git ssb

title: "Brothers or Sisters" date: 2007-10-07 00:34 series: Walking Dataloss

tags: Americans, bisexual erasure, Brothers and Sisters, cliché, dead fairies, false dichotomy, killing bisexuals using the power of thought, sexuality, TV

<p>In the first series of Brothers &amp; Sisters, which is just about to finish showing in the UK, Kevin—the gay one—meets a guy at the gym. So far, so cliché. Let's start a cliché tick-list:</p>

<ul>
<li>There's always exactly one gay main character</li>
<li>Gay men meet in gyms</li>
</ul>
<p>(I'm generally including lesbians in “gay”, for brevity.)</p>
<p>But Kevin's not sure whether the guy, Chad, is gay or straight.</p>
<ul>
<li>Chad is a really gay name</li>
</ul>
<p>Later, in conversation with his sisters, Kevin summarises the points in the “gay column” and those in the “straight column” of Chad's (presumably hypothetical) chart of telltale sexuality indicators.</p>
<ul>
<li>Characters in drama series and sitcoms exacerbate awkward or uncertain situations by avoiding communicating directly with a particular person (or several people), <em>especially</em> when frank communication with that person (or those people) would undoubtedly resolve all of their anxiety and/or uncertainty. (This is known as <dfn>Frasier's Law</dfn>.)</li>
</ul>
<p>Examples of “gay column” behaviour include complementing Kevin's body...</p>
<ul>
<li>Any mention by a man of the appearance of another man's body is always sexual, <em>even</em> in a gym, where improving one's body is often the primary goal and so the appearance of a person's body, <em>particularly</em> in relation to their fitness, is somewhat relevant to the present activity</li>
</ul>
<p>...having a pug (dog) named Lola...</p>
<ul>
<li>Gay men... have pugs called Lola... I guess</li>
</ul>
<p>...and having a lot of gay friends.</p>
<ul>
<li>One's sexuality can be determined by aggregating the sexualities of one's friends</li>
</ul>
<p>Examples of “straight column” behaviour include using words such as “dude” (incidentally, saying “dude” in <em>any</em> accent other than a North American one <em>always</em> makes you sound silly) and “bro'”...</p>
<ul>
<li>Straight men use slightly-outdated trendy slang, which makes them appear masculine</li>
</ul>
<p>...having a girlfriend...</p>
<ul>
<li><del>Men who have girlfriends are not likely to be gay</del> OK, so this one's a fair assessment and not a cliché</li>
</ul>
<p>...and, inexplicably, acting in a daytime soap opera. (I wasn't aware that acting in soap operas was an especially heterosexual profession; maybe it's an American thing.)</p>
<p>Sarah (Kevin's sister) suggests that Chad may be bi. <strong>Kevin retorts that <q>No-one's bi. Have you ever met a bisexual 70-year-old? Hence the expression ‘bi now, gay later’. Eventually everyone decides.</q></strong></p>
<p>This is <em>the gay one</em> saying this—the non-bigoted one. It's not that the writers are asserting this idea ironically—Kevin is <em>not</em> being portrayed as naïve or bigoted here. He isn't challenged any further by the other characters—after all, they're straight<b><a href="#note-brothersorsisters-1" id="ref-brothersorsisters-1"></a></b> and he's <em>gay</em>; he <em>knows</em> about sexuality, because only <em>his</em> sexuality is an issue.</p>
<ul>
<li>Gay people know more about sexuality in general than straight people do</li>
<li><strong>Anyone whose sexuality isn't mentioned is assumed to be straight</strong></li>
</ul>
<hr>
<p id="note-brothersorsisters-1"><b></b> (If any of the other characters were bi, <em>they</em>'d be the authoritative source on bisexuality. If any of the other characters were gay (or possibly if they were bi or asexual), the writers would have already made a massive point of <em>their</em> sexualities, too.) <b><a href="#ref-brothersorsisters-1">↑</a></b></p>
<hr>
<p>So why <em>does</em> Kevin think he <em>hasn't</em> met any bisexual 70-year-olds? For a start, quite a lot of people don't regularly wear any sort of label identifying their sexuality. So the only ways Kevin could <em>know</em> that he'd met a bisexual 70-year-old would be:</p>
<ol>
<li>Asking them about their sexuality</li>
<li>Using guesswork, applying his shrewd detective skills, and convincing himself of his conclusion beyond any doubt</li>
</ol>
<p>Judging by the sophistication of Kevin's criteria for determining gayness and straightness, he'd have a hard time correctly <em>guessing</em> that any arbitrary 70-year-old was bi. And judging by his <em>resorting</em> to unsophisticated guesswork, rather than <em>just asking</em>, “Bro'! You gay or what, dawg?” of his <em>potential boyfriend</em>, I doubt he asks many 70-year-olds about their sexuality.</p>
<p>But Kevin <em>has</em> probably happened upon a few same-sex couples involving 70-year-olds, and a few opposite-sex couples involving 70-year-olds. Of the former, he's thought “oh, a couple of gays”, and of the latter, “oh, a couple of straights”.</p>
<p>(I'm pretending here that everyone is, to whatever degree, either definably male or definably female, which isn't true. And I'm aware that this entry addressing the assumption of a <em>sexuality</em> dichotomy whilst still assuming that a <em>gender</em> binary exists is both suboptimal and generally a bit crap. But this entry is long enough and has already taken far too long to write.)</p>
<p>All (or at least the vast majority of) “having a relationship with one person” behaviour can be filed away neatly under either “gay” or “straight”. Compared to the fraction of people in couples, the fraction of people in relationships with <em>more</em> than one person is relatively small (and of those, the fraction who are 70-year-olds is positively minuscule). Examples of obviously-bi behaviour amount to:</p>
<ol>
<li>Having a series of relationships with people of different sexes</li>
<li>Having a polyamorous relationship with people of different sexes</li>
<li>Expressing interest in people of different sexes</li>
<li>Displaying the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisexual_pride_flag">bi pride flag</a></li>
<li>Saying “I'm bi”</li>
</ol>
<p>Few people are <em>obviously</em> bisexual, especially at first glance. So Kevin has been categorising everyone neatly away as “gay” and “straight”. Or rather, he's probably started with everyone in the “straight” pile <i>(a category, not a physical <em>pile</em>)</i>, then plucked out anyone who contradicts this, and hurled them over into the “gay” pile. If you're going to assume that everyone is not bi, <em>of course</em> you're not going to notice any bi people.</p>
<p>Later, when Kevin finally <em>does</em> ask Chad about his sexuality, Chad says, “I may not be gay, but that doesn't mean I don't think you're hot.” <i>(Fans of double negatives rejoice.)</i> This, along with the ensuing sexytime, practically confirms that Chad <em>is</em> bi.</p>
<p>Yet after this, and in the following few episodes when Kevin carries out a relationship with Chad (apparently without Chad's girlfriend's knowledge), Chad's bi-ness isn't mentioned at all. Their relationship is merely described as “closeted” and occasionally “gay”. Start singing <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Erasure/_/A+Little+Respect">A Little Respect</a>, everyone—it's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisexual_erasure">bi erasure</a>!</p>
<p><a href="http://suegeorgewrites.blogspot.com/2007/08/i-believe.html">It's been said that <q>every time you say you don't believe in bisexuals, one dies</q></a>. I seriously doubt this will prove to be literally true. A couple more to finish the cliché tick-list:</p>
<ul>
<li>Fairies are a bit queer</li>
<li>Bloggers like to explain general principles using individual examples of those principles (...and self-reference)</li>
</ul>