danielle (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shrimpchipsss) wrote2023-01-12 12:05 pm
shrimpchipsss) wrote2023-01-12 12:05 pm
the failed son: an allegory for rejection of queer children in asian families
I am thinking once again about the fic way home by ao3 user yamabato and how a bunch of us (me, many Twitter mutuals, and mutuals of mutuals) lost our mcfucking minds specifically over the theme of Akaashi as the failed son.
I'll preface this by saying that this fic is not about homophobia, the mother even encourages her son to follow the other boy.
But the thread of Akaashi failing to take over the family business, unable to follow his father's path, without the stomach to become a chef, running away from home, semi-estranged, works as an allegory for parental acceptance of their queer children because of the way being a queer child in many Asian families makes you a failed child.
This phenomenon doesn't discriminate by the religion or politics or philosophy of the parents or the child's other shallow markers of success and filial action. A 'respectable' career, appearance, ambition, social standing, doing things like sending money home, are cancelled out by that one thing which has become a personal slight against the parents.
It is not a case of "you are bad and wrong and shameful" but rather "you bring bad wrong shame upon us, you have done this to us." Not just interpersonal emotional death but social death wherein your parents make you their killer and pronounce your sentence: exile. Or make things terrible until you impose it upon yourself. The errant thought that I should read Edward Said.
EDIT: And the slight against the parents is that you have failed to give back what is owed them (another reproduction of the hetero nuclear family).
.
To go back to the fic though. This is a story about a failed son who is not a failure for his queerness. Which is one of the reasons (beyond the plot and the dialogue and the watercolor wash descriptive writing) why I think it may have resonated so deeply with so many people whose family or social/cultural context is like that. It can be about your life without it being about the thing itself.
I highly recommend this fantastic piece writing which haunts me(positive) months later. I hope this little bit of analysis comes off as a giant compliment even if it's more about the fic's reception and how it WORKED SO WELL than about the fic itself. Rest assured that I have waxed poetic to the author about my thoughts on the actual fic.
I'll preface this by saying that this fic is not about homophobia, the mother even encourages her son to follow the other boy.
But the thread of Akaashi failing to take over the family business, unable to follow his father's path, without the stomach to become a chef, running away from home, semi-estranged, works as an allegory for parental acceptance of their queer children because of the way being a queer child in many Asian families makes you a failed child.
This phenomenon doesn't discriminate by the religion or politics or philosophy of the parents or the child's other shallow markers of success and filial action. A 'respectable' career, appearance, ambition, social standing, doing things like sending money home, are cancelled out by that one thing which has become a personal slight against the parents.
It is not a case of "you are bad and wrong and shameful" but rather "you bring bad wrong shame upon us, you have done this to us." Not just interpersonal emotional death but social death wherein your parents make you their killer and pronounce your sentence: exile. Or make things terrible until you impose it upon yourself. The errant thought that I should read Edward Said.
EDIT: And the slight against the parents is that you have failed to give back what is owed them (another reproduction of the hetero nuclear family).
.
To go back to the fic though. This is a story about a failed son who is not a failure for his queerness. Which is one of the reasons (beyond the plot and the dialogue and the watercolor wash descriptive writing) why I think it may have resonated so deeply with so many people whose family or social/cultural context is like that. It can be about your life without it being about the thing itself.
I highly recommend this fantastic piece writing which haunts me(positive) months later. I hope this little bit of analysis comes off as a giant compliment even if it's more about the fic's reception and how it WORKED SO WELL than about the fic itself. Rest assured that I have waxed poetic to the author about my thoughts on the actual fic.