Happy LDOV From Butch Barbie! Have A Lovely Day Celebrating Lesbianism

Happy LDOV from Butch Barbie! Have a lovely day celebrating lesbianism 🧡🤍💘

Based on the trailers, I'm not convinced the Clone High reboot will be as entertaining as the original, but it's smart that it's seemingly leaning into the angle of "characters from a 2003 teen drama trying to adapt to living in a 2023 teen drama." It's a meta-humor goldmine because the fandom that emerged in 2020 when JFK clips randomly went viral on tiktok is a downright fascinating specimen of how our perception of characters in pop culture has changed over the last 20 years (I feel old.)

The clearest example of this is how Joan x JFK got warped into a wholesome OTP darling of the fandom. The actual show pretty explicitly characterizes JFK as an obnoxious playboy douchebag. That's the entire archetype of his character and it's exaggerated to extreme extents for humor. There's exactly two examples of the JoanFK "romance" in the original series and both were just the punchline of jokes that wouldn't be well-received today. The first is JFK being relieved that he's not gay when the "man" he was attracted to was Joan in disguise. The second is JFK having sex with an emotionally vulnerable Joan in the literal last minute of the show as a parody of the dramatic out-of-nowhere twists in TV shows of the time. It should be strange that this ship was warped into the definitive wholesome face of the fandom. But it's not strange when you look at Abe and the modern view of characters like him.

See, Abe is the character Joan is "supposed to" end up with. He's the awkward, dorky guy chasing the hot, popular Cleopatra while oblivious to the cute alt girl at his side pining to be more than friends. It's classic "she's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers" stuff common in the 2000s. However, that trope became hated within the last few years because it's "pitting women against each other." Even more-so, Abe's character archetype has become detested. Abe is Ross from Friends and Xander from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Today, it's unpopular to have empathy for characters like that because their passive "nice guy" misogyny is recognized as just as, if not more harmful than the blatant misogyny of a JFK-type character. Meanwhile, fandom culture has fallen in love with himbos, hence why JFK has been shoehorned into that archetype despite still being an awful person in the show. There's so much comedic potential with this contrast and the reboot seems to be at least somewhat aware of it based on the joke from the trailer where JFK is commended for being "so sex positive."

OMG I FOUND IT

Yo while we’re all here… anyone have any Dark MTR AUs they’d like to share? 👀

Meet the Robinsons (2007) in Spongebob screencaps

Me watching Abe the entire episode

Source: Tracy J Butler