This is inspired by two flawed essays I read recently:
BaitWorks – How DreamWorks Engaged in Predatory Marketing Towards LGBT Fans
I Don't Wanna Grow Up (And Neither Can You)
Both make some good points about how media corporations manipulate fans with half-assed tokenistic gestures towards inclusivity. The second focusses more on how fans are complicit in this: the way bland, heteronormative blockbusters like the MCU get a free pass while messy indie queer women are attacked for actually trying to express themselves.
But they both also act like queer creators working within the corporate system to make moderately queer, if somewhat corporate art like Steven Universe or She-ra is exactly equivalent to entirely bland, heteronormative corporate works which only make tokenistic gestures towards queerness. Also they both erase the specific issues around non-binary representation and creators.
And I feel like this is part of a broader problem in how we discuss the intersection of Corporate Art and Queerness.
( Read more... )
BaitWorks – How DreamWorks Engaged in Predatory Marketing Towards LGBT Fans
I Don't Wanna Grow Up (And Neither Can You)
Both make some good points about how media corporations manipulate fans with half-assed tokenistic gestures towards inclusivity. The second focusses more on how fans are complicit in this: the way bland, heteronormative blockbusters like the MCU get a free pass while messy indie queer women are attacked for actually trying to express themselves.
But they both also act like queer creators working within the corporate system to make moderately queer, if somewhat corporate art like Steven Universe or She-ra is exactly equivalent to entirely bland, heteronormative corporate works which only make tokenistic gestures towards queerness. Also they both erase the specific issues around non-binary representation and creators.
And I feel like this is part of a broader problem in how we discuss the intersection of Corporate Art and Queerness.
( Read more... )