What is a Queer Reading?

Scene from "Frozen"- Elsa looking nervous at her coronation. Image source.

Sometimes in progressive/feminist/queer circles, I happen upon someone doing some kind of "reading" of some media. "Here's a queer reading of [some movie]." "Here's a feminist reading of [something]." "Here's a reading of [something] through the lens of [some niche feminist topic]."

What does this mean? What is a "reading"?

I haven't seen anyone define it directly, but as best as I can tell, here's what it is: You take a piece of media, and you project your opinions about the experiences of some marginalized subgroup onto it. What, uh, is the point of this? If it's just your opinions about a queer/feminist/whatever topic, why does it matter that you're able to connect those opinions to things that happened in a work of fiction? When people do these "readings," they're not claiming that this is what the creators "really meant." So, what's the point?

I think the point is, people like stories. You can say "here are some facts about what it's like to be queer [or whatever identity group]." But it feels more powerful if you say "this experience that this fictional character had is similar to things that many queer people have experienced." Still, though, why should anyone take it seriously? These aren't even true stories! And your "reading" is not what the piece of media was really intended to mean. And also these "readings" aren't supposed to be vigorously fact-checked- ie, if you claim that some element of the story is a common thing that queer people have experienced, well, what do you mean by "common"?

What if you say "Here's a queer reading. This character is right-handed. That is similar to what queer people experience, because most queer people are right-handed." Your audience would be like "???" Like, okay so factually it's true that most queer people are right-handed, but that's not seen as like, a thing that's related to being queer. So that wouldn't be the proper way to do a queer reading.

What if you say "Here's a queer reading. This character has conflicts with their family members. That is a common thing that queer people experience." People will read your reading and nod along, because yes, that's something that is generally believed to be a common thing that queer people experience. But... I mean, a lot of groups of people have various reasons to have conflicts with their family. It doesn't have to be connected to being queer. 

What if you say "Here's a queer reading. This character has a certain hobby, and that hobby is more popular among queer people than among the general population." And also you are a researcher who has studied this- you have the statistics to back it up, though you haven't published it yet, so nobody else knows about this really interesting statistical connection between some certain hobby and being queer. Is this a valid queer reading? Well, your audience is just going to say "???" because they've never heard that there's any kind of significance related to this hobby and being queer. So it won't be viewed as a good queer reading, even though factually it is true.

So a queer reading is about taking concepts that, within the community of queer people and allies, are generally seen as being related to being queer, and then connecting them to things that happened in a piece of media. How on earth do you define "generally seen as being related", though? Also, how is this meaningful at all, if it's just based on what people generally believe is "common", rather than being based on some kind of objective standard?

Again, I think it's about the story. If you've experienced something, and you see a fictional character experiencing something similar, maybe you *feel* like you are understood, like you're not alone. On some level I want to say "this doesn't make any sense, because it's a fictional character," but I really think this is a powerful thing in human psychology.

Okay, here's another question: Is it possible for people to get mad at your "reading" of some story? Yes! What if some anti-trans person came along and gave their "reading" of a story, and they said something from the story is similar to how people are trying to coerce children into being trans, or some nonsense like that? We would be mad at them; we would find that really offensive. But why? They're just projecting their opinion onto the story. If they're claiming that's what the story "really means", well, no, it doesn't- in the same way that the story doesn't "really mean" the queer readings we like. Really, the reason their "reading" is offensive is because their anti-trans opinions themselves are offensive. Does their attempt to draw connections between those bad opinions and a piece of media make it worse?

Or, here's an example I actually saw: I read a blog post one time, from a conservative perspective, about the movie "Frozen" and how it could be interpreted as encouraging gay people to accept themselves. The way Elsa feels when she's in public and trying to hide her powers is similar to how gay people hope that they don't accidentally do any stereotypically-gay behaviors that would cause people to suspect that they're gay. And then, Elsa realizes she doesn't need to hide anymore and she should just accept herself. This blogger was really upset about the movie "Frozen" because they felt that this gay reading was so obvious, and that is was a harmful message to be sending. (Because they themself were anti-gay and did not agree that gay people should accept themselves.)

I found this really surprising, when I came across that blog post. So... the movie is about accepting yourself, and then *you're* the one who brought in the concept of being gay, which was not in the movie at all, and you're saying the movie is telling us that we should accept gay people's gayness, and then you're saying *actually that's bad* and therefore the movie is bad... it just felt so convoluted to me. If you're against the concept of "accepting yourself" because you think it secretly means "if you're gay, you should accept yourself" and you think that's a bad thing, well that sounds like a *you* problem, I don't know how to help you.

Just so odd, how this person did a queer reading of "Frozen", and then was like, mad about it.

Anyway, as I said in my post about "The Kingdom of Children," I never thought I could do a "reading" of some story, because I always supposed people need some kind of Official Feminist Qualifications before they're allowed to just put their opinions on the internet and call it A Feminist Reading Of [something]. But maybe it shouldn't really be taken that seriously. When we come across "a reading" of something, we should take it as, this is just someone's opinion, and if we think they have some good insights then we like it.

(I mean, I absolutely do post my opinions about how various pieces of media connect to the experiences of some demographic group, but I have never called that "a reading." Maybe I should!)

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Related

"The Kingdom of Children" (a book about child liberation theology)