In order to debunk this rebuttal, I took it upon myself to examine the numerous number of heterosexual characters in the show, how many people and/or pairings were still alive, and the quality of their moral fiber in comparison to the portrayed GSM characters and/or pairings. Because of the quantity of heterosexual people and/or pairings, made more complicated with the heteronormative context of the show, I’ve only gone through the named characters who had some kind of role to play and whose heterosexuality was emphasized in some way.

(For characters whom have problematic issues to their characters yet the narrative positioned as “good,” I have used the term “not-evil”)

Season 1:

• Jessica Moore – good/dead
• Haley Collins — good/alive; heteronormative context with Dean
• Andrea Barr — good/alive; husband already dead on the scene more complicated by heteronormative context she is placed in relationship to the boys
• Amanda Walker — good/alive, boyfriend referenced in the canon
• Becky—good/alive [Skin — shapeshifter going after heterosexual relationships; strong implication that Becky is heterosexual—]
• Lori Sorenson — good/alive (her evil was un-intentional, and the ghost was exploiting her own moral crisis), lives — should I mention the race fail/slut shaming in the episode?
• Bugs: good, straight, heteronormative family survives. more race fail though!
• Kat and her boyfriend: good/alive
• Meg — evil/alive [heterosexual apparently as she has not been sexual towards another woman; complicated because women rarely interact with other women in the narrative]
• Emily—good/alive [placed in heteronormative sacrifice with Dean; the character herself made no subversion — ie saying she was queer in some way—assuming that the show takes it as a given that she is straight]
• Townspeople were pretty evil trying to sacrifice them, but compare the screentimes of the people involved—also they lived except the two ironic justice two who were chosen—but even those weren’t part of the narrative in the same way that the other named ones are
• Layla Rourke — good/alive heteronormative concept/connection with Dean, good
• Sue-ann — evil/dead [oh look, this is the first non-GSM evil/dead]
• Cassie: good/alive
• Max Miller: sexuality unknown? but since the show is heteronormative as fuck, we’ll say he’s straight. so evil/dead (but even his going evil had justification? consistent abuse is bad and horrible—i believe he was supposed to be sympathetic, both with his suicide and his history)
• Mrs Miller: not-evil/alive
• Bender Family — evil/some-dead, some-alive
• Mordechai Murdoch — evil/dead/monster of the week
• Ed Zeddmore — good/alive
• Harry Spangler — good/alive
• Sarah Blake — good/alive [heterosexual context with Sam]
• Bobby— good/alive

So in Season 1 we have 22 straight characters.

6 out of those 22 were evil.

6 are dead.

3 are evil/dead

Let’s go to season 2

• Ellen: good/alive
• Jo: good/alive
• Gordon: idk if his sexuality was explicitly stated—but Gordon Walker is just—a prime example of Supernatural Race Fail and Everything Else Fail so + SPN’s heteronormative context…weh evil/dead
• Neil: not-evil/dead
• Andy: not-evil/dead
• Diana Ballard: good/alive
• Pete Sheridan: evil/dead
• Victor Henrikson: good/alive
• Ava Wilson: evil/dead
• Susan Thompson: good/alive
• guy at the end of Houses of the Holy: evil/dead
• Madison: good/dead
• Tara Benchley: good/alive [a lot of men died and one was evil, but their sexualities weren’t…part of the story? in the same way those who are queer have been]
• Jake Talley: evil/dead (race fail)

14 straight people in season 2

5 are evil

8 are dead

5 are evil/dead

Season 3

• Tamara: good/alive
• Isaac: good/dead
• Ben: good/alive
• Lisa: good/alive
• Bela: not-evil/dead
• Casey/Father Gil — not-evil/dead [lol remember when spn was grey? remember when you guise?]
• evil stepmother: evil/dead
• dr. garrison: good/alive
• gertrude: good/alive [lol first joke het ship—took them three seasons to get around to it, and of course, the consent issues are ignored]
• Carrigan gods – evil/dead
• Victor Henrikson — good/dead
• Harry Spangler/Maggie – good/alive

