I’m just gonna come out (teehee!) and say it; I really hate it when the media tries to shove heterosexual propaganda down my throat; why can’t I just enjoy a good old-fashioned superhero movie like Captain America: The Winter Soldier without having Steve and Natasha spark up some sexual tension? Why did they have to hide their faces by kissing? No one cares about their sexuality; how on Earth am I meant to contend with this?
Well, I could start by exercising a completely reasonable amount of maturity and realize that the presence of straight people has nothing to do with propaganda or forcing a heteronormative message upon me, but entirely to do with the fact that Steve and Natasha are literally just people who are existing in this movie. And since straight people do exist, there is absolutely nothing scandalous about having Captain America: The Winter Soldier reflect that reality.
If I can do that, then surely Meg, who was recently put on full blast by the official TikTok account of Oak & Willow (a small business specializing in eco-friendly cleaning products), can afford a similar courtesy to queer people.
After Meg sent off an email expressing her disappointment with Oak & Willow’s decision to sell Pride-themed products (complete with the same, tired, non-pillars of anti-queer rhetoric), the head honcho of the small business clapped back with about as much unveiled patience as these attitudes deserve. The cherry on top was the creation of the discount code, MEG, which provides a 15 percent discount on all Pride-themed products, the purchase of which will send 50 percent of the profits to The Trevor Project, a non-profit organization that’s dedicated to the prevention of queer youth support and queer suicide prevention.
It’s a rather poetic development, since attitudes like Meg’s are largely the reason things like The Trevor Project need to exist. My advice to Meg, and those who have bought into homophobic propaganda, is to consider why you’re so quick to regard all queer people with one, homogenized attitude when you would never think to do the same with non-queer people. Why do you think that the actions of one queer person are inadvertently reflected upon the rest of us, while the actions of one non-queer person are more readily individualized? Why is a kiss between two men propaganda, while a kiss between a man and a woman is accepted not just as a show of affection, but as a way to dodge the watchful eyes of corrupt S.H.I.E.L.D. agents?
Because queer people are literally just people, and yet our mere visibility continues to draw this childish ire. And that, my friends, is why Pride exists; because the world would prefer if we didn’t.
