So Many Books... - Debbie Harry Sings in French

Sometimes I wish I could be gentle and beautiful and not be called a queer.

YEAH AND SO DO QUEERS.

(Sorry. The thing that's making me fume slightly over at Seven Impossible Things is all this Isn't it great that this character is [feminine but] NOT GAY! Isn't it awful that he's the target of homophobic bullying when he's NOT GAY!, and all I can hear is that he's only worthy of reading about because he's NOT GAY. Because we're all so, so bored with all these millions of gay characters in YA fiction, right? Sorry. I should go and rant at Seven Impossible Things, not you!)

This sounds to me like I will have the reaction I often have to texts and films that people call 'complex', ie that I will just go 'IT'S NOT COMPLEX, IT'S MUDDLED' (cf, of course and always, Harry Potter). Like, it stirs up lots of issues and then dodges out of coming to a conclusion about any of them and then turns that into a virtue by saying it's 'about the grey areas'.

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When lady_schrapnell described the book to me, I thought of your reaction to hearing that Dumbledore was gay+closeted+tragic. 'Cos it seems to me that with the TG+closeted+tragic dad in this book we have the makings of another unwelcome cliche. Not that there aren't people in real life who tick all three boxes, but this person seems to exist purely as a cautionary example.

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You know - that reminds me of one criticism I had that I forgot about in making all the other criticisms: when Johnny's cornered in the bathroom at school by the big, psychotic bully (who actually hates Johnny so much because he used to date Maria and is jealous) and the bully-side-kick, he suddenly finds the whole thing funny and starts laughing and says he's laughing at them: 'Look at you two. How come I never see you apart?' and is just saying 'I think you two are in lo-" when he gets thrown onto the mirror. And I know- like all the rest that isn't meant that way - it's not MEANT to suggest it would be okay to make fun of them if they were gay, but that is nonetheless what it ends up doing.

In all fairness about the 7 Imp thing, I think most of that is because, whatever about the relative lack of gay characters in YA fiction, there's a complete and total lack of TG characters in YA fiction. A lot of people would know little to nothing about transgender and would feel that to understand that it's possible to be transgender and heterosexual (actually more common), would be to increase their understanding about a sizable group of the population, which would be a Good Thing. And I agree entirely, and think TG representation in YA is about where that of gay characters was - what - 20 years ago? But it's especially unfortunate for the one of maybe a(n Irish) couple of books to get it so badly off.

I *love* your pithy description of the muddled texts, which is just right. And as this book is pretty clearly well-intentioned, I really wonder why the author didn't do it from the POV of the girlfriend, which might have worked out much less muddled.

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TG representation in YA is about where that of gay characters was - what - 20 years ago?

See, the thing that makes me weep with frustration is that gay representation in YA was better 20 years ago: Jenny Pausacker's What Are Ya?, a couple of M E Kerrs... Jean Ure did a bunch of nice gay characters in the 1980s before suddenly reverting to the 1960s template with the effeminate-foreign-suiciding-queer-boy plot of Get A Life!.

But yes, I completely sympathize with your/7B's point about absence of TG characters in YA (it's like a bi friend of mine says: better representation of bi people would be nice but for the moment I think we just needmore). It sounds also from 7B and your review that it's really unclear whether/that Johnny is transgender, and what that might mean (for him? for the author? for the reader?). Which puts it even more firmly onto my 'muddled' pile.

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See, the thing that makes me weep with frustration is that gay representation in YA was better 20 years ago

I'm not sure I agree that things were better 20 years ago. For one thing, there are finally starting to be books where gay is not The Issue. And it's not Tragic. They are flawed, but they exist. 20 years ago we had a lot more of I'll Get There, It Better Be Worth the Trip, in which the big exciting gay kiss is punished by the dog dying, or Annie on My Mind and Deliver Us from Evie (both of which I like a lot), in which coming out is tied to a major disaster outside of the relationship.

Now we have, oh, Boy Meets Boy, which takes place in its odd little fantasyland, and we are starting to have incidentally gay protagonists and secondary characters in YA fantasy. 20 years ago, outside of Mercedes Lackey, gay characters in fantasy were at best effeminate or dysfunctional, and at worst evil pedophiles (Anne McCaffrey, Orson Scott Card, Katherine Kurtz).

So I do think he gay representation in young adult fiction is getting a lot better than it used to be.

Right now I feel like representation of bisexuals is where representation of gay characters was 20 years ago. I'm getting really sick of seeing bisexual characters show up as villains in gay stories, where "bisexual" is actually code for "I was experimenting but now I am straight". We are starting to have a few good ones -- thank you, Brent Hartinger!

TG is up at, what, about 3 books by now? A few more? Luna (which is formulaic but totally adequate), Parrotfish (which I haven't read yet), Debbie Harry...

