felis_ultharus

No problem. I thought you'd like it ^_^

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Ah, it's so cute. ^^ Good stuff.

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And totally off-topic, I absolutely adore your Cloud/Sephy icon, though I have to admit, I'm particular to Reno/Anyone relationships. ;)

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Cloud's always been my favourite. I kind of like the only canon relationship in the story, though -- Barret/Cloud does have a certain appeal. No doujinshi writers seems to have been interested :/

Still, Vincent/Cloud is my second favourite, and there's plenty of that :)

And welcome to my journal, by the way :)

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jenjoou.livejournal.com

very cute! I like. ^_^

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I'm glad.

Looks a little influence-by-anime, ne?

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yumemisama.livejournal.com

...I must be in the right major. The first thing I noticed was, "What FABULOUS 3D cel-shading! I wonder if that was done in 3D Studio Max?"

I imagine that would be a rather effective ad campaign too, though. ^^;;;

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I imagine ^_^

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Just a second here... you're saying it's aimed at gay men because the content is gay?
Just like Brokeback Mountain was aimed at gay men, huh?
...
I'm sorry but... Nate and I circulated both this and the straight version in a forum, and *everyone* liked this one better. Granted, there are hardly any closeminded people at that forum, but.
That statement threw me off for a second o_O

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I don't know how things are in Europe, but out here no ad would ever get made featuring gay people that wasn't aimed at us.

There's a belief in North American marketing schools -- most likely just a mask for homophobia -- that straight people can't identify with gay characters. Straight characters are considered "universal."

In fact, there are almost no queer characters of any kind in advertising out here, except for AIDS messages.

There are a few more in TV and film, but then the gay characters are almost always sidekicks and secondary characters. If there are already a lot of straight people in a show, there's people for the straight people to identify with, then that's considered okay.

It's connected to why so few Hollywood actors come out -- it's believed that once an actor is out, it's impossible for the audience to buy him in a romantic role with a woman. Out male actors wind up in non-romantic roles (Ian McKellan as Magneto, Gandalf, etc), or as "the gay character" in every film (Harvey Fierstien).

Brokeback Mountain is the perfect example. Two straight actors in flannel playing straight-acting men who don't identify as gay -- men who are married to women -- and the entertainment columnists and journalists, and the actors themselves, had to keep falling all over themselves explaining that it "wasn't just a gay movie."

That line was repeated ad nauseum as part of the publicity. It's because the marketing types didn't believe that straight people would see the movie unless they were constantly reassured.

Maybe marketing people in Europe have more common sense. I don't know. But I'm beginning to think Europe has more common sense about most things than we do over here.

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Last year there was a straight version. This year there is a gay version. Their chosen slogan is quite independent from sexual preference. Everyone should feel adressed. You know the ad wasn't made in North America.

Naturally gay people will feel more adressed by it, that is indeed a matter of identification, but is there really a need to assume a statement that that was the ad's only and exclusive purpose?
Honestly, I feel with that statement you put yourself into a box and close the lid. What about the straight and gay women on your friends list alone that liked it and felt it to be a sensitive ad and sensible way of submitting the message?

As for Brokeback Mountain, it's true, it did take that statement, over and over, but it probably did draw quite some extra people into the movie and made them recognize gay love as, well, just love. Not something entierly different. Which is a good thing, right? I think it's an equally good thing it was two straight men playing this- whoever asks a gay actor if they want to play a straight character or not? It should work both ways round, and someone had to start doing it for real eventually.
There's also the fact that it made people understand issues that do exist for gay people. Including wives, flannel and straight-acting. A certain mutual friend's mother gained quite some understanding for her son with the help of the movie. I know some gay people were pissed off about the movie because it wasn't the gay entertainment they expected, but sheez.

As for McKellen and other out gay male actors, it's not like they don't have a CHOICE over what roles they take. You don't know the offers they get and refuse.

I don't know that this has a lot to do with common sense, I was just surprised you'd so willingly put on a shirt that noone handed out, s'all.

