SPOILER ALERT for Doom Patrol, y'know, in general. (Seriously, if you've ever read my blog you should know that I'll talk about Doom Patrol and I just don't care. It came out in the 80s and it's on you if you haven't read it yet.)
(Saucy sometimes, aint' I?)
First things first. No, the first season isn't done yet. Yes, I'm watching it illegally, because it's not available in Canada, and it's the fucking Doom Patrol so I'm not going to not watch it.
The latest episode, "Danny Patrol," had me weeping.
I'm doing a project right now with the Calgary Queer Arts Society, one that draws heavily on a remarkable archive of material that the Society has received over the years. It's quite a privilege, I think, to be able to sift through something like this, and I hope our eventual exhibit (the dates of which I'll post here when I can remember them ;D) gives people an idea of not only the history of Calgary's queer communities, but also what an archive like this can do. The idea of deploying this group of objects into a physical space takes what is often a very cerebral experience and makes it tactile. I'm excited to hear peoples' reactions to it.
Here's the thing: a lot of this stuff is really wonderful and fabulous. Calgary's queer culture is amazing, this chaotic collision of fashion, action, and love. But a lot of it is hard to read. Really hard to read.
There is so much death. And so many people who wished death upon us. As much as this archive is an archive of joy, it's also an archive of despair. Of desperate howls into the void, begging only to be allowed to love free of persecution.
It is also an archive of hate, in a literal sense. There is writing in there that can only be called hate literature. I honestly am not sure what to write about that. How people can hate like that is beyond me, well and truly. And I am so grateful that that's the case. It's an important thing to keep close to the rest of the material, though. It offers something that history can often lack: context.
What, you might ask, does this have to do with The Doom Patrol?
I supposed I should put a SPOILER ALERT for both the show and the comic here.
Today's episode showed a place where everyone who ever felt like they didn't belong, or were made to feel like they didn't belong, had a place, a home, a warm embrace, an acceptance. And you know what? It reminded me of the drag shows I go to. It reminded me of the parties and the parades, and the festival at the end of Pride. It reminded me of my chosen family, the people here who I love so much.
And that's when it struck me, when I started crying. I first read of Danny the Street in 1996, as I tracked down Grant Morrison's run on the comic. Danny is genderqueer, uses they/them pronouns, and is, literally, a street. I can only imagine what the comic store on Danny the Street would be like. I knew from the first that that was where I belonged. When Danny became...well, what they become which I won't say just in case there's someone looking for clues, I knew that was where I belonged. 23 years later, I'm so happy to find glimpses of Danny the Street, be it in a bar or a backyard.
End SPOILER, if you want to join us again!
How this also all comes together is that the archive I'm working with is, fundamentally, an archive of resistance, of perseverance in the face of overwhelming adversity. In this way, it is also a living archive, one that expands through time and geography. Today's Doom Patrol episode is also about resistance, about standing up and being proud of who you are, and of never letting anyone else tell you what you can and cannot be. There was even a nice big musical number!
(Honestly, DC television, between Doom Patrol, Legends of Tomorrow, and Supergirl, is kinda killing it with the queer representation. It's honestly one of the best things in my life that we have good, queer superhero shows.)
One other thing occurs to me in the wake of this series: what must Grant Morrison be thinking? To see his work treated so reverently? To see that the world appears to finally be, 30 years after he first told us about being human in The Doom Patrol, catching up. Like the people who wrote in the magazines I've been reading, in the newspapers and comics, and in the letters and coronation guides and zines, I think he'd be happy, proud even, to see how far we've come, but disappointed, too, at how far we still have to go.
I used to end my 40 Years of Comics Project columns with the word "Onward." It seems more appropriate here.
Onward.
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