how can a body hold so much grief?
why is there so much pain in queer media?
Leslie’s head, all bandaged up, resting on Tony’s shoulders from the backseat of a taxi. They’re on the way home from the hospital after Leslie got into a fight. Though that doesn’t sound right. They’re in Buenos Aires, thousands of miles away from home, running away from — Hong Kong? family? societal expectations? each other?
The scene is from Happy Together, or in Mandarin, 春光乍洩 — one of my favorite movies of all time, and my favorite queer movie of all time.
There is so much hurt in this frame, there is also so much tenderness. I hold both in my hands whenever I think about the queer experience.
The rest of this paragraph unintentionally transformed into a full love letter to the movie that I will leave for a separate post.
i’ve been thinking about queerness lately
I’ve been thinking about queerness1 lately. I don’t think it has ever left my mind.
26 years of growing up and navigating adulthood, and it still feels like I’m constantly catching up on lost experiences. Playing catch-up on a lost childhood and adolescence that feels so much like a lost cause.
This is not new. This is the queer experience. I have made peace with it. Not like I have much of a choice.
“Being queer saved my life. Often we see queerness as deprivation. But when I look at my life, I saw that queerness demanded an alternative innovation from me. I had to make alternative routes; it made me curious; it made me ask, "Is this enough for me?”" —Ocean Vuong
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been luckier than most. Queerness is not something I actively worried about, or beat myself over when I was growing up (that would be a different identity crisis). But it still wasn’t easy, nor was it simple.
Here I am, 26 and a full-fledged adult, still seeking out queer narratives and stories that can bring me solace, from the simple concerns of love and dating, to more fundamental issues of discrimination.
Just as 15 year old esje was, with his trusty old Lenovo, in the bedroom he grew up with, looking for queer stories that made him feel normal (hi Queer as Folk, Shameless, Sense8, and many more that I have long forgotten).
Growing up queer in Southeast Asia is no easy task, let me just emphasize that.
It still stings, to this day, the additional layer of difficulty — and sometimes its not even difficulty, but just consideration, that comes with navigating life (the simple correction of difficulty, for consideration is already another layer of privilege that I experience and acknowledge that I know many others don’t get — that for others, life is difficult).
You expect growing up to make things easier, but it just makes things a lot more complicated.
September 2023, doors were opening up for me and I was about take the next step in my career, which effectively, would be a major life change. I was moving away, permanently, from Manila.
Bangkok, or Kuala Lumpur, I had the option. There were so many things to consider — social life, career progression, pay package, quality of life, and so many more. By this time, I’ve already built a good 6 months of my life in Bangkok putting it at a considerable advantage.
But why let the opportunity to move to another city in my mid-20s pass me by? I love Malay, Indian, and Chinese food? I have plenty of friends in Kuala Lumpur as well as in Singapore, which will just be a stone’s throw away. Beautiful considerations to a life that I would want to build for myself.
Then it hit me — one is in the first country in Southeast Asia (and 2nd in Asia) to legalize same-sex marriage2, the other being the capital of one of the most conservative nations in the world when it comes to the rights of the LGBT community3.
It should have made the choice to move to Bangkok much easier but all it did was leave a bitter aftertaste to a choice I would have made either way.
Because the worst thing is, and this is a good thing or bad thing depending on the perspective you’re taking, I knew that if I ended up living in Malaysia — that i’ll be fine. That certain privileges will be afforded to me simply based on many factors that are not within my control. Which sounds like great news until you realize not everyone gets to experience these privileges — what should be a basic right of self-expression and who you want to love becomes filtered out by many f-all factors.
So, again, I'm luckier than most. I know I’m luckier than most because here I am with the privilege of choice. When other queer people are actively being discriminated against or are forced to live their one and only life in the closet, I get to choose not to be in an environment that won’t be welcoming to the full scope of my identity.
There’s a bitter taste to this privilege.
I look back at this experience, and many others that I’ve grown up with and have found comfort and company in queer books and movies. Regardless of whether they’re happy or sad. There was comfort in its company.
Maybe that’s where the complexity of queer media comes from.
why is queer media so sad?
Looking at my all-time favorite books, placed at eye-level when standing in front of my bookshelf, there is a trend you will easily notice. Book covers featuring moments of tenderness between two men trying to hold onto each other, or more solitary moments that leave a bittersweet feeling when you look at them.
It screams sad and gay. It’s pretty accurate.
