No One Cares About Queer Folks as A lot as Queer Folks
Due to an outpouring of help, we made our fundraiser objective in JUST FIVE DAYS!!! Thanks for those who’re an A+ member or for those who donated. This help implies that Autostraddle can survive by means of January, that we’re okay for now. However as we stay up for an really fairly scary 2023, we’ve got to acknowledge that we want extra month-to-month A+ members on our facet with a view to proceed to maintain this area round. So a lot of our unimaginable writers and group members wrote posts for the fundraiser, and we’re going to run them by means of the twelfth, throughout our Month-to-month A+ Member Drive. Should you enroll on the $6/month stage or greater as a month-to-month member earlier than the midnight PST on the twelfth of November, you’ll get a bonus pack of 4 stickers, too, on high of the standard perks. So, what do you say? Will you be part of?
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The very very first thing I bought paid to put in writing for the web was in 2012 for an LGBTQ+ web site, and it was an article about As soon as Upon a Time. “However Valerie,” I hear you protest. “As soon as Upon a Time wasn’t queer but in 2012.” And you’ll be proper to say so! However canon LGBTQ+ characters have been so restricted that queer media web sites needed to fill their homepage with something they might discover. This included wildly fashionable non-canon ships like Swan Queen.
To rewind even additional, the best way I even bought began writing about TV was on my private weblog. I had began writing Glee recaps as a result of I couldn’t discover ones I appreciated. Looking Google for Glee recaps was ineffective as a result of it was so fashionable that the one outcomes have been from mainstream web sites. (And this stored me from discovering Autostraddle sooner! Impolite.) These web sites have been fawning over Rachel and Finn or transport Quinn and Puck. Nobody was seeing the spark between Rachel and Quinn. Most egregiously, nobody gave the impression to be paying NEARLY sufficient consideration to the one, the one, Santana Lopez and her proper hand girl, Brittany S. Pierce. So I wrote my very own. Heather Hogan really scooped me up from these foolish little recaps and helped me work on a pitch to undergo the aforementioned web site. (We ended up writing there collectively earlier than we got here to Autostraddle, individually however maybe inevitably.) And I did get to put in writing about canon queer characters lastly, on exhibits like Orphan Black, Rookie Blue, and even As soon as Upon a Time when it will definitely bought homosexual.
Prior to now decade, lots has modified. Now we’ve got so many canon LGBTQ+ characters that we’ve got a complete TV Workforce at Autostraddle. And we will barely sustain with all of the exhibits and storylines! Queer followers used to must make up our personal hashtags (like #clonesbians) to search out one another. Nobody was speaking about the identical characters as we have been in the principle hashtag! And now we’ve got exhibits whose essential solid is hyping up our queer ships on their Twitter feeds.
However some issues haven’t modified. It’s nonetheless onerous to search out journalists who watch TV the identical method you and I do. It’s onerous to search out anybody who doesn’t care as a lot in regards to the lore of the totems that the group wants to gather and cares extra about whether or not Sara and Ava are simply going to confess their emotions for one another already. I’ve been spoiled, I admit, working in queer media for so long as I’ve, that typically I neglect this truth. However then I’ll get snapped again to actuality. Once I watched Black Sails, Eleanor Guthrie was the principle character. Her relationship with Max and Max’s relationship with Anne Bonney have been paramount to the story, virtually the complete level of the present. However after a HUGE Eleanor episode, the creators hardly talked about Eleanor in any respect in an interview about it. It was simply in regards to the explosions they set off and the “journey” the male characters went on. Once more, I remembered: not everybody watches TV the best way we do.
