I’ll never forgive Fox for canceling Pitch. NEVER.
[image description: a tweet from tia witcher extraordinaire @cursedhive. The tweet reads: what tv show cancellation turned you into the cold, heartless, monster you are today. end of description]
“Masculinity isn’t about hiding your emotions anymore, it’s about being able to express them in a way that can be positive, and not being afraid to admit when you’re in a tough spot.”
thank you everyone for patiently waiting while i have been balancing adding audio to parts 1-4, drawing part 5, and my new job! your support has meant so much!
part 2 with sound! all voices by me. music is “in the mood” by the glenn miller orchestra.
part 3 with sound. again, all voices in this section are by me, and the song is “in the mood” by the glenn miller orchestra :)
part 4 with sound. all voices in this section by me. song is “in the mood” by the glenn miller orchestra and other song is “will you still love me tomorrow” by the shirelles
I just wanted to say as of 1/18/2022: sorry for the long hiatus guys! I had a lot going on in my life and it all came to a head with some health problems ontop of that, but I’m still very much invested in this project and Part 8 should be out within the next month or so.
For the longest time I was so confused as to how Stanley Barber was just so popular. I mean I knew why in the context of his own show, but why he was so popular among the It Crowd. Like Wyatt is not the most beloved (or prolific) actor out of all the Kids, or at least he wasn’t at the time. But then the obvious occurred to me. All those posts that were like “It’s like they made Stanley Uris act like Richie Tozier lol XD” were warning us.
Imagine if Finn played Stanley Barber. I know you all think Wyatt was perfect for the role but just imagine it. How much morepopular would the character (and the show) be? That’s just the world we live in.
You know what’s funny is that I’ve seen several posts highlighting the possible connections/homage to Carrie present in Eddie’s character arc, at least in the 2017 movie. And yet… so many people shat on IANOWT because they said it was a Carrie ripoff.
And I can’t help but think… what might cause people to view the overt references to Carrie as brilliant and insightful when they’re about a boy, but as tryhard and creatively bankrupt when they’re about a girl? Hmm… what could it be???
Making Stan a fan of classic rock instead of indie electro pop was peak homophobe energy. Where was the scene of Stan dancing to Gone by Charli XCX and Christine and the Queens? What the fuck is “King of Rock and Roll”?? Bitch I’m going to kill you!
Something about IANOWT is deeply uncomfortable for me. Like, the color palette looks harsh and washed out. It looks like a sun scorched late summer/early fall day. I’m not saying I hate it, because it goes perfectly with the dilapidated Great Lakes town post industrial collapse aesthetique, I have beenin towns in Ohio that have that exact same vibe and look and yeah the air feels dirty and you can feel the despair enter your body every time you breathe, and the sunlight is unforgiving and somehow remote.
But like, look at The Politician or Sex Education, everything is bright and lush and oversaturated. The small British town in Sex Education looks and feels really cozy and pretty because everything is super green and the sky is really blue and all the colors are soft and stand out.
Like, even look at It, which had really saturated colors and it made Derry feel not at all as scary and miserable as it should have been. It was a pretty New England town! Brownsville Pennsylvania looks exactly as hopeless and empty as Syd probably feels.
Hey um Netflix? Having dads calling their sons faggots is… cool, but maybe add a scene where the son processes that? Maybe give a reason for that? Just a thought
I’d argue it’s a form of queerbaiting!
But yeah, straight people just have more sympathy for a boy being “mistaken” for gay than an actual gay boy. And writers aren’t stupid. They want to leave it open to “interpretation” so they’ll never explore the sexual inner lives of Stanley Barber or Billy Hargrove or others.
They’ll have these very visibly straight boys be called faggots and let straight viewers say “Hey that’s rude! [x] isn’t even gay!” and let gay viewers pop our monocles and say “Of course, all that womanizing was a front! I see you bitch!”
They use that ambiguity to give us faux representation. Not even that. The false promiseof future representation, hinting at character arcs or subplots that will never happen outside the minds of fanfic writers.
And what’s weird is that Brad calls Syd a slur, and that has obvious consequences and is treated with real weight by the story. So like… are they trying to have their cake and eat it too? Or are they thattransparent about it? Stan being called a faggot doesn’t matter as much because he isn’t gay.
I mean, it’s true to life, straight boys generally brush that off. But full tea, most of them think they have f word privileges later in life and get offended when receiving any pushback on it.
So yeah, Stan doesn’t process being called a faggot because it’s an inconvenience for him. It’s rude language. “Great talk dad,” is his response, because he has nothing to fear. He’s not a faggot. He only looks like a faggot, according to his dad. His dad doesn’t even accuse him of being gay. Stan’s not even under homo suspicion.
It’s equal parts queerbaiting and obnoxiously using bigoted violent language as cheap window dressing to make characters who aren’t the targets of that language look more sympathetic for a scene.
“He acts kind of gay but isn’t gay” is not the same as being bi I hope and pray y’all can tell the difference! You’re being clowned! And frankly you don’t deserve that kind of representation. Bi representation can be so much more than that!
And sorry but the bare minimum threshold for Stanley Bicon Barber is him saying “I like boys,” or showing him making out with a boy if the writers (and Wyatt) are feeling really generous.
None of this ambivalent relying on subtext bullshit.
Hmm I don’t know I find it kind of problematic that people are so insistent that Stan is a bicon despite him being straight in the show. Like, I doubt they’d call him a bicon if he expressed actual interest in men, most people would just call him gay then.
Like, if a straight boy has certain affectations of queerness then he’s automatically labeled queer and celebrated for it. Definitely feels cheap. It’s not real representation! You give a straight boy a quirky wardrobe and a semi limp wrist and you dust off your hands while the fandom goes wild.
It’s like how people are disgusted by fem gays but the moment a straight boy wears a dress they lose their fucking minds.
I guarantee if they actually wrote Stanley Barber as queer, someonewould be bitching about how he’s a stereotype and bad representation. But for now, it’s genius and brilliant storytelling. He likes girls, but he “brings a fey presence to the show,” so of course that means he sucks up all the attention re: lgbt representation that should be for Syd and Dina.
And no, I don’t consider this a part of normal headcanons. People genuinely think Stan shouldbe bi come next season, or that they’re actually building up to that. Like, I have multiple headcanons about Stan being bi and gay alike. But I’m not deluded. They’re not going to do it for real on the show. The show is about Syd. She is the queer character as well as the main character.
Like all things, put a skinny white boy the egirls want to fuck on screen and make him act slightly “fem” (I refuse to think straight boys can even be fem) and watch as he completely takes over the fandom and overshadows the story of a gay (or bi) girl’s discovery of herself and coming out.
