Hello everyone and hello to all, how are you?
Today is one of those days when I'm thinking that the years pass by, but in the end things are just hard to change. Let 's see if I can explain how things are ... Mhhh ... First you must go back a decade when the gay Italian felt he was entering a new phase, especially after the World Pride in Rome.
A period in which to nurture a whole new set of expectations for the future, and do not think I exaggerate when I say that the climate of hope and yeast was really thinking that at any moment things would change seriously. Good times. In any case, the gay Italian from that period was also very curious and receptive to new things that could affect them, and / or represent him, and probably also because of what happened was what happened. In fact, for a series of coincidences, at that time began to become known in Italy BOYS LOVE the manga, Japanese comics gay-themed made by female authors for a female audience ... 
As was the case in Japan, even in Italy the hard core of those early readers was made up primarily of girls, both passionate to set up a cultural association to promote and import this kind of manga - the ' YSAL - which is still in business. There were also girls try to be so involved in making this type of cartoon, and some of them are still in business, publishing abroad. 
But something strange happened in Italy, because this kind of comic book attracted the curiosity and interest in starting a good portion of gay readers ... Even those who until then had never read a manga or comic. In Japan this is inconcepile (Japanese gay men unaware of, or near, this type of product), and also in other countries where the BOYS LOVE have spread the gay world has been involved the phenomenon in a much more marginal, so much so that the BOYS LOVE remained basically a reading for girls around the world ... 
Why in Italy, things went differently? For several reasons. The first is that the gay Italians thought they had found the cartoons to identify with, something that evidently felt the need for a long time, especially at this time of strong self-assertion. The second is that Italy did not have a tradition of gay-themed comics (like the U.S., for example) with which to compare BOYS LOVE, and the association of ideas between gay-themed comics and comic gay was automatic. In addition, the board (and then the manga) Japanese had fueled a great deal homoerotic fantasies of the past generations of gays, just waiting to find manga in which they were represented. To make matters worse we thought that publishers began to be translated into Italian, as it presented them with complete with a flag RAINBOW cover and the words "gay comics" ... 
Of course there was nothing wrong with commercially exploit the favorable moment, but it certainly helped to generate more confusion ... In fact, at that point began a series of things happen quite unbelievable ... Type presentations and promotions in pubs and clubs, gay, gay, and even a publisher (Echo Communication) who became interested in the point of publishing a series of BOYS LOVE Made in Italy ... What came to be distributed even in gay sex shop! Of course - once finished the novelty - this strategy was pretty much failed, because the public had other gay tastes ... It is no coincidence that in Japan, manga are not gay BOYS LOVE, but the coffin, and feeding an entirely different market ... 
fact is that, within a few years, there was a correction of the target, and the gay market was left out ... Although, for a change, the widespread conviction that his way was that the Italians did not like the gay comic gay, not that the Italian publishers had chosen for their comics wrong ... Obviously there were a number of negative implications, including the fact that nobody had the courage to translate BARA MANGA in Italian for a long time and the fact that the Italian gay community, somewhat disappointed, he began to distance themselves from so-called "gay-themed comics." So much so that even volumes of Konig translated into Italian, initially, they were welcomed in a rather chilly ... 
Fortunately, thanks to the Internet, the situation began to change ... And now even the Italian public has begun to realize that the gay comics are not all equal and that the BOYS LOVE comics that are not created to meet the tastes of the general public gay ... At this point, however, one would expect that were not repeated the mistakes of the past and that we look around critically, without recreating situations similar to those I have described so far ... But I'm here to tell you that at the show cartoon ROMICS (held in Rome March 18 to 20), Via San Giovanni in Laterano (the "gay street" Roman), the notorious gay club COMING OUT will have a meeting dedicated to the BOYS LOVE Made in Italy of the Teke Editions ... 
Night with DJ, buffet, original drawings and a contest for cosplay (short for costume players, ie, the impersonators of the characters in comic books and Japanese cartoons), aimed at electing the best pair of cosplay who plays a couple YAOI (manga BOYS LOVE explicit) and Yuri (Lesbian manga) ... What will happen we can not know, but other than that - of course - are not talking about couples BARA, it seems to me that we were really on the levels of a decade ago, and it leaves me a bit 'confused. I can understand that the initiative starts from the Teke, who has not had direct experience of tragicomic events of early 2000, and I also understand that the COMING OUT do not have great expertise in the field of comics and gay comics fans ... But - with all due respect - I think a slightly 'risky ... But why not organize a good gay superhero party, as is done during ALL proud of American comics?? 
Actually I think the problem is all in the that, in the absence of reference in Italy an association that promotes gay comic itself (maybe it will clarify the difference between a comic and a comic-themed gay gay), continues to reign improvisation and ends up taking BOYS LOVE areas of abuse, neglect, or perhaps the opportunities that are left vacant by the comic really gay ... Let's be clear: the comic BOYS LOVE deserves the utmost respect, but in offices and in appropriate ways. In the U.S., for example, there are even specific fairs like YAOI-CON of San Francisco in late October ... 
Although there are exhibitions and competitions cosplay, but those who attended the YAOI-CON knows that - as gay-friendly - Is not a context "gay" is not designed for gay and is not addressed to the gay world as such ... So much so that the jury of the competitions of cosplay is female, just to give you an example ... Anyway, gay Americans have a level of emancipation would "play the game" and participate in such initiatives, perhaps through manga fans, without expecting anything. In Italy is not exactly so. Moreover, is emblematic of the fact that while planning a themed comics initiative in the gay street of Rome, in fair ROMICS are not scheduled to meet on ... How the other hand, for a change, will happen on March 4 at ' Esmerald City Comicon in Seattle ... 
Yet it is not that Rome is just a small town ... So much so that the first - to my knowledge only - such conference was held just ROMICS in 2002 (and even invited me) ... But as I said at the beginning, were other times (there was even a satellite channel dedicated to gay) and obviously since then the situation has made a series of setbacks. Perhaps it is true that today's gay, lesbian and trans longer speak of the time, but at least then the gays were trying to carve out their own space and wanted to self-assertion, but today are mostly of the "arguments" which is discussed in the third person. .. So much so that the same initiative that will keep COMING OUT not part of the gay world, but from a context in which gays are an "argument". Interesting and engaging as you like, but still a "subject" of which we speak in third person and through the filters and the conventions of manga BOYS LOVE. 
do not know if I get the idea, but it could be worth a moment to reflect on this thing ... Especially when the cosplay contest to be held in the room (in front of a gay clientele who may not know anything and YAOI BOYS LOVE) will compete girls dressed as male characters posing as a gay couple (because surely even this will happen). Not that anything is wrong, for heaven's sake, but it is said that an initiative like this is what it takes to bring the world gay to the world of comics. To be clear: it would be almost like going to a local lesbian and propose an evening on the theme of lesbian-themed hentai manga for heterosexual males, with base pairs of girls who pretend to be hard to do scenes ... 
None, fortunately, have never thought of (because it would not come out alive, probably), but I think it is clear that such initiatives highlight a situation that remains somewhat confused. With all the annexes and associated. What can I say? We hope that in time things will improve, perhaps with the arrival in Italy of a cultural association that promotes gay comics as such and perhaps prevent the emergence of the misconceptions mentioned above. Certainly, if the situation yet this would have a lot of work to do. 
0 comments:
Post a Comment