Im still angry at Vlad and Judit for failing to recognize their privilege and doing what they did. Im sad for Karl because he was literally nipped in the bud just when he was finding his courage. That's honestly a lot more painful than someone who's already gathered

his confidence and has an in-your-face attitude. Karl was never even given the chance to get to that point. And his closest ally, Vlad, became adversary precisely because at the time Karl needed a hug the most, he interrogated him like a prosecutor.

"Why act like I accused you of a crime" is projection. He was forced to deny because that was the familiar, safe choice for someone who has a lot to lose given his illiberal, unsupportive parents. He acted like he was accused of a crime because he was interrogated like one.

As I've said to @UnPacoLoco yesterday, you cannot say you are an ally if your allyship's moral imagination is limited to your family alone; and above all if you (Judit and Vlad), who have the language of queer theory push those who are about to join the alliance away

because you cannot choose empathy over what to you is the "sacral" stuff that knowledge requires (which in itself is heavy): a positivistic sense of understanding oneself then and there; an in-your-face means of activism which honestly requires some sort of power and privilege.

Takeaways:

1. There is a need to recognize the limitations of the frameworks we use to understand and advocate for gender freedom.

RRL: Brainer, A. (2019). Meanings of Silence and Disclosure. In A. Brainer, Queer Kinship and Family
Change in Taiwan (pp. 19-58). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

2. Even as it is integral to realize that contextual liberation is radically different from structural liberation. Here, I am of course talking about what Amy Brainer differentiates above as the equally valid processes of gender identification and gender affirmation in Asian

societies, what she calls "implicit affirmation" (which older Taiwanese LGBT used as opposed to the framework of Western framework of Out and Proud that the younger generation tend to employ and identify with.

3. The strategy of Karl, as someone who's more socioeconomically insecure and doesn't enjoy the privileged access to liberal gender culture given his familial constraints can be interpreted as what James Scott calls "Weapons of the Weak."

RRL: Scott, J. (2015). Everyday Forms of Resistance. In F. Colburn, Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (pp. 3-33). New York: Routledge. (Original work published 1989).

3 (cont). This is a morally ambivalent strategy in which someone who is in a weaker position uses the teeter tottering of boundaries for self-preservation. This is not fundamentally revolutionary and radical of course (revisit first sentence of point 2) but it is a

useful strategy for those who occupy the position of being a social underclass. Karl employs ambivalent queerness to maximize his freedom and inch by inch open that closet which has a heavy lid. He is queer for Vlad and /BEGINS/ to learn of the progressive language of freedom

and the personally liberating experience of queer romance. And yet he is strategically straight (at least for the moment) for his parents so he has continued access for support given the highly controlling, illiberal constraints employed emotionally by his patriarch.

4. "Pinipilit ka ba namin?" Is a funny phrase because it implies that instances of abuse and trauma should be obvert. Sometimes it isn't. As Taylor (2006: 52) testifies, abuse is when there is an existence of an imbalance in social, political, economic and/or physical,

psychological or emotional power between exploiter and exploited…imply[ing] that one party took advantage of [this] imbalance of power to obtain access to something that the exploited can give (dream house) that would otherwise have been denied to them had their relationship

been non-hierarchical or non-kin (i.e. as strangers). Abuse is beyond consent because it does not necessarily imply that the exploiter used violence, nor that the exploited would necessarily subjectively feel victimized, violated, or exploited."

RRL: Taylor, J. S. (2006). Female Sex Tourism: A Contradiction in Terms? Feminist Review, 83(1), 42–59. https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.fr.9400280

5. The blatant classism of Judit that serves as a moral blinder for her is made even more explicit. In the episode last week, to demonstrate care for her brother meant the need to use a highly disrespectful tone to Eddie who has no face precisely because he embodies the scandal

of pure labor in the world and eyes of the bourgeoisie. While in this previous episode she dismissed Anna's dissent by asserting her differential access to power which is demonstrated by her aura. Anna is silenced because Judit is landlord. Anna is silenced because that form of

silencing is all too similar in the interactions of creatives who experience precarious labor as opposed to their unpaying patrons. Yes there isn't any of these things in that dinner table scene but focus on the tone. Why did Judit employ a managerial shut up that, had Anna

been standing, made her feel like a waitress as opposed to Judit who had her hands poshly curled?

Judit wants contractual obligations with positivistic underpinnings of terms of service. She writes a cheque and doesn't trust his brother (esp not Karl) with hard cash asserts

"take care of my brother" in exchange for rent. To be claim "imperfect allyship" is not excuse to hurt a stranger who is not family for it's precisely social awareness that demands us that to defend our kin should not mean to hurt others.

Hello? This is what's wrong with our politics because family first, community later. Political dynasties anyone???

6. I do not like. Will never respect. Anyone who nips the bud of someone who just starts to figure himself out. An implicit argument to those straight people wanting to be oppressed, what #GayaSaPelikulaEp07 shows are levels of negotiation and just the sheer load of

heaviness that queer people must bear to make things work for themselves and themselves relative to others who may or may not be queer. This is to say I dislike Vlad and Judit for posing as allies but then disrespecting Karl.

Yes. Ako na ang #KarlStanAccount2020.

7. A simple example of the theory-vs-praxis messiness can be exemplified by the character of Anna. The show originally intended to portray her a woman beyond her role as a mother but it is her character who ironically serves as the mother-figure to Karl when he needed one.

Empathy is thus beyond the clean cut lines drawn by theory even that theory may be progressive or intersectional. Empathy here interpellates activism and I guess makes a powerful point into the power of conciliatory politics that does not let go of its prime convictions.

If you over extend the analysis, the little diorama of Karl, Vlad, Judit, Anna and Santi speaks about what it takes (the price to pay for sides) to bridge the gap and heal the wounds of social cleavages that undeniably bisect us consciously or not.

Addendum: I didn't want to add anymore to what has been a long-enough thread but this has been a relatively recurrent response/query. https://twitter.com/HeyStanEngr/status/1325038202315419650?s=19

Both the traumas that impede Karl and Vlad's romance are undeniably brought by a homophobic, patriarchal society (unfair structure). It is important to note though that I feel for Karl precisely because he has so much more to lose as

he is bisected by both the dimensions of queer sexuality and his relatively underprivileged social class. To top this off, what may have been a long emotional experience of personal coping

for Vlad was for Karl compressed in a single week with a really psychologically painful climax driven by Judit and Vlad's approach to him.

In the end, Tristan puts it well by saying that it isn't so much about taking sides as it is fundamentally an exposition of the complexity of (global south) queer realities and the multiple dimensions it speaks about the long project of queer liberation. https://twitter.com/imtristandv/status/1325037572318404608?s=19