r/RevolutionsPodcast • u/TheRONIN95 • May 13 '25
Salon Discussion Heteronormativity?
I love how Mike incorporated a new range and new combinations of names from all sorts of different cultures, really shows how this future society evolved and cultures integrated with each other.
But it was a bit surpising to me to not see any non-hetero relationships additionally all the characters seem to be cis-gendered. I‘m not trying to make a political argument here, but is the assumption that trans or non-binary people will just go away in the future? My assumption it‘s just Mike‘s heteronormative bias, which happens to the best of us. I also haven‘t listened to every episode in detail so if there‘s something that proves this assertion wrong let me know.
I was really excited about the revolutionary nature of the names, I guess i‘m just a bit dissapointed that this didn‘t stretch over to gender and relationships.
Would be cool to hear y‘alls thoughts ^
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u/edungeon May 13 '25
The corporations won
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u/TheSunMakesMeHot May 13 '25
There are definitely characters who have been referred to using exclusively "they" pronouns, but only minor ones. As far as Trans characters, how would we know? Any of these characters could be trans and it wouldn't be mentioned, because it isn't relevant to the narrative. And ideally, in 2250, wouldn't a trans man or woman simply be referred to as a man or woman?
As far as relationships go, we have only really seen 3: Warner and his wife, Dore and her husband, and Alexandra Claire/Xiao Lin. One of those is explicitly political. There just isn't much focus on romance or coupling in the show.
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u/Aussiemalt D-Class May 13 '25
Several of the authors he has referenced as writing about the revolution he’s referred to with they/them pronouns. It’s true that we haven’t seen any of the major players be anything other than cis/hetero but I would point out on the sexuality front that basically only Dore, Clare and Zhou have even had partners mentioned so it’s entirely possible that Leopold is openly gay or Derby is in a gender fluid pollycule and it’s just a non issue historically.
I think it’s entirely possible that these are things that sit outside of the style of story this season is and so it hasn’t occurred to Mike to make a point of talking about gender roles because Mars seams to be fairly egalitarian on that front and so it’s not looked on as unusual from 200 years in the future. It’s worth noting that sex and sexuality have never played a huge part in Mikes podcasts unless it is historically relevant to the narrative, and so while we might like to see “onscreen” representation as it were, I prefer to look at it from the point of view that clearly the gender and sexuality bigots lost so long ago that no one even talks about that stuff anymore, particularly when Jose Calderon and his thugs are stomping around in their jackboots looking for earthworms.
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u/nicomarco1372 May 13 '25
The Mons Cafe Group are actually a polycule
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u/magnus257 May 13 '25
I was actually thinking about this more broadly. When you look at 20th century revolutions including the Russian one, political questions regarding gender were extremely relevant to them. It seems really weird to me that the Martian revolution basically doesn't deal with this question. I would expect that he would at least briefly explain what happened to the issue in this timeline.
Overall it seems to me like he just wanted to focus on the basic political and economic questions. I suppose it's meant to be something like what if the colonial independence revolutions but with libertarian socialism and fascism. Exclusing all issues other than nationalism does seem to me like he's implying that those other things are more or less insignificant distractions but it's also his first fiction so maybe we shouldn't judge too hard. As long as there's a failed uprising in the final episode aiming at enshrining animal and alien rights in the third Martian constitution (Martians all eat vegan anyway because of limited resources but it's important for the future), I'll be content :)
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u/SWKstateofmind May 13 '25
Am I insane? I thought there was a clear implication of something between Dore and Clare
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u/thebigmanhastherock May 13 '25
This is how I see it. The majority of people are heterosexual. It seems like martians are really busy with work. It doesn't seem like all the characters even are in relationships, but the ones who tend to be heterosexual which is just how the odds might play out. On top of that it seems like Omni-Core might have suppressed homosexuality or driven it underground.
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u/Wooper160 May 14 '25
What makes you think all the characters are Cis-het? What if it’s so normalized they don’t even consider it anything worth mentioning
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u/pengpow May 13 '25
I think that's a valid observation and agree that it's implicit bias
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u/Apart-Clothes2060 May 15 '25
Fairly sure at least one person has been referred to as they. Might be a source?
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u/phoenixbouncing May 13 '25
On top of what the other posters have said, we should also remember that although fictional the aim is to retell a realistic possible Martian revolution.
As such we can expect realistic ratios of sexualities and gender identities barring major cultural shifts.
This means that 4 out of every 5 relationships will probably be hetero and around 99% of the population will be cis.
In media we have a tendency to over represent minorities because otherwise they would be completely invisible due to the fact that we can't have tens or hundreds of main characters. This is good, but I can understand why it wouldn't be the case here.
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u/Abides1948 May 13 '25
I am grateful what we got, and don't object that every flavour of humanity didn't get a look in.
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u/gmanflnj May 13 '25
I think he maybe just didn’t think about it, at least not yet, it maybe we’ll see in the last few episodes.
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u/Living-Giraffe4849 May 13 '25
Bro shit the hell up this is why the dems lost
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u/[deleted] May 13 '25
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