You are not in the position of resenting the accusation of homophobia when you are complaining about a very minor representation of a gay relationship on TV that has absolutely no impact on the programme when you would not have had a problem if those angels were straight.
Do you have some gay friends. What do you want? A fucking medal? Your attitude on this issue is, regardless, homophobic.
You missed the main point of the argument. When he was writing the books homosexuality was just not part of the battlegrounds straight people would have been thinking of with these sorts of arguments. I did my A levels in 96 and there was not a single out gay kid in the entire school. It was very different as little as 15 years later. Homosexuality just wasnât enough in the consciousness of straight people to know we had to defend it. Today it is, and it changed very rapidly. So yes, its modernization of the material, but an entirely appropriate one consistent with the entire point of the story that grounds the battle between religious oppression vs freedom in its contemporary context.
This is an astonishingly clueless thing to say. Actually, insultingly so.
So people care if a new story has gay / trans characters? Youâll point me to this. I suspect you mis-understood my point. Once upon a time a gay relationship, a gay kiss even holding hands was a hell of an event. I remember the first gay kiss on Eastenders making the headlines. Now, correctly, nobody cares and rightly so.
I am when youâre flat out wrong.
Nobody cares, but clearly you do - a lot apparently. Sorry mate, doesnât make sense to me.
You also miss the point. Nobody cares about 2 men or 2 women kissing anymore. Weâve moved past that in our society. The issue is inserting it into a story where it wasnât there before purely to virtue signal. As I keep saying.
to change topic, I started on Jack Ryan last night. not a bad start.
If he had included gay characters in a young adult fiction book in the 1990s there is fuck all chance he could have had them published. Section 28 was not repealed until 2000 in Scotland and 2003 in England.
No. All these characters still exist so have not been replaced.
All the more reason he should have included them? Off to google the reference, not something Iâm aware of.
I am when youâre flat out wrong.
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Then allow me to present my position
They are ageless, trans-dimensional angels ffs, and the element of their character that you find objectionable is that they are gay. There is little presented narratively that would suggest this is noteworthy, there is nothing written about the sex life of angels or how they reproduce, if they do at all. For all we know the gender of angels might be irrelevant. They may not even have genders. They are certainly presented androgenously. To start from the presumption that angels mirror humanity in how they form bonds of love is an extension of your own prejudice and desire to be offended. You see a âgay relationshipâ because you want to see a âgay relationshipâ. That said, the remainder of this post will assume they are gay, because thatâs the nature of your complaint.
You are complaining that itâs a change to the books, however Pullman is a producer on the show and approves of the changes. He is fine with it. As @Limiescouse has noted, the books were written 25-30 years ago and the battleground on relationships and faith has changed markedly in that time. To contemporise that story for an audience in 2023, that battleground will by necessity have to shift. For the opponents of the Authority to be comfortable and at ease with same sex relationships and all forms of love makes complete sense and contrasts them from the church, which is shown to be bigoted across many spheres. The central theme of the story is freedom from religious oppression, and there is no greater freedom than the freedom to love who you choose.
From the narrative of the story it was important that those characters were in love. When one dies, the loss is felt achingly by the other. Itâs an important milestone in Will and Lyra understanding the pain of loss and being able to accept their ultimate fate. And it pays off in the final episode when the angel sacrifices itself to protect Lyra from Father Gomez. Yes, their love matters narratively. Did they have to be gay? No, not really. But nor did they have to he hetro, and given it doesnât matter what nature their love takes, why not make them gay and have a bit of representation? Itâs the kind of non intrusive representation you claim to be in favour of. Which takes us on to 4.
From a box ticking angle, yes. Letâs tick those boxes. Letâs get them all fucking ticked. There is still a massive issue with violence and oppression towards gay people, so letâs do everything we can to normalise gay relationships and make people become comfortable with them. Suggesting that gay people do representation in âtheir ownâ shows is both hopelessly naive (given what Iâve previously written about how the entertainment industry works) and also supports the notion of âghettoisingâ gay people. I donât think gay people want their own gay characters in their own gay TV shows. They want their lives represented in mainstream programmes that everyone sees (Russell T Davies writes eloquently about this).
You having some gay friends does not insulate you from having homophobic views called out. To be honest, Iâm quite surprised anyone would use the ââŚbut some of my best friends areâŚâ defence in 2023. It long past being ironic.
You said thisâŚ
Firstly, you clearly do care a lot, because itâs front and centre of a lot of your complaints about a lot of things, alongside the skin colour of magical creatures and whether women should be allowed to have sword fights. The line ânobody caresâ is a bit ironic, when itâs the main thing youâve chosen to pick out from three series of television. You obviously care.
You said that when there was a gay relationship on TV, it used to be treated as a big deal. So isnât this supposed to be what you want? It was an implied relationship between two male characters (if, in fact, they were male) that was not treated with any particular song and dance. They were just gay, and that was that. You donât get to complain about gay relationships being given special prominence and at the same time complain about one is treated as a narrative sidebar. It starts to look awfully like you just donât want to see gay relationship on TV.
So, for all these reasons. I maintain your opinion is homophobic. Of course youâll object to that, and of course youâll resent the accusation. I knew you would. But I think itâs important when people are being homophobic that itâs noted. Iâm not accusing you of posting shit through gay peoples letterboxes or hatred like that. Iâm saying this obsession you have with gay relationships on TV, even when they are justifiable, unobtrusive and make total narrative sense, as they do in Dark Materials, is a bit homophobic and you ought to have a rethink. Opinions are their to be challenged and changed.
I love it when grown men start arguing over fairy tales.
This is the fundamental incoherence of the argument Iâve been struggling to articulate.
The point of the relationship is not to generate any response to it, but simply to reflect one of the avenues on which the battle is being fought. Again, if someone cannot understand why a same sex relationship would be used in this way given the current political climate and the way this is playing in real peopleâs lives, then I dont know what to say.
And silly me thought this is a topic about TV shows that people like âŚ
And then sometimes people say homophobic things. Werenât you around for the âblack dwarvesâ fiasco?
So this is where all the angry nerds hang out.
Why wouldnât you as a mod delete before allowing it to escalate?
Itâs a lot better to challenge it, in my opinion.
And honestly, if you knew @klopptimist, youâd know heâd take a lot more offence to having his post deleted than challenged.
Ok, then do so by moving the topic of conversation to the relevant thread?
Got no problem with anyone challenging anything they feel the need to.
Rest of us can continue discussing TV related mattersâŚisnât this why we have different topics?
Is there anything stopping me from blurting out my grossly sexual fantasies in here?