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I know it wasn't made in North America, but I didn't realize that meant that it would be aimed at a general audience.

As I said, that just does not happen here. I knew Europe was more liberal about these things, but I didn't realize you guys were that far ahead.

"As for McKellen and other out gay male actors, it's not like they don't have a CHOICE over what roles they take. You don't know the offers they get and refuse."

Back in the days when I actually still read The Advocate, it was the actors who were saying this.

"Honestly, I feel with that statement you put yourself into a box and close the lid. What about the straight and gay women on your friends list alone that liked it and felt it to be a sensitive ad and sensible way of submitting the message?"

Nobody seemed offended in any way. I may have been wrong in saying that it was aimed at gay men, but I don't see how that would've been offensive. It's like saying YAOI is aimed at straight women -- that's audience the artists, the publishers, and the advertisers have in mind when they put the stuff out there. Doesn't mean I can't enjoy it, too.

All I'm saying when I say "aimed" is "who did the creators expect to be the audience?" The reason we don't get commercials with gay characters over here is because the people who make commercials don't believe straight audiences will identify with gay characters.

As for Brokeback Mountain, it's true, it did take that statement, over and over, but it probably did draw quite some extra people into the movie and made them recognize gay love as, well, just love. Not something entierly different. Which is a good thing, right?

It is and it isn't.

It's frustrating that the marketing groups feel they have to almost apologize for it being a movie with queer characters. And I don't doubt that part of the appeal when it came to funding the movie was the fact that the men don't identify as gay or bi, and that they don't participate in queer culture at all.

On the other side of things are movies like Torch Song Trilogy, which was only marketed (to the extent that was marketed at all) to the gay crowd. To be fair, Torch Song Trilogy came out two decades ago, and a lot's changed since then.

But I think that even if it came out now, the people who market movies wouldn't know what to do with it. A brilliant movie about a drag queen, his fiancé, his gay foster son, and his homophobic mother -- maybe it would be put on for a mainstream audience here, but I can't help but think it wouldn't just be relegated to the indie film circuit.

This in spite of the fact that it's a hilarious movie, and all the straight people I've shown it to loved it. I'm not talking about the audience here, but what marketing people and studios believe about the audience.

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No, we're probably not that far ahead.
It's just that I thought it was a good thing the campaign, the director, etc, did NOT put that audience label on it, you know? Noone put the video out and said 'This is our version for the gay people among you who probably didn't like last year's' or something. I don't even think this thing was advertised at all. It doesn't seem very commercial to me at least.
They just put it out as though it's something that should've naturally been there as an alternative, and then you go and put the label back on.

I don't think you offended anyone by it, either; I'm a little surprised at myself for this strong reaction really, and I'm sorry that I'm basically attacking you here, I know you're not 'in the wrong'.
It's probably because I feel very strongly that I don't belong to a lot of categories and that my opinion actively does not count in a lot of categories, 'gay males' is one of those in the end. This is a different topic, but maybe that's where my reaction comes from.

To me it's not the same as saying yaoi is aimed at straight women. We know that's the fact right now, and this is in the change, too, as more and more boys discover their likings for yaoi and bring their input in. Not all women like this, I've read fierce discussions about how yaoi is becoming too male. Etc. Different topic, again.
I feel that there's more and more people who just don't care if something is straight or gay as long as it's a good story, well-done, etc. But then, maybe my current environment spoils me.

I have to admit I don't know too much about actors and Hollywood politics because it doesn't interest me. If it was the actors saying this, okay. I do think times from back in the day are slowly changing too, though.

I didn't get the feeling the marketing groups were apologizing for it being a movie with teh gay in it.
As for the rest, that the characters don't identify as gay or bi and that they don't participate in queer culture lies in the nature of the story that was chosen, which I don't think was any less reality than the movements you're reading up about these days.
There are more Hollywoodlike movies about parts of queer culture too. There was 'To Wong Foo', which was pretty fun. There also was Transamerica, just this year. There are popular series like Six Feet Under, which thematize the coming to terms with your identity in society part, and so on.
Generally, what do you expect of Hollywood? Duh. They want to earn money, not make political progress. In the face of things that the mainstream public majority flocks to in this day, I think they did incredibly well with Brokeback Mountain.