Some folks grumble about how a lot “simpler” youthful generations have it. Like how our mother and father walked to highschool within the snow uphill each methods. However not me. I’m glad Gen Z doesn’t have to attend till Sweeps Week to even begin hoping for 2 women to kiss. I’m relieved that anybody exploring their sexuality doesn’t have to look “lesbian kiss compilation” on YouTube, go to the outline for timestamps and present names, then watch that present on Megavideo 72 minutes at a time. I’m thrilled you don’t have to attend three days for one episode of Misplaced Lady to obtain. I’m so pleased you don’t have to observe a present simply because it’s homosexual, that you’ve exhibits to select from. I’m ecstatic Autostraddle exists so you may open a streaming information and discover one thing that appears attention-grabbing to YOU. Even for those who disagree with the opinions of whoever reviewed the newest queer TV present or film, that they’ll have been taking note of the identical characters and relationships you have been. (After which, on high of that, the remark part is, most of the time, a spot for debate and dialogue, not a village of trolls smashing every little thing in sight.)
Autostraddle is a particular place, nevertheless it’s additionally a uncommon place. There aren’t loads of locations which are for us and by us. Have you ever ever been to a comic book con panel for a present that has a queer facet plot that isn’t a part of the principle plot? Should you haven’t, it goes like this: you and your mates sit collectively, and when the queer characters are talked about for the primary time, you’ll all ‘woo!’ with the gusto one has if you assume the entire room goes to ‘woo!’ However then…they don’t all ‘woo!’ Solely you and your mates ‘woo!’ And that’s if you’ll understand nobody is as invested in our tales as we’re. Nobody will have fun and criticize them with the care we do.
Mainstream websites will write cookie cutter evaluations that haven’t any opinion, no stake within the content material, all written in the identical unvoiced tone. In the meantime we may have each individual on the Autostraddle TV group write a evaluation of the identical piece of media and get very totally different opinions, interpretations, and kinds of writing. Have you learnt what number of mainstream websites have been writing extra about Mon-El than Lena of their Supergirl evaluations? I didn’t point out his identify in most of my recaps. And never solely did my editors help it, they inspired it. On a mainstream web site, a cis white male author will say he “didn’t join” to the queer characters of shade, like he was ever meant to. It’s why Autostraddle needed to give you our personal TV Awards! Regardless of what number of gorgeous, excellent queer exhibits are made, one factor has at all times been true: mainstream media won’t ever care about us as a lot as we care about one another.
I would like Autostraddle to maintain being a spot the place folks can come collectively and love exhibits and flicks the best way we do. I would like us to maintain breaking down The L Phrase trailers body by body. I would like us to maintain calmly roasting exhibits whereas celebrating their unusually positioned queer B plot. I would like us to obsess over exhibits collectively to the purpose we make purchasing guides and quizzes about them.
So whereas issues are altering slowly however steadily in the suitable path, I can not specific to you the way shortly issues will backslide with out impartial queer media. Too many networks don’t spend the identical form of cash on promoting their queer exhibits as they do their largest properties. It’s as much as us to unfold the phrase, to make noise on social media, to remind the mainstream that we’re right here, we’re queer, and we wish to see our tales on display screen. And with out websites like Autostraddle, that job will turn out to be exponentially tougher. As a result of as I mentioned earlier than: nobody cares about queer folks as a lot as queer folks. We now have to do what we will to help one another and raise one another’s voices. Collectively, we could be loud sufficient to be heard. And the easiest way to make sure a long-lasting future is to decide to a month-to-month A+ membership; A+ members are the muse Autostraddle stands on, and the extra members we’ve got, the stronger we’ll be. And in contrast to your streaming service subscriptions, we’ll by no means bury a homosexual, or cancel your favourite present. Actually, we’ll nonetheless discuss these canceled exhibits lengthy after they’re gone, retaining their reminiscence alive. Will you be part of your fellow Autostraddle neighborhood members in supporting our fundraiser by becoming a member of A+ as a month-to-month member? Each single individual issues a lot with regards to working an indie outlet like this one.
And in addition, as we speak’s the final day to join an A+ month-to-month membership on the $6 a month stage or greater and obtain a particular fundraiser sticker pack (pictured beneath) as an additional particular bonus. Join as we speak?
Be a part of A+!
The sticker pack in query.
