Have they ever said the word 'gay'?
I don't think they have. That's kinda brilliant.
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That's pretty silly, even if it's coming from someone who works on the show. Anyone asking themselves "is Kieren straight?" obviously hasn't finished season one.
I despise this tendency with gay characters to question whether they're *gulp* "true gays" or whether they "just love one or two people of the same sex ('cause that's totally not queer at all, right?)" While the intentions behind it are completely pure and unmalicious, what it ultimately is, is prejudice. You never see this kind of haranguing over the sexual identity of straight characters.
Gee is Jack really straight, or does he just randomly happen to love Rose? Y'think Han Solo is attracted to women, or were all his dates before Princess Leia actually men? I've never seen anyone seriously suggest anything of this nature, ever. The only people who seriously speculate on the orientation of unambiguously straight characters are people with an ulterior motive who want them to be gay. And yet, in any kind of queer show or movie, there are always people who try to de-queer the protagonists, even when they've shown absolutely no interest in the opposite sex what-so-ever.
Yes, it's possible to be pansexual and fall into romantic love without regard for gender one way or the other. No, Kieren hasn't shown any signs of this. He's been involved with two men and no women. There's no valid reason to question whether or not he's gay, everything we've seen thus far pegs him as gay. That Kieren has a deep and similar connection to his two lovers is the very nature of romance itself, and doesn't provide any clues to his orientation.
I find it difficult to imagine that anyone would be considering the possibility of Kieren as pansexual if Rick and Simon were women. It's entirely possible, but there's been absolutely nothing in the series to hint at it. It's the same as speculating whether Rick was a huge fan of the Burzum song "Dungeons of Darkness." It's entirely possible, but completely random.
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"Pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source. True humility is the antidote to shame."
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I certainly can respect your opinion and your right to hold it, but I disagree with it vehemently. Where does Kieren ever struggle with his sexual identity? He like boys, and he never seems to waver, question, or shy away from liking boys. He also shows no signs of being attracted to girls or even wondering whether he might be able to feel attraction to girls. We also never see him try to hide his orientation from his parents, or even from Rick's parents.
A lot of stories feature a plot thread where a character struggles over how to classify his sexual orientation. I don't see any of that in In The Flesh. Kieren has never said "I'm gay" because he's never had to. It's obvious, so why would he go around saying it? The series itself kept it subtle in the first season so it would be a surprise when we find out he's gay, but I can't think of anything Kieren has actually done that would point towards any struggle or ambiguity over his orientation.
Even when it comes to being Undead, Kieren never struggles with the fact that he's undead. He's always firm and comfortable in his nature as an undead person. What he does struggle with is how being undead fits into the rest of the world, and to what extent he should submit to the conventions of the living. He generally agrees to go along with the prejudices of the living, but he will step up and act on behalf of his brethren when pushed. If we apply this as an allegory, this does not equate to Kieren struggling over whether to identify himself as gay or not. Rather, it would be he equivalent of a gay person who lives a homonormative life but stands up for gay people when they're being persecuted or talked down to for their orientation.
Furthermore, if we're forbidden from identifying the sexual orientation of every single character who doesn't specifically vocalize "I'm straight" or "I'm gay," then the vast, vast majority of straight characters in the history of fiction are now of ambiguous, unidentifiable orientation. Me personally, I'd disagree with the "nothing until spoken" approach. I'd say a character who only ever dates in one gender and doesn't show any explicit signs of attraction to a different gender, is rightly identifiable as gay or straight as the case may be.
The writer may have an especially strong disdain for labels, but that's a personal hangup of his and the show itself, speaks for itself.
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"Pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source. True humility is the antidote to shame."
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You may well have a point. I can accept when I've been bested. It's been a while since I watched season 1 and you clearly payed closer attention than I.
But let's be absolutely clear that when a character is struggling with their sexual orientation, that does not mean they have no sexual orientation.
There is a stark difference between questioning your orientation and struggling to accept your orientation, Kieren may try to hide that he's gay, but we never see him grapple with whether or not he's gay. And that's how the allegory pans out as well.
Kieren struggles with accepting the fact that he's undead. We know he's undead, he knows he's undead, he just has trouble accepting it. He never struggles with wondering if maybe he's alive. The point of the allegory is crystal clear: we know he's gay, he knows he's gay, he just has trouble accepting it. There's simply no evidence to suggest that he has any potential attraction to women and I continue to find the fact that gay characters are consistently un-queered despicable and upsetting.
Not to mention the fact that Kieren considers himself basically unlovable and screwed up anyway. When Amy asks if there's anyone special in his life, he replies, quite honestly, "who'd want me?" The very concepts of loving, being loved and loving oneself are incredibly fraught for Kieren.
I agree completely with this. But what does that have to do with Kieren being unclassifiable, pansexual, ungay or etc? Believing himself unlovable has nothing to do with his orientation, plenty of gay, straight, bi, and asexual people are screwed up and consider themselves unlovable. He's a man who is attracted to men and doesn't appear to be attracted to women. No matter what issues he may need to sort out, that sounds like the textbook definition of gay to me. Everybody has issues but that doesn't make their orientation undefinable.
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"Pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source. True humility is the antidote to shame." share
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