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TW/CW: brief discussion of suicide in media

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The traditional stereotypes for a teenager, let's face it, do not involve immersing yourself in books. Lots and lots of books. These days when people think of teenagers, they imagine anything but a kid choosing books over people. But, I in fact do fit that small proportion of people. As a 16-year-old who used to hate books, I write this to show how, for me, in the last few years, books have changed me.

Sounds dramatic I know, bear with me on this.

Six years ago, I couldn't imagine touching a book. I was the ten-year-old in the park playing football with their mates, doing everything to avoid school work, or academic studies. After all, why would I want to be reminded of the place I spend 25 hours a week, and more than half of that hiding away from people who bullied me for being different. A “different” I didn’t yet understand. Being from a very religious school and having family who appear uneducated in the subject, until secondary school I was unfamiliar with the terms surrounding the Queer community.

Looking back, as a kid, my hatred for books didn’t come from school, as many are led to believe. After all being forced to read every day is a sensible motive. Instead, it comes from the subtle re-enforcement of stereotypes, gender and sexuality norms. When I reflect back the contents of media I consumed, it always involved girls doing ballet or boys playing football. Girls wearing pink, boys wearing blue. Relationships always between and man and a woman, not two women or two men. It re-enforced the abnormality I felt. I didn’t fit these stereotypes, and being encouraged to try to ‘fit in’ by those around me. The media I saw only made me feel more isolated.

After establishing why I was ‘different’ to others, (mostly through extensive google searches and ‘am i gay’ quizzes) I realised I was in fact a lesbian. I soon reached an extremely low point in my life, like many do, due to denial and doubt in my head, as well as discrimination I faced in school from people who targeted me for being ‘different’. The Media told me I was not normal. It told me I couldn't change. Something I now know is ‘queer shame’ was my worst enemy. It came from both internal and external voices.

I knew no queer people. I had years before attended a very religious school to which it was re-enforced that man and women were made for procreation. Except I wasn’t. I was not made for the purpose we were taught endlessly we were. It felt like I was the only one. To add to this, media I consumed re-enforced the normality of heterosexual relationships, and always lacked in the homosexual ones.

Until the second COVID lockdown, I was completely closeted. It wasn’t until the start of 2021 that I did come out to anyone…and I was lucky to have a support of the few I came out too. Until that point, I pushed away that part of myself, hoping it would disappear. I still sometimes feel that, today, but since the start of 2021, I have become more comfortable with myself.

This is where books come in.

After years of hiding away from the part of me which was ultimately causing me the most harm, I started to read books again. At first it was an escape from my head. My mental health was (and sometimes still is) my worst enemy and I put most of it down to trying to accept my identity. Although today that is still a work-in-progress, I am much more comfortable with who am I am. Books became an escape, and a coping mechanism for me, and eventually I found books which sometimes although not exclusively or intentionally queer, have a sense of relatability about them…in particular James Bond, and dare I say it, my GCSE English text Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

To my surprise, things previously stereotyped to be for the typical ‘straight cisgendered man’ appealed to me. James Bond for example, a film and book series always regarded by my dad as well as many others as for men. Except when you really watch them, it was surprising how relatable they become. To anyone who knows Bond, films like Quantum of Solace and the book form of You Only Live Twice had particular appeal. Bond’s outsider presentation reflected my feelings perfectly, but in a context which superficially was a heterosexual cisgendered world. After reading blogs on the matter, it because apparent that I was not the only person who found this: the writer of Licence to Queer summed up my feelings on Bond extremely well.

A film I find unusually queer is Brief Encounter. Although, like Bond, it's an entirely heterosexually presented storyline, the film is about hiding a part of yourself (in the case of Brief Encounter, this is an affair), which although exposing would make you happier, you don't for fear of hurting or changing relationships with others. For me, that’s the representation of my coming out fears. The ‘true love’ represented by Alec Harvey is, for me, a representation of our queer identity. For some it's reality. The choice between being happy, and losing family or friends. In Brief Encounter, it’s the idea that the couple had to conduct their relationships in private, for fear of exposure or condemnation from society. Another familiar queer experience.

From a young age the idea of ‘queer shame’ stays in our heads, something we all experience to different extents. The film Brief Encounter in based of the play written by closeted gay man Noel Coward called Still Life. This gives me more reason to believe the queer appeal of the film was intentional, baked into the story line of the idea of prohibited love contrasted with the feeling many still feel about the idea of queer relationships.

Throughout most of the films and books I enjoy, the running portrayal of characters as outsiders always gives me a sense of relatability, whether it's presented through a queer lens or not. Some books and films, for example James Bond and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, present the effects of being the ‘outsider’. In Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the book ends with the character dying by suicide. In James Bond, more so in some films/books than others, Bond is presented as careless and almost giving up. Sometimes he seems almost suicidal. For many queer people, this is a reality, so finding comfort in media we are typically told are for people who are not us, helps ironically re-enforce the normality of people like us.

Although in modern media, many films and books are not explicitly or intentionally queer, it's important to recognise how films (such and Brief Encounter and James bond) help rationalise and comfort queer people, with the many feelings we get surrounding our identity. With more explicit and intentional queer media is appearing, it's important to acknowledge the importance of media in a positive light.