The Merry Melodies cartoon “Greetings, Bait” about a worm vs. a crab dd SUCH an imaginative abstract gag here that really only works with a stalk-eyed character design. It’s too bad they never used the crab in anything else.
Yall wanna hear a kinda funny, kinda sad story about my grandmother and hetero-normativity?
Ok, so… when my grandmother was in her 50s (I was an infant), she met a woman at the Unitarian Church. And, as can happen when you meet your soul mate, this event made it impossible for her to deny parts of herself that she had fiercely hidden her whole life.
All the drama- their affair being found out, the divorce with my grandfather, the court battle over who got the house, happened while I was a baby. Even in my earliest memories, it’s just Mama Jo and Oma, and my grandfather lived elsewhere (first his own apartment, then a nursing home, then with us.)
But here’s the thing- no one ever explained any of this to me. No one ever sat down and was like “hey, Rosie, so do you know what a lesbian is?” It was the 90s. It was Texas. I think my mom was still kinda processing all this, and just assumed that like… I was gonna figure it out. Don’t mention it, let it just be normal. Like I think my mom thought that if she explained the situation, she would be making it weird? I dunno.
But like. In the 90s, in all the movies I had seen and books I had read, do you know how many same sex couples I had seen? Like. 0. Do you know how many “platonic best friend/roommates” I had seen? A lot. I had no context, is what I’m saying.
I literally thought this was a Golden Girls, roommates, besties situation until I was like…I dunno, 11? 12?
It was actually their parrot, an African Grey named Spike, imitating my grandmothers voice saying “Johanna, honey, it’s getting late”, that triggered the MIND BLOWN moment as I realized that *there’s only one master bedroom and it only has 1 waterbed* when all the pieces finally clicked.
Anyway. I think it’s a real important thing for kids to know queer people exist, for a lot of reasons, but also because kids can be clueless and it’s embarrassing to have your grandmother be outted by a parrot because everyone just thought you’d figure it out on your own.
Anyway, here is my grandma and her wife, Oma, after they moved to Albuquerque to be artsy gay cowboys and live their best life. They helped run a “Lesbian Dude Ranch” out there (basically just with funding and financial support. As Oma has explained “traditionally, most lesbians don’t have a lot of money” so they wrote the checks and let the younger ladies actually run the ranch.)
I could function in a society that had an actual nightlife that isn’t synonymous with just clubbing. Where are the night markets what if I want to go to the library at midnight
God, I can’t tell you how much the “there’s not enough enrichment in my enclosure” joke has helped my mental health. Because, for some reason I can’t comprehend, pretending that I’m a zoo keeper caring for an animal (which is also me) just makes everything easier to comprehend. Like “Your head gets screwey when you’re apartment is messy” just doesn’t carry as much resonance as “The tiger becomes agitated when its enclosure is cluttered” because then I’ll be like, no shit? The tiger? I’ve gotta keep things nice and clean for the tiger.
I have a horrible secret to share. to the five of you who care to keep up with new build a bear releases, you’ve probably noticed a lot of bald yellow animals lately. the lion, pineapple, narwhal, etc. there’s a reason for that. it’s because they made too much of it expecting the minions from despicable me to sell well. but they didn’t. so now they have all this extra yellow fabric to use. so all these new releases? yeah. they’re made out of minion skin
source: I work there and handle tens of these things per day. they’re the same. it’s all the same fabric
Who cares what society thinks relationships should be like. Don’t be afraid to have strange and unusual relationships with the people around you. Ask someone if they wanna pretend to date for fun. Kiss your homies goodnight. Buy your friends flowers and nice things. Who cares. Love your friends. Be a flirt. Be a whore. Be silly. Be free.
personally i find the binary of “lets make every relationship in media gay” vs “no the creator was trying to say something important about friendship” stifling …. you guys are completely ignoring the possibility of platonic-romantic limbo where you would definitely kiss your friend if they asked but by god you are not going to make a move first . friends can and should be a little in love with each other actually