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I know. I was just explaining where I was coming from. I made the assumption I made just because that's the only way things have been done over here. The assumption was wrong, I know that now.

There are some breakthroughs, butnot many. Transamerica wasn't a blockbuster Hollywood flick -- queer films have always had a place on the indy circuit -- and Six Feet Under had straight characters as well.

I don't expect much of Hollywood, but that's my point -- my expectations of media here have been lowered to the point where it just never occured to me that a public service ad would use a gay character to appeal to a larger audience.

"I didn't get the feeling the marketing groups were apologizing for it being a movie with teh gay in it."

Here we'll have to agree to disagree. I think the era of equality in these things will have arrived when a film built around a gay love story can just be released without the obligatory "it's not just a gay film" lines.

"It's probably because I feel very strongly that I don't belong to a lot of categories and that my opinion actively does not count in a lot of categories, 'gay males' is one of those in the end. This is a different topic, but maybe that's where my reaction comes from."

I've always counted your opinion in this.

I mean, our experiences as gay men are obviously different, but I've tended to think of the differences as mostly generational.

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Well, thank you. Jen directed me here to see the entry. ^^ Hope you don't mind.

Aww, maybe I'll draw you a pic of Barret/Cloud as I'm in the process of drawing lots of yahoi couples. ^^ It'll have to wait til after Reno/Tseng, Reno/Rufus, and Tseng/Vincent though. ;)

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Wow. I'd heard you were a skilled artist, though I haven't seen any of your work, yet :)

(I think part of the barrier with Barret is the hand -- guns aren't very romantic. He has to have a hand attachment for that thing, though, for daily use.

That plus he's a bit too butch for most yaoi.)

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Skilled eh? The person who stated this to you was most likely drunk. >.> Haha, but I try. I'd like to get better. I want to be able to illustrate my novels and I love drawing; I just dropped it a long time ago. Me and art have issues. My mother is a painter and all my life I always heard "You want to be just like her, don't you?" Then there was the whole: "That isn't art! You can't draw like that" bit along with my very negative experience with art/artists during my short-lived bout of being an art student. It's a love/hate relationship.

But I've found I really enjoy drawing things for other people.

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If it's something you enjoy doing, then that's all that matters ^_^

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You have apparently missed out on the bara yaoi movement, which consists of very muscled men only >_>;
Granted, the gay guy artists are prevalent in that one over the girl artists...

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I definitely missed out on that. I'd never even heard of it.

(I didn't even know there were any openly gay men working in YAOI)

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Well, it's not that widespread, because they tend to look, well. Not pretty >_> And I don't mean the bodies, the faces are usually not very appealing, to me at least.

http://www.speak.falltoruin.org/?p=20
This is a small blog entry from someone I don't know with a few examples.

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True -- the faces aren't great.

Still, I do kind of like that body type :)

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yumemisama.livejournal.com

Speaking as someone who has played way, WAY too much FFVII, one of his weapons is, in fact, a hand-shaped attachment. I b'lieve it's one of the more magic-dependent ones.

It can't be that much of a barrier, or Vincent would not be nearly the fangirl magnet he is. ^^;;; Barret at least uses his gun-arm. If you watch Vincent, he tries very hard to utterly ignore his left hand, to the point where he snipes from the shoulder, one-handed, in combat.

*gnaws nails some more, waiting for Dirge of Cerberus*

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True, but Vincent's hand is at least visibly a hand.

I can't think of anything hand-like for Barret, though -- closest I can think of are the atomic scissors, where the two prongs could be seen as a finger and thumb.

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yumemisama.livejournal.com

There's also the matter of why any industry that comes up with Swordian porn (Tales of Destiny -- ouch, I say, but it's out there) would balk at a gun arm... ^^;;;;

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And I just misspelled yaoi. I need more coffee...

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