comprised of women, trans and non-binary musicians. It is seriously a weird novelty to go to a show – or should be – in the DIY music scene and see an all-male bill.

In fact, the norm in the scenes I move in is that every band will have at least one woman in, if not have multiple bands with all-women on the bill, and the people on stage and in the crowd will stand up for intersectional (anti-racist, anti-ableist, anti-transphobic and anti-homophobic) feminist values as the norm.

MW: Tell me about making music and your bands (seemingly) post-punk sensibilities....

JC: I play in a few bands, which I see as part of my creative practice and inseparable to all the other things I do. My writing has even appeared on my bands’ records and I’ve written about being in bands in my fiction and poetry.

I would refer to them as DIY punk/post-punk bands I guess; self-promoting, self-booking, self-releasing or put out on independent labels, previously self-recording, preferably playing in DIY and independent venues. Currently these are Sauna Youth (vox, sampler), Gold Foil (vox, bass) and Mind Jail (drums); and previously: Feature (vox, drums) and Monotony (drums).

I started teaching myself the drums when I was 18, and started my first (short lived but very fun) band when I was 19 at university. Over the last few years I’ve got to do a couple of short tours in the UK with Feature, and tour the UK, Europe and America with Sauna Youth, but thought I would slow down with music stuff this year; instead it seems to have ramped up. I have multiple band practices a week, sometimes in the day, so it’s handy being freelance.

There have been some really memorable highlights over the years, like supporting bands I admire in the DIY scene and beyond, playing a festival at one in the morning in San Sebastian in Spain, playing a basement show on a stormy night in Minneapolis, and getting to sing for Pissed Jeans at a festival in Switzerland. Most recently (at the age of 30) I’ve started playing the bass so I could replace our bass player in Gold Foil, while carrying on being the singer.

MW: What makes a ‘Good Night Out’ ?

JC: Going to see a show, or going to the cinema on my own and always one where harassment doesn’t have to ruin your night: www.goodnightoutcampaign.org

MW...and a 'Good Night In' ?

JC: Watching RuPaul’s Drag Race.

MW:: How do you envisage the rest of 2017 panning out for you?

JC: Finishing the novel, starting a new poetry collection, pulling off my residency projects, helping Good Night Out grow, and going on tour later in the year. Oh, and I’m getting married.

www.jencalleja.com

@niewview​

(C) Mark Watkins / June 2017

Michael on the Late Late Show a few years ago talking about how he was almost in a production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and I cannot overstate how much I wish this had actually happened...

(Bonus: Completely unintentional reference to the beginning of episode 3 of The Way at the end by James Corden, along with Michael's reaction. The noise I made...)

angelsadvocate96 replied to your post "I am entirely floored at the discourse that's been…"

Calling him "nonpracticing" erases all of his sexuality, not just the part they don't want to see. He has 2 children under age 5, so he's clearly been "practicing," making the term is demonstrably untrue. Michael's sexuality is palpable, you can feel it through the screen. To deny any part of that is not only dehumanizing but de-Michaelizing.

@angelsadvocate96

Would you or could you possibly list David and Michael's gay roles?

Hi Anon! Sure thing. In fact, I’ll do you one better. There is actually a post from @julielilac that lists all of Michael’s gay roles (13, at last count, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there are more), complete with gifs. So you can check all those out there.

As for David, as I mentioned in a previous post, there are only a few that are explicitly gay. These are the ones that come to mind, but if I am missing any, someone please let me know:

- Rab C. Nesbitt (1993) - Davina - Einstein & Eddington (2008) - Sir Arthur Eddington - The Catherine Tate Show (2009) - Ghost of Christmas Present - Good Omens (2019--) - Crowley - Des (2020) - Dennis Nilsen - Heart to Heart (2020) - Lump the Heart

Again, it seems like such a strange thing to realize that David has actually played so few explicitly/overtly queer characters. There are others that come to mind that to me feel queer, even though they actually aren’t.

Peter Vincent? There is nothing 100% straight on that man. Alec Hardy? If “sad gay” was in the dictionary, the definition would just be a picture of him. Benedick from Much Ado About Nothing? Chaotically bisexual in every sense of the phrase. Tenth Doctor? Pansexual space bottom with hair gel.

And yet--somehow, some way--none of those characters are specifically written as queer. Strange, isn’t it? But there it is.

I hope this helps you out, Anon. Thanks for writing in! x

Behind the scenes of filming Bright Young Things.