Although the discovery that Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury is gay caused some excitement, it was not entirely unexpected. Since Char and Amuro’s time, the series’ melodramatic writing has produced scenes that, on a subtextual level, feel strongly queer, but few are as blatant and daring as this premiere.
Auletta Mercury overcame Guel in a duel for the honor of Marine, who was forced by the school’s rules to be Guel’s wife, at the end of the first episode of Witch From Mercury. Marine confessed after the combat that Suletta had accidentally become her new husband by defeating Guel.
However, I’m a woman
Thankfully, most of the responses to this thrilling premiere have been positive, with many fans finding parallels between Witch From Mercury and Revolutionary Girl Utena. Even though it’s a bold analogy that feels like setting oneself up for failure, it’s a good description of the energy it exudes.
There’s also no escaping how overtly gay the sitcom is portraying itself because of how in your face the reveal is. The biggest example of ignorance of the fundamentals of human sexuality since Shinji from Evangelion responded “I’m a boy” to Kaji is when Suletta tells Marine that she is a woman.
It’s not even like the situation is portrayed as humorous or even as a hassle for the folks in the issue. Although that doesn’t say much, Miorine’s attitude suggests that it’s far better than her former arrangement. However, she goes out of her way to assume that Mercury must be more conservative, noting the evident fact that same-sex relationships are frequent and essentially telling Suletta, “Gay people exist.
The unquestionably amorous portrayal of the scenario has made the frequently subtextual homosexuality explicit. Fans who have been yearning for a more straightforward portrayal that doesn’t leave room for contradiction, as is frequently the case with other media with queer readings, are excited just by that fact.
A “Queer Reading”: What Is It?
A “reading” of a text offers a specific interpretation based on a comprehensive analysis of the work as a whole, taking into account numerous other recurrent themes. These aren’t always canon, but one of the interesting things about media analysis is seeing how things appear when viewed through many frames of reference.
A significant portion of the research focuses on examining subtext, which is the subliminal messages contained in a piece of art (for more information, check our analysis of FLCL’s storytelling). If someone reads a book or sees a movie and wonders, “Is this gay?” it was probably all of the subtexts in the movie that made them feel that way.
In a video about 2 Fast 2 Furious that Ben from Canada made for YouTube, a long-standing queer interpretation of the movie was thoroughly discussed, effectively referring to the movie as a bisexual love story. Ben explains that the debate over subtext revolves around two factors: whether the spectator was actively seeking out subtext and projected meaning, or whether the movie purposefully elicited that response.
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