Bride! (In the name of love)

[stubbleupdate]

I mentioned in my Queer and Country post that I intended to post some LGBTQ Ex Machina. This isn't originally the set of scans that I was thinking of (that would be FBI Agent Warren), but it's definitely an even bigger moment.

Hundred's officiated a wedding the night before (his 19th of his three months of office. "I've married more people than Elizabeth Taylor") but it's for a man who donated $65m to renovate athletic fields.




I like how the cast make a point of not actually mentioning that Tuesday.


I think that this is a stunning use of a) the beat panel and b) repeating panels for effect. It's often derided as lazy, but here it's brilliant.


And because it's Tony Harris, he actually conveys Hundred's energy and enthusiasm





You've heard of Carville and Matalin, right?





The great thing about Ex Machina is that it's full of ideas but there's no real right idea being put forward. Candy and Dave and Journal are all given time to put across their views and Hundred listens to them, none of them are torn apart or praised. Even the villains could be the hero if a story turned out differently (apart from maybe the Neighbours, though The Gardener and Pherson have a lot of good points)

As for if Wylie and his brother made it down the aisle or not, buy Tag. It's one of the few books that genuinely gives me a chill when I read it. (and not because of any gay marriage thing)

Comments

[bluefall]

One of the things I really liked about this book was that they took that thing Hundred is doing there in the last panel, and they held to it.

There was an episode of The West Wing where CJ gets accused of lesbianism, and it's this whole big PR disaster. And the crowning moment of the episode is when CJ stands up in front of the press and refuses to deny it, because she refuses to dignify the implication that it matters or that it would be an insult. And it's great! Yay CJ.

Except, like the first thing out of her mouth talking to Toby and Josh about it is "of course I'm straight." So the show tries to take this great moral stand, but it cut the legs out from under itself five minutes in by carefully ensuring that we the viewers - ie, the real actual nonfictional people who actually have opinions that can actually affect the show's creators - never actually questioned the character. Always bugged the hell out of me. Trying to score liberal points without having the breasticles to actually risk upsetting anyone, what is that shit?

BKV doesn't do that here. Hundred never stops to reassure the reader that he's totally straight no really don't worry about it. The readers have to live with his silence just as much as his fictional voters do. It's awesome and I love it.

[stubbleupdate]

I know that some people were grumping that we didn't find out "the truth" about Hundred's sexuality in the end.

I don't mind not knowing because a) knowing one way or the other wouldn't change how the book reads or how he acts and b) the whole point of the last issue was that this is AN ending, not THE ending.

If you want Hundred to be gay, then he is.
If you want Hundred to be straight, then he is too.
If you want Hundred to have a mechanical spider-body, then you're in luck too.

[shadowpsykie]

i thought it was obvious, he's bi AND has a mechanical spider body

[icon_uk]

The difference being that the opinions of her colleagues and friends Toby and Josh matter to her, the people who speculate about her sexuality do not.

To Toby and Josh she has always presented herself as straight in any interactions or conversations she's had with them. She's the head of the Press Office, her word and integrity are pivotal to her personality and role.

I think it was the notion that she might have been less than honest to them she wanted to clear up, rather than any questions they might have had over her sexuality. If she had been lesbian, she would most likely have told them because they mattered to her and she'd want to be honest with them, plus save them any embarrassment, or being caught off guard or flat footed by a much raking reporter..

[vitruvian23]

I don't know that CJ "always presented herself as straight in any interactions or conversations she's had with them." After all, how often was her sexual orientation actually relevant to their office discussions? Very rarely, if at all... about the only time I can really think of was when she was flirting/going out/referring to having gone out in the past with the reporter guy from Thirtysomething, and all *that* says - maybe - is that she's not exclusively lesbian. So they could have left out that aside quite easily, and left any showing of her orientation to actual *showing*.

[shadowpsykie]

it hought Ex Machina was about a post apocalyptic future where one one man was alive in a wolrd of women....

hmm to be honest,,, i MIGHT be confusing this with Y: the Last man....

[mistersandman]

No, that's Runaways. Y: The Last Man is the story about four lions who escape from a zoo after the US bombing of Baghdad in 2003.

[thanekos]

wait, isn't that the origin of those overarching villains from that one Marvel series?

[rainspirit]

No, I think you're confusing that with the story of The Sandman.

[glprime]

No, no, no, The Sandman was definitely about what happens when people on a transatlantic plane crash, and rather than die right away, they live out years in some kind of desert island limbo that never seems completely real or has any point.

[spam-monster.livejournal.com]

I totally want to high-five this man.