Ianto Jones
Sep. 21st, 2023 12:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI saw a couple posts on tumblr but dont want to get into a discussion there because reblogs dont lend themselves to context or nuance.
One person commented on Children of Earth calling Ianto queer, another separate one said fandom shouldnt call Ianto queer because he was visibly unconfortable with that and concluded they should call him bisexual.
Well bisexual gets mentioned in the books and he seemed to me rather against that as well.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1017820-oh-come-on-smile-lisa-jack-being-bisexual-is-hardly
And I only watched CoE when it came out but I remember him having to come out to his family because they'd seen him having dinner with Jack, and his explanation was like 'it's not men, just him'.
... and then his sisters bloke walked in and said something very rude about it, calling him gay boy. Which funnily enough he was uncomfortable with.
actually checking the chakoteya transcipts it's a bit worse: His sister asks "have you gone bender", which is impolite at best. And her bloke's exact quote is "Aye aye gay boy, she says you're taking it up the arse." Which is impolite and intrusive.
And later in the week Ianto gets referred to as 'the queer'. Not just queer, 'who's the queer'. It's a difference in attitude, it's not a friendly thing to say. And again, he is unsurprisingly uncomfortable.
That was from memory, transcript makes it worse:
CLEM: And who's the queer?
IANTO: Oi! It's not 1965 any more.
CLEM: He's queer. I can smell it.
... smell it? yikes.
So the problem isn't that people are ignoring his preferred words, the problem is that Ianto existed in a context of homophobia and biphobia, and was as far as I can tell uncomfortable with all the words, probably because of their intended uses and his own internalised attitudes.
Part of the tragedy is he never got to be comfortable in his relationship, he never enjoyed a pride parade, he wasn't out, probably because he was pretty sure how people would react, and he did indeed get the homophobic reactions.
Of course the other part was he never seemed sure of just Jack either.
... I went and read the end of day 4 again, I reckon I'll go think about something else instead...
One person commented on Children of Earth calling Ianto queer, another separate one said fandom shouldnt call Ianto queer because he was visibly unconfortable with that and concluded they should call him bisexual.
Well bisexual gets mentioned in the books and he seemed to me rather against that as well.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1017820-oh-come-on-smile-lisa-jack-being-bisexual-is-hardly
And I only watched CoE when it came out but I remember him having to come out to his family because they'd seen him having dinner with Jack, and his explanation was like 'it's not men, just him'.
... and then his sisters bloke walked in and said something very rude about it, calling him gay boy. Which funnily enough he was uncomfortable with.
actually checking the chakoteya transcipts it's a bit worse: His sister asks "have you gone bender", which is impolite at best. And her bloke's exact quote is "Aye aye gay boy, she says you're taking it up the arse." Which is impolite and intrusive.
And later in the week Ianto gets referred to as 'the queer'. Not just queer, 'who's the queer'. It's a difference in attitude, it's not a friendly thing to say. And again, he is unsurprisingly uncomfortable.
That was from memory, transcript makes it worse:
CLEM: And who's the queer?
IANTO: Oi! It's not 1965 any more.
CLEM: He's queer. I can smell it.
... smell it? yikes.
So the problem isn't that people are ignoring his preferred words, the problem is that Ianto existed in a context of homophobia and biphobia, and was as far as I can tell uncomfortable with all the words, probably because of their intended uses and his own internalised attitudes.
Part of the tragedy is he never got to be comfortable in his relationship, he never enjoyed a pride parade, he wasn't out, probably because he was pretty sure how people would react, and he did indeed get the homophobic reactions.
Of course the other part was he never seemed sure of just Jack either.
... I went and read the end of day 4 again, I reckon I'll go think about something else instead...
no subject
Date: 2023-09-21 05:33 pm (UTC)Smell queer? Yeah, let's just destroy a beloved main character *and* disrespect the mentally disabled in one go, shall we? I'm totally over negative representation.