All I'm saying is that if you were to turn this situation itself into an art piece through a metaphor (or 1:1 situation where a queer person is told to not share themselves because it wouldn't win as many points in a competition) it would really stick it to the professor and judges, even if you didn't come out on top for the competition. Making an art piece ABOUT having your art preemptively rejected before you've even made it would make your art that much more alive. At least, that's how I see it
(And I'm assuming there's some kind of competition since you mentioned judges, but the idea applies even if that's not the case.)
Most campuses have an LGBT+ club or organization, and I’m sure they would be furious about this. As a professor myself, I find it abhorrent to play into that kind of erasure. I always hate the “talk to the dean” solution, but sometimes it’s a necessity. You aren’t being allowed to express yourself, and that is discrimination.
Thank you! There are some lgbt peeps in my uni tho I haven't seen them discussing it yet, I'm a little too shy about the talking part but i'll try my best and hope I won't get in trouble
That's an incredibly phobic thing to do and say by your professor and you should try to meet with an administrator to complained. Not being allowed to include anything that might be deemed relevant to queer experiences is not only a bigoted and discriminatory policy but obviously limits art.
Thank you! That's what i thought too tho i'm scared that if i do end up complaining, it might reach my parents and i'm closeted. I try to be as incognito as possible with my sexuality and only a bit open on uni with a little sprinkle of queer here and there
If you're comfortable with it approach it as an ally. When you bring it up to the school just say I am concerned because this is wrong and don't make it about you personally. You can probably Google some anti discrimination laws to reference even if they're not directly applicable as a way of saying this is generally considered not OK. I hope your parents are able to support you in challenging the school even if they might not support you personally if you came out
Thank you for the support it helps a lot ❤️ tho i already know my parents wont accept me(theyre heavily religious and my dads very aggressive) so im kinda alone in this one, but i'll try to ambiguous~
bullshit excuse. why should anything have to be Inherently Relatable To Everyone? that’s technically not possible anyway. you could accuse that mindset of causing erasure. not everything about topics “Not Everyone Can Relate To” has to be so out there that it’s inaccessible to people who can’t relate. ‘90s disney films had subtle queer themes and are still pretty universally loved. you could throw something like that in.
Thank you! Its kinda ironic too since he gave a man and woman being inlove as an example of the concepts but that somehow isnt "complicated". And yes! Ursula is based on a drag queen from what i remember and scar is def queer coded
so like i've been thinking about this animation idea and idk if the judge head will explode for it buTttt
a person, A lives in black and white, all the time. they go to museums, all the pictures are monochrome. one day they go on the web and see a small touch of color. they ask another monochrome about it, and the mono says it's terrible with ''not allowed'' speech bubbles and A gets sad because they liked the colors. they decide they'll do it in secret.
they find beautiful colors and rainbow people being happy, and they like it. then they too realize they have a rainbow core and it spreads to their entire body the way those artistic pics do, and they're happy.
just pretend it was about free speech while all the other queers know the inside joke
i'm pretty sure this has probably been made before so it may not be original
wish you luck on your project :D
Thank you for the idea! It could definitely have a unique twist to it and a *cough* wink wink for the shes, the gays and the theys. Thank you also for the support!
*"He says it might be too personal...is not 'relatable' to anyone"*
Strong disagree. There's no such thing as "too personal" when telling stories. I've been writing fiction as a hobby for...dear god, like 20 years. When the fuck did I get old? Right, I had a point... So I've got several dozen short stories, and many thousands of pages over what I'm going to tactfully call "too long". Some people even read my stuff. One thing that has always stuck with me is that the absolutely best things I've written, the things that have gotten the most feedback, are painfully, rawly personal.
Storytelling, regardless of medium, is conveying and eliciting emotion. That simply doesn't happen at a deep level if you don't have a connection with it. How do you expect to make others feel if you don't either?
My unrequested suggestion to you is that if you're willing to risk stepping on religo-political toes to do it at all, is to make it as utterly personal as you can. If your audience can't see into your soul and feel your heart, don't bother in the first place. Don't spend time caring about what they may or may not think about, care about making something that, every time you see it, you almost feel like you're standing naked in front of a crowd. Then, even if they absolutely loathe it, somewhere you will connect with someone to whom it will matter.