12 straight people in season 3

2 are evil

5 are dead

2 are evil/dead

1 is a joke

Season 4

• Pamela: good/dead
• Mary/John: good/alive
• Jack/Michelle: good/dead [the ship is dead, and they were more tragic than evil so]
• Jamie — good/alive
• Not sure how to quantify yellow fever but it’s about tragic heterosexual love so
• Wes/Hope—evil/alive [it is worth noting that the narrative would probably not condemn this pairing as evil, but it was rape-culture and it's evil, no matter if the show refuses to acknowledge it as such]
• Anna/Dean: good/alive
• Bender esque episode but the heteronormative family survives so: good/alive
• Dean/Caroline: good/alive
• Sam/Cara: good/alive
• Chuck: good/alive [possibly god]
• Novaks – good/alive [tragic het ship]

12 straight couples

10 are good

2 are dead

1 was evil

no jokes

0 are evil/dead. In fact, this is the first instance where a het couple is privileged in this way by being both evil yet being allowed to live. This becomes significant in season 7.

Season 5

• Chuck/Becky — good/alive/joke
• Jody mills — good/alive
• Nick/Sarah — good/dead — tragic het ship spurring story along
• Ellen & Jo — good/dead
• Lindsey — good/alive
• Risa—good/alive
• Patrick/Lia — not-evil/dead
• Gary/Nora — good/alive [going leniently but the temptation to put down evil was strong, but there was redemption for them so good it is]
• Vore-istic/Cannibal het couple in the valentine ep — good/dead
• Bobby/Karen — good/dead
• don’t know how to do Gabriel/Kali — it was offensive because of its treatment of non-Abrahamic religion, but the narrative positioned them as good/dead.

11 het couples/people

10 were good

0 evil (not-evil doesn’t count)

6 are dead

0 are evil/dead

1 joke

Season 6

• Dean/Lisa — good/”dead” [tragic het ship with problematic narrative canon never addresses]
• Marcy — good/alive
• gross skin walker het ship not sure how to classify: evil/alive
• robo!Sam/random chick — good/alive
• Bobby/Eleanor — good/dead
• Bobby/Ellen — good/alive
• tragic phoenix het ship — not-evil/dead

7 het ships/people

5 are good

the evil ones are….questionable in the canon, at the very least. iThe narrative would feel I am judging harshly (this, however, is in the narrative’s favor since I am arguing that there are more heterosexual people/pair who are alive). Regardless, none of the het ships in this season are as blatantly evil as a demon romance.

2 are explicitly dead

0 evil/dead

1 evil/alive

Season 7

• Jody/Bobby – good/dead
• Amy – good/dead [validated by narrative to make it worse]
• Dean/Jo – good/dead [tragic het romance]
• Mia – good/alive [bartender dean was flirting with]
• Maggie/Don — evil/alive [left purposely so by the narrative; remember in Mallus episode where the Winchesters purposely hunted after a coven of female witches? the misogyny in this is sickening]
• Melanie — good/alive
• Becky/Sam – evil/alive/joke
• Chronos/Lila – not evil/dead [his reasons were sympathetically painted]
• Dean/Lydia – evil/alive

So far in season seven, there are 9 het people/ships

5 are good

3 are evil

3 are dead (but not the evil ones)

3 evil/alives

1 joke

(interesting—look who is alive and who is dead—why is season 7 privileging so much badness?)

Now for those who are queer (this was mildly difficult because of the queer baiting wherein the narrative strongly implicates queerness but refuses to make it explicit) :

• Jeffrey/Jeffrey!demon: evil/dead
• Tammi/Ruby: evil/dead
• Corbett: good/dead
• Demian/Barnes: good/alive/joke
• Sue: good/dead
• Lily: good/dead

2 are evil/dead

5 are dead

4 are good

1 joke

Conclusion:

In seven seasons of Supernatural there are:

87 significant het ships or people whose heterosexuality was highlighted [it’s weird to talk about heterosexuality in these terms, isn’t it because of hetero-normativity] and 6 queer ships or people

