Be Gay. Do Crime.

[singedsun]

This is a really, really good video essay on the history of the "be gay do crime" (and it's popularization as a meme in recent years), the anime Bananafish and the TV show POSE. It's very good, well-thought out and pretty long, so prepare to spend some time with it for about an hour. James' videos in general about the portrayals of queer media and each very, very good. I think I mentioned him before in my favorite video essay post way back when. But this is a great one to start with. Worth the watch.

Watch on YouTube

Comments

[broken_record]

I haven't finished the video yet, but I always thought that meme was like a fuck capitalism thing. Or an anime thing. We gays love anime.

[singedsun]

I hope you had a chance to finish the video! It's a really good description of the history of it. He's recently posted a related follow-up to that about the history of gay panic here that's also very good. His whole channel is full of similar topics. I really like his videos, but they're often really heavy to watch, so I tend to break them up and watch in bits and pieces.

[cortue]

This was definitely interesting to listen to and I especially liked the line of 'when does the need for survive become the need for comfort' and then 'the need for excess' in terms of certain segments of the queer community being interested in only fighting for Their place in society.

[singedsun]

I just appreciate the recontextualizing of the concept maybe for a generation that doesn't understand or even remember why it was "Be gay. Do crime." beyond the memeification of it. People may have learned about Stonewall, or know that it was "frowned upon" or "not accepted" we in modern generations have a much harder time thinking about it as an actual crime. And how that translates to how else someone might've lived their life.

[cortue]

True! Even today, I feel like there are some people who live in a more accepting area and don't understand that's not universal in the present, let alone in the past. One thing that really gets me is that even if you're in a place where more progressive laws have been passed, people lose track of how recent they are, and therefore fragile to backlash.