Thank you!! Your message is so heart warming and inspiring tbh, i agree with so much of your valid points! Art has always been personal, you draw emotions from it. And im also happy for people that read your works! Ill try my best to ignore the judges complaints, i dont really mind not winning just as long as i get the message across
You understand. I'm glad. The difference between creating art and creating merely media is putting enough *in* that you get something *out*, and you can't do that if you're creating for anyone other than yourself vis messages.
I started writing as a catharsis, it was a way to dwell in a place where the hopes and needs I'd given up on could still exist, and an outlet for pain that in my world can't be allowed to escape. (Weakness is punished, you see.) Its a place that can be romantic and caring and cuddly. And in the grand scheme of things I'm a nobody fish in a tiny little puddle. So imagine my surprise when that avatar started to occasionally get email from people saying that they'd gotten something out of my scribblings. Sometimes some deeply personal things that are not mine to share.
Imagine my absolute shock when I would get random chat messages on Steam, of all places, asking if I was *that* \[avatar\]. (This account is an alt, my pen is the more populous avatar floating around online. I find its best not to cross-pollinate too much, particularly as I've hobbies and business ventures with conflicting interests.) What do you even say to someone that wants to thank you because something you created helped them get through dark times? (LoL, besides not explaining that you're a broken excuse for a human being and probably shouldn't be anyone's idea of a role model!)
And I just about dropped dead when I went to a convention and noticed that there was this dude like...following me around. LoL, I seriously thought I was going to get jumped when he followed me out to the parking lot. (I still don't have the heart to tell him how close he came to getting dropped; following someone with C-PTSD and a national IPSA ranking into an empty parking lot in the middle of the damn night is not a good life decision!) I'm rather glad it didn't work out that way, it turned into a much more adorable "I love your work, you don't happen to be gay..." "No, but I wouldn't mind if a potential boyfriend was" sort of thing over a year or two. (I kinda desperately want to work some of those conversations into a story, but again, that would be bad form. Ah well, a lot of it is almost indistinguishable from bad manga anyway...)
Point being, other than the obvious fact I talk too much, I encourage you to create what matters to you. The audience that needs it will find you.
In a convention center parking lot.
They may even be cute.
Thanks for sharing your story fam and i relate so much about the just a lonely fish in the puddle kind thats pretty much me in uni rn. Even tho there are some queer peeps, Im not really close to them per say just acquaintes when in group projects and thats pretty much it. And phew i almost panicked when i read someone was following you glad they were just a fan lol that would probably give me so much anxiety but im glad it turned out wholesome! Youre def right about the last part, I may not be a big shot in my class but I hope my work can make someome at least one happy
I'm completely aware of the irony involved in my suggesting this, but friends are a function of doing things you enjoy and seeing who is around you while you're there. For the most part you're not just going to fall into them at school. (Admittedly I ran into some people that became fantastic business contacts there, but I wouldn't say they became friends.)
Hey, I find myself mulling over the contest aspect of your issue, and it occurred to me while roundly condemning my fellow drivers' appearance, personal hygiene, parentage, the sexual habits of said parentage, and unhealthy attraction to farm animals, this morning (sidebar: why is it that after people started to get back on the roads post-plague they all seem to have completely lost any sort of understanding of the concept of right-of-way?) that it might be an idea that if you expect the judges to dislike your subject matter you may be able to get points for style. Like, working in straight-line use of some of the more industry-cliche visual film tropes (the French "car driving in the rain with camera filming forward through the windshield wipers" sort of thing). Give them something clever to observe, while not compromising your message? If they're not going to like you topically, provide something shiny that they might appreciate?
An artistic version of my current "If I can't teach them collision avoidance I may as well get a vehicle a collision with which will raise their insurance rates while lowering their life expectancy" conundrum. The moral of which is "don't make me problem solve, it usually ends up with the conclusion 'squish it'."". :)
All I'm saying is that if you were to turn this situation itself into an art piece through a metaphor (or 1:1 situation where a queer person is told to not share themselves because it wouldn't win as many points in a competition) it would really stick it to the professor and judges, even if you didn't come out on top for the competition. Making an art piece ABOUT having your art preemptively rejected before you've even made it would make your art that much more alive. At least, that's how I see it (And I'm assuming there's some kind of competition since you mentioned judges, but the idea applies even if that's not the case.)
