The Simtropolis Closet Thread - deux!

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Whatever floats your boat, lad.

[tankmank 853]

I just want to state that while I am only 23 I can say that I am gay. I was recently in the DPRK and I could appreciate that the female guide (minder) was attractive but I felt that the male was much more attractive, in a more physical sense. Sexuality is a complex issue, I wouldn't rule out a relationship with a girl, I don't think I could take it any further than pure friendship, Sexual is a no go for me. 

[MilitantRadical 2,844]

On 2/27/2016 at 6:05 PM, tankmank said:

I just want to state that while I am only 23 I can say that I am gay. I was recently in the DPRK and I could appreciate that the female guide (minder) was attractive but I felt that the male was much more attractive, in a more physical sense. Sexuality is a complex issue, I wouldn't rule out a relationship with a girl, I don't think I could take it any further than pure friendship, Sexual is a no go for me. 

Hey tankmank, if you don't mind me asking, when and how did you realize you are gay?

[tankmank 853]

On 29/02/2016 at 3:34 PM, MilitantRadical said:

Hey tankmank, if you don't mind me asking, when and how did you realize you are gay?

Sorry it has taken me so long to reply, been a busy and only just thought to check. 

I would have to say that i realised that i was attracted to guys when i started going through puberty when i was about 11/12. It felt normal to me to be attracted to guys.  I think a lot of my realisations occurred as a result of the internet and all that can be found on it, allowing me to further understand that i wasn't alone and put a name to my feelings. I came out to a few close friends when i was 15, it accidentally came out one day and it led to my whole year group at school finding out pretty quickly actually. I then came out to my parents and family at 16. 

I hope that answers your question. 

[MilitantRadical 2,844]

Thanks tank, sorry for putting you on the spot, I should have asked in a PM.

[tankmank 853]

It's ok, i didn't mind. 

[Hikapunk 3]

I have known I was gay since I was 12.

I'm not too open about it, but I let people know I am, but don't go too much into it.

[igotthis 12]

I've come to accept I am bi, but it is a very tricky thing. I love women and their physique, while I don't find men attractive on the same criteria. I stink at talking to either. It kind of sucks.

IGT

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Relax and do what comes naturally.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

German to try and fix this old problem.

Removing convictions from the records of gay men is one of the final steps towards same sex marriage in Germany.  They've had full on civil unions for some time, but this is the icing on the cake.

[MilitantRadical 2,844]

When Marvel Will Add An LGBT Character To The Movies

A lot of talk about having LGBT characters in blockbuster films but I recently had an epiphany that made me realize it most likely isn't possible in the current market because of China. China has become a huge market for Hollywood films, however they recently banned depictions of gay characters from TV shows, calling it "vulgar, immoral, and unhealthy".

I think the reason Hollywood execs are scared of putting openly gay characters in big blockbusters like Star Wars or Marvel films is because the films would be banned in China. I mean sure, there would probably be some backlash from Evangelicals in America, but I don't think that would really affect the bottom line of a film like Star Wars or a superhero film. I guess they could do some kind of compromise where they make a version for China without the gay, but I think that would make them look pretty weak.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Doesn't seem to have effected the Harry Potter films.  Dumbledore is gay as admitted by J.K. Rowling.

Depends on what you mean by "openly gay".  I don't care what people do in private, but I think it is a little overboard to make a public spectacle of it.

[MilitantRadical 2,844]

1 hour ago, A Nonny Moose said:

Doesn't seem to have effected the Harry Potter films.  Dumbledore is gay as admitted by J.K. Rowling.

JKs proclamation that Dumbledore is gay is a ret-con. It is never said in the books or films.

1 hour ago, A Nonny Moose said:

Depends on what you mean by "openly gay".  I don't care what people do in private, but I think it is a little overboard to make a public spectacle of it.

They make a "public spectacle" of heterosexual relationships in film all the time. What's wrong with having a little gay smooch?

