There's a rather nasty ongoing argument on two Doctor Who/Torchwood websites over the rumor of Ianto's death on the upcoming Torchwood  series, Children of Earth. Sides are being drawn, and the arguments are interesting, ranging from the observation that killing the gay character buys into every gay-hating cliche ever written, to the other side of the spectrum, that it's time for Ianto to have a female (poster's bold) love interest. Enough of teh ghey, as the increasingly rude posters who agree with this say. Stop putting damperers on our enjoyment of the series by throwing the gay card.

I am of an age to have sat in a darkened movie theater watching Dirk Bogarde play a married civil servant who is being blackmailed because he was a closeted homosexual who was found out.  Back in the day, it was as daring to say the word ‘homosexual’ as it was for Dirk Bogarde, himself a gay man, to portray one onscreen, this being a few years before homosexuality was finally decriminalized in the UK. Some of my thoughts upon seeing the film are too personal to share, but even at a very young age, it was sad to me that this character had to live a lie, marry in a lie, destroy his and his wife’s lives and be destroyed because he was attracted to men. I longed to understand just what it was that was so wrong about his feelings, that he had to live the invisible life.

Way back when, before Stonewall in 1968, this is how people had to live: closeted, looking over their shoulders, afraid for their reputations, jobs, family relationships, etc. Yes, we as a society have progressed, but not nearly as much as we should have in forty years. Homosexuality and bisexuality are still not commonplace on tv, nor in movies except for niche films that tend to be substandard. If gay people wish to see themselves and their lives reflected in television, they have to squint very hard. Other than that, one could look to science fiction where authors like Damon Knight, Theodore Sturgeon and Joanna Russ brought gay men and women out into the open, with respect, dignity and understanding.

I had high hopes for Torchwood, coming as it does from the science fiction tradition. Science fiction has always been good at presenting radical ideas in a milieu that people could approach safely, since the situation was far removed from ‘real life’. This, I thought, was the case for Jack’s omnisexuality: a truly clever device on Davies’s part that could open the door to homosexual and bisexual relationships in a ‘safe’ way for the average audience. After all, it’s science fiction, isn’t it?

I’ve been thrilled and encouraged by the developing love story between Ianto and Jack over these past two seasons. Their love affair was funny, poignant, hot, and terribly, terribly real. Most importantly, it resonated among gay and bisexual kids and adults who could look to them as a couple, and see their own emotions validated. And if the homophobes among the watchers didn’t like it, well, there’s always the channel changer and the newly sanitized Grey;s Anatomy.

I loved how Davies described Ianto as someone who fell in love with a member of the same sex, not exactly knowing where that left him, or what it made him, or even how to label himself. It reminded me of another film I love, ‘Blow Dry’, where the wife and model of the hairdresser Phil fall in love. Granted, it’s a terrible blow to Phil, and I’m not going into the moral ramifications of adultery, but the way the two women’s relationship was handled was superb. They were in love. They found something in with other that was exactly what each needed, and they fell in love. Phil’s ex-wife still loved him, and in the end, he let his hurt and anger go, and allowed himself to love her and her new partner enough to embrace and accept them. What a quietly revolutionary film that is.

And this is where Ianto finds himself in CoE: deeply in love with Jack, and Jack is poised to become a one-man man, a radical change for this sexually adventurous Time Agent. In turn, Ianto’s sister accepts him, his brother-in-law accepts him, and Gwen accepts him. It’s all very satisfying, until the rumor surfaced that he was doomed to die.

This is the part that sticks in everyone’s craw. Anyone who has ever read Vito Russo’s Celluloid Closet will understand why so many people are finding this rumor so very painful. It’s not just about losing a character we’ve grown to love, it’s about killing off the gay character, not allowing the gay couple to experience more than the most fleeting of happiness, as though that is all they deserve because there is something intrinsically wrong with them and the way they love. And it’s not only that, it’s seeing scene after scene devoted to the relationship and eventual marriage of Gwen and Rhys, knowing that will progress and Ianto and Jack may end..And above all, it’s watching a lifetime’s worth of straight characters who by society’s standards are entitled to go on in their relationships. I figure that’s about 40,000 straight couples and a pittance of happily partnered gay couples I could count on my right hand, thumb excluded. And it’s knowing even that pitiable number might be decimated by the end of the first week in July.

And it all leads back to the idea in the Dirk Bogarde movie that being gay or lesbian is dangerous, that one’s life will be altered for the worse by this orientation, or that one will never find happiness if one falls for the wrong person, i.e. one with the same X or Y chromosomes, Yes, Davies has emphasized that Torchwood is dangerous, that anyone can die, and I accept that as a viewer. It’s his show and his vision, but I wish just this once, a tv writer’s vision could include the radical idea of two people in love who just happen to be of the same sex, and who make it as a couple, claiming the happiness they deserve.

I can dream,.

This has been a time of great and small losses...

Last Friday, just before heading off for President's Week break, I got the heads up. There may not be a class for me next year, if there aren't enough kindergarten registrations. I was assured that everything possible would be done to ensure I had a class, even if it involved a grade change, and on a scale of 1 to 10, my concern should be about a 3. If there is no class, no kindergarten enrollment sufficient to swig another class, I will be excessed, a lovely euphemish for being laid off. There are 22 full-time teachers in the school. In terms of seniority, I am #7, but I was also told, that the decision to excess doesn't go by seniority. What that means is that two people who started a couple of months ago can stay, while I will have to leave after spending eight years of my life there.

" Show him that you care just for him
Do the things he likes to do
Wear your hair just for him, 'cause
You won't get him
Thinkin' and a-prayin', wishin' and a-hopin' "
         - Wishin' and Hopin' by Burt Bacharach

Yesterday as I drove to the pharmacy to pick up my son's prescription, this old song by Dusty Springfield came on the radio, and I automatically began singing along to the music until that moment when the lyrics sank in. I had one of those profound WTH? moments we all have from time to time as I really listened to the lyrics which were all about changing oneself for another. I marvelled at how many messages like this I internalized from the time I was a child until not so very long ago, and how many times I and other girls and women were told we would be worthy of acceptance and love if we just sublimated our own likes and interests and changed our appearance and/or attiude to suit a man and become his perfect daughter/girlfriend/wife/mother/woman.

No thanks.

Huna'n dawel, heno, huna,

Huna'n fwyn, y tlws ei lun;

Pam yr wyt yn awr yn gwenu,

Gwenu'n dirion yn dy hun?

Ai angylion fry sy'n gwenu,

Arnat ti yn gwenu'n llon,

Tithau'n gwenu'n ôl dan huno,

Huno'n dawel ar fy mron?
          

It was about two years ago that I held my mother's hand as she died. At the time, something within me realized that a circle had been completed, that my mother died a few days short of my birthday. I held her on her last journey, as she did when she brought me into the world, and it seemed fitting that this circle between us was now unbroken in some mysterious way

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