The culture shift is stark sometimes when you watch old stuff.
On the other hand, don’t let them turn that into an excuse. You know what dealt with trans rights in a pretty honest, raw, and understanding way, in the mid 1980s? Fucking Hill Street Blues. One of the cops gets together with a woman, he’s happy to be with her, and then the other cops start giving him hell for it because she used to be a man. He gets disgusted and angry, goes over to her place, and she lectures him about it and sets him straight, tells him to figure out if he wants to be with her, but don’t try to turn who I am into some kind of thing I did to you, or make me feel bad about it. He sort of accepts it, because she clearly has a point, and that’s the end of the episode.
Hill Street Blues, man.
Yeah, I had a pretty sheltered childhood because I remember lots of good shows with a lot less of those issues. I watched a lot of sci-fi though, which IME tends to be a bit more forward-thinking. Not super surprising if you think about it
Doctor who had every type of queer back in the mid-late 2000s. From a trans “last human” to lesbian aliens
Doctor who had every type of queer back in the mid-late 2000s. From a trans “last human” to lesbian aliens
Wait, that “bitchy trampoline” was trans? How is that even possible with so few body parts left?
In her introduction episode she makes reference to “when I was a little boy”
Watched Ace Ventura a few years ago for the first time since I was a kid. I remembered the whole trans reveal thing. Never put together as a kid they were implying that it was part of that character being mentally ill and completely forgot about Ace and the cops freaking out after finding out.
Yeah. It’s absolutely nuts.
In the 60s, if you were a man in a movie, you could hit women if they were getting crazy, to set them straight.
In the 80s, the heroes of movies could commit rape (Revenge of the Nerds) or child molestation (Indiana Jones) and still be the heroes of the movies.
In the 90s, the simple fact of a character being gay, or God forbid trans, was its own comedic element, without anything additional needing to be added.
Things have changed. Like changed a lot.
There’s still weird shit on tv. For obvious reasons, I haven’t seen much Big Bang Theory, but that show has some weird, casual sexism.
Night Court did the same thing. The assistant D.A., Dan, has an old buddy who visits after many years and turns out they transitioned and have a boyfriend. Dan is stunned because they used to party and womanize together, but his friend said he was never actually into it. At one point Dan argues with the new boyfriend and says, “He used to be a guy!” Boyfriend says it doesn’t matter. He loves her. That episode really stuck with me, watching it as a kid.
Fun fact: the term was literally invented by the British tabloid press to explain how (football superstar and husband of Victoria “Posh Spice” Beckham) David Beckham could wear a sarong without being secretly gay.
I wish I was making it up but that’s genuinely the origin of the term 🤦
Metrosexual 2033, Metrosexual Last Light, and Metrosexual Exodus
When I was growing up “f!!!ot” wasn’t even seen as a cuss word, it was just a burn you called your friends all the time. We didn’t really think about it until I was 16 and one of our friends came out as gay. My whole friend group kind of had it click at the same time that 1. We didn’t care that he was gay and 2. It was probably pretty fucking rude to call everything we didn’t like “g!y” and call eachother “f!g” as an insult. I think that realization happened for a lot of people who had gay friends in my generation, and it’s part of what helped lead to the level of acceptance and support the LGBT community has now.
I was the gay friend who changed my friend group’s language, and I didn’t even do it intentionally. After I came out, I had a few of my friends ask if them saying “fag” or “gay” or similar was bothering me as long as they weren’t intending it to be a slur against gay people. I just told them the honest truth:
“It doesn’t bother me, and I don’t think any less of you for using it; but I do hear it every time it’s used. It jumps out just as clear as someone saying your name in a crowded room. Every. Time.”
And that’s really all it took. Just the awareness that those kinds of words aren’t entirely meaningless. That maybe if you’re only using them to describe something negative in a general sense, then there are other words you can use that work just as well, but aren’t connected to an entire group of marginalized people.
It was kind of a funny year or so after that when they were trying to break the habit. One of them would accidentally say something and all that would happen is we would lock eyes for a second and I’d just give a small smile and a nod as if to say “You’re fine, I don’t think you’re a bigot. But yea, I heard that.”
Yeah for us we were all surprisingly progressive about it for a small town Alberta school. Like everyone in the school bar a few goofy assholes were totally fine with it and the entire school just started policing their language. It wasn’t even a big deal. But I’m sure it wad important to him and the few other kids who didn’t come out until after school.
I’m sure it didn’t go that well everywhere for everyone.
Asian dude who went to high school in the 90s.
We were constantly called metro or straight up gay because we dressed like BTS before BTS was born.
But they called us that in a hateful way.
Ya 90s high school sucked for minorities.