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

The only thing I have a problem with is when long established characters are SUDDENLY gay, like, out of nowhere.  Like Iceman in the X-Men, he was one of the original cast, had a girlfriend, and then a few years ago BAM he's gay in the comics.  

 

I have absolutely no problem with homosexual romance (I've watched Glee with my wife and even some of my own writing has featured gay characters), and I am all for new and cool characters being created and even having a starring role (Korra from Legend of Korra fame springs to mind, actually).  I know it's hard and risky to create new stuff that's both cool and rings true in our cultures, but it can be done.

[Duke87 1,070]

13 hours ago, MilitantRadical said:

JKs proclamation that Dumbledore is gay is a ret-con. It is never said in the books or films.

We really can't know if it's a retcon or not. Proving that it is would require proving that JK wrote the books without that in mind and then made it up later. It's entirely possible that it was something she had in mind about the character when creating his personality, but never explicitly brought up in the story because it wasn't something that mattered.

And I mean it's not like Dumbledore being gay is difficult to believe. He is a bit flamboyant...

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

The point about Dumbledore is that his lover is dead.  It wasn't emphasized, but it is there.

[MilitantRadical 2,844]

19 hours ago, NMUSpidey said:

The only thing I have a problem with is when long established characters are SUDDENLY gay, like, out of nowhere.  Like Iceman in the X-Men, he was one of the original cast, had a girlfriend, and then a few years ago BAM he's gay in the comics. 

Yeah, I don't like that either and wouldn't want to see that.

I don't know how they handled the Iceman thing but I don't think having a girlfriend means you can't be gay.

Quite frankly I don't even care that much about it. I grew up with no gay characters in blockbuster films and it never bothered me. If you want characters you like to be gay just use your imagination. I'm only talking about it because it seems like a thing LGBT activists really want to see, but I think the problem they don't realize is with China (or Hollywoods relationship with China)

14 hours ago, Duke87 said:

We really can't know if it's a retcon or not. Proving that it is would require proving that JK wrote the books without that in mind and then made it up later. It's entirely possible that it was something she had in mind about the character when creating his personality, but never explicitly brought up in the story because it wasn't something that mattered.

And I mean it's not like Dumbledore being gay is difficult to believe. He is a bit flamboyant...

I kinda feel it is, but then again I'm not an expert in the lore.

6 hours ago, A Nonny Moose said:

The point about Dumbledore is that his lover is dead.  It wasn't emphasized, but it is there.

Where? I kinda remember something about that, but I don't remember that the gender of his lover was ever mentioned.

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

Dumbledore being gay is open to interpretation. Though it is never suggested in the books, or in the films, it would fit the character well: no hint of a girlfriend or female lover, flamboyant, highly confident talking with ladies, a possible infatuation with Elphias Doge or Grindelweld.

Personally I think a lot of this retroconning is silly. Really changing the character's sexuality makes the character a different person. I dunno it's like say Hollywood made another Macbeth film except Macbeth is gay. But then that changes the whole story because one would either need to remove Lady Macbeth (and substitute another character who could tempt Macbeth) or add something to the story, say another character who was gay to explore Macbeth's homosexuality. It just adds a third wheel to the story and it becomes different, so why not create a Macbeth-esque film to explore this instead?

Instead of retconning characters to be LGBT or of an ethnic/coloured background, why not just create more of these characters in new films? Retroconning just seems like a cheap way of forcing LGBT/ethnic/coloured characters into stories/films that people know. If anything it does everyone a disservice- just another weird thing of this century.

Creating new characters is the way forwards not manipulating past source material and then trying to make it appear the same when it is not. That approach just does not, in the end, gel well.

But the biggest irony about ensuring LGBT/ethnic/coloured groups are represented is that it so racist and/or bigoted. Because the whole thing comes down to sexuality/race/colour. A character is created not for the sake of the character but to tick some box, sexuality/race/colour is the deciding factor and aren't we trying to remove that kind of discrimination? It's playing up differences when really what does it matter? It's like each group is a different member of the human species, a different subset and that's rubbish because we're all the same species.

