By Elisa Penha

Harassing Millie Bobby Brown is not going to make Byler canon. 

You are not achieving the levels of allyship that you believe make impactful change in the incessant slander of Millie Bobby Brown in defence of a ship—a ship that was doomed by a television show determined to capitalize on fan theory and nostalgia bait. The fourth season of Stranger Things was met with an abhorrent lack of critical thinking from an already ferociously terrifying fandom. The mind-numbing debate around the subject of Will Byers’ sexuality and possible relationship to Mike Wheeler was one that sparked little to no meaningful discussion on queer representation in the most mainstream of media. Instead, it resulted in a putrid amalgamation of misogyny and lesbophobia. 

Why does feminism evaporate when it comes to the shipping of MLM pairs by (often cisgendered, often heterosexual) young, supposedly progressive women? I have lived in fandom all my life, and this intertwined phenomenon has acted as a gripping mass hysteria on hordes of teenagers. It is a pattern which does not cease or ease with time. Tackling bigotry within queer spaces requires a certain nuance unseen in the majority of online fandoms. From where does the fetishization of MLM pairs stem—is it always malicious? As a preface, we must first dismantle the nature of heterosexuality as default. It is common that anti-gay critics dismiss anything remotely queer as ‘forcing representation’ when all that is depicted is more than one openly queer person in any given piece of media. Though partaking in the enjoyment of queer ships in media is not inherently bad, it is treated so as queerness is often viewed as inherently sexual, and therefore damaging. Queer ships are diminished as purely sexual bait for viewers to fantasize about—and not to love purely—as heterosexual pairs would be allowed to do without scrutiny. 

The stigmatization of women in pop culture spaces has made it so women and girls are ridiculed for their delight in anything.  Consequently, when queer shipping was primarily forwarded by women, it was intensely mocked as illegitimate compared to the interests of men.  Where it is valid for men to fantasize about themselves in relationships with fictional characters, women are diminished and humiliated.  Most behaviours propelled by men in fandom are heavily scrutinized when the same actions are done by women. However, the more dreadful side to this phenomenon appears when the supposed adoration and uplifting of queer voices become instead rampant infantilization and sexualization with no regard for the communities which it harms. A possible explanation for the continual fixation upon queer, particularly MLM ships in pop culture by young women, is the unfortunate fact that MLM pairs were once the only popularised queer representation in the mainstream media. For many young queer girls trying to explore their own identities, they were the only available characters for them to attach themselves to. The disparity that exists between queer women versus men in media is so unbelievably immense that no matter how different the experience of a woman or gender nonconforming person figuring out their sexuality to a man doing the same, all will use queer men as a vehicle to better understand themselves. For many young girls, a refusal to admit their own queerness can manifest instead with a seeming ‘obssession’ for MLM pairs. They will say they are just fierce allies rather than confront their own identity. 

In conjunction with this self-denial and lack of non-male LGBT+ representation in media comes an underlying misogyny which often simmers to the surface. At first, it breeds with a disdain for queer women. Because pop culture has become our society’s way of spreading ideas, the scarcity of queer non-men in media has given any LGBT+ representation outside of male representation a lack of legitimacy in the public eye. Women continuously not being taken seriously for their interests (or for anything) has resulted in a culture of internalized misogyny. Things such as renouncing femininity in all its forms and the well-known ‘not like other girls’ complex thrive off this systemic down-putting of women, leaving young girls to hate themselves for just existing. If women are lesser, if femininity and female love is lesser, if both are continuously framed in an unflattering, pompous, unserious light, then why should anybody indulge in it? Furthermore, why should, or why would anyone then create media which revolves around it? Branching off this painful ideal comes lesbian erasure and lesbophobia present in pop culture. Such is especially prevalent in film and television, mediums where lesbians are continuously underrepresented and exploited through means of gratuitous sexuality underneath the male gaze. 

Lesbians rarely get proper and satisfactory portrayals. When they do, they are met with rapid cancellations, a lack of visibility and popularity, and the shaming of masc lesbians. Such transcends all the forwarding that representation could and should be doing for the sapphic community. Masc lesbians have become victims of egregious shaming—even within queer spaces, masc lesbians become targets of harassment and ridicule. This facet of misogyny regulates womanhood and femininity to a rigid standard rather than understanding the important history and culture that exists behind butches. Bashers instead choose to humiliate masc lesbians for their physicality and appearances. A populous of media consumers, starting as early as the beginning of fanfiction with works on The Beatles and Star Trek, have stated outright their preference for MLM pairs because they are more ‘aesthetically pleasing’ than a woman who is nonconforming to their standards of womanhood in a relationship. Consequently, such turns to pure fetishization of gay men. Young people in fandom spaces would rather pair together two attractive men (even if they have never spoken before in any given piece of media) than pay mind to proper and well-written lesbian representation and subtext. Then, falsify their interest as a desire for representation. 

Where are we left with the knowledge that women, no matter where they appear or what relationships and sexualities they might have, are mocked for existing? Women are held to a standard to do right, and be good, and be twice as rational as their male counterparts. Women have to be perfect in the media, because if they are not, they will be slandered to the point of being written out of television altogether in order to appease an audience. The okayness felt in tormenting women characters and their actresses for ‘wrongs’ made entirely without their control is telling of the view that women as less than human. Detachment from the humanity of women runs deep in the fabrications of our world. 

My heart is heavy for all the women characters who have been eradicated online as punishment for getting ‘in the way’ of a popular MLM ship. For all the women of the television series Supernatural who dared to dance in between Dean Winchester and Castiel—many of whom were quite literally killed off the series from the amount of unjustified hate their characters received. For Peggy Carter who ‘ruined’ Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes. For Mary Mortson of Sherlock Holmes who interrupted the effervescent Johnlock. The failure of writers to write a satisfying romance and the abundant queerbaiting which goes on in modern media is not the fault of the women who“intervene” with your favourite pairings. Most of all, I grieve for Rose Tico of Star Wars—to whom I myself owe an apology. 

I am sorry Rose Tico. I am sorry that I blamed you when Finn and Poe were not realized in Star Wars. I am sorry I was blinded so thoroughly by the narrative against women that I allowed myself to be swept up in the unabating cruelness that came down on you. All my life I have been shown one side of a rusted coin; that my girlhood experience would matter a subpar amount to the men I surrounded myself with. I was not of any real value; women were not of any real value. I learned through my complacent society that women were one-dimensional and incapable of the groundedness of men. I learned that women were opponents—that I should compete against them—and to be cautious when I befriended them. Women were conniving. Women would only ever insert themselves where they should not be. I am sorry, Rose Tico, that when you kissed Finn in The Last Jedi, I sought to condemn you instead of wondering how such injustice had gone on in the writer’s room. I condemned not only you, but the wonderful and real woman who portrayed you: Kelly Marie Tran. It was not because of you that the plenteous writers of film and television cannot seem to write a well-developed woman to save their lives. It was not because of you that this same writers’ room decided instead to cultivate a poignant friendship between the two male leads instead. Maybe, rather than encourage the ravings of a fandom who were quickly convincing themselves Finn and Poe would really become canon andwould really become the queer representation they so longed for in Star Wars, they should have paid more mind to your narrative. Paid mind to who you were before you appeared without causation and died a thankless death over the span of a single film. I am sorry Rose Tico that the internalized misogyny of my middle school years had not yet relinquished me—that I did not work through the scorn I held for my own femininity in time to give you the respect you deserved. 

It was never your fault; it was not any of your faults.