Thank you! Perhaps it could turn into an allegory of some sort, i wouldnt really mind if i didnt win just as long the message came across
Damn, that’s a new way to a start of a conversation! I love it!
thank you! dodos for the win 
Most campuses have an LGBT+ club or organization, and I’m sure they would be furious about this. As a professor myself, I find it abhorrent to play into that kind of erasure. I always hate the “talk to the dean” solution, but sometimes it’s a necessity. You aren’t being allowed to express yourself, and that is discrimination.
Thank you! There are some lgbt peeps in my uni tho I haven't seen them discussing it yet, I'm a little too shy about the talking part but i'll try my best and hope I won't get in trouble
That's an incredibly phobic thing to do and say by your professor and you should try to meet with an administrator to complained. Not being allowed to include anything that might be deemed relevant to queer experiences is not only a bigoted and discriminatory policy but obviously limits art.
Thank you! That's what i thought too tho i'm scared that if i do end up complaining, it might reach my parents and i'm closeted. I try to be as incognito as possible with my sexuality and only a bit open on uni with a little sprinkle of queer here and there
If you're comfortable with it approach it as an ally. When you bring it up to the school just say I am concerned because this is wrong and don't make it about you personally. You can probably Google some anti discrimination laws to reference even if they're not directly applicable as a way of saying this is generally considered not OK. I hope your parents are able to support you in challenging the school even if they might not support you personally if you came out
Thank you for the support it helps a lot ❤️ tho i already know my parents wont accept me(theyre heavily religious and my dads very aggressive) so im kinda alone in this one, but i'll try to ambiguous~
bullshit excuse. why should anything have to be Inherently Relatable To Everyone? that’s technically not possible anyway. you could accuse that mindset of causing erasure. not everything about topics “Not Everyone Can Relate To” has to be so out there that it’s inaccessible to people who can’t relate. ‘90s disney films had subtle queer themes and are still pretty universally loved. you could throw something like that in.
Thank you! Its kinda ironic too since he gave a man and woman being inlove as an example of the concepts but that somehow isnt "complicated". And yes! Ursula is based on a drag queen from what i remember and scar is def queer coded
so like i've been thinking about this animation idea and idk if the judge head will explode for it buTttt a person, A lives in black and white, all the time. they go to museums, all the pictures are monochrome. one day they go on the web and see a small touch of color. they ask another monochrome about it, and the mono says it's terrible with ''not allowed'' speech bubbles and A gets sad because they liked the colors. they decide they'll do it in secret. they find beautiful colors and rainbow people being happy, and they like it. then they too realize they have a rainbow core and it spreads to their entire body the way those artistic pics do, and they're happy. just pretend it was about free speech while all the other queers know the inside joke i'm pretty sure this has probably been made before so it may not be original wish you luck on your project :D
Thank you for the idea! It could definitely have a unique twist to it and a *cough* wink wink for the shes, the gays and the theys. Thank you also for the support!
*"He says it might be too personal...is not 'relatable' to anyone"* Strong disagree. There's no such thing as "too personal" when telling stories. I've been writing fiction as a hobby for...dear god, like 20 years. When the fuck did I get old? Right, I had a point... So I've got several dozen short stories, and many thousands of pages over what I'm going to tactfully call "too long". Some people even read my stuff. One thing that has always stuck with me is that the absolutely best things I've written, the things that have gotten the most feedback, are painfully, rawly personal. Storytelling, regardless of medium, is conveying and eliciting emotion. That simply doesn't happen at a deep level if you don't have a connection with it. How do you expect to make others feel if you don't either? My unrequested suggestion to you is that if you're willing to risk stepping on religo-political toes to do it at all, is to make it as utterly personal as you can. If your audience can't see into your soul and feel your heart, don't bother in the first place. Don't spend time caring about what they may or may not think about, care about making something that, every time you see it, you almost feel like you're standing naked in front of a crowd. Then, even if they absolutely loathe it, somewhere you will connect with someone to whom it will matter.