There needs to be a certain amount of positive discrimination to ensure minorities groups are represented. But too much of it and it will only discriminate against the very minorities trying to be represented. Since some minority groups will be overrepresented and others under-represented, thus the under-represented ones must be chosen in a quota-like fashion. Of course there are a lot of minority groups and the definition of which, pardon the pun, is not so black-and-white. Taking to its logical course and the quota system of ensuring positive discrimination becomes so complicated and insane.

I've found the more you think about a person on their colour or sexuality or ethnicity, whilst trying to positively discriminate, you just stop thinking of them as a person and start making considerations about their personality because of their minority status. Again common sense just makes it clear, just talk to them as a person and know the no-go areas. Everyone has them and one does not need to discriminate positively or negatively.

Positive discrimination has become a game and a means of ticking boxes, it's going back to Victorian times with this obsession about race, colour and sexuality and the portrayal of people as different human beings. Shouldn't it be that it doesn't matter what your background is? That what matters is talent, merit and personality; things where race, colour and sexuality should play no part?

A little off-topic but this whole thing about retconning comes from an odd mindset and thought process.

[MilitantRadical 2,844]

1 hour ago, Ln X said:

Dumbledore being gay is open to interpretation. Though it is never suggested in the books, or in the films, it would fit the character well: no hint of a girlfriend or female lover, flamboyant, highly confident talking with ladies, a possible infatuation with Elphias Doge or Grindelweld.

Never saw Dumbledore as particularly flamboyant, more eccentric.  Until JK "confirmed" to a fan that he was gay, I never thought of him that way. I just imagined that he was too busy and old.

Who knows. He could have been in to Centaurs.

1 hour ago, Ln X said:

Creating new characters is the way forwards not manipulating past source material and then trying to make it appear the same when it is not. That approach just does not, in the end, gel well.

It depends. I think some characters are more set in stone than others. Comic book characters go through many different iterations and I think there is room to change things up sometimes. Each version kind of exists in its own universe. For example, you could make a comic book or film where Batman is gay without affecting other versions where he isn't. The character also has room for that kind of ambiguity. Macbeth only has one story, Batman has hundreds of stories.

One of the problems is that everything has become so politicized and it's hard to know if these kind of switches are genuine creative decisions or if they're "ticking boxes" as you so aptly put it.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

This whole business of obvious LGBT characters in dramatic productions is a product of the current era.  Fine if no issue is made of it, but if it is in there just to please some squeaky wheels without advancing the plot, I fail to see what good it might do. 

Since much of the world is anti-gay, I believe it will only be a ploy to get the productions banned in those countries.  As long as sexuality is not a barrier, it doesn't need emphasis.  If it is a barrier, then such a production is either aimed at denigrated LGBT persons or supporting them to the point of preaching.  Neither is acceptable to me, at least.

A good example of openly gay characters is in the opera Lulu by Alban Berg.  The main character is not only a prostitute, but she has a gay lover.  This is a relatively popular opera and is often in the repertory of serious opera companies.  I've seen at least two productions of it live in the theatre and it has been done by the Met several times in both versions.  The link takes you to a very complete Wiki page on this opera.

And the two main characters in the play/musical Cabaret by Kurt Weil are both switch hitters.  The mentions are casual and amplify the characters and the terror of living at that time in Germany.

[LexusInfernus 908]

Well would Macbeth really be that different if he had a gay lover instead of a women? All it would require is to gender bend one character and you got a gay Macbeth. 

[MilitantRadical 2,844]

On 6/3/2016 at 2:35 PM, LexusInfernus said:

Well would Macbeth really be that different if he had a gay lover instead of a women? All it would require is to gender bend one character and you got a gay Macbeth. 

Think it could work in an adaptation of the Macbeth story set in different time period.

[LexusInfernus 908]

12 hours ago, MilitantRadical said:

Think it could work in an adaptation of the Macbeth story set in different time period.

