“Eun-hee… When You’re Tired Or Sad, Try Looking At Your Fingers. Then, One By One, Move Them Around.

tw: brief mentions of miscarriage and suicide attempt

the dichotomy of the level of stakes in each episode of Downton Abbey will always be funny to me. Some episodes are like

“Thomas is on the brink of being fired for being gay”

“it’s the actual World War I”

“Sybil could very well die in childbirth”

“Bates has been arrested for a murder he didn’t commit”

“one of the staff caused a MISCARRIAGE of someone from Upstairs”

“Thomas has been found half dead in a self-inflicted bloody bathtub”

And then other episodes are like

“Will Carson let the staff go to the town fair”

“who will win the flower competition”

“The cooks dropped the chicken on the floor”

“Sybil is wearing pants”

“Branson is still fraternizing with the Downstairs”

BABY REINDEER (2024) Episode 6.

no line in cinema has understood me in the way that “I love you too. but I shouldn’t have married you” from Fantastic Mr Fox has understood me. The idea that she wanted a family and a good, safe life, and she wanted him too. But no matter how hard she loves him, he can’t change. She’s never ever going to be able to get exactly what she wants and her child will always have a complicated relationship with his father and there will be this quiet realisation they have to live with. I love you so much, but this was our mistake. and now we’ve made it theirs too.

a man of culture 🫖

Kazu-kun & Chizuru

I talked about Kazu-kun last time, and now I wanted to talk about how his character mirrors Chizuru's.

They are both close friends of Sakuko who fall in love with her. Which obviously is a problem since Sakuko is aroace and not interested in dating her friends.

And I want to talk about how they are almost perfect opposite of each other.

Kazu-kun struggles a lot to understand how Sakuko can be uninterested in love, and gets pushy about it (refusing to let her break up with him, moving in and asking invasive questions). Chizuru has known (and accepted) for a long while that Sakuko isn’t interested in love and therefore that her feelings would never be reciprocated.And because the show already has Kazu-kun to explore the amatonormativity-is-a-bitch side of things, Chizuru gets to just be an example of a very common tragedy of human relationship — sometimes you just don’t want the same thing, and it’s sad but there is nothing to do about it.

Kazu-kun is very clear about his feelings for Sakuko, to the point of making them everyone else’s problem. Chizuru hides her feelins for Sakuko to avoid bothering her with them, to the point nobody knows they even exist.

Kazu-kun does everything he can to stay at Sakuko’s side, including forcing his way into moving in with her and refusing to let her break up properly. Chizuru cuts off contact, moves away and changes her number.

The first thing I want to talk about is how this is so very clearly a gendered dynamic.

Kazu-kun, has I’ve said already, starts off as a very Entitled Straight Man™. And that informs everything he does in how he treats his feelings to Sakuko. He expects his feelings to be returned the same way most straight men are taught they’re owned women’s attention. He wants to be present in her life and he wants answers to his questions and he has very little qualms about how he gets what he wants, because once again men are taught they deserve women but rarely to care how their actions make others feel.

On the other hand, Chizuru is not only a woman, but she’s also a shappic woman in love with another woman. Both these things heavily influence how she deals with her feelings for Sakuko.

Firstly, she’s a woman. She has most likely been taught not to bother anyone with her feelings, while learning to be mindful of other people’s feelings. She’s also aware that unwanted romantic attention can hurt, in a way most men aren’t. She’s of course especially aware of it in relation to Sakuko, since she’s known her for years and knows very well Sakuko isn’t interested in love with anyone.

Secondly, she’s a woman in love with another woman. And like a lot of other sapphic women, she’s afraid of her attraction to women being invasive, dirty, or predatory. It’s particularly true here because Sakuko is a long-time friend, so attraction can feel like it’s “tainting” an otherwise “pure” friendship, or “invading” with “dirty feelings” what was supposed to be a safe space; and because Sakuko is AroAce, which in this perspective makes her even more “pure”, and therefore makes the “stain” even more unforgivable.

Hence why she runs away and cut all ties with Sakuko — when Kazu-kun doesn’t, even though he’s facing the same unrequited-love situation.

So yes, the dynamic between Kazu-kun and Chizuru is 100% a gendered dynamic. They could have had the same parallels with two men, but it would have felt and read very differently.

The second thing is: in the end, the both hurt Sakuko.

