Straightwashing GBLT Characters

Well, there are certain genres of media that automatically assume that GBLT people couldn’t possibly have existed, especially if it’s set in the future (especially in dystopians. I tell you guys, us GBLT folks are super freaking tasty – the zombies and aliens go right for us!) and especially if it’s set in the past. Because we all arrived in 1960, don’tchaknow.

This erasure annoys me, it truly does. But do you know what annoys me even more?

When they remove already existing gay characters to sanitise a work for television. To have those few tiny crumbs we’ve actually managed to achieve removed lest it hurt the delicate fee-fees of the poor straight world.

So when Tanya Huff’s Blood Ties series of books became a TV show, bisexual Henry became straight and gay man Tony was replaced by a straight woman. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t a big fan for the portrayal in the books – but that doesn’t excuse cutting them out entirely.

Or did you know that in the Walking Dead comics, there were actually gay characters in the prison? Again, I actually hated how they were portrayed because they were a mess of homophobic tropes – but they were there. TV show? 3 seasons now and not one damn GBLT character.

Even Troy crosses the line with a very straight retelling of the Illiad.

Now we’re getting Da Vinci’s Demons, that would be Leonardo Da Vinci, he was repeatedly accused of sodomy, never married, was never connected to a female lover, but repeatedly with men, drew erotic pictures of them and left his most valuable painting in his will to one of his live-in “apprentices” Da Vinci. It’s an act of wilful ignorance to not realise Da Vinci played for our team. In fact, if you don’t want to include us icky gay people then you probably need to stay away from Renaissance painters – especially Florentine Renaissance painters! But Da Vinci’s Demons?

Well, the first scene we see him in, pretty much, involves him with a bare breasted woman who he “rescued” from a nunnery and it’s repeatedly made clear that he is having regular sex with. His main love interest - his overwhelming obsession - is Lucrezia Donati. A substantial amount of his time is spent obsessing over her - and her over him; and we get several explicit sex scenes between them. So do we have any indication that Leonardo Da Vinci, actual gay man, was actually even slightly interested in men? Well, in the Tower he is accused of sodomy (Florence is apparently full of “sodomites” - shame we never saw any of them, ever) and on trial. It’s almost comic if it weren’t so insulting - firstly when he makes an ambiguous speech that amounts to “mind your own business” Vanessa speaks up quickly to remind us that he’s totally slept with her.

Review: Barcode, Legend of Apollo by Kashif Ross

 

Spencer Colt carries the barcode of the god Apollo, making him one of the most powerful Gladiators in the world. But such power comes with a price – in particular a destiny to face off against Helios, the tyrant of the east coast.

In this future America, the country has been split by devastating war. A war so destructive that the gods themselves acted to end the conflict. Now wars are fought between gladiators – beings enhanced by the gods and demigods – but not everyone plays by the rules and Helios is plotting to expand his empire by any means necessary

While leaves Spencer with a hard destiny to live up to, complete with a father with high expectations but no time for him and woefully inadequate training and a complicate love triangle between himself, Hannah who he’s always loved, Michelle who he’s often fought and Angie who everyone thinks he should be with due to prophecy.

And then there’s Kode – empowered by the mask of Tartarus and caught in numerous, horrendous acts – is he an enemy or an ally?

The further we go, the more the plots and secrets are unveiled – and the greater the stakes become.

For a long time in this book, I’m flailing without really knowing what’s going on. There isn’t enough world building or character background for me to truly grasp what is happening and why. Even after the 70% mark, when there’s a huge amount of information dumped in there, I’m still guessing and extrapolating more than anything. I’m not sure how the barcodes (which appear to be tattoos and they appear to be born with) give them powers or how much power or what power they give. I’m not sure if there’s a difference based on which god you’re imbued with or whether 2 people imbued with the same god have the same powers. I’m not sure of the power difference between gods and demigods since we see 2 demigods who are more feared and powerful than most gods.

I’m not sure about the writer. Not sure of the relevance of the position of the tattoos. I don’t know why Spencer’s tattoos were bound not sure why the arena and gladiator system exists – I have a vague idea, but I’m not sure. I think it was an alternative to war – but then we go and have a war anyway. Not sure where liminal beings come in at all or where they fit, not sure what dropping into Hades even means – and I’m not especially sure as to the technology and their acronyms that are thrown around a lot to my growing confusion.

And it’s the same with the character interactions. We start the book with a huge rift between Spencer and his dad – but I never quite got why that’s there. Or the relation between Spencer and Michelle and Hannah. We also have Spencer being the moodiest, arsiest angst monster we’ve ever seen – and again I’m not sure why this is. Without a good reason why for the surly teenager act, I was left with Spencer feeling pretty unlikeable to say the least.

There are also a huge number of characters that, despite the large amount of character interaction for the beginning of the book, I had real trouble keeping track of – which was especially hard when one was imperilled. The only characters that felt significant to me were Spencer, Michelle and Kode – so when, for example, Kode’s brother showed up or Spencer’s grandfather, I had to stop to double check who this person actually was. The problem is, menace and even death to some of these people were supposed to be a source of tension in the plot (or at least a source of angst for Spencer) and I didn’t know enough about them to care about their fate.