Queer Kitty Pryde

[Slicknickshady]

Basically in this day in age you basically need to state on panel someone is gay. Like Iceman. In order for it to be accepted.

[Ikari]

Basically in this day in age you basically need to state on panel someone is gay. Like Iceman. In order for it to be accepted.

Well in the past, if you stated that someone is gay, it wasn't accepted. I say it's progress!

Iceman discovering himself gay reeks to me of committee work. As if they sat down and figured 'we need more gay characters, but we don't want to be looking like we're just adding new token gay characters. Which of the estabilished characters we can write as gay? Cyclops? Naah...Beast? I don't know...how about Iceman? Yeah, lets settle on him...'

[Hulkout42]

Oh god not this again, wasn't going through this with Iceman enough?

[H-E-D]

Basically in this day in age you basically need to state on panel someone is gay. Like Iceman. In order for it to be accepted.

It was so fun to me; last week I watched the finale of Legend of Korra, in which the queer status of two characters is communicated by them holding hands. Here Kitty is straight up kissing a girl and people are still waiting for proof.

I swear, she could've gone down on the tattoo artist and people would still be trying to poke holes in arguments that she's queer.

[Kingdom X]

I really don’t get why some fans are upset. If she’s bi than all her previous romances with men (which weren’t that great tbh) are still valid and she can continue dating men at any point.

[H-E-D]

I really don’t get why some fans are upset. If she’s bi than all her previous romances with men (which weren’t that great tbh) are still valid and she can continue dating men at any point.

It's generalized hostility towards queer people.

[Striderblack01]

Basically in this day in age you basically need to state on panel someone is gay. Like Iceman. In order for it to be accepted.

Eh. Yes and No.

Subtext is text.

Nobody is making anything up.
When Scott and Jean kiss, you can see that they feelings for each other and will likely be physically intimate at some point. They're together.
Don't really need on-panel confirmation, no matter how in-character that would be for Scott.

Scott: "Jean. We have kissed and now my loins are ablaze. Shall we consummate later?"
Jean: "...sure."



The problem arises when a vital part of characterization is left only to subtext.
Because subtext can be misinterpreted or ignored - despite the fact that it's right there on the page.

And, as we all know, many creatives have had to relegate much to subtext when describing a relationship or character that is not strictly straight.
They've had to wink and tap dance around vital characterization for decades because people are intolerant and dumb.

So, On-Panel declarations can provide some much needed clarity and can be seen as a proud confirmation of what we already knew.
A "coming out" party, if you will.

[Hulkout42]

It's generalized hostility towards queer people.

Whoa! That's a bit of a leap don't you think?

[H-E-D]

Whoa! That's a bit of a leap don't you think?

No, I don't.

[Tycon]

Whoa! That's a bit of a leap don't you think?

No, not at all. It may even be an understatement.

[gifted]

If LGBT characters have to state on panel that they're LGBT, then straight characters have to state on panel that they're straight. There's literally no reason to assume all characters are immediately straight because LGBT should not have to be the alternate.

I say all characters' sexualities are ambiguous until stated or showed on panel, whether gay or straight.

[Ikari]

It was so fun to me; last week I watched the finale of Legend of Korra, in which the queer status of two characters is communicated by them holding hands. Here Kitty is straight up kissing a girl and people are still waiting for proof.

Umm, holding hands is IMO much stronger signal - at least for guys.

I really don’t get why some fans are upset. If she’s bi than all her previous romances with men (which weren’t that great tbh) are still valid and she can continue dating men at any point.

People have an image of a character in their minds and they can get upset if new interpretations of the character are too different. Nothing weird about that. If Karma suddenly decided she likes guys, would people be upset? Sure thing. In fact probably many of them would be same people who are now upset about Kitty.

Or, as a more generic example, look at how many people were upset when new Star Wars movies showed Luke a bitter old man, when they had the image of him as a paragon of positive heroism based on the old Star Wars movies.

And of course, it can always come across as tokenism which annoys many people. Although personally I don't see it going on here, if that was their motivation they would have written Kitty bi or gay years ago.

[Darthfury78]

Imagine if Kitty Pryde and Felicia Hardy became a romantic pair?

[Darthfury78]

I really don’t get why some fans are upset. If she’s bi than all her previous romances with men (which weren’t that great tbh) are still valid and she can continue dating men at any point.

Exactly. Kitty should be allowed to explore her love for other women in greater depth. Especially if her eyes are set on Felicia Hardy....

[nandes]

And of course, it can always come across as tokenism which annoys many people. Although personally I don't see it going on here, if that was their motivation they would have written Kitty bi or gay years ago.

Um, I wish it was simple as that, but it's actually much more complicated. Let's take into account the actual history/context of LGBTQI+ representation in mainstream comics. Writers have been denied to portray characters as queer for decades. For example, Mystique and Destiny were created in the 80's but they only had their first on-panel kiss on a comic that was released this year (!). So it's not just like any writer could portray a characters' sexuality the way they want, there are editors, company men, and all other sorts of factors to take into consideration, and any progress takes years to be constructed.