Chizuru, by desperately trying not to impose her feelings on Sakuko, still imposes her decision to leave and cut ties. Sakuko is hurt when their plans to live together fall through, worried when she can’t reach Chizuru, and hurt again when Chizuru explains why she cut ties and that they can’t go back to being friends (yet).

Kazu-kun drags her into a relationship she doesn’t actually want, then refuses to break up with her, then invades her privacy. Sakuko ends up needing to be the one to officially break up which hurts her too (though Kazu-kun accepts it with grace and keeps being her friend).

Even though they had opposite ways to deal with their feelings for Sakuko, they both did it in a way that worked for themselves without asking Sakuko’s input, and ended up hurting her in the process.

It’s the illustration of a very old fear of mine, that I believe is fairly common among aros : loosing friends because they fell in love with me. It’s not a fear exclusive to aros; it’s the driving tension in almost all friends-to-lovers stories; but it’s very prevalent in the aro community for obvious reasons.

It’s also an example of how amatonormativity fucks up relationships. Both Kazu-kun and Chizuru are first acting under the idea that romantic love comes first and is more important than anything else — that it justifies breaking up a very close friendship with no explanation or invading someone else’s privacy.

But thirdly, having two parallels situations also allows for nuances.

I have talked a lot about amatonormativity in these analysis, for very good reasons (such as it being the show’s main theme). But it’s not the end-all be-all. Even in a perfect society with no stupid rules and expectations, people’s feelings would still be messy and hurt sometimes. And having two different relationships to explore the friend-falls-in-love-with-your-aro-ass-what-do-you-do allows the show a real space for nuances.

Sometimes deconstruction works. Sometimes you take a step back and realize most of your problems came from assumptions and rules that have no real basis, and you’re able to work through them.

Kazu-kun does come to the realization that things can be done differently, which is shown when he asks Sakuko to be in a QPR with him instead of a romantic relationship. It’s him realizing that while their feelings may never be the same, they could make a relationship work if they focus on what they actually want to do together — for example, they enjoy karaoke together as new colleagues, as lovers, and as situationship-it’s-complicated-we’re-maybe-on-a-break. And when Sakuko refuses, he’s the one reassuring that they can stay friends, because he now understands that they can keep enjoying karaoke as friends.

But sometimes feelings are just messy. Sometimes even once the air is cleared you still hurt. Sometimes you don’t feel and want the same things and no amount of deconstruction or compromise will solve that.

Chizuru is still hurting that her feelings aren’t and will never be reciprocated. And the show allows her that. She hurt Sakuko, yes, but the situation is unfair to both of them. They don’t want the same thing and it’s hurting both of them and no one is really in the wrong.

Could Chizuru have dealt with the situation better? Obviously yes. Is there amatonormativity (and probably some internalized homophobia) at play? Yes of course. But even outside of all that, there are still tangled, hurting feelings.

And because the show already has Kazu-kun to explore the amatonormativity-is-a-bitch side of things, Chizuru gets to just be an example of a very common tragedy of human relationships — sometimes you just don’t want the same thing, and it’s sad but there is nothing to do about it.

And Chizuru does say that she wants to go back to cutting Sakuko’s hair, to be her friend. But she needs the space to sort her feelings first.

they really let this mf clock into work lookin like this

Koisenu Futari’s Kazu-kun: one step further into the amato-normativity discussion

So. What’s up with Kazu-kun. Why does he deserve his own post.

Kazu-kun starts as a background character, and then progressively becomes the third main character of the show.

And I love him. Which is not a small feat because I started out hating him. And all of it was very much on purpose.

Kazu-kun, I believe, exists as a vessel for the allo audience.

He’s there to asks all the questions the allo viewers are asking themselves, and then to learn and grow from the answers, and become both a friend to our protagonists and an ally to aroace people in general.

He exemplifies the arc the allo viewer would ideally go through while watching the show.

The thing about Koisenu Futari is, it’s a show made from the perspective of aroace characters, for aroace viewers. It’s about our fears, our insecurities, our experience with amato- and allo-normativity, our lives.

And it’s good thing! It’s a significant part of why I love it so much!

But it also means that it’s risking loosing it’s allo audience a bit. (I’d be curious to know how many allo people have watched this show at all tbh). Almost all the other allo characters in the show exist so our protagonists can experience being faced with yet another form of amatonormativity. Kazu-kun exist so an allo character can experience being faced with aromanticism and asexuality.

