A Station Eight Fan Web Site

Gargoyles

The Phoenix Gate

Search Ask Greg

Search:
Search type:

Displaying 1 record.


Bookmark Link

Zum writes...

I will try to keep this from becoming a spoiler-asking question, hopefully! Though due in part to the… specificity, I don’t know how successful this will be.

You mentioned before that there was undoubtedly going to be (at least one) lgbt character on the show. I won’t ask who, as spoilers, but I guess thatâ€"the ending of the first season really threw me, in a sad way. A sudden parade of heteronormativity at the end of a show season where I had a lot of hope that there might be an lgbt relationship acknowledged by the writing hit pretty hard!

I know that one person does not control all the creative decisions of a tv production by themself, but I guess I wondered if a canonically acknowledged lgbt character was still a thing that WILL happen. Because it is well and good to say “undoubtedly they exist,” but ultimately never acknowledging that within the show does lgbt kids no good! Because saying something like, “obviously chances are someone on the team is lgbt,” is actually really meaningless to us lgbt people if that part of their identity is never shown or confirmed. It just continues to make us invisible in the mainstream media (particularly kid’s media) while still playing up having some diversity, and that does hurt.

Greg responds...

Okay, I'm pretty sure I NEVER said we were going to acknowledge an lgbt relationship on the show. I'm quite certain that we would not be allowed to on television. NOT ALLOWED. I don't know where you got any other idea. I've been pretty consistent about how I FEEL about this. I think it's cowardly. But I've also admitted that I'm complicit in that cowardice, as I know that if I insisted on bravery - and remained adamant - I would at best be overruled and at worst FIRED. And I need my job. I'm not proud of this, and I'm not happy about it. But that's the current situation. I imagine it does hurt, and I wish I could ameliorate that pain. But at this point in time, I cannot. I'm sorry.

Instead, what I've tried to do is write the characters consistently in the hope that someday things change and that some subtleties put in place now will help in their own small way to inch us forward. I also hope to have more freedom in the YJ companion comic, as comics have a history of being more progressive in this area. But we'll have to see. I'm afraid that for now, that's the best I can do.

Response recorded on September 18, 2012