Posture gay

But examining queer sitting in film and television suggests something more radical: a rejection of strictly defined rules about what we can do with our bodies. Robert Sheehan in The Umbrella Academy. Universally acknowledged, at least, by queer people on the internet. Improper sitting is one of many seemingly arbitrary traits like walking fast and being unable to drive that the online queer community has claimed as part of queer culture.

But if we examine queer sitting in film and television, new and exciting meanings emerge. For a whole host of reasons, the body has long been a primary site of queer expression. This is particularly true on-screen where, as the Production Code worked to silence queer voices, filmmakers developed sophisticated ways of coding queerness through body language.

Though the Code is officially gone, viewers have by now learned to read queerness in the body where it may not be spoken verbally. There is a politics to posture, and it can be an act of gender rebellion for a woman to sit improperly. A symbol of queer sexuality and defiant genderfuckery, Hepburn is the perfect poster boy for the resistant power of queer sitting.

These are our first glimpses of a pattern that continues throughout the series—in a waiting room full of chairs, Roman sits on the floor; he sits cross-legged on an ottoman; he perches on the back of a chair with his feet on the seat; he plops himself backwards over the side of a couch so his legs are thrown over the arm.

In other words: he sits queer. Kieran Culkin in Succession. Other Succession characters occasionally sit queer—most notably Shiv Sarah Snookwho welcomes a queer reading anyway —but Roman is the biggest repeat offender, seemingly incapable of ever sitting properly.

The image of the posture gay man evokes the kinds of bodily regimentation that queer theorist Michel Foucault describes in Discipline and Punish. Though Bobby may be straight, there is a queer affinity to be felt not only in his unruly, delinquent postures, but in his repressive home life.

Family and social control figure significantly in The Umbrella Academywhich features the queer-sitting character Klaus Hargreeves Robert Sheehan. Klaus is a frivolous, cheeky character—the trickster of the bunch—something that aligns him with wise-cracking queer sitters like Roman Roy.

The silliness, indeed childishnessof these characters is significant. Sitting etiquette is learned, not innate, and therefore the realm of adults and masters—making queer sitting the posture of the untrained child. In refusing to appear grown-up, queer sitting resists this process of assimilation.

Roman, Bobby and Klaus are all queer sheep, troubled by difficult relationships—from mildly strained to overtly antagonistic—with authoritative patriarchs. Logan Roy teems with disapproval; Reginald Hargreeves is distant and manipulative; the benevolent Garland Briggs is nonetheless a stern figure who slaps his son at the dinner table.

In the workplace, improper posture can seem disrespectful—a failure or refusal to conform to corporate stuffiness. Again, our queer-sitting case studies tick these boxes, their lack of professionalism further positioning them as failed adults. Roman is a highly unqualified businessman his biggest professional disaster, a botched rocket launch, adds Freudian insult to injury, linking his professional ineptitude to his troubled sexuality.

Posture gay is something of a burnout, and even when he secures a job, he still looks like a boy in a suit. But, as My Own Private Idaho recognises, normativity has its allures. Through the politics of the body, Idaho demonstrates how one might posture gay their visible queerness in favour of the comfort and stability of capitalist success.

While gay hustler Mike River Phoenix seems content with street life, his friend Scott Keanu Reeves is less immune to the siren song of affluence. I like to have a professional attitude.

Gay or straight? Watch his walk

A close-up of a shoe pulls back to reveal Mike, one leg planted casually on a table. He sits in a chair watching The Simpsons with his knees pulled up and feet on the seat. These slouchy, fluid postures recur throughout the film, and create a stunning contrast with the straight body language Scott adopts near the end.