It's a tricky thing authors need to do, walking the line between saying "TG doesn't necessarily mean gay" and saying "thank goodness, because there is something wrong with gay". It's like watching Barak Obama deny being a Muslim, which would be funny if it didn't matter so much. Actually, it's exactly like watching Barak Obama deny being a Muslim.

Edited at 2008-06-23 01:06 pm (UTC)

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Oh, I have mixed feelings about the current/recent state of queer YA: Boy Meets Boy is cute as hell, and Maureen Johnson's The Bermudez Triangle is similarly fluffy and great, and okay actually you're quite right, there's a lot of good stuff out there the more I think about it, I take it back. But there were a few incredibly retro gay=DOOOOOM books in the 90s (Jean Ure's Get A Life, Paula Bloock's Truth or Dare), and I've ranted elsewhere about Kate Cann's recent book whose title I've forgotten.

I'm mostly just sulking because What Are Ya? (nineteen-eighty-fricking-five) does everything that contemporary novels are still being critiqued for not doing (but patted on the back for being 'better than it was twenty years ago...), but didn't spawn any followers and fell out of print. Ignore me.

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Also, Norma Klein.

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hey, I hear you. You've recommended that book before, I can't remember where -- and I've tried to find it and failed. *kicks publishing industry*

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...aannd interlibrary loan is not so hard.

*requests from ILL*
*feels victorious*

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It's like watching Barak Obama deny being a Muslim, which would be funny if it didn't matter so much. Actually, it's exactly like watching Barak Obama deny being a Muslim.

Oh, yes - that's perfect. And given that it is so tricky, I think people who aren't actually so much interested in 'the gender question' (see my reply to gair below) should probably avoid blundering around the subject, however good their intentions. (Here's the Ellegirl review. It's interesting, I think, how much focus Brothers seemed to have on ABTG (anything but the transgender).

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It's so hard. You really do want to be able to write books in which a character likes to put on dresses but doesn't identify as transgender or even transvestite. You want to be able to write books with bisexual characters who hook up with members of the opposite sex -- even primarily members of the opposite sex. You want to be able to write characters who are on the whole spectrum of gender or sexuality, beyond the allowed deviance from the norm of Spunky Tomboy or Quiet Boy Who Doesn't Want to Kill Pigeons or Be a Bully but Still Likes Playing with Soldiers, Really. But in the cultural climate, it's really hard to write against norms without writing completely against norms.

(Fanfiction parallel: I am very insistent that Buffy's Willow Rosenberg is mistaken when she says "gay now", for a believe she is actually bisexual. So I want to write her in fanfiction as hooking up with men because I want to write against the norms that there are only straight and gay people. But because there is the norm that there are only straight and gay people, writing Willow hooked up with men isn't going to read as reinforcing her bisexuality, it's going to read as reinforcing her gayness as just a phase.)

By the same token, you want authors to write characters who are questioning gender or sexuality for which the questioning is notthe Issue, not the only point of the book. You want alternative genders and sexualities to be just another part of life. But if you can't do that in a way which respects all of those choices...

I don't know. It's hard.

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But because there is the norm that there are only straight and gay people, writing Willow hooked up with men isn't going to read as reinforcing her bisexuality, it's going to read as reinforcing her gayness as just a phase.

Yeah, that's an interesting parallel.

It is hard, and I'm finding it very hard to say anything without adding tons of qualifications, which require further qualifications and on and on.

Hmm, I was just having a quick look at Parrotfish, and it looks a bit under-cooked too, possibly. But I've got Luna on my TBR list already. Have you actually read DHSiF? (If you have and think what I've said is all crap, don't worry about saying so!)

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I think I told you have Luna, didn't I? I'm reading it now, piqued by this discussion, and will bring it when I see you shortly.

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Yup, I was counting on your lending it to me! ;) And offering your toting services to gair as well.

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My hand luggage is at both your disposals!

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It sounds also from 7B and your review that it's really unclear whether/that Johnny is transgender, and what that might mean (for him? for the author? for the reader?).

Yes, I think this is the real problem. If it were unclear because Johnny himself wasn't sure, then it would be fine, but it's not. It seems that his feelings and experience as described are very far from ones that would leave him in the place where he'd tell his mother he thinks he's a transvestite. (His word, not mine.) C. was just having a quick blog search and found a review on Elle Girl in with this: 'Brothers didn't want the story to be so much about the gender question as, “The way you naturally try on identities as a kid.”' Which would again be fine but *not* when you then present it as 'about the gender question' and use terms which have actual meanings other than 'trying on identities'.

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And would be fine if we lived in a world where kids could try on identities without bumping into (or being bumped into by!) 'the gender question', yes. (I have a friend who cross-dresses without being transgender, and it sounds as though Johnny's experiences/identity stuff are quite different from his - I might try and get him to read this for me!)

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Let me know if you do get him to! Would you like lj user="steepholm"> to bring my copy back for you?

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