hubblegleeflower:

Good Omens is what queer representation looks like if a relationship is simply and obviously romantic without creators bothering to try and convince homophobic people, who won’t believe it anyway.

One criticism I’ve heard about shipping in general is the, “Why do you have to make everything about sex? Why can’t you just appreciate the profound friendship between these two characters?” And the answer is, of course, about representation and removing plausible deniability. Because kissing and/or sexual behaviour (on screen or implied) are the only ways for us not to have to convince straight people that this is, in fact, a romance. And it’s humiliating to have to justify a queer reading of a show when there’s always some homophobe ready to tell you you’re delusional and sex-obsessed.

If there was some other way, I might have said, to depict a relationship as romantic that would still translate objectively to all but the most dedicated denier of queerness, then yeah, no problem. Kissing doesn’t always further the plot (not that that’s seen as a problem, apparently, in a great many het pairings), so if there’s no kissing, BUT it’s obviously queer anyway, then great, we’ll take it. But I would have said it in a gotcha kind of way, because heteronormativity is really freaking powerful and unless their tongues are down each other’s throats, people who don’t think of themselves as homophobic will still think I’m making it up.

More simply, straight people need kissing in order to see a pairing as romantic. Queer readers have always been able to identify intimacy in a variety of ways. We’ve had no choice, since that was the only representation available to us. Admittedly, it’s nice to see characters you love kissing, and we’d like to have that more often. But from a practical standpoint, kissing is required in queer pairings mainly so that we don’t have to justify our reading to straight people (because it’s annoying and they never believe us anyway). Again, if there was some other way to show romantic love between two characters beyond a reasonable doubt, and kissing would actually detract from the plot, then fine, but good luck with that.

The relationship between Crowley and Aziraphale, as @neil-gaiman has written it for the show, is precisely that. So obviously a loving relationship, so clearly a lasting, intimate connection, that kissing really isn’t required to seal the deal. It’s not that their love is hinted at in subtle ways so queer readers can grasp at straws without homophobic people getting offended. We’ve got lots of that already. It’s that it’s so blindingly obvious that only the most homophobic reader would even try to deny it

Now of course homophobic readers of the requisite type are not in any way lacking. Even with the creators and actors going on and on in interviews and all over social media about how this is a love story and they’re an odd couple and they gaze longingly at each other and each would do anything for the other, unless they’re seen to be shagging, people will still deny it. But this way, they’re the ones who look sex-obsessed and desperate, and scrambling wildly to impose their world view on a text that really doesn’t support it. Let them have to do that for a change.

Let them scuttle off to their caves and deny all they want. We don’t have time for them. Our angels have a reservation at the Ritz.