wanderings

I went to a parade this summer where I ended up pretty close to some noisy anti-gay come-to-Jesus types - which really shifted that parade experience into attempting to build a protective wall of sound for the other attendees rather than just being at the parade - and then I came home and realised that I wanted a vid playlist for Pride that I didn't have. This is it.

01. Cockroach Motherfuckers by eruthros and thingswithwings | Multifandom | 3:53 | PG-13 | 2023
Summary: A celebration of all the queer characters you can't bury. Or, if you do bury them, they don't stay down for long.
Music: Tubthumping by Chumbawamba
     + Cockroach motherfuckers. Yes. I love that there can be a multifandom vid of this, that there are enough unburiable queers in media now to build this, that the bury-your-gays trope has been subverted like this over and over and that we have these canonical characters that will just keep coming back. There is so much violence and gore in this. They get knocked down, but they get up again, and they dance in their blood-stained aristocratic finery, painting the floor red as they move across it. They dance, and drink, and fuck, and live, over and over again. They pull themselves out of the trash and claw their way across the ground and they survive. This vid feels like an anthem of queer resilience and queer resistance.
(They're never gonna keep us down.)

02. Tightrope by sweetestdrain | American Idol RPF | 3:23 | G | Adam Lambert | 2010
Summary: Just keep dancing on it.
Music: Tightrope by Janelle Monáe
     + Adam Lambert's arrival in mainstream American media felt a lot like Jack Harkness' entry into Doctor Who; suddenly and unexpectedly there was someone from a major television property being queer and joyful and themselves, and it was glorious. This vid is Adam's Idol voyage, post-Idol media relations, and a whole lot of glittery leather-clad triumph.
(You dance up on them haters // They trying to take all of your dreams but you can't allow it.)

03. Go High, Go Low by eruthros | Lil Nas X RPF | 2:44 | PG-13 | Lil Nas X | 2022
Summary: We go high / we go low
Music: Go High, Go Low by Dope Saint Jude
     + A celebration of Lil Nas X and his gay agenda, which includes A+ aesthetic choices and relentless trolling. It's a joy. This vid feels a bit like those SGA fics where McKay would rant at the bigots; there's something super satisfying about seeing someone take down hateful assholes with the perfect riposte. The combination of chaos gremlin for justice and a high aesthetic graphic embrace of queerness is fantastic. (Coming out on April Fool's day was clearly very on brand for him.) It's a really great fuck-the-haters, embrace-the-self vid.
(We go high and we go low and we don't ever show no signs that we go slow.)

04. Just Dance by Anoel | Queer as Folk (US) | 2:54 | G | 2009
Summary: "So the "thumpa thumpa" continues. It always will. No matter what happens. No matter who's president. As our lady of Disco, the divine Miss Gloria Gaynor has always sung to us: We will survive."
Music: Just Dance by Lady Gaga
     + Set entirely at Babylon, it's a celebration of the gay club scene, full of glitter, strobing lights, and movement. There's so much movement in this that it's immersive, to the extent that there are a couple sequences in this that make me feel a bit overwhelmed, like maybe I have, in fact, had one too many at the club. It's thoroughly a dance vid, in footage and in purpose - it was made for Club Vivid - and it is so very completely and consistently that thing, that it is very accessible for someone with no source knowledge. We are together on the dance floor.
(Just dance, gonna be okay.)

05. Shape of You by Butterfly | Multifandom | 3:52 | NC-17 | 2017
Summary: A brief and flirtatious dip into a happier side of queer media, containing both older and newer source.
Music: Shape of You by Ed Sheeran
     + Sensuality and sexuality in, yeah, some of the happier queer media out there. One of the levels that I enjoy this vid on is purely look at this relatively happy shiny queer media, look how sparkly it is and another is what a great celebration it is of the physicality of the sexuality that it depicts. It's really lovely to have something so uncomplicatedly joyful and pop-y.
(I'm in love with the shape of you.)

06. Black Tie by such_heights | A League of Their Own (TV) | 3:33 | G | Max, Carson | 2023
Summary: You will find the clothes that fit.
Music: Black Tie by Grace Petrie
     + Source material I do not know but have been informed by delighted parties of its canonical queerness. Finding yourself and your people and flourishing within systems of oppression. Both the song and the visuals are liable to fuck you up. The entire opposing team walks an injured player to home base, and Grace Petrie sings to their teenage self about never surrendering to a narrow view of gender; I am programmed to be emotionally devastated by both. It's cathartic, and the woman in the final frames of the video looks so, so happy, and so very gay.
(postcard to my year eleven self // girl, you're gonna be so happy)

07. Each Feather and Each Spangle by leanwellback | Community | 2:39 | G | Dean Pelton | 2012
Summary: It's time to open up your closet. Dean Pelton and his love of costumes.
Music: I Am What I Am by John Barrowman
     + This has been one of my favorite queer vids for a long time, because it has Barrowman doing his version of the Broadway musical La cage aux folles' gay anthem, because it's about a canonically queer character, because it's about him consistently being himself, loudly. Dean explores explores his sexuality, gender expression, and self - and he wears a lot of who he is literally on his sleeve, showing off everything in his closet. He does his own thing. He lives his own truth. It's amazing. The vid is all of that. It's uplifting and has some good comedic moments in it.
(I bang my own drum, some think it's noise, I think it's pretty)

08. Mighty Real by metatxt | Kiki | 3:56 | G | 2018
Summary: You make me feeeeel, mighty real!
Music: You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) by Sylvester
     + Kiki is a documentary film about youth of colour getting into the New York ballroom scene and what their lives look like. This vid shows youth finding community, learning to dance, vogue-ing, doing drag, and exploring and becoming and celebrating themselves. It's about the kiki scene as a safe haven, and it's lovely. There's so much dancing in so many different places.
("[...] more than anything, I love.")

09. Get This Feeling by BeatriceEagle | Multifandom | 3:18 | G | 2020
Summary: 22 years of queer representation in western children's TV.
Music: Everytime We Touch by Cascada
     + This is another vid where - I'm just so happy that there's enough source material to make it, that shows like Steven Universe and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power exist now, that there is an increasing body of varied queer representation available for children. It's an unrelenting rainbow-filled joy set to a mid noughts Eurodance techno hit.
(want you in my life)

10. Hold On by heresluck | Heartstopper | 3:27 | PG-13 | Nick/Charlie | 2022
Summary: Grab and hold on tight. (Or: Nick Nelson wants to hug Charlie Spring. Like, a lot. Before he figures out anything else, he knows that much for sure.)
Music: hold on by flor
     + This adorable queer teenage romance that I haven't seen: the animated leaves! The sparks! The light! The thing where they are clearly the main characters and life is going pretty well. The contrast between this and the queer teenage representation that I found as a teenager. This is amazing, and just so incredibly happy. This vid is like distilled photogenic wholesome teenage romance.
(the reason that I come alive, come alive, it lives in your eyes)

11. Crowded Table by sandalwoodbox | Papa & Daddy | 3:48 | G | Damian/Jie Li | 2022
Summary: A place by the fire for everyone.
Music: Crowded Table by Joshua Radin
     + More source material I haven't seen - about family, found and otherwise. Queer people living their lives, and going to pride, and being friends, and lovers, and children, and parents, with every aspect of their lives fully existing. I really love that about this vid, that it shows their life with such wide scope and does such a good job of highlighting their love and their humanity.
(everybody's a little bit broken, and everyone belongs)