43/87 (~49%)  || 1/6 (~17%) are good/alive

17/87 (~20%) || 2/6 (~33%) are blatantly evil

32/87 (~37%) || 5/6 (~83%) are dead 

10/87 (~11%) || 2/6 (~33%) are evil/dead

3/87 (~3%) || 1/6 (~17%) are jokes 

This ignores that Dean, Sam, and Bobby are canonically straight. Which is important. Sam and Dean, the integral characters of the show? Are straight. Bobby, an important secondary character, is straight. Castiel? Well. So far he’s been shoved into a heteronormative (and cisnormative) context.

So how did I decide? I tried to go with the explicit characters/ships that were somehow significant in the same way the queer characters/ships were. It was hard, I won’t deny it—mostly because being straight is normative in the spn canon. And also there were some repetitions where certain characters, like Bobby, were allowed to have more than one partner.

Straight people are allowed to have stories. Straight people are allowed to have narratives. Straight people are allowed to be both good and bad, villains and good guys, antagonists and protagonists, and in between (notice the not-evil things I have there when I didn’t think good would fit and how that label is distinctly lacking for the queer people/pairings). Straight people are allowed to be straight without a big deal being made about their straightness. Straight people are allowed to have romances without a big deal being made about their omg romance in a genre text!

Additionally, I know there is a tendency to say that Supernatural isn’t about the romance which is often used to excuse the exclusion of a queer romance with one of the protagonists, but look at the number of canon straight ships there actually are, and how many of those include the show’s protagonists.

Trans people are invisible except when the narrative offensively slurs them.

Imagine Kat and her boyfriend. Now, imagine if Kat had had a girlfriend instead.

The narrative would not have treated her the same way if that had been the case.

In fact, there have been no queer people who have been casually queer like the straight people are casually straight.

The audience must stop excusing this marginalization.

That Sera Gamble is a woman in marginalizing contexts can be seen in some of her interviews like this one:

I need to take a few sentences to gush over “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” The script was gorgeous, as was Jared’s performance of Sam at his absolute lowest point. You gave him some outstanding material to work with. Out of all your scripts, that so far is my favorite. Having said that, did the ridiculous fan debate about Sam being a rapist prompt you to give Ruby an empty shell to inhabit (great line, by the way, “Al Gore would be proud”) or was that the plan all along?

We started work on the episode before any debate began that I know of, so none of it was a reaction. But we did know that Sam having sex with a demon would be provocative. Actually, I was very excited to work on the episode. People do a lot of otherwise unthinkable things when they’re grieving. Who doesn’t want to write the episode where a character they’ve worked on for 70 episodes does stuff he’d otherwise never do?

But anyway, the state of Ruby’s body was the subject of much conversation, mostly because I couldn’t shut up about it. I just couldn’t get past the rape thing. I think I actually disappointed some people I work with, who thought I’d be tougher or darker or something. Or possibly just didn’t care as much as I did one way or another. But I took a lot of writers’ room time talking about it. And ultimately took the long way around so I could get her into a vaguely more morally acceptable body. I readily admit it’s rather silly, and the mechanics are contrived — that’s why I leaned into the joke so much

The dismissal of the interviewer regarding Gamble’s anxiety over the perpetuation of rape culture is troubling enough, but read between the lines of what Gamble is saying, how she voices additional anxiety regarding how she is seen and respected by her peers, about people who didn’t care, about how hard she had to fight—about how, to get past it, she had to turn her valid anxieties into a joke.

Imagine how this probably wasn’t a singular occurrence—that she has to fight this sort of privilege and marginalization every day with every episode and with every decision. That Gamble—especially now in seasons 6 and 7—is surrounded by a male creative team that reinforces and perpetuates misogyny (just look at their episodes) and rape culture.

If the writers don’t respect the marginalized characters in their episodes, you can be damn sure they don’t respect them in the real life.

