Honestly, it's getting really hard to be gay out here. Not because people think we are living in sin or making it up as we go along. Not even because people say things like "if two men can get married then why can’t I marry a horse?" You know rational arguments and conversations about human rights. No, it's getting hard because the representation in pop culture is setting the bar way too high.
Let’s consider some examples of queer protagonists in recent pop culture:
1. Love, Simon: Teen boy comes out to family and friends and gets a boyfriend all in 90 minutes? Difficult, stressful, unreasonably fast turnaround.
2. Boy Erased: Young man escapes southern conversion camp, turns his mother into an ally queen, writes a MEMOIR, gets a boyfriend? Takes serious strength, talent, and a publisher.
3. Moonlight: Young gay black man navigates racial, cultural, and sexual obstacles to become a successful drug dealer in Miami and snag his life long crush? Small business success, a Hail Mary pass for the win, Miami sunsets. The trifecta.
4. Call Me By Your Name: Timothée Chalamet? Italian countryside? Unreachable heights.
5. Frozen 2: Queen of a fictional Norway? Disney? We’ll never compete.
As you can see these gay heroes and icons are untouchable. We keep tossing them softballs and they are knocking them out of the park. How am I to feel inspired by these figures of gay excellence when most days I feel just gay mediocre?
Straight people get representation spanning from the beloved Atticus Finch to the psychotic Hannibal Lecter. When straight people watch a staple film of the straight cannon such as A Bug's Life they can think “Well at least I’m not as awful as that evil grasshopper” and they feel good about themselves. When gay people watch an iconic queer film they think, “what am I doing with my life? I have not fully accepted myself, moved to the Italian countryside, started a small business, and I certainly have not taken a lover.” Frankly, it's unjust.
Enter Joe Exotic: gay villain. For those of you who are using this quarantine to “better yourself” instead of binge watching anything and everything that you can stream, Joe Exotic is the star of Netflix’s new documentary masterpiece Tiger King. He’s the owner and face of the G.W. Big Cat Zoo in Oklahoma. He is quite possibly the most insane character to come to the surface of pop culture in the history of Netflix. He’s the kind of person who sounds made up, but if he was in a fictional story he wouldn’t seem real enough to be a believable character. For that reason he seems otherworldly - as if he couldn’t exist in this world even as a figment of our imagination. But here he is - our gay villain.
Although Joe Exotic may have grabbed our attention unlike any other figure in pop culture, there is no denying his morals are at the very least questionable. He was abusive to his animals and staff, attempted to hire someone to murder Carole Baskin, and coerced two young men to marry him by using drugs and big cats (I didn’t know the best way to get two men to enter in a homosexual relationship was by baiting them with pussy - but hey, what do I know?).
Joe Exotic is helping round out the gay community by giving us the low bar that we needed. We can now say, hey at least I don’t own a big cat zoo in Oklahoma that toes the lines of legality at every turn. When I'm having a bad day and feeling gay mediocre I can turn on Netflix and be reminded that its okay to be gay and to be just average. To hell with the high standards set by these gay heroes, its time for a villain to shake up these tired tropes and give me a standard I can actually live up to. Joe Exotic is reminding us that we can grow up and be anything we want - whether that is a gay hero or a gay villain.
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