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Okay I feel like I want to talk about the note-quotes "queer content" in Wall Market in FF7R now that I've slept on it, plus I wanted to pitch this somewhere but I doubt anyone has a freelancer budget right now anyway so let's go
Also I spent my entire shower thinking about it and I need to say it somewhere
I'm gonna sidestep "Cloud in a dress" as queer content because in and of itself it is not; I think what people would call (charitably or not) queer content in both FF7s really surrounds the Honeybee Inn, so that's where I'm directing my focus here.
There's a line from an early interview with Nomura, translated at Gematsu:
"The Honey Bee Inn cross-dressing event is still in. We’ve made it more modern. If we made the facility like we did in the original game, the physical unease would be staggering, so that was no good…"
"The Honey Bee Inn cross-dressing event is still in. We’ve made it more modern. If we made the facility like we did in the original game, the physical unease would be staggering, so that was no good…"
If I had to describe the key difference between Honeybee Inn Original and Honeybee Inn Remake, it's actually encapsulated in that quote: it's 2020 now and you can't do that shit.
The remake Honeybee Inn is the Will and Grace-ification of the original.
The remake Honeybee Inn is the Will and Grace-ification of the original.
Everything about the new version is deliberately and overtly built to play on mass market understandings of what Gay™ is. Everything from the clerk voice actor (who might be queer, I dunno) doing A Very Gay Voice, to Aerith as fag hag, to the lyrics of the Honeybee Theme
The song that plays when Cloud first steps into the performance room ("Stand Up") is a deliberate gay anthem, constructed in every way. Listen to the lyrics.
The refrain at 00:38 is 1000% 90s gay pop anthem shit:
Stand up and cast your fears aside
Stand up and bare your soul with pride
Stand up and cast your fears aside
Stand up and bare your soul with pride
Even the instrumentation. But I suspect many other queers getting on in years like myself will notice that the Gay™ of this song's sound and lyrics is kinda... dated. It's this self-consciously late 90s/early 00s "you go girl" Gay™.
This leaves us with an interesting, weird conundrum, though. In playing to somewhat dated mass market understandings of queerness (that almost universally adhere to cishet views of how queerness functions) it at least manages to avoid being Blatantly Homophobic/Transphobic.
On the flipside, though, if I had to describe the core audience to which the content is meant to be delivered, I'd say it's... straight folks, at least in terms of who the imagined audience was in the minds of the creative team.
On the third hand? I liked the entire sequence. It was fun and campy. And I think we need space to be able to LIKE "fun and campy" even if "fun and campy" also means "direct from a late 1990s mass market gay romance movie"
Maybe to put it another way: merely being pleasantly boring is not a crime.
But it also means I'm going to be very wary of people giving this new version the This Is So Important/Finally The Representation diversity cookie.
But it also means I'm going to be very wary of people giving this new version the This Is So Important/Finally The Representation diversity cookie.
There really isn't anything transgressive/progressive about the Honeybee Inn content in FF7R. It's extremely safe/expected. And that's fine! Believe me, as a queer in my 40s I'm absolutely OKAY with a world where "gay and safe" is a thing.
Before I close this tab let me add one last important thing:
It's okay to have a personally meaningful experience with any media text. That's what they're there for.
Just be cautious, as always, of extending "personally meaningful" to "politically/socially lionized"
It's okay to have a personally meaningful experience with any media text. That's what they're there for.
Just be cautious, as always, of extending "personally meaningful" to "politically/socially lionized"
I did not write all this to make anyone who liked this sequence (*I LIKED IT*) feel bad or whatever.
But I'm a media studies academic so it's like... my actual job/social role to provide analysis that presents you with opportunities to examine it more closely.
But I'm a media studies academic so it's like... my actual job/social role to provide analysis that presents you with opportunities to examine it more closely.
Anyhow peace out be well twitter