Though we should hesitate to place Gamble on a pedestal, it is a mistake to assume that Gamble lives in a bubble where she is not affected by rampant sexism and misogyny and that it somehow doesn’t affect her decisions as a show-runner. It’s a mistake not to read between the lines of these interviews and realize that she is surrounded by people who do not respect her, and how difficult it is to work in that kind of situation.

And I think you can see that when she gives interviews like this:

Everyone is reading that script today, actually. I can tell you that the people here are telling me that they like it, but I think it’s partially their job to say that, so I guess I can’t tell you anything with any reliability.”

Why is there so much criticism for Gamble, but hardly any in comparison when it is obvious that her male writing team is not doing their job?

It’s troubling that people are so eager to criticize her lack of show-runner skills without also criticizing/condemning the context of her situation as a woman in an environment that does not respect women, where she had to fight for basic consent issues regarding Ruby, and where she has no idea if she can trust her writing team or probably even if they respect her.

This is reminiscent of the Very Common Trope so often found in literatures where marginalized members of a community are often seen and viewed and set up as the active perpetuators of a harmful canon of oppression (see the previews released of Brave and how the protagonist’s mother reinforces damaging patriarchal ideology, see Regina in Once Upon a Time, etc) —

This is such a damaging figure to portray because it undermines the oppressive/threatening nature of the canon and implicitly validates its oppression.

Since there is evidence that Sera Gamble actually does fight against some forms of oppression (cf, Ruby)—which is not to say that she does not have her problematic elements because she does, it is a mistake to ignore the context of those decisions as well.

In addition, most of the complaints about Gamble — about how the show is more than just two brothers, how people are always being killed off, etc. — were principles established by Eric Kripke.

If fandom thinks Kripke would be a better showrunner, if fandom has a misogyny/bigotry in general problem that is reinforced not only by the actors and the writers, then there is a good chance that more people than just the fandom think that Kripke would be a better show-runner—say perhaps Gamble’s writing team? The network in general? Just a thought.

These same people should be wondering why they are so hard on Gamble when Kripke clearly has the same issues that people ascribe to Gamble because he was the one that established these harmful narrative precedents in the first place. I know it’s hard to believe, but I sincerely think that most of the good of Supernatural happened entirely by accident, and that its foundation is so rotten that it cannot support the weight of the extra seasons—and some of that is on Gamble, but in the process of criticizing Gamble, let’s not forget to criticize Kripke and the rest of the creative writing team and fandom that perpetuates the canon that oppresses marginalized individuals—of which Gamble is a part.

Let’s not forget to remember that she has more on her plate than just getting a good story off the ground. That Sera Gamble has to fight elements that Kripke never had to deal with—like fandom, like her peers, like a male writing team that doesn’t respect her.

Compare this to the “Real Ghostbusters,” where the characters were allowed to “cuddle” each other, though it was also for the joke factor.

The other gsm female character in Supernatural was Sue in “Shut Up Dr. Phil” — the one where she was about to profess her love for the witch and experienced decapitation via magical means.

It’s interesting interesting that the writers chose to use this episode, the episode with the queer ghost, to introduce Annie.

It becomes even more interesting that the writers decide to emphasize Annie’s heterosexual orientation. Though Annie never explicitly identifies as queer or straight, there is still the context of Dean and Sam discussing her sex life (in and of itself a highly problematic moment as Annie has no voice in this discussion and it is, in fact, taking place behind her back). Were she supposed to be queer, it is more likely that this part of her would have definitely been discussed, if only to further eroticize her as a character. That this conversation did not occur and because Supernatural adheres to rigid normative forms, it is more likely that Annie is supposed to be straight than queer.

The narrative parallels Annie with Victoria, a “fancy lady.” This places Annie in an activity that is usually coded as heterosexual. However, this is complicated when Annie states that Victoria is “checking her out.” This situation where Annie is coded as partaking in heterosexual activity yet hinted to be queer in some way places Victoria squarely in a male-gazey, heterosexual context.

