The good news is that this is going to be the last "Todd asks out a girl" scene (not the last Todd scene, but you know what I mean). On the other hand, this week and next week until the end of the chapter might be a bit of a rough read for some. I hope you'll bear with me through this.
Todd doesn't care. Channel isn't the first underclassman he's asked out. And bgb16999, I think he's already asked those two out. IIRC, Madison was complaining about it when Ruby went to the mall the last time.
Ah okay. Then maybe he is asexual. And maybe he never had a girlfriend so his friends and family mocked him for that, calling him gay. So now he's trying to prove that he's not gay by getting a girlfriend. But he really just wants to live his life, and not have a relationship because he just doesn't want to.
Or maybe...he's just a self centered jerk who hasn't got a girlfriend because of the way he speaks and treat girls as you have seen in the previous pages. That's why he feels the pressure to just go to any girl.
I certainly hope not. The "homophobe is actually gay" cliche is far more common in fiction than in reality*, & it basically serves to let straight people off the hook for their cruelty by suggesting that the True Worst Enemy for Queer folk is actually Other Queer Folk.
*(not saying it doesn't happen in real life, but it's not nearly as common as fiction suggests)
Yeah, I don't think this is gonna be one of those things where we get a tragic backstory to explain the depths of Todd's asshole-ery. I do think, however, that something bad is going to happen to Todd. Either he gets his shit kicked in by Maria, or something worse. Maybe something bad enough to question whether or not even he deserved it.
We actually don't know how common the `homophobe is actually gay` trope is in real life. All we really know is that most of the people who we know about for certain match this trope were really high profile before they were found out.
But I think the GBLTQQAAKI community is failing to understand one of their own tenants when they dismiss this trope. It's a spectrum. And unfortunately, in order to fit the 'homophobe due to secret gay yearnings', one only needs to have the amount of homosexual interest represented by a 1 on the Kinsey scale, because some people really overreact, in addition to reacting poorly.
i don't really want to tell you this comic isn't for you, but it doesnt go down well having a cis and het person speculating on the sexuality and gender of of characters especially when feeding into tropes like the queerphobe is queer, or commenting stuff like "diversity means cishet people should be included", "unisex toliets make people uncomfortable and stuff should be given to cis allies".
Ash, while I agree the "they're a jerk because they're secretly queer" trope is bad, I don't think it's fair to say that because of someone's assumed gender and sexual orientation, because unless you have asked it is an assumption, they can't speculate. I firmly believe in equal treatment, either something is okay for anyone to do or not okay for anyone to do, their personal characteristics shouldn't have anything to do with it.
Plus just to add, nobody is a jerk for reasons like "just because", there is always more to it. Either way, he isn't just a jerk for no reason. Something is going on, and given the theme of the entire comic I based my original guesses on that.
The latter stuff is indeed bad but I don't think there is something wrong with someone not LGBT speculating on fictional characters, and even if that was the case then why someone LGBT could speculate on the straightness of a character?
Sadly the armored closet gay is a bit more than just a trope, a fair number of the most vocal anti LGBT people keep blowing their own cover or being caught. However, they will never admit to it nor change out of it over time. Its caused by major mental blocks that will take a lifetime to fix.
This is why the LGBT community had to start threatening to stop protecting politicians who where LGBT but kept sponsoring and/or writing Anti LGBT legislation.
So I don't want Maria to get in trouble, but I also REALLY want to see Todd get punched...
If something happens just as Father Quenton walks around the corner and Maria gets expelled, I might cry.
*(not saying it doesn't happen in real life, but it's not nearly as common as fiction suggests)
But I think the GBLTQQAAKI community is failing to understand one of their own tenants when they dismiss this trope. It's a spectrum. And unfortunately, in order to fit the 'homophobe due to secret gay yearnings', one only needs to have the amount of homosexual interest represented by a 1 on the Kinsey scale, because some people really overreact, in addition to reacting poorly.
We generally don't care if they mean well, they are still hurting us.
This is why the LGBT community had to start threatening to stop protecting politicians who where LGBT but kept sponsoring and/or writing Anti LGBT legislation.
If something happens just as Father Quenton walks around the corner and Maria gets expelled, I might cry.