'Nothing in my head but gay pirates', a comment on Twitter reads about 'Our Flag Means Death', an eight part series starring Taika Waititi and Rhys Darby. I feel this whole heartedly - since binge watching the series, it keeps returning to my thoughts and making me smile. I'm a fan of anything Waititi does - the tension he creates between tragedy and humour, brutality and softness, is always poignant. If you've seen What We Do In The Shadows, Wellington Paranormal, and Jo Jo Rabbit, 'Our Flag Means Death' will delight you just as much.
Fan art of Ed and Steed in embrace - and the Kraken
On Facebook the other day I got to responding on a thread that asked what was the best LGBTQI+ series people had seen. Of course, there was a plethora of homophobes outraged by the very possibility they'd even contemplate a queer text, to which many laughed - and possibly cried - that they're missing out - and they are, if they're missing out on this gorgeous pirate farce.
The thing is, even if you were watching unaware that this explored 'other' identities, it may not even hit you until the second or third episode. Sure, there's something a little camp about Stede Bonnet (based on an actual early 18th-century Barbadian pirate and also known as the Gentleman Pirate), a middle class gent with a mid life crisis and a desire to take to the high seas but lacking the brutality needed to prove himself a formidable captain. He's a little bit too kind for a swashbuckling murderous pirate captain, encouraging his crew to talk about it if they are having an issues, and reads to them at night complete with silly voices. Stede's the guy who hits 40 and buys a Porsche, except he choses a ship, leaving his wife and kids behind. And when he meets the frightening, notorious Blackbeard, he finds he has more in common than he thinks.
In this way, it's a show of sorts about an identity crisis - unhappy with his life, Stede is searching for another version of himself. So too does the adorable Blackbeard, a fierce captain who channels the terrifying murderous sea creature The Kraken and is bored with the life he's lived, and the reputation he has: 'is that how people see me?' he asks Stede. Stede's literal closet - which he walks in and out of happily and proudly - is built into his quarters, and intrigues Blackbeard who sees the different identities one can choose. Of course, this is a symbol for the closeted lives we live and the options we have to choose how we'd like to live and be seen. Stede's gentle tucking of Ed's prized soft fabric into his waistcoat and his comment that 'he wears fine fabric well' is a beautiful moment to illustrate his acceptance - and the productions acceptance - of people for the identities they choose. Ed (Blackbeard) tries on many of these costumes for size himself as the show goes on, and though he returns somewhat to the fierce monster he was, his flag will show that he wears his change of heart on his sleeve, so to speak.
But there are other delights as well. Peppering the swashbuckling adventures aboard the ship are fabulous costumes, incisive scripts about colonialism (poking fun at Europeans and putting the colonised at centre stage, powerful and in control of their own narrative), and relationships between the men that show acceptance, friendship, and love with little fuss. The character's queerness is incidental, other than that it is the perfect foil against toxic masculinity. Izzy Hands, Blackbeard's right hand man, is horrified to see his captain choose a gentler way to lead, and is made a laughing stock and certainly loses power for not having the imagination to embrace acceptance, camaraderie, unity and friendship as part of the life of piracy. But even he is not homophobic - he's just anti softness, perhaps because he's never experienced it himself.
Vico Ortiz, who plays the non binary Jim - a woman disguised as a man who, when discovered, still goes by Jim and no one makes a big deal out of it - nor does their love interest in the show, who loves them for them, not their visible - or non visible - identity. They said, of their own non binary self, that:
** I never truly questioned my gender so deeply up until I began performing as a drag king. In that masculine persona, I began to tap into the power of my femininity within this masculine persona. That's when I was like, "Wait, why am I really loving this? Why is this accessing a part of me that I otherwise wouldn't have been able to access?" Once I started questioning that and it started to bleed into my day-to-day, I realized either the toxic traits that I was carrying from masculinity and the toxic traits of femininity, and how I was performing these two things based on what society expected of me. And what would happen when I took that away and then just existed?**
And that's just it - the show embraces what exists, in whatever form that might be. As the actor says, Jim is just Jim, beard or no beard, and 'the only thing that changes is the perception that people have of them outside'. Read this great interview for more from Ortiz.
I definitely know I want to watch this show again. It doesn't slap you with queerness - it just simply presents a diverse range of human characters going through stuff and asks us to accept them, as do the crew.
There's lots of hilarious jokes as well - many of which I likely missed the first time. I loved Stede's bookshelf - hugely impractical in a storm on a ship when the books fall off - and how he'll raid other books from other ships and replace them with one's he's already read. 'That's not how pirating works', says Blackbeard drily. But Stede and Blackbeards decide unanimously to 'co-captain' the ship, finding a new way to do things.
And that's even without the lush costuming and set design, what happens with his wife, daddy issues, pantomines, lighthouse metaphors, toe eating, and flag making. Gimme this endless farce about gay pirates, please. I'm uttterly smitten.
What's your favourite LGBTQ+ show?
Hell, what's your favourite swashbucking pirate show?
Are you a fan of Taika Waititi like I am? I have SUCH a crush...
Image Sources from here, here and here.
With Love,
