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| Yeah - the 'S' does stand for 'straight' - whaddabout it? |
I promise - we'll get to the final part of BUSTER, SON Of ANDY CAPP before too long. First, however, I can no longer sit back and say nothing about the latest attempt to sway public opinion on a controversial issue by those who believe that anyone who doesn't see things their way is a hate-filled bigot who is out of step with the majority. I fully expect to lose a few followers with this post, but if they can't accept that other people are as entitled to hold and express an opinion as they are, then that's their problem, not mine.
DC COMICS recently announced that an established superhero is to be retconned as gay when he is reintroduced into current continuity sometime in the near future. MARVEL COMICS recently published an issue where the gay character NORTHSTAR was due to marry his boyfriend and contained a close-up of the two men kissing, and also of Northstar carrying his lover in an 'over the threshold'-type position. I haven't seen the issue itself, only a report and the above-described two pictures on a comics news-site.
Someone recently proposed on his blog that SUPERMAN should be portrayed as gay or bisexual. Considering the stushie that would surely ensue were it suggested that a gay person (real or fictional) should be 'turned' straight, it was rather a daring (even impertinent) proposition on his part. That way, he claimed, gay, bi, or transgendered people would feel more included in society. Apart from this being rather patronising to the gay, bi and transgendered community (and insulting to the rest of us), I consider it to be completely unnecessary.
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| Superman breaking free - from the 'confines' of his traditional heterosexuality? Seems it's not enough to be straight these days |
If you're gay or bisexual and want to believe Supes and his 'best pal' JIMMY OLSEN have something 'extra' going on in between CLARK's off-panel 'sessions' with LOIS LANE, then you're perfectly free to think so. If, on the other hand, such a scenario would never occur to you, then there's nothing to suggest otherwise. Everybody can believe what they want, read into it what they want, and everybody's happy. There's absolutely no need to change the status quo. I don't need a 'Scottish, few pounds heavier than he should be, tad over average height' superhero to enjoy a well-written comicbook (or to feel 'accepted' or good about myself), so why should an extremist minority be allowed to hijack comics in order to pursue their own personal agenda?
Are you gay, bi or transgendered? Honestly, I don't give a sh*t, but don't keep bleating on about it. If you don't insist on making an issue of it everywhere you go, then chances are that nobody else will either. If someone chapped your door one night and asked if they could watch you 'at it', you'd quite rightly chase them away faster than a BARRY ALLEN hand-job. The fact is most people just aren't interested in what you may or may not get up to - they don't want to know - in real life or comicbooks.
At a time when comicbook sales are in drastic decline, publishers would do well to reconsider the audience they're aiming for. When comics were primarily cheap, mass-marketed entertainment for kids and teenagers, with nothing that could potentially offend anyone, they sold in their millions. However, now that they've become an over-priced, glossy-papered product (seemingly more concerned with peddling propaganda than entertaining people) and sold only in an ever-diminishing outlet of speciality shops, they have to resort to cheap publicity stunts on contentious issues in an attempt to punt their wares.
Not every form of public entertainment needs to be transformed into a forum or arena for pursuing or promoting any one group's own pet cause or personal interest - whatever they happen to be and regardless of their sexual, social, religious or cultural orientation. Militants - whatever your 'issues' are - take them elsewhere, huh? And give the rest of us a break!
Now, who's going to be the first brave soul to agree with me?