Gay Heroes

 I think the first idea that pops into anyone’s head when trying to help a minority through art is… have you tried superheroes?

When I first tried to learn how to write after the 2008 election (Prop. 8), this was indeed the first idea I had as well. And it’s literally what I’m still creating now. I just call them action heroes though, as I believe there is fundamentally no difference, and the latter is far more recognized as legitimate.

Over the years I have taken particular note of what other artists are trying in terms of gay heroes, from the comic book artists, to the big budget blockbusters, and I think my observations are interesting enough to warrant a blog entry.

What does a gay hero team look like to a queer liberal comic book artist? Diverse. Eclectic. Penile counts way below 50% for most of them. Hair colors unnatural at above 100… somehow.

Often “power” based universes with low emphasis on mysteries or reveals. Not genre fans. I find that bizarro… but whatever, it’s just my observation.

They seem to be enchanted by the art of it all. The images they’ve dreamed of forever, now finally exist. And often nowhere else too.

While the character cast could reflect their personal friend circles… I’m just not sure anyone can naturally assemble THAT diverse of a team irl. Even the queers. No really.

As such it seems to be assemblages derived from what they believe is the perfect mix of representations of every last human on Earth. Teams designed to never leave anyone out, ever again. A noble goal indeed.

Now, you don’t have to believe me, as I certainly do not have even close to better credentials than them in creating art…. But my commentary here is as follows…

It might be surprising to you (or not) that lesbians and gay men often are not friends. It’s not like we are enemies though. It’s just that we have very little in common in reality, and our friend circles do not overlap with each other. I’m a man who likes men. They are women who like women. 

We have been thrown together as political allies, and in that regard we are BFFs… but elsewhere in reality we do not comingle nearly as often.

So when I think of gay men watching a movie, or making use of any art, I can’t help but imagine that they would want to see or be better served by stories and romances that are written for them specifically. Our lives are unique enough, and certainly are our shapes. And I feel these stories ring a little bit more true in the end, than if I was just staring at a lineup of the current demographics of the democratic national party. That’s not quite so much a story to me, as much as an image of the reactionary politics of the time.

I don’t want to see a distillation of the allies marching together.

I just want to see a cowboy save another cowboy.

And then continue to see that constantly forever in some sort of gay cowboy IV feed directly into my arteries.  Just like the heterosexuals do for themselves nightly... with their heterosexual cowboys or whatever.

It’s okay to have simple, direct goals, if they may accomplish what you want in the end better. And I think I’m going to stick to my guns on that one cowpoke.

*tips hat*

 *spits into spitoon*

*shuffles out the saloon door, spurs a rattlin’*

Now to get to the Hollywood side of the gay heroes, my observations are a bit different… but still sort of lead to the same conclusion. Let’s take a look.

The Hollywood gay heroes are newer, and the struggle to get them there is well known. In order to afford the budget of this art, it better make its return. And as such, risk taking with a much maligned minority isn’t exactly on the top of their must to-do lists. And so the method that this feat seems to have been accomplished by, is creating art designed for everyone (the majority still first), but now containing gay characters. I believe this is the standard approach to adding in minority characters in this industry, historically.

However, the specific stories that are a result of this process, may in fact not meet the needs of the gay community, as I’ve described in a previous blog entry. Both in amount, and in style. These stories (in at least toward their minority additions) are created to reduce hatred and bigotry, and are certainly effective in doing so. But there are other extremely important uses to art, and in this regard, I have to wonder/hope that there is a better way. Because I still feel the answer is to create art specifically for gay men, and gay men only. Or for lesbians, and lesbians only, as it were.  Etc. Etc. (I mean anyone could make use of such art, but it wouldn’t be designed or written with that in mind.)

Again, I know this view runs contrary to the common liberal thought on what the future should look like (both in art and in reality), and many often can bristle at my words. But it still makes the most sense to me nonetheless.

When I first began to learn to write/film, I quickly arrived at genre being my answer. Genre has it all, with all the epic romances you could ever want. The one problem being that genre is usually prohibitively expensive for anyone to do without Hollywood.

But you only have to look to The Twilight Zone to know what is possible in genre on a limited budget if you are good. (Maybe the best ever.) Unfortunately I wasn’t able to quite get there while I was trying to film, but I still do know that it is possible, and there are far better artists out there than me that could do it, easily, if given the resources.

I am still trying to create my gay4gay heroes however, and call attention to the facts I believe to be true whenever I can. If I can’t get there, maybe someone else can. A lot of my thoughts have been written out here. 

This is how I feel everyone acts when I talk about creating gay heroes for adult gay men only.

                                                Could you not have brought another gurney?

                                           (Sidenote: I don’t know why I’m on an X-Files kick.)

I do realize the developmental years are rather intrinsic.. but 18-80 is a long time here folks, and I guarantee you that child is going to still need healthcare once they reach adulthood. Same with art. Same with culture.

My previous art before recently was actually all ages gay only (as I am acutely aware of our teen suicide issue), but I strongly feel art created for adult gay men only can still meet a vast number of my goals in the end. Enough so, to still be worth it to continue in this manner. Though with the fans of any of my work ranking somewhere between zero to one, I’m still waiting to see if I can manage to get anything I create to “click” out there. Furthermore, my attempts to find resources by other means in order to create this dream, have also not worked as of yet so far. Maybe I should focus more on my art or on a business, and less on these blog entries… until I have anyone on my website to even read them.

-Fin