Went on a rant in the comment section of a rather single minded video on societies relationship with close male friendships and homosexuality. Here is the unadulterated copy and paste.
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Friendship is not lesser than romance
Edit: I would also like to say that this whole deal is a two sided coin. Because of the desire to have more representation or with malicious intention, people will project queerness onto characters/people, and in defensiveness or in malice people will deny any existence of gayness in a piece of media. It's a cycle like most things in life.
To provide actual examples; for the former, you already showed Lord of the Rings and Frog and Toad as examples. I believe Arnold Lobel explicitly stated that Frog and Toad were good friends and not romantic when asked. While the idea of death of the author makes this point irrelevant, the books themselves only ever show them being good friends and not in a romantic relationship. Sam and Frodo have a close bond that is only ever described as friendship.
For the latter, The Picture of Dorian Gray features the character Basil Hallward who explicitly has romantic and possibly sexual feelings for Dorian even after the edits that were made to the book in an attempt to censor any homosexuality involved in the book. There are copies available that show the differences between Oscar Wilde's original text and the edited version, and the intent of censorship becomes obvious. Another example of this is how the story of Jekyll and Hyde as evolved from it's original novella, A Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote this book very hurriedly after legislation was passed in England that effectively criminalized homosexuality. In the original text Hyde is meant to be a version of Jekyll that lives without guilt or shame, which allows Jekyll to act on things he has always wanted to but repressed due to Victorian societal pressures. This version of him quickly becomes dangerous, though, as it shows how this version of Jekyll can lash out in anger and do things on a whim like murder, because he feels no guilt or shame in doing it. The only person Hyde murders in the book, though, is Sir Danvers Carew, a member of parliament, seemingly unprovoked at first, but in the context of why Stevenson wrote the book, it's clear why Hyde was suddenly struck by the fit of rage. The book is very clearly a criticism of what Victorian society considered right and moral, but later adaptations of Jekyll and Hyde alter the story, turning Hyde into a serial killer and the embodiment of evil, while Jekyll is the poor doctor who went too far, and many of these adaptations, such as the Jekyll and Hyde musical, fabricate multiple female love interests for Jekyll, when in the original text, the only person he ever shows affection towards is his partner Robert Lanyon. This affection is often argued over whether it is romantic or simply deep friendship, and that is up to interpretation, but ultimately the book was a criticism of the passing of the Labouchere Amendment, and that is what really mattered about the book, and later interpretations hide the original intent behind the book (pun not intended).
I went into more detail with the second point because I believe that many people in this comment section already understand the first.
For an actual critique of the video, I think what is being discussed is very important and your points are very good and I believe the intent behind the video is good. My one issue is the constant reference to, "them." Who is, "they?" A generalization of society? I think ultimately people have their own motivations for things, and I think that most people are not maliciously trying to erase male friendship. Any person can have an interpretation of a piece of media whether right or wrong, and most people will try to push their interpretation as the truth a great majority of the time, from my experience. I think making everything, "us versus them," is a dangerous thing that only worsens any problem. people are people. Each person is unique with their own motivations. Anyone can take anything they want out of a book and it's what that book meant to them, regardless of what the author intended. I think the issue is people seeking to push what they think as the truth. Getting mad about things deepens issues, living by example and ignoring what people say heals divides.
(as an extra note, C.S. Lewis' words here do not hold weight because they are coming from his mouth, it's because what he is saying is true. I don't think that anyone should value his words more than anyone else's. Point is, C.S. Lewis' arguments about the invisible cat here hold a level of hypocrisy when you take into account his arguments for Christianity, "Liar, lunatic, or lord," so using his name as a way of supporting what he is saying is iffy at best.)
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Not a very personal one today.
- Basil
