BisexualWhat do you think of Becky Albertalli's 'coming out'?

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[–]julesburm1891 16 insightful - 1 fun16 insightful - 0 fun17 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Can I pull my teen services librarian card for this one? Okay, but in all seriousness, I do think Albertalli is a good writer and her books are pretty popular with the LGB teens that I work with. (Personally, I enjoy that her books aren’t overly-dramatic coming out stories, but instead feature teens simply falling in love for the first time. They presents LGB romance as normal, not life-altering and angsty. I wish I had books like that when I was a kid.)

However, I do have a problem with people mobbing her for being straight and writing about LGB people until she was backed into this corner. If people are writing about others with care and respect, we shouldn’t denigrate them because they aren’t exactly like their characters. Writing and art should be tools to have a better and more empathetic understanding of our world, not drive identity insanity between us.

That being said, I also don’t think we should be forcing anyone to come out if they aren’t ready just because it suits some folks’ agenda. Most notably, I’m thinking of when Julie Murphy was forced to come out as bi after she wrote Ramona Blue. Murphy actually is bi and was not ready to talk about it publicly. It was rather unfair to her.

Perhaps Albertalli is bi. Perhaps she isn’t. What matters is that no one should be pressuring her to say she is simply because she writes decent novels for young people.

[–]fuck_reddit 10 insightful - 5 fun10 insightful - 4 fun11 insightful - 5 fun -  (0 children)

Yes, today I will deface the grave of Mary Shelley because she wrote about the experiences of a mad scientist whose family was murdered by a patchwork-undead man of his own creation because she was--in fact--an upper class woman who never had her family murdered by a patch-work undead man of her own creation.

[–]les4leshomonormative 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Frankly I don't give a damn if she's straight, it reminds me of the "straight actors shouldn't gay roles :/" stuff. The entire point of art is to explore the world of possibilities, why not let straight people do whatever they want? If they do it wrong, we can call them out on it, but we shouldn't stop them.

Also, it does create a culture of "you have to come out" for possibly closeted artists/authors who were interested in exploring something they maybe don't want the entire world to know. I hate woke culture for focusing so much on minor shit like "a straight woman wrote a book about a gay teenager" instead of actual gay teenagers and what affects them

[–]RedditVihaaLesboja 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think the "straight actors shouldn't play gay roles" comes partly from imitating the discourse around who gets to play X ethnicity etc while ignoring that these things are not equally comparable and partly from the fact that some actors just suck playing gay (cough Supergirl, cough Jenny's Wedding)

[–]haveanicedaytoo💗💜💙 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Yeah, I remember that Julie Murphy situation. It wasn't even her fault. The publisher had written the blurb on the back of her book in such a way that implied she was a lesbian who "turned bi" after finally encountering the glorious magical golden penis. I tried reading the book and I hated it (I think me and YA books just don't get along, I'm more of a nonfiction/biography reader.) All I remember of it was that it was waaaaay too long and there was a pregnant sister making everyone miserable.

What did you think of Leah on the Offbeat? I remember hating that one. It's been way too long since I've read it, but my memory of it is that Leah had a horrible personality and went on an SJW-rampage to ruin one of her friend's life due to some racist comment, and there was a lot of weird stuff about being a bisexual squeezed in there that I remember feeling like... "WTF is this???" I kind of want to re-read it now to see it it feels like it was written by a "Bisexual egg who hadn't hatched yet" (ohmygoddd did I really type that? Urrrghhh!!!!) I remember back then, feeling like "Okay, she did gay, she did lesbian, so she just had to do bisexual next, this clueless straight woman needs to do more research."

Maybe I'll re-read it IDK...

If people are writing about others with care and respect, we shouldn’t denigrate them because they aren’t exactly like their characters.

I agree with this. I know all my comments are coming off as gatekeepy, but as long as they do a good job and manage to not be inaccurate/offensive/fetishy, I'm fine with it.

[–]julesburm1891 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

To be fair, I’m not a huge fan of YA books either. (I prefer nonfiction or mysteries.) I just have a job where I have to read a fair amount of YA books. However, my criteria for judging YA books is different than most readers’.

Teens are a mess. They’re experiencing everything for the first time, so everything is big and dramatic all the time. They don’t really understand all their feelings yet and don’t know how to control them. Their brains literally can’t process risk or permanence until they’re older. So, teens do and say dumb things pretty much constantly.

Because of this, I actually like when YA authors write teens realistically and allow their characters to live through their boneheadedness and grow. Yes, Leah was totally ridiculous and obnoxious. But she also realized what an idiot she was and was able to be better.

Nah, I totally get what you’re saying. There’s definitely a line between being an empathetic writer and being a fetishizing writer. Some people are walking up to that line (or crossing it) and pretending to be fully on the empathetic side. We need to find a way to call people out for actual bad behavior while not dragging down decent people.

But, I do see how people could read Albertalli as walking up to that line and it’s fair criticism.

[–]haveanicedaytoo💗💜💙 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah, that's a great point. After I wrote you my comment yesterday, I decided to re-read the book again to try and figure out why I'd hated it so much the first time. I read about one hour's worth, and in that time she mentions anime, manga, and cute manga boys several times, and talks about how she needs to go to her room and be in private so she can read Draco x Harry slashfic. I'd been feeling kind of guilty like 'I shouldn't be accusing everyone who wants to write gay male content of fetishizing' but after I re-read those scenes, I was like 'Ohhhhhhhhhh that's why! Yeah, I remember now!'

I'm still chugging through it, I'm about 1/6th of the way through.

Edit - oh, I almost forgot, she is Simon's 'best friend' but she keeps squeee-ing about how cute and adorable he and his boyfriend are together and how she used to have a crush on him. It's so uncomfortable to read about.

Haha, I don't mean to dump all my complaints about this book on you. It's just that I have no one else IRL to whine to. Anyone else would be like WTF are you re-reading something you already know you hate??