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Matt Baume's Interview With the Vampire, Anne Rice, & 150 Years of Gay Vampires is out and I may actually watch the TV series after seeing that.
I know Anne Rice has been a discourse topic in fandom, but I was only vaguely aware of it and never read past the first book. I like the first book, but watching the video re-affirmed my view that it should have been a stand alone and pushing for direct sequels was always going to be a mess. But, one thing surprised me about the video... and maybe this is because I haven't discussed Anne Rice with anyone since I was a teenager.
When I was a teen, if you thought the books were gay you were called a weirdo. The book and movie were very popular in my high school, and pointing out there may be any queerness was... social death. Maybe they all knew and didn't want to be called out on it? Maybe I was breaking an invisible social rules of 'don't point out that all the girls are reading homoerotic stuff'. But, also at the time a lot of people were saying that certain media/books weren't gay when they were. Like, I got into arguments over Virginia Woolf books in college. I studied her a lot in college because I did a term abroad in England and one of the courses I got into was all about her and included trips to places she'd live and also where she died. There is a lot of erasure of queerness in history, but also in media and history of media. One thing I like about Matt Baume's series is that he goes back and talks to original creators who can now openly say 'yeah, this was all meant to be a queer metaphor, how was that not obvious?' And of course in Stranger Things fandom people are still arguing if Will Byers is gay or 'just a late bloomer due to trauma' (I think he's both, but can't say that in fandom because if I say he has some trauma delays people think I am trying to argue that the boy is straight and he's not. It was super obvious from one of the early season 1 episodes. One of the brilliant things about the show is how carefully they are doing that storyline.)
Anyway, I digress. I expected Matt's video to start out with a defense that yes, the book is homoerotic. But, he didn't feel the need to. I was kind of looking forward to a 'yes this is gay you idiots' video essay, but maybe at long last there is at least one major piece of modern lit where we don't need to have that conversation anymore. Though I did see some people worry that the show might try to de-gay the story, but apparently it didn't.
I know Anne Rice has been a discourse topic in fandom, but I was only vaguely aware of it and never read past the first book. I like the first book, but watching the video re-affirmed my view that it should have been a stand alone and pushing for direct sequels was always going to be a mess. But, one thing surprised me about the video... and maybe this is because I haven't discussed Anne Rice with anyone since I was a teenager.
When I was a teen, if you thought the books were gay you were called a weirdo. The book and movie were very popular in my high school, and pointing out there may be any queerness was... social death. Maybe they all knew and didn't want to be called out on it? Maybe I was breaking an invisible social rules of 'don't point out that all the girls are reading homoerotic stuff'. But, also at the time a lot of people were saying that certain media/books weren't gay when they were. Like, I got into arguments over Virginia Woolf books in college. I studied her a lot in college because I did a term abroad in England and one of the courses I got into was all about her and included trips to places she'd live and also where she died. There is a lot of erasure of queerness in history, but also in media and history of media. One thing I like about Matt Baume's series is that he goes back and talks to original creators who can now openly say 'yeah, this was all meant to be a queer metaphor, how was that not obvious?' And of course in Stranger Things fandom people are still arguing if Will Byers is gay or 'just a late bloomer due to trauma' (I think he's both, but can't say that in fandom because if I say he has some trauma delays people think I am trying to argue that the boy is straight and he's not. It was super obvious from one of the early season 1 episodes. One of the brilliant things about the show is how carefully they are doing that storyline.)
Anyway, I digress. I expected Matt's video to start out with a defense that yes, the book is homoerotic. But, he didn't feel the need to. I was kind of looking forward to a 'yes this is gay you idiots' video essay, but maybe at long last there is at least one major piece of modern lit where we don't need to have that conversation anymore. Though I did see some people worry that the show might try to de-gay the story, but apparently it didn't.
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Date: 2022-10-03 04:17 am (UTC)From:But I DO remember the "debates" over whether it was "acceptable" to read queerness in her work. Most of my friend group seemed to agree that yes, there was at least some homoeroticism, but then also weirdly came down on the side of "but don't try to make that 'more than it is'". Like it was okay to notice it, but any further acknowledgment or discussion was crossing some invisible line.
the line was homophobiaAll that said... I'm kind of intrigued despite myself at the new series, haha.
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Date: 2022-10-03 07:20 am (UTC)From:I remember something vaguely about 'don't make more of it than it is' argument, like it wasn't okay to enjoy that aspect of it. You had to like be distant and disconnected from it.
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Date: 2022-10-04 02:06 am (UTC)From:And no kidding. Having to defend that very obvious homoeroticism... exists... is such a weird "this isn't even square one, it's like we've backed off the board entirely" position to have to start from, it makes it feel like you aren't even looking at the same text!
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Date: 2022-10-05 12:28 am (UTC)From: