Dismissing Romeo and Juliet as dumb horny teens is OUT, crying because every attempt these children made to show love, kindness and tolerance in the face of senseless hate only led to more violence and death is IN
crosspoint: the entire thing was that they were dumb kids. reading R&J growing up goes in stages: “this was so sad” “they’re so fucking dumb what the fuck” “this was so fucking sad”.
they’re dumb kids. there’s plenty of textual evidence they are both sort of selfish in their love (ie Romeo’s on the rebound, Juliet just super doesn’t want to get married to Paris and is desperate for anything-except-that-guy) and a lot of evidence they didn’t truly know each other/see each other for anything but for a romantic ideal (the entire “but soft” monologue intentionally uses grandiose terms and basically translates to “oh fuck she’s pretty”). they literally can’t even communicate essential information correctly. in my opinion they’re not a good match – and shakespeare knows how to write a good match.
but they should have been allowed to be dumb kids.
the families had gotten to a point that even love – even stupid, selfish, childish love – devolved into violence. while the scenes they share are peaceful until the end, their solo scenes are dominated by violence – romeo with physical violence and juliet suffering the violence of having been essentially sold to an older man. they took the violence that they were surrounded by and turned it onto themselves. they had been raised in it, had been cultivated by it, and when they faced adversity, violence was inevitably the only thing they knew how to control. juliet – soft, innocent, sympathetic juliet – is the final death. and hers is by a wielded blade.
they weren’t trying to be a beacon of kindness or tolerance. but they were just kids. and what had seemed perfectly sensible (after all, the feud had resulted in death in either side, the rage made sense), the suddenness of a truly…. senseless death – who else can the families blame but themselves. no more finger pointing. after trying to hurt each other for so long, they only hurt themselves.
i’m convinced r&j isn’t about a one true love. juliet is the only one who calls it true love, the narrator certainly doesn’t. the first monologue describes it as “piteous“. instead, i think it’s about how it shouldn’t have been their last love. romeo and juliet could have been a romantic comedy about how fast kids fall in love with the stupidest things, how they make declarations of true love by the hour, how they float from one person to another, how they call crushes true love without knowing each other’s middle names.
it could have been a comedy. and i think, kind of, that’s what makes it such a perfect, terrible tragedy.
this isn’t even stretching to like, russia, southern africa, the pacific, or anywhere in the americas yet?
c’mon man don’t you wanna base a fantasy story on patachuti?
#this isn’t even an argument for social justice#i am just fucking BORED
Avatar the last Airbender did this excellently.
Two of my fantasy novels take inspiration from the Old West and the Dust Bowl/prohibition era America. Another is in a 1940s, 1950s-esque world. I’ve had a lot more researching these than my old standard fantasy stuff.
Mushrooms are fast-growing organisms that quickly pop up after the rain. These mesmerizing time-lapse gifs record the mushroom buds bursting through the soil and elegantly expanding their caps.
Archaeologists in the Burnt City have discovered what appears to be an ancient prosthetic eye. What makes this discovery exceptionally awesome is the striking description of how the owner and her false eye would have appeared while she was still alive and blinking:
[The eye] has a hemispherical form and a diameter of just over 2.5 cm (1 inch). It consists of very light material, probably bitumen paste. The surface of the artificial eye is covered with a thin layer of gold, engraved with a central circle (representing the iris) and gold lines patterned like sun rays. The female remains found with the artificial eye was 1.82 m tall (6 feet), much taller than ordinary women of her time. On both sides of the eye are drilled tiny holes, through which a golden thread could hold the eyeball in place. Since microscopic research has shown that the eye socket showed clear imprints of the golden thread, the eyeball must have been worn during her lifetime. The woman’s skeleton has been dated to between 2900 and 2800 BCE.
So she was an extraordinarily tall woman walking around wearing an engraved golden eye patterned with rays like a tiny sun. What an awesome sight that must have been.
CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW AN ANCIENT CRAFTSMAN WAS PRESENTED WITH PEOPLE LOOKING FOR HELP TO NORMALIZE THEIR DISABILITY. AND THEN SAID ‘NAH FUCK THIS WE’RE GOING TO
See this little beauty? This beautiful, creepy, harp shaped monster can eat so many fuckn shrimp…..
WAIT WHAT?
Thats right kiddos, this is a harp shaped glass sponge that captures and eats large prey, this is Chondrocladia lyra, the harp sponge, and its covered in thousands of tiny velcro hooks that ensnare active prey, it then produces a membrane that surrounds the prey and dissolves it until it can pass through the sponges pores.
Since BL and fujoshi discourse is the hot topic du jour, let’s talk a bit about gay stereotypes in Japanese manga and anime.
I’m seeing a worrying number of people not only saying that all BL and fujoshi promote homophobic stereotypes, but that BL is the primary or sole instigator of homophobia in Japanese society (excuse me, I choked on drink there).
For those who don’t know, Boy’s Love (BL) is a niche category of shoujo/josei manga that focuses on M/M relationships (commonly known in the west as “yaoi”, though that is a misnomer). It’s still frowned upon, both for being gay content and for being mainly romance aimed at women. The word “fujoshi” — used today to mean “female fan of BL” — even has seriously misogynistic origins.
So far, BL is published on specific magazines, and most anime adaptations are OVAs that aren’t aired on TV. Although it has a significant following, it’s definitely not popular enough to change the opinions on gay men of the entire anime fanbase, much less of Japanese society as a whole.
Homophobia in Japan has a long history, but one of the most impactful chapters was the Meiji Restoration (1867-68), when Japan’s isolationist foreign policy was abolished and rapid westernization began. Negative Christian views on homosexuality disseminated throughout the country and public opinion of practices such as nanshoku/wakashudou declined until they were practically criminalized and banned.
For reference, both BL and yuri had their origins more than a century later,
in the 1970’s-80’s.
I find that a lot of criticism of stereotyping in BL is, unsurprising, very US-centric. The thin, androgynous, pretty and emotionally sensitive characters of BL may coincidentally fit western gay stereotypes, but this type of character just represents an East Asian beauty standard for men. Guys who fit these bishounen and ikemen types are considered desirable by Japanese women and are generally assumed to be straight.
A handful of pretty boys from Touken Ranbu.
In the US, your idea of a stereotypical gay dude may be a metrosexual twink with a lisp and a limp wrist, but different countries have different stereotypes. In Japan, the appearance of イカホモ/イカニモ (“ikahomo” or “ikanimo”, a stereotypical gay man) is a heavy-set masculine guy with short haircut, strong face, and facial hair.
Sort of like the guys you see in geikomi, right?
Pin-ups by Jiraiya, long-time artist for G-men magazine.
But we’re talking about entertainment media, more specifically about animanga. We’ll get there soon.
Gay men in Japan are stereotyped by the general population as being camp, and using feminine clothes, language and pronouns. Those who present femininely are often referred to as オネエ (“onee”) because they use オネエ言葉 (“onee kotoba”, feminine speech), and may or may not identify as male. Many entertainers who are out use onee personas on TV to, well, entertain the audience. That may be the only exposure an average Japanese person has to a real-life openly gay or trans person.
As for fiction, media creators tend to fall back on archetypes based on prejudices for minority characters, and that includes gay men. A bit like how the US has the “fairy” archetype, Japan has the “okama”.
Now, オカマ (“okama”, lit. rice pot) is not a word used in polite conversation to refer to people. It’s a homophobic and transphobic slur, directed at people who fit the onee stereotype.
If you’re not a Japanese queer man or transfem individual, you shouldn’t direct it at anyone, period. Not even yourself. Although there are some who reclaim the term, it’s still largely considered derogatory and insulting.
Japanese media has an okama character archetype, which reflects how society thinks a gay man looks and acts. You may be surprised to hear that it’s not the willowy, androgynous bishounen of shoujo manga.
If you want to discuss BL, its associated culture and its relationship to queer culture in Japan including how Western fandom often misinterpret the context of it, this is a good read.
Plume de Lynx 