The Power of Whimsy and Magic in Queer Stories

Before the rose was there, the garden was full of moss. I started as a seed under it, waiting for the right time to sprout. Clover waited, and waited, and tended the garden, and didn’t listen to anyone who said she should give up. Moss, my other mother, she waited too. But Clover was the one who came out every morning and told me about her night, what she was planning on cooking that day, how Moss was going. […]

When my first two leaves emerged, Moss and Clover knew I would be okay.

I didn’t mean to be a strange baby made of plants, but it hasn’t caused any problems.

So begins Alison Evans’ Euphoria Kids, with the narrator, Iris, matter-of-factly regaling us with the tale of the beginning of their life: intermingled wordlessly with magic and a kind of dream-logic bizarreness, and intermingled effortlessly with queer love and affection. This sets the tone for the whole book: a dreamy, whimsical tale of understated magic that is almost rebelliously committed to letting its protagonists be.

That Thing with Disney and the Faces

Remember when Frozen first came out and the portion of the Intertubes passionate about such things got into a long and detailed fight over whether or not the two new princesses had exactly the same facial design, and as well as that, the exact same facial design as Tangled’s Rapunzel? Well, the argument is back with the newly released posters for Disney’s upcoming CGI movie Big Hero 6, which features all sorts of characters (many of whom have been race-bent away from their original ethnicity, but that’s another kettle of fish), including a white blob in a suit, some superhero kids, and a girl who looks almost exactly like Rapunzel.

Well. This is no longer something that even needs to be argued about, it’s just kind of awkward at this point.

There are some interesting things at play here. “Same Face Syndrome” is a well-known and somewhat damning phrase in the art and animation world, meaning, naturally enough, that all of your character designs have the same face. It’s something, as far as I understand, that’s either associated with beginning artists still getting comfortable with their style and reusing the strokes they know best (fair enough), or, at this point, big industry movies trying to make their princesses look pretty (less fair enough). As this artist points out, it’s much more associated with female characters—Elsa and Anna may look very similar, but the argument that the Frozen character designers were simply conforming to a certain aesthetic falls through a bit when you look at the two male leads of that movie, who are both meant to be handsome but ended up looking very different. So, what, princes and bad guys can be designed differently but pretty, likeable heroines can’t?