I’m blogging from Cincinnati where I have spent the holiday among members of the PatriotFamilyWest, the youngest of whom decided to remain in San Francisco with his mother.
Since my Dad and his wife are planning to move from their house where the contents of my childhood room (in a different home) have sat (mostly) undisturbed in boxes for as long as he’s lived there, he’s asked me to go through those boxes. As I was doing just that, I discovered some boxes from my apartment in Arlington, Virginia that I had left in Cincinnati when I moved to the West Coast.
In one of those, I found the better part of my collection of gay fiction, books that I had not already given (or thrown) away. As I paged through each book before setting it in the give- (or throw-)away pile, I recalled how I had to force myself to finish many of them, with commentary in the margins on the poor quality of prose, repeated use of cliché or absence of development of the characters.
Why did so many of those books lack introspection, I wondered, with so few of the characters ever acknowledging his errors even as a majority of them were cheating on their partners, boyfriends or potential boyfriends?
Indeed, save for the works of Jim Grimsley (which I discuss briefly here), I don’t recall finding the characters of many gay novels going on any kind of interior journey (unless you count the journey from sexual desire to fulfillment as an interior one).
So, after paging through these books, taking the boxes upstairs either to the garbage or to be set aside for a thrift store (depending on their condition), I wondered if absence of introspection were a characteristic of gay men in general of just our literary “representatives.” And the heads of our political organizations.
They probably don’t see it as an error in the first place.
It’s not just gay fiction. Much of the non-fiction literature about gay life and gay identity is that way, as well.
Gaeta and Hoshi on BSG have caught teh ghey. Doesn’t that seem a bit gratuitous?
That was my first thought, V the K, it almost seemed a ‘Dumbledore’ moment to me, “well the last shooting is in the can, why not toss this in as well?’
That said, I read somewhere that it completed the relationship dynamic you had the Cain/Gina romance in Razor* (no knowing how legit that was on Gina’s part, since she was a six) You had the three way Baltar, Caprica, Three relationship, and of course the various hetro relationships.
Amusingly the cross species relationship (didn’t someone mention sex with robots) is the most stable, though I think Tyrol should have confided in Callie. I’m still mad she was killed.
*Yes, it’s the ‘evil l-e-s-b-i-a-n’ cliche. I didn’t write it.
Look at the bright side: One measurement of gay acceptance is that the contributions to our cultural ornaments made by gays can be greeted with yawns. Gays have arrived when gay-themed art is honestly assessed as just as bad as other bad art.
I always thought that “are they or aren’t they” was more intriguing character development angle than “hey, look, two dudes making out” ; which is why when I write sci-fi, I leave some of my characters’ orientations ambiguous.
My, how anal (no pun intended).
Whodidwhatnow? Is that JapCrapimation?
Not very familiar with gay fiction. TGCpartner likes to watch gay movies just because he thinks it lends some sort of support. We did a mini film festival, a year or so ago, with movies from Blockbuster. They were all crap. I never knew what the hell was going on, just like any “indie” or foreign films.
Well, there was that one where Captain Picard played a flaming interior decorator. His scenes were amusing. The rest of it… complete crap.
#8, that’s what I heard about Jeffrey as well.
I don’t hunt out fiction for the orientation of their characters, so Vanyel in Mercedes Lackey’s Last Herald Mage series was a nice surprise for a gay character. it’s part of his character, but not a defining part. There’s even a nice scene where he tells a young lady who keeps throwing herself at him why it wouldn’t work, and why a ‘show marriage’ would be even worse.
In the immortal words of Peter Griffin:
“Lois, I’m just warning you. If this movie turns me gay, I’m gonna start bringing gay guys home. And I don’t mean the classy, ‘maybe-they-are,-maybe-they’re-not’ gay guys, I mean those big, ‘Oh-my-God, here-they-come, floating-around, making noise’ gay guys. Not the ‘fix-up-your-house’ gay guys.”
Now see, I liked Jeffry and Sterling was my favorite character.
Darius: Who’s Martha Stewart?
Sterling: She writes picture books about gracious living. Martha says that nothing else matters if you can do a nice dried floral arrangement. I worship her.
Darius: And, um, who’s Ann Miller?
Sterling: Leave this house.
Jeffrey: Wait! You’re really a priest?
Father Dan: Of course.
Jeffrey: But… I mean, aren’t you supposed to be straight and celibate?
Father Dan: Maybe you didn’t hear me. I’m a CATHOLIC priest. Historically, that falls somewhere between chorus boy and florist.