strange radiation: the pool of radiance archive
Adventures with an unreliable narrator.
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Dec 6 04: h.o.m.o.
To: Scott Kurtz, creator, PvP
Re: Your December 5 strip
Dear Scott—
I love Player vs. Player. I read it every day. I annoyed the whole damn office with the drum-kit-falls-off-a-cliff joke last week.
But.
When the day’s gag is: “There are these guys? And they’re called HOMO? Ha ha ha!”, I have trouble seeing the joke.
No, that’s not quite right—maybe I do see the joke, I just don’t think it’s funny. It smacks of that whole ‘gay is shorthand for general states of dumb/stupid/bad/worthy of derision ’ thing. That’s something that I guess would be funny, or at least in character, if it were being delivered entirely by Francis, but the way you’ve developed the gag doesn’t do that. It’s just floating around in the general PvP universe, and I was a little surprised.
Here’s why I feel this way: In grade school and middle school and high school, to call somebody a fag is the biggest insult you can sling, right? Gayness is still, after all these years, the best way to indicate that somebody or something is, you know, uncool and gross and stupid and ugly and all those things we’re not supposed to be. Surely you remember how this goes. And when you’re a little queer boy or girl and you get this idea drummed into your head day after day after day, it can make pulling your shit together and growing up into a healthy (yea, cool even) adult way harder than it oughtta be. It leaves a mark. As a result, the ‘homo, ha ha’ thing provokes strong reactions. Perhaps I’m overreacting today, even; but it’s really hard for me to respond any other way. The urge to put on my Flames of Wrath™ and come out swingin’ is strong and immediate.
I guess my point here, Scott, is that you’re twiddling an awfully raw nerve in service of the joke. I wanted to make sure you were aware of it.
We can still be friends, though. I’m looking forward to Monday’s strip, and I remain
A big gay PvP fan,
Andy Willett
ps: In the interest of full disclosure, I’m also a Mac user. But we can do the whole Mac/PC thing all you like. I can take the joke there, no problem.