My Letterboxd lists won’t be any different.
Queer media is a space ill always go out of my way to consume — books, movies, music, and more. It’s a space that has given me the most beautiful glimpses of humanity. The one that has shown me the most amount of empathy.
I’ve been at the receiving end of this empathy many times over, and have made growing up queer far easier than most people have it. This is why queer media holds a special place in my heart, and is a space I actively try to give a platform to, with the little I have. Taking this empathy and bringing it to those who need it the most.
The funny thing is, it is also one that has brought me so much pain.
It shouldn’t be too difficult to wrap your head around if you think deeply about the queer experience through the years. If you had even an ounce of empathy, you wouldn’t even have to think too deeply.
It’s a space in fiction that has one too many sad stories, and narratives.
It’s a group of people that has one too many sad stories, and narratives.
I’ve been holding this thought for many years now, whenever the topic of the sadness of queer media comes about.
The very first time more than half a decade ago, discovering Happy Together and the joy (and sadness) that comes with discovery of Leslie Cheung’s life, a cultural icon from Hong Kong that has grown to become one of my all-time favorite actors.
But the very first draft of this ramble came a little over two years ago, during my first time reading Notes of a Crocodile by Qiu Miaojin, a brilliant Taiwanese writer that was unapologetically lesbian — writing two works so essential to the literary canon, especially within the Asian LGBT community. Both queer icons during a time and place when identifying as such came with a lot more risks than what your freedom would afford you.
The sad reality with a space rooted on people who have a long history of fighting for a voice in society, dealing with oppression that remains present in many parts of the world today — is that you have artists, shaped by these stories.
The older generation of queer artists today are the same ones that lived their formative years during some of the darkest times in queer history (to some, still is).
So, we’re presented with tragic works of queer media.
When you have artists that are shaped by tough and difficult times, whether they were forced to hide, suppress, adjust, or they were able to fight for their rights, and stand tall. They each have their stories.
Alas, we’re presented with beautiful, and heartbreaking pieces of tragic queer media. Powerful queer media.
Queer media that reminds us of the difficult history that afforded us the relative freedom of today. The voice of generations who did not have the relative privilege of today’s youth, and are only now able to take more of their stories and bring them to light, and I think that’s heartbreaking and beautiful.
Don’t we deserve to have more hopeful and lighthearted works? of course. There is also so much joy to the queer experience. The youth of today deserve to see narratives that not only paint the queer experience in a positive light, but paint it in a normal manner — not as the groundbreaking core of a story, but simply a matter-of-fact aspect to it.
Something that can bring hope and normalcy to the queer youth.
There might not be a lot of happy queer stories, and they might not be the most known. But they’re there, and there’s value in them. Both the sad stories, and the happy stories.
Though in my personal experience they both feel shrouded in melancholy, or maybe that’s just the queer experience as a whole.
Sad queer stories paint a picture of the realities the community goes through,
while the happy queer stories paint a picture of “what could be”.`
Hope, despite being a beautiful thing, can be the biggest struggle of them all. Though, how else do you wake up each day without the hope of possibility?
Is there too much pain in queer media? Yes, because there’s also too much pain in its history. Sometimes I wonder how a body could hold so much grief. It can’t. Something has to carry this collective grief — both our histories, and our lost experiences.
There’s a level of catharsis to writing about the queer experience, a much heavier writing session that seem to carry the weight of the community with me.
Leslie Cheung and Qiu Miaojin. Brilliant asian queer icons born decades too early. born into a society that made the world difficult for queer people, for being a big bang too late for queer people.
Most importantly, to the many queer people that still live their lives in fear and hold much more grief than the body can hold, who don’t get to have the privilege of choice — do what you need to be safe and be okay. I don’t know the answer but I hope you find comfort in these words, and these stories.
from our usual spot,
esje
You can also find me on: bookstagram | personal instagram | letterboxd | tiktok | goodreads
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Queerness, in this context, used as an umbrella term for the LGBTQIA+ community
this is so beautifully written about such a universal queer experience while still being so deeply personal. the privilege of choice is so lucky and important, but there is still an element of illusion to it. some of us have the privilege to choose where we live, but even then its not a free for all, we still have to think so much about if we'll be safe in the place we end up. works like this makes sure that queer experiences are well documented and not erased like in the past, great work <3
esje, what a beautifully written post, filled with hope, despite tragedy, despite pain. thank you for posting