Sure. Actually I'm pretty sure thats already been done, although Im not sure about whether or not it included a gay Macbeth. 

[MilitantRadical 2,844]

1 minute ago, LexusInfernus said:

Sure. Actually I'm pretty sure thats already been done, although Im not sure about whether or not it included a gay Macbeth. 

Oh yeah for sure. Kurosawa did a great adaptation called Throne of Blood.

[tankmank 853]

In the TV adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire, better known as A Game Of Thrones there a a few gay characters that are not explicitly gay in the book , such as Renly and Loras, but in the books some of the main female characters engage in some same sex sexual acts. And i think it works well even thought the books and TV series are very different in many respects. And it is better than many of the gay/lesbian characters generally portrayed by Hollywood. 

[Odainsaker 2,136]

I recall that "My Own Private Idaho" was Shakespeare's Henry IV and Henry V recast as gay street hustlers, but the gay prostitution angle was part of the point of the movie.  Kurosawa's "Ran" is basically Shakespeare's King Lear set in feudal Japan and boasted a flamboyantly clingy jester and a hauntingly effeminate exile, but then this film is set in a different time period and in a radically different culture, and the three daughters of King Lear become three samurai sons in "Ran."  "The Producers" had screamingly gay Hitler where Deutschland was happy and gay, but that too was a specifically targeted part of the parody.  I'm having difficulty thinking of a major U.S. movie where a character being gay was merely incidental...more often either the character is gay for some deliberate purpose of the theme or plot, the pointedly gay character's identity is an artificial social injection sparking debate like this, or the gay angle emerges as a later parody.  The moment the gay element is introduced, the audience and the show are forced to react to that specific information.

Amusingly, I am reminded of the film "Moon Child," which titillated slash-happy Japanese fangirls with gay overtones between J-rock stars Hyde and Gackt, but which also cast Hyde as a expatriate vampire in futuristic Taiwan.  Vampire Hyde can fly like Peter Pan, dodge bullets like Neo, has aversions to sunlight...yet, all the yakuza characters in Taipei are oddly cool with it.  Another Japanese vampire...dime-a-dozen...lets hook him and Gackt up with pop-star Wang Leehom for some fanservice!  Why would anyone be amazed by a vampire with super powers when you have Gackt, Hyde, and Wang Leehom buddying up in the same room, and with this movie's sci-fi apocalypses, yakuza street battles, inter-Asian warfare, and bishounen gay melodramas playing out simultaneously around them, why exactly again was it important that one of the characters also be a vampire in the first place?

 

[madhatter106 3,922]

On ‎5‎/‎20‎/‎2016 at 2:06 PM, A Nonny Moose said:

And the two main characters in the play/musical Cabaret by Kurt Weil are both switch hitters.  The mentions are casual and amplify the characters and the terror of living at that time in Germany.

You're conflating Weill with the era/setting; Cabaret is a Kander & Ebb musical, based on the Isherwood "Berlin Stories," which were made into the play and later film I Am A Camera, and then made into the musical and later movie.

Interestingly enough, Weill's actress/singer/collaborator wife Lotte Lenya (who had originated the role of Jenny Diver in the first production of Weill's The Threepenny Opera) was cast as the landlady to Sally Bowles in the original Broadway production of Cabaret.

[Ichigo951 22]

*opens the creaky door* A-anyone here?

I'm looking for a place for GLBT people but it's seems pretty inactive here. Anyways, I'm pretty sure I'm gay myself and I'm glad I am. However, I don't have many other GLBT friends, so anyone here that wants to make a friend?

[jmsepe 2,039]

*Raises hand. You and I share a lot more in common that I thought @Ichigo951. Granted, we might actually become close friends.  

[Ichigo951 22]

3 hours ago, jmsepe said:

*Raises hand. You and I share a lot more in common that I thought @Ichigo951. Granted, we might actually become close friends.  

Nice!

Yeah, we might as well.