This frequently occurs with gsm women in television. For example, in Glee, Santana suffered the same coded treatment. Though she is canonically lesbian, she sings male-gaze-y heterosexual songs like “I Kissed a Girl,” and there was a Christmas song where her dance number included flirting with men for jewels that did not make the initial cut of the episode.

This is problematic and invalidates a queer woman’s sexuality.

By positioning these characters in these invalidating situations, the narrative questions a character’s sexuality. Supernatural says, “Hey Queer lady, if you’re queer, that lady you’re checking out? She’s straight–she’s straighter than a ruler and, as testament to her straightness, we’re going to tell you that she’s had sex with all three of the show’s leads. There are so few of you, and hey, you’re already dead, and hey, even when you were still alive and still queer, you still had sex with dudes. Are you even really queer? Are you sure you’re not just waiting for the right man to come along? Better find him before you die!”

This isn’t to say that those who identify as lesbian/bi/etc who have sex with men aren’t legitimately queer because  sexual actions have nothing to do with one’s sexual identity.

But when there are so many narratives censoring queer activity with either a male-gazey “heterosexual” context or erasing it completely by saying yeah she’s queer but only blatantly showing her with men or explicitly stating her as being with men as happened with Irene in the BBC’s Sherlock, that is really problematic

With Supernatural, Victoria “futilely” checks out the Ultra Heterosexual Annie, while being reminded not once, but twice, that she is a Fancy Lady, “a hooker,” with the implicit male-gazey “heterosexual” coded context that is loaded into that statement.

Beyond checking out Annie, no statement is ever made again that she is queer. Her actions don’t reinforce it. Not even a by-line about how she missed her girlfriend, or that a hypothetical lover was waiting for her on the other side.

The audience only receives constant reminders that Annie is heterosexual and that Victoria had sex with men, over and over.

Perhaps instead of the male gaze, this could be considered the Cis-Het Gaze? Where, even though there are canonically queer characters, they are never seen in anything less than a coded heterosexual context?

Honestly, I found Victoria’s treatment under this gaze to be more upsetting than her inevitable death.

I’m so sick of saying the words gay and lesbian–they’re just people. I’m so tired of that. [applause] One day I want like my son to come home from school and be like ‘I found this guy at school and I love him! and I’ll be like, ‘Yes you do and that’s okay!’

Though Josh Hutcherson is definitely entitled to his own opinion, this dismissal of “labels” is problematic. Labels are tools of self-expression.

Language evolves as people find new ways to voice their experiences. Because these are unhappy times, certain experiences are privileged and seen as “normative” over other people’s experiences. Because of policing, oppression, etc. in order to perpetuate this canon, this narrative, this status quo, language is censored, making it difficult to talk about these things from a marginalized point of view. This is why the Privileged Gaze, particularly in how the Gaze perceives a marginalized community and especially the way a Gaze frames commentary about a marginalized community, is insidious and dangerous.

This is why Josh Hutcherson, as a privileged individual, is able to so cavalierly say that he is sick of words like “gay” or “lesbian” and envisions a future where his son can come home and say I love a boy and that’s okay without realizing how problematic that actually is.

Which is why words are important because it gives voice to another person’s experience and perspective that does not match up with the “normative” framework (remember, heterosexuality and cis are labels too, but they are hardly ever seen or talked about as such).

It is really fascinating to see how this language evolves, how it becomes problematized, and how new words are developed in answer to those problems. For example, there are people who reject or wish to develop new words to express a trans identity, and there are people who have Huge Serious Problems with the feminist movement who do not identify as feminist because of it’s problematic aspects.

I understand that Josh Hutcherson meant well, but to be honest, he has never faced the kind of oppression that individuals who use and accept these words have faced.

He has also not been where people who are marginalized are also oppressed by the rhetoric that other marginalized people have adopted for themselves.

To be frank, he simply has no way of understanding how those words have negatively or positively or otherwisely affected the people he is supposedly an ally of.

For those saying, well he is describing an ideal future where people won’t feel othered for not identifying as the so-called normative, his phrasing is still problematic because these words are tools for self-expression which people can choose to use or not. However, a future where gsm individuals are not oppressed naturally precludes the use of words like “asexual” or any other gsm identity that may exist now or will exist in the future.