And it impacts his entire character, including and especially the flaws that made me hate him at the beginning.

Part of it is, of course, because a character needs flaws to grow out of, as the most basic way to write a character arc.

For example, he begins as the most Straight Man™ ever. He thinks Sakuko belongs to him because they dated in the past (are kinda technically on a break the situation wasn’t clear the expectations were very different), thinks cooking is easy and a woman’s job and of course doesn’t know how and thinks it’s perfectly normal because he’s a man, absolutely cannot fathom how a man could not be sexually attracted to a woman he’s even somewhat close to.

All those traits are flaws he will overcome as he grows and becomes a better man.

But part of it is also traits he needs to play his role well.

He is, for one, a very nosy character, with a strong sens of entitlement that means he’ll stop at little to get his answers. Which of course makes him absolutely insufferable at the beginning! I spent almost all of episode 4 wanting to slap him! But it’s a necessary character trait for him to actually ask out loud the questions the allo audience is quietly wondering about. If he was a proper and polite Japanese man, he wouldn’t be asking those questions, and therefore wouldn’t be fulfilling his role in the story.

And then he learns. All his questions and indiscretions get him somewhere, which is a much better understanding of aroace people. And with some luck, the allo audience learned with him, without needing to invade actual aroace people’s privacy!

(yes I’m still salty about ep4, why do you ask. just because it was narratively necessary doesn’t make it any less hard to watch)

To be perfectly honest, from a pure character development perspective, I think he changes a bit too quickly. But, well. The show is only 8 episodes. Also that’s my only complaint about this show.

He first learns how to cook, and most importantly, instantly apologizes to Sakuko for asking her to cook like it was nothing. This ability to 1) recognize when he was wrong and 2) apologize for it, is key in his whole development and one of the main reasons I’m ready to accept that he did a 180 so quickly.

Cooking, of course, if a synecdoche for every gendered expectation about couples. He’s not just learning how to cook, he’s learning that the things he was taught to expect from his future wife actually take work and are very much doable and enjoyable as a man.

Most importantly, he learns that romance is not the only register he can use to interact with women; in this case especially Sakuko. In fact, at the end of episode 4, he offers that since she is aroace, they could have a QPR together.

(the show doesn’t call it a QPR, doesn’t use the word at all, but that’s exactly what it is, both the actual arrangement between Sakuko and Takahashi, and what Kazu-kun offers to Sakuko)

So, big points for getting what Minori can’t seem to grasp in ep 6: QPR are not reserved to aromantics! Really important lesson that a lot of allies never learn.

In this specific case, I don’t think it would have worked, and it can very well be interpreted as him refusing to let go. I don’t think a QPR with the woman he’s still very much in love with is a good idea. And while he has learned a lot, he’s still pretty new to the whole thing, and I think he’d still have too many expectations that would end up hurting Sakuko.

And once Sakuko has taken the time to think about it and tells him no, not only does he listen, not only doesn’t he get upset, but he immediately reassure her that they are still friends and will keep being friends.

In that way, this whole journey of his allows Kazu-kun and Sakuko to get back the easy and joyous friendship they seemed to have lost when they broke up. Which is both the biggest and final proof of maturity on his part and the best thing he got from the whole adventure.

Once he understand that Sakuko and Takahashi are aroace and quite happy with it, he also becomes their first defender. He tells Minori off twice when she steps out of line, and is ready to correct one of their colleagues when he assumes that he and Sakuko are a couple. Good example of how to be an ally.

Faced with micro-aggression (or even overt and intentional aggression), minorities:

might get overwhelmed by emotions and are almost certainly more sensitive to it than allies

are less likely to be listened to if they correct the person, because they are a minority

often cannot afford to be angry or aggressive or anything other than incredibly diplomatic about it without being told off, a problem allies face a lot less

Hence why a big part of allies' job is correcting other privileged people. Great ally-ship, take notes everyone.

In conclusion, I said last time that Minori and Haruka exemplify how amatonormativity also harms allo people. I’d argue that, with all this:

Kazu-kun shows what allo people have to gain from getting rid of it.

(his best friend back, at least one new friend, a new vital skill, and a lot less expectations)

Raskolnikov talking for three full pages about how there's Ordinary People and Extraordinary People, and these people are allowed to kill the Ordinary People in order to advance humanity. And the police commissioner humoring him and asking questions about how often these people come about, to what extent their rule reaches, how to tell the difference between an Extraordinary Person and an Ordinary Person. And Razumikhin finally interrupting them by yelling WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU FUCKING TALKING ABOUT

ＯＯＣ

One of the most accurate descriptions of Innocent I’ve read - it’s written like a theatre piece or an opera. It’s exaggerated, flamboyant, dramatic, and the characters are merely actors, who are thrown on the stage, whenever they are needed. They all serve a purpose and stand for something the author wants to convey, so nothing about them has to be realistic.

I honestly love it! Whoever wrote this review, thanks, I couldn’t put my finger on it at all, but it’s the perfect comparison!

Queerness, Gentrification and Cultural Genocide in the film La Mission

This is an essay I wrote as part of my pursuit of an Ethnic Studies degree at Cal State East Bay during the Fall Quarter 2017. This will be part of a series of essay posts from my classes at the end of my school quarters. This and all of my essays were written under my legal name, Dennis Camargo.

In the film La Mission, the audience is introduced to Che, a former prisoner and alcoholic, and his son Jes, a student just about to graduate high school. The plot of the film focuses on the tumultuous relationship between Che and Jes after Jes was inadvertently outed as a gay man by his father stumbling across photos of Jes in a gay club. In the film there is an underlying tone of Che interpreting male homosexuality as a force of consumerism and gentrification in La Mission, the area of San Francisco where the film takes place. Che is unable to reconcile his son’s queerness, therefore branding his son as a race trader and being complicit in the cultural genocide of a historically Mexican district of San Francisco.

Very early in the film, the audience is met with Che’s fears of La Mission falling victim to gentrification like many other parts of San Francisco. Che confronts his neighbor Lena, who has filed a complaint against Che with their landlord for blocking the sidewalk with his lowrider. The audience sees Che’s defensiveness against this complaint as encroachment of seemingly God-given right as a Mexican man to exert his dominance and symbols of masculinity in his Azatlan, the mythical homeland of Aztecs and by extension Mexican culture. He states “…after all you hipster types are tired of slummin’ it, I’m still going to be here,” to Lena, a black woman who personifies a typical hipster/gentrifier complete with fixed gear bicycle and an interest in New Age beliefs (00:10:15). Despite her race, her hipster interests are typified as white behavior and therefore is an extension of the cultural genocide of La Mission district. While her lifestyle is not necessarily queer, it is accepting of queerness which opens the door for more white culture to smother the hypermasculine, hyper heterosexual Chicano culture of La Mission.

Che has a very complex interpretation of his son’s queerness because of his history as a convict, his addiction to alcohol and the association of gay culture with alcohol, whiteness and consumerism. Che’s few associations with gayness are exemplified with the line “Is that why he’s manhandling you like you’re some Mexican bitch?,” (00:27:05) when he confronts Jes with the photographic evidence of is encounter with his white boyfriend. Another instance is an ad for here!, a gay-oriented on demand television channel being advertised on the busses he drives (00:40:26). These two instances can be interpreted as colonial, capitalist gentrifiers of his Azatlan, making Jes la Malinche, a historical figure vilified by Mexican people for selling out the Native Mexicans to the Spanish (Garsd). On a very tangential note, his association with queerness and clubbing, therefore alcohol use, can be seen as a white drug adulterating a perfect Aztec life, as there tremendous pride in Aztec identity among those who pride themselves as Chicano. This adulteration can be tied to the trope of Native Americans struggling with alcohol abuse.  

Conclusively, while Che’s interpretation of queerness and white hipsterdom gentrifying traditional black and brown neighborhoods is not necessarily incorrect, he fails to see the nuances of being queer. Queers of color can be equally weary of gentrification and cultural genocide of historically black and brown areas and are willing to protect la raza from falling victim to capitalism. Understanding of the intersectionality of being brown and queer will help in the effort against gentrification. 

Citations

La Mission, www.amazon.com/Mission-Benjamin-Bratt/dp/B003ZZ4H6K/ ref=sr_1_1? ie=UTF8&qid=1509596248&sr=8-1&keywords=la%2Bmission&dpID=513tWYMpb7L&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch.

Garsd, Jasmine. “Despite Similarities, Pocahontas Gets Love, Malinche Gets Hate. Why?” NPR, NPR, 25 Nov. 2015, www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/11/25/457256340/despite-similarities-pocahontas-gets-love-malinche-gets-hate-why.