discussion I Miss Old LGBT Culture

[GraceRandolph]

1 hour ago, Headlock said:

So you say things aren’t progressive enough, and therefore want to return to the days… where things were even less progressive?  

 

You mean… queer characters in love stories in media that both end in tragedy with one of them being murdered?  That’s the peak of representation to you?

This idea that no LGBT representation existed before the 2010’s is untrue. We had Will & Grace, The L Word, Ugly Betty, Queer as Folk, early RuPaul’s Drag Race, Project Runway, Brokeback Mountain, and a ton of LGBT indie movies. 

[Headlock]

2 hours ago, GraceRandolph said:

This idea that no LGBT representation existed before the 2010’s is untrue. We had Will & Grace, The L Word, Ugly Betty, Queer as Folk, early RuPaul’s Drag Race, Project Runway, Brokeback Mountain, and a ton of LGBT indie movies. 

Literally no one said representation didn’t exist before, I am asking why you think that representation was better or more favorable??  Project Runway? Ugly Betty?  Indie LGBT movies on TLA releasing that were never in theaters outside of NY/LA and that before the internet were literally impossible to find in any video store? 

Literally the only thing you just mentioned that had gay people as the main characters that was a mainstream show on a major network was Will & Grace. Which deservedly was revolutionary and now gay characters are everywhere in mainstream manor network television shows, not… just one 

[RunUpDoneUp]

Yeah, you should've heard their mixtape, it's their best release!

 

But no, having less visibility actually endangered a lot more lgbt people than otherwise, now people actually know that not only gay men exist but also, people who aren't "***** makes boy"/"****** makes girl" and they have needs that we have to address as a society to lessen harm and confront the bigotry they face.

 

Culture is to be shared to those who appreciate or can gain something from partaking. If we want understanding, we needed more open borders. Good and the bad, human development 101.

[Nano]

I'd love to experience being gay in American cities in the 60s and 70s.

 

Hard pass on the post-HIV and pre-PrEP years though. I don't want to die of AIDS and condoms are horrible.

[OreGuy]

u wanna be stoned or sumth? 

[kimberly]

this thread is giving major "masc 4 masc, no fats, no femmes, no asians" energy, but I cannot prove it.

[mylicious]

BE HAPPY WE ARE VISIBLE !!!!!

[GraceRandolph]

3 hours ago, kimberly said:

this thread is giving major "masc 4 masc, no fats, no femmes, no asians" energy, but I cannot prove it.

Not at all. Keep your rude, baseless speculation to yourself. 

[PoisonPill]

You might just miss being young?

[Phaunzie]

That's fine and all but, old LGBT culture isn't as progressive as you think it is. Nowadays, newer gays seemed to try too hard to self regulate in order to make the community to be as mainstream as possible. That is the only problem nowadays.. 

[Doogle]

Not for stuff like the OP but I get it a bit with younger Gen Z’s distaste towards queerness regarding being sexual.
 

it’s weird how there’s a big generational divide about sex positivity. Going to stereotype and generalise massively here but 25+ gays seem super sexual and want to be able to shag at pride and not be kink shamed. Under 25 seem like prudes who only see homosexuality as romantic and don’t want sex to define them and require many labels and identities to justify that. 

 

I’m 25 and see it from both sides lmao but lean more towards older gays. I don’t like how judgemental younger gays can be just because they have less sex. 

[CandleGuy]

Ah yes, the good old days where you could get disowned by your parents one week, get the **** kicked out of you walking down the street the next, then get fired from your job for being gay, and then finally die a painful death through AIDS 

 

How ******* disrespectful of everything that generation fought for.

[DAP]

Cultural assimilation is fine; I don’t think we should supervise or restrict access to people curious about a culture foreign to them. You mean well but this reads like nostalgia for an imagined past, at worst ignorance. Race and especially class undermined the (fragile) sense of community then and continues to this day. Now I agree corporatization is a real problem because of how it placates movements that challenge the status quo. Not unique to LGBTs but something that will totally subvert any advance for freedom/self-determination that oppressed people struggle for.

[Mr.Marvelous]

this thread is so unserious

[zasderfght]

On 4/30/2023 at 8:05 AM, Phantom said:

This just feels like misplaced romanticization that, despite good intentions, comes off as gatekeep-y and entitled.

 

The "sense of community" you mention was largely absent from the lives of older LGBTQ+ individuals, and "no mainstream representation exists for me...I feel so "special"" is not a thought anyone had

 

By all means. Talk about hyper-sexualization via hookup apps, tokenized representation feeling disingenuous and cynical for-profit decisions. Talk about how LGBTQ+ life is weaponized now by ghoulish politicians, and that one point the anonymity and lack of mainstream culture adaptation provided respite from the negative coverage of today. Hell, you can even argue for dwindling LGBTQ+ spaces, which seems to be what you're going for.

 

You can do all that without misguidedly wanting back a time when it was much, much more difficult to be queer. Slurs were normalized, the "underground" movies were suffering narratives (something that still happens a lot today), and a gay character, let alone trans, was usually comic relief.

 

And your perspective is also deeply coloured from what I assume is Western privilege. A lot of the things you are tired of in the OP are barely taking hold in countless Global South countries...

This.