I haven’t watched that Voltron, but I thought a lot of people loved it. Was the representation actually pretty bad or is that a personal opinion?
They hyped up that Shiro had an ex-fiance and everyone got excited he was finally being confirmed gay and in a relationship, then they killed the dude after like five minutes onscreen. Bury Your Gays much?
Oh. That sucks.
The only people who hyped up Shiro’s ex were the fan base and journalists. The crew treated him like “yeah he was here” but kept pushing that he was an ex and not important to the plot and the rep they really hyped up was the fact that Shiro was gay. And they addressed the “bury your gays” trope and wasn’t going for that and just wanted to show that in a time of war, anyone can die, and wanted to show how it affected the main cast by having someone one of them was close to die because of the trials of war. Adam (shiro’s ex) wasn’t important to the plot, Shiro is and he’s the rep that they were trying to hype up. Also, Adam wasn’t 100% green lit to even be an ex and was just supposed to be a room mate and they had to fight tooth and nail just to get him to be Shiro’s boyfriend.
Also they weren’t ex fiances, they were “on their way to marriage” but not fiances at all. And people say it’s the worst thing in the world when other characters of many different backgrounds have also died in the show long before Adam and some having less screen time than him. So to say that VLD has no rep, when we have a gay, disabled man, with PTSD and a (people assume) terminal disease and isn’t seen lesser for it put into leadership roles, and is all around there for people no mater what their background, and treats others as equals and not lesser than him, and doesn’t count him as rep because now (since the series hasn’t ended yet) that he’s single it doesn’t count is beyond me.
Something that bothers me in how Shiro’s sexuality was handled is that they’ve explicitly said they didn’t establish him as gay in the early years because they planned to kill him. Not, “we won’t kill him because he’s gay” (I support this), but “we won’t make him gay because we’re going to kill him” (buh-huh?). I think “the perfect is the enemy of the good” applies here. We want to subvert tropes like Bury Your Gays, but when we push too hard to avoid that, we end up with nothing but straight people. I mean, Shiro could have died straight. That would have been a tragedy.
We should hold shows accountable for poor representation, but we also need to recognize that change happens slowly and the fact that they have a queer lead character – a queer male lead character – is amazing, and the Voltron team deserves appreciation for fighting to make this happen.
Believe me when I say Voltron is nowhere near perfect, no show is, and could things have been handled different if the crew were allowed to do what they wanted without fighting for it as hard as they had to? Absolutely.
If anything though, Shiro is the “Preserve Your Gays” trope that no one seems to bring up as often as “bury your gays” for a minor character that had hardly any screen time because apparently background representation means more than a main character being rep if they aren’t in a relationship (which btw Shiro is listed on this trope so I’m not grasping at straws). If anything Shiro was a good stepping stone for future LGBT rep in shows seeing how people who actually like his character got excited about seeing him being LGBT.
the fact that we can’t drink sea water even tho its the most common type of water just bc its 3% salt yet we can safely consume multiple forms of literal poison and even benefit from doing so just blows my fucking mind
Peppers: Now that I have capsaicin, no mammal will eat me! ONLY BIRDS. THE BIRDS WILL SPREAD MY SEEDS.
Humans: oh my god this burns so good
Peppers: wut
poppies: at last, i have evolved my sap to the point where anything that eats me will sleep… FOREVER
humans who are about to invent painkillers: hey guess what
tobacco: finally i can grow in peace, no more insects munching on my leaves.
humans holding matches: my, my, what do we have here?
Mint: Stay off me bugs or I’ll poison you!
Humans: Yeah I’m gonna need to put this poison in my dessert and mix it with chocolate.
That said, look how many pepper plants, tobacco plants, mint plants, coffee plants, etc, there are.
Being liked by humans is actually a dang good survival strategy for a plant species.
You basically just summed up Michael Pollan’s “The Botany of Desire” in a few sentences.
Moonlit Spires 