Im gonna tag all good omens 2 related stuff with
Good omens 2
And
Good omens 2 spoilers,
for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet and wants to blacklist the tags.
'But thy eternal summer shall not fade.'
This Crowley is very much inspired by Shakespeare's 'fair youth'. 🖤
Absolutely losing my mind here. Like it's not just the INCREDIBLE art, it's every single detail incorporated into Crowley's presentation driving me insane with both History Nerd Hyperfixation and The Genders.
The ruff was worn by both men and women. (See Aziraphale in ep3). This one's larger, as if it were meant for a dress perhaps, but it's deliberately hard to tell what upper garment that is. A doublet or a bodice? The pearl chains are feminine; the buckle and strip across the chest are not, to my knowledge, or at the very least not commonly. The adornments on the sleeves are anyone's guess; the flattened chests of the era only contribute to further questions. The hair is long, but the style could only be feminine in a private context at odds with the formal clothing. Men wore their hair down; women didn't, as a rule (again see ep3, but this time Crowley). That bonnet/cap (? Trying to find the proper English word) is also pretty ambiguous, but funnily enough it reminds me of descriptions made of Rosalind's cap in her male outfit (from As You Like It). Which, in