It’s true that these words are problematic, these movements are problematic, because there is oppression going on, both from the “outside,” the privileged majority, and from the “inside,” marginalized individuals towards other marginalized individuals too (see intersectionalism).

However, to simply gloss over these problems in the hope of a future where these labels are unnecessary (in my opinion, when has language of self-expression ever been unnecessary though?) is entirely problematic because it encourages people not to think about the situations that are going on right now, the problems that are going on right now, the erasure that many other marginalized individuals face not just from the privileged community, but from their marginalized peers.

This needs to be talked about more vocally, but instead privileged rhetoric such as Josh Hutcherson, where they describe a future when these marginalized communities can all be “just people” (which is a cop-out phrase that fails to take into consider past and current oppression) takes front and center stage.

This is problematic because these marginalized individuals are already people and as people, are already using these words.

The answer isn’t to just do away with words all together, but to develop new and better words. However, the privileged majority must not intrude upon the spaces where this evolution can happen safely.

Words like these are tools of self-expression. If one doesn’t use them or finds that they don’t adequately express who one is, then that’s okay.

I’ve seen a lot of people saying in the aftermath of this Josh Hutcherson fiasco that they don’t like being defined by their sexuality—and that is aslo okay.

However, people are different, with different wants, desires, and needs.

That’s another issue with Josh Hutcherson as well—failing to realize that there are people who gladly use these words, and embrace them just as there are people who do not want to use these words. His future, his idealized future, completely erased those individuals in his rhetoric of language policing.

These words are tools. Use them or don’t. Abandon them if they become insufficient or were never relevant to one’s experience in the first place. Make up new ones if there is not a word that expresses who one is. Criticize people who use them or put them on a pedestal or do not talk about how problematic they are.

But if you are part of a privileged community, don’t just say that you, personally, are sick of saying words that are used by a marginalized community as a means of self-expression.

Notice how in this scenario that Hutcherson has presented, his hypothetical son has no voice? Hutcherson doesn’t hypothetically consider how his hypothetical son might want to identify as.

The speech, really, is all about Josh Hutcherson—and this is the cis-het gaze, really.

Perhaps I am mistaken to blame my generic outrage solely upon the author, however, I am perplexed about modeling a Slow-Books Movement on similar “slow” movements, such as the slow food movement, which is directly mentioned in the article.

However, the Slow Food movement is based upon the freedom of socio-economic status to determine what kind of food one gets to place in their body–not everyone has the financial means nor the time to be selective about the quality of one’s food.

To base Reading upon such movement based entirely on who is privileged and who is not is problematic because reading, to a certain extent with the existence of libraries and public education, has been associated with accessibility to people no matter their economic-socio status.

That the author is unaware of this privilege becomes evident when Kelly uses this quote from Michael Pollan to root the Slow Books Movement: “Read books. As often as you can. Mostly classics.”

With this statement, Kelly initiates a movement that is based on privilege hierarchy, which she only continues to perpetuate when she denigrates television series by calling it the “boob tube” — which, unfortunately, with its femme context, becomes a misogynist slur as well.

The hierarchy only continues when Kelly writes,

Also excluded: non-literary books. Why the emphasis on literature? By playing with language, plot structure, and images, it challenges us cognitively even as it entertains.

Though Kelly does not define what she means by non-literary, I am assuming she means books that are not considered genre. Kelly here engages in a logical fallacy where she claims that non-literary books cannot play with plot structure, images, or languages. This implies that all literary books are well written, which is also not necessarily true.

She then goes on to provide examples of what she considers literary fiction:

• War and Peace
• Kafka
• Moby Dick
• William Styron
• Mary Gaitskill
• Tolstoy
• Hemingway
• Jonathan Franzen
• Portnoy’s Complaint 
• James Salter

It is difficult to ignore that there is very little diversity in this collection of what Kelly considers to be “literary” and “classic.” To further problematize this conclusion, Kelly goes on to talk about community, about empathy, and how reading classics shape identity.

