Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25614818-20150529185748/@comment-995426-20190527001643

It strikes me how, when TMNT 2K12 was still on the air, it was a time when gay relationships in cartoons were becoming a bit more common, but they were still usually framed in a plausibly deniable way so that other less receptive viewers could just as easily dismiss what they see. As such, no matter how visible Mike and Leatherhead were, they were still "invisible" enough that they could be silently cast aside as if they never happened, and they could write Mikey meeting Renet as if he'd never been in love with anyone before. And it wasn't that relationship (or how shallow it was) that annoyed me nearly as much as how easy it was for well-telegraphed LGBT characters to be made invisible again, as if they never happened. And to an LGBT audience, it can actually be more painful to feel recognized and then unceremoniously ignored than it is to have been ignored all along.

Now compare what Rise of the TMNT did recently with Warren & Hypno, Sitting in a Tree. I mean, yeah, in some ways, it was less "plausibly deniable"&mdash;even the episode's title refers to a rhyme about kissing, romance and marriage. But neither Warren nor Hypno used words like "gay" or "boyfriend" (instead using a highly conspicuous list of terms slash terms slash terms) and just five years ago they could have easily dismissed such an episode as a gag and proceeded to write Warren and Hypno each in completely different ways later on. But this isn't five years ago, and openly LGBT characters in cartoons are more common than ever. The Legend of Korra, Steven Universe, Gravity Falls, Adventure Time, and most recently even PBS's Arthur. In the case of TLoK, GF and AT, they only had gay reveals literally in their final episodes when it was too late to cancel or rework the shows. But Steven Universe has been pretty queer throughout, and Warren & Hypno is an episode in season one of a series that has been renewed for more seasons. (Though I also hesitate to be encouraged by such an episode appearing in the first season, as most of the gaydar-tripping moments in 2K12 were also in its first season, decreased slightly in its second season, then decreased sharply in its third season.)

Same-sex relationships were always just as wholesome and/or just as dirty as opposite-sex relationships could be, but now an increasing portion of the audience has accepted that parity too, and more young children than ever certainly do. With the inevitable cultural shifts that come with each new generation of audiences, what was once a non-starter to market-conscious standards & practices departments is no longer as much of a problem as it used to be.