Gay reprentatn isn't about explic labels, and isn't about hollow lip service. It's about wrg characters that are believably queer.
Contents:
THE BALLAD OF EARTHBOUND’S GAY TONY
* gay character earthbound *
Big-name creators too often thk they n ba gay people to believg they’re reprented a work whout actually reprentg them. Rowlg suggtg that Dumbledore is gay even though no evince of this exists the work self, and more recently wh Avengers: Endgame’s creators the Rso brothers exclaimg that havg an extra ment about his hband is groundbreakg reprentatn. Both s are nothg but gay bag, tryg to w the aclas that e wh reprentatn whout puttg the work of reprentg .
But ’s not like they need to explicly label someone as gay for to be a succs reprentatn. And yet ’s the seemgly signifint moments, paired wh the brief teractns that he has wh Jeff, that shape a character that’s entirely relatable to many gay men’s formative experienc. EarthBound creator Shigato Itoi stated an terview that he wrote one of the characters of Mother 2 as beg a gay kid bee he knew a lot of gay people and thought would be nice to have a gay kid the story.
On the surface, this is no different than the Rsos claimg reprentatn by throwg a gay extra to their movie. At no pot EarthBound do the game explicly say that Tony is gay. [pullquote]Gay people don’t need to have a character wavg the Pri flag to be reprented, but neher are we served by clarg characters queer that isn’t supported by eher the text or subtext.