That Old Same Thing! Again!
By Tchokes 16 Comments
I few weeks ago a friend told me X-23 had been identified as a lesbian, at last. I, naive enough, asked how did it happen, since I hadn't seen it nowhere, and then he showed me the Jubilee and Laura picture, where a vampiric ex-mutant is going for Laura's exposed throat. Funny story, I had just finished reading that same comic, and it never ocurred to me that the said picture was any indicative of her sexuality.
A similar situation happened when Cessily was referred as a 'gay cheerleader' in Pixie's dream world, in love with Laura's character inside the same dream dimension. On the same comic Cessily went on to clumsily land over Armor, and people stated it was obvious she was gay.
I know people tend to overthink things, and I usually don't approve of it, but hey! Here I am writting on this blog (this blog feature is awesome, by the way).
Laura and Cessily (two of my favorite characters) are quite interesting to see in this light, as they are both rather troubled and unique individuals, and that reflects everywhere in their personas, including in their sexuality. While Laura is a person without the moral restraints Cessily has, never having lived in society or anything resembling a normal childhood (with parents, friends, college, and such), Mercury was a popular cheerleader and chersished kid at home, to have it all snatched away from her with a quite traumatic mutation. All of a sudden her parents are ashamed of her, she can't be part of the cheerleader squad, she is the freak of the school, and all this pressure is put over shoulders that probably were never build to handle them. What tells us more about them, their characters, and their sexual choices: single panels or their upbringings?
Laura was raised in a very controlled enviroment, and it's quite safe to assume they didn't teach her to be heterossexual (it wouldn't be practical, to say at least, the less limitations she had, the better). As an instinctive person she has shown herself to be, at least in the beginning, I believe she would have no qualms in having relations with male or female, for as long as it arouses her. Honestly, I don't believe Laura to be gay, and if I had to pick a side, I would say she is strictly hetero. In her instincts I can see it being far easier to feel attracted to a male than a female, and things like 'mating' or 'having sex' making far more sense than making love or expressing her love through physical contact.
Cessily, on the other hand, was ripped from her natural enviroment abrupty and violently by her mutation, in an age she was busy discovering all the kinds of things about herself. If anything Mercury has a far less defined sexual orientation than Laura, because to X-23 it would be safe to assume she still feels aroused and desires physical contact (something most writters won't touch, and I understand), while Cessily is not even human. Maybe her desire to touch is solely based on a need to express her love, not to sate any biological urge. I can buy Cessily being gay or bi, and even being freaked out at being anything other than heterosexual (because she is driven by emotion and feeling, not urges or her body), but I believe it's something deeper than 'oh, teehee, the panel said it so!'. As Mercury ages she will start seeing things in a less biological prysm, and will start seeing people for who they are beneath the flesh, as things like gender might lose meaning completely to her. Or maybe she becomes super-facist about it, since she has to cling to every aspect of normalcry she can! That would be whack!
Panels won't really tell about these characters more than their stories and how they handle things do. Also... I don't know what people saw about that Jubilee-Laura panel. Crazy talks sprung over that! Wow!
I know I am late to speak about the subject, I just never really had an account before! Thanks for the time spent reading it!
16 Comments