It is very telling that she does not include any marginalized voices. Does she expect marginalized individualizes to attempt to identify with a privileged group–to “white-wash” themselves, for example?

Or are those marginalized identities not worthy of a voice, not worthy to be formed in the same way that those of privilege are?

The recommended books–who wrote them, the sort of stories they tell, illustrate a narrow perception of what can be considered literature and what sort of narratives are considered formational. With a few exceptions, the recommended list is practically one voice, and I cannot help but wonder: where is everybody else’s voice?

There is more than one worthwhile identity.

She continues this sort of privileging by disregarding individuals who are disinclined to read for whatever reason–and they are valid reasons, though the author may not thinks so (but then, she has no position or authority to judge):

Eventually, you may get so good at reading that you’ll move on to the slowest (and most rewarding) reading material around: great poems.

This implies that there is good reading and there is bad reading and an individual knows when they have become a Good Reader (TM)

This normatizes the reading experience, disregarding other voices, perspectives, and experiences in order to idealize a very specific experience at the risk of othering individuals, and inhibiting from this idea of worth and value, which is contextualized in a concept of “intelligence.”

I find that there is an undercurrent of shame in this article for those who do not enjoy the same kind of literatures as this author is espousing, which completely ignores people of marginalized communities.

This is further condemned when she writes:

And though a television show isn’t likely to stay with you too long beyond the night that you watch it.

This reveals that she is unaware or does not care that fandoms do exist and thrive for a number of television shows. She disregards the creative output and democratizing nature of fandom, which gives voice to numerous individuals and creates a platform for individuals to adapt narratives so that they, too, can have a voice that is heard by their peers, even if they are inhibited from the same validation by the marginalizing rhetoric that establishes cultural hierarchies. Individuals in fandoms found in televisions shows–an experience that lasts far longer than the night contrary to what Kelly might think (and notice how this rhetoric also minimalizes the problematic narratives in these shows while simultaneously defusing any desire to actually change these marginalizing narratives because why bother if they’re not worth anything) undergoes a validation of personhood in their own subversive ways. That this realization of personhood is not seen as worthwhile by the traditional canon or other authority figures, which Kelly herself, as an author for a journal as prestigious as The Atlantic, is a part of, is problematic.

Also isn’t it commented on by the woman who chooses to stay in the CDC that she recognized the fact all the woman were relegated to secondary roles compared to the men? Isn’t that the exact gender role debate we’re having now? I think the guns themselves aren’t gendered or sexist, while the roles the group is falling into is exactly what would happen in real life, regardless of sexism? The Walking Dead isn’t some idealized gender neutral apocalypse, it’s meant to show real situations. 

(emphasis mine)

The term “gender neutrality” is an offensive ideology that erases individuals who do find themselves identifying as a certain gender. Secondly, this kind of opinion mistakenly conflicts gsm representation with genres that are more inclined to be happy instead of grim as zombie apocalypses.

This opinion rests on a platform of privilege where racism, sexism, and general bigotry are seen as “natural.” These are, in fact, systems of oppression, and not “natural” at all—rather, they are constructed by the people who have the power to systematically oppress others.

Good narratives are constructed with complex situations and characters. However, narratives become problematic when they become just as racist, sexist, gendered, and bigoted as the characters populating them.

It is ignorant to say that the characters in these stories are falling into “real” roles that would happen in “real life.” Such statements deny these marginalized individuals—both those in the narrative and those in the larger social context in which the narrative exists—their personhood. Such an opinion states that these people have no agency, no desire, not drives, no wants of their owns.

By Any Other Name  (gender queer)
Exit Stage Left
Who Is Amanda Ellesworth? (gender queer)

Poetry

Another Martian Sends a Postcard Home”
Beware Blackbird
Dear Fangirl
Finals
I shuffle to the bathroom
Just One Halloween (gender queer)
Silly Little Love Poem
The Summer I was in San Francisco
What’s This Little Girl Made Of?”