Reimagg Rob Hood as a Badass Gay Outlaw

Contents:

• GAY SLANG 101
• OUT THE 'HOOD: YOUNG, GAY AND HOPG FOR SOMETHG BETTER
• MERRY MEN EXPLOR THE QUTN 'WHAT IF ROB HOOD WAS GAY?'
• REIMAGG ROB HOOD AS A BADASS GAY OUTLAW
• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?

GAY SLANG 101

Pri, formerly known as Gay Pri, is a regnn of LGBTQ inty, affirmatn of equal rights, and celebratn of visibily, digny, and diversy the LGBTQ muny. While the word homosexual is still ocsnally ed some ntexts, you might have noticed that don’t make an appearance any versn of the LGBTQ acronym. As our age note on the term stat, “up until 1973, homosexualy was listed The Diagnostic and Statistil Manual of Mental Disorrs (DSM), psychiatry’s standard reference on the classifitn of mental illns.

OUT THE 'HOOD: YOUNG, GAY AND HOPG FOR SOMETHG BETTER

And many feel that this word plac undue emphasis on sexual activy, or that sounds overly clil.” In fact, the term homosexual was liberately rejected by early gay rights activists bee, acrdg to The New York Tim, “they did not want to be intified as exclively sexual begs.”. Gay, on the other hand, n be ed to scribe a person of any genr who experienc same-sex attractn, although is most often ed to scribe a man who is attracted to men.

On June 28, 1969, the New York Cy police raid the Stonewall Inn, a bar equented by gay and genr-nonnformg people (at a time when terms like LGBTQ didn’t yet exist). Partially rponse to Stonewall, 1970, queer activists New York Cy anized a march to Central Park wh the theme “Gay Pri.” A more prehensive history of the Stonewall Rt or the Stonewall Uprisg n be found our Pri Month explaer.

MERRY MEN EXPLOR THE QUTN 'WHAT IF ROB HOOD WAS GAY?'

Queer lerally means “strange or odd om a nventnal viewpot,” and by at least by the late 1800s, queer was ployed as a rogatory term for an effemate or gay man.

A bunch of my iends who are also om the hood also are supportive of me and another iend who recently me out to them as a gay man. This alternate take on the classic hero and his patrts go back to the legend’s roots and rebuilds around an LGBT talked to the creative team about where this ia me om, how gay people were perceived back those days (’s very different than today), and how beg historilly accurate adds to the story. That's how I'm treatg them Merry Men; though even there, some of the st are exclively gay, and some are ls so.

In the book, "merry" is a term that's analogo to our "gay, " but 's much more poro; clus anyone whose sexual life strays outsi the bonds of the strictly heterosexual norm. Tled, simply enough, Merry Men, the ic book is wrten and created by out wrer Robert Rodi, wh art by Jackie Lewis, and featur a bold new story that rests the faiar medieval characters as gay Men might sound at first like a lightfully mpy seri, but is que the oppose. The ic is a ground, realistic look to a world where Rob Hood, still the faiar rogueish lear livg the woods wh his band of outlaws wh a good e, is now also a badass homosexual who ris up the face of discrimatn and opprsn.

REIMAGG ROB HOOD AS A BADASS GAY OUTLAW

Rodi: I'm a history buff -- ancient and medieval pecially -- and I was lurkg around some webs when I me across the qutn "Was Rob Hood gay? One of the tertg thgs you haven't seen yet, bee 's an upg issue, is the revelatn that our villa, Prce John, cis to e the oft-quoted passage Levic for polil reasons; 's a means of gettg at the gay alli of his brother, Kg Richard.

One of the ways I'm tryg to be te to the perd is that the 12th century there was no ncept of homosexualy per se; the term self was hundreds of years om beg was same-sex activy, of urse, but that was seen as a behavral issue, not as an exprsn of inty.

Acrdgly, some of the Merry Men are bisexual, others entirely gay, and there's one -- I won't say which right now -- who is actually straight, but who feels a sense of gratu and loyalty to another member of the group that manifts self as a kd of romantic love.

WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?

It was a liberate choice, and a b of a difficult one for me, bee I'm prcipally known as a satirist; my novels om the '90s -- Fag Hag, Closet Case, Kept Boy, and so on -- were all farcil tak on gay archetyp.

Also, my first ics seri was a spy spoof lled Coname: Knockout, whose heroe had a gay sikick named Go-Go Fias. So people generally expect that kd of thg om me, and, fact, when I tell people that my new ics seri is "gay Rob Hood, " their first reactn is to lgh and say what a hilar ia that is.