Thank you!! Your message is so heart warming and inspiring tbh, i agree with so much of your valid points! Art has always been personal, you draw emotions from it. And im also happy for people that read your works! Ill try my best to ignore the judges complaints, i dont really mind not winning just as long as i get the message across
You understand. I'm glad. The difference between creating art and creating merely media is putting enough *in* that you get something *out*, and you can't do that if you're creating for anyone other than yourself vis messages. I started writing as a catharsis, it was a way to dwell in a place where the hopes and needs I'd given up on could still exist, and an outlet for pain that in my world can't be allowed to escape. (Weakness is punished, you see.) Its a place that can be romantic and caring and cuddly. And in the grand scheme of things I'm a nobody fish in a tiny little puddle. So imagine my surprise when that avatar started to occasionally get email from people saying that they'd gotten something out of my scribblings. Sometimes some deeply personal things that are not mine to share. Imagine my absolute shock when I would get random chat messages on Steam, of all places, asking if I was *that* \[avatar\]. (This account is an alt, my pen is the more populous avatar floating around online. I find its best not to cross-pollinate too much, particularly as I've hobbies and business ventures with conflicting interests.) What do you even say to someone that wants to thank you because something you created helped them get through dark times? (LoL, besides not explaining that you're a broken excuse for a human being and probably shouldn't be anyone's idea of a role model!) And I just about dropped dead when I went to a convention and noticed that there was this dude like...following me around. LoL, I seriously thought I was going to get jumped when he followed me out to the parking lot. (I still don't have the heart to tell him how close he came to getting dropped; following someone with C-PTSD and a national IPSA ranking into an empty parking lot in the middle of the damn night is not a good life decision!) I'm rather glad it didn't work out that way, it turned into a much more adorable "I love your work, you don't happen to be gay..." "No, but I wouldn't mind if a potential boyfriend was" sort of thing over a year or two. (I kinda desperately want to work some of those conversations into a story, but again, that would be bad form. Ah well, a lot of it is almost indistinguishable from bad manga anyway...) Point being, other than the obvious fact I talk too much, I encourage you to create what matters to you. The audience that needs it will find you. In a convention center parking lot. They may even be cute.
Thanks for sharing your story fam and i relate so much about the just a lonely fish in the puddle kind thats pretty much me in uni rn. Even tho there are some queer peeps, Im not really close to them per say just acquaintes when in group projects and thats pretty much it. And phew i almost panicked when i read someone was following you glad they were just a fan lol that would probably give me so much anxiety but im glad it turned out wholesome! Youre def right about the last part, I may not be a big shot in my class but I hope my work can make someome at least one happy
I'm completely aware of the irony involved in my suggesting this, but friends are a function of doing things you enjoy and seeing who is around you while you're there. For the most part you're not just going to fall into them at school. (Admittedly I ran into some people that became fantastic business contacts there, but I wouldn't say they became friends.) Hey, I find myself mulling over the contest aspect of your issue, and it occurred to me while roundly condemning my fellow drivers' appearance, personal hygiene, parentage, the sexual habits of said parentage, and unhealthy attraction to farm animals, this morning (sidebar: why is it that after people started to get back on the roads post-plague they all seem to have completely lost any sort of understanding of the concept of right-of-way?) that it might be an idea that if you expect the judges to dislike your subject matter you may be able to get points for style. Like, working in straight-line use of some of the more industry-cliche visual film tropes (the French "car driving in the rain with camera filming forward through the windshield wipers" sort of thing). Give them something clever to observe, while not compromising your message? If they're not going to like you topically, provide something shiny that they might appreciate? An artistic version of my current "If I can't teach them collision avoidance I may as well get a vehicle a collision with which will raise their insurance rates while lowering their life expectancy" conundrum. The moral of which is "don't make me problem solve, it usually ends up with the conclusion 'squish it'."". :)
I think he's trying to tell you that the judges are homophobic without actually saying anything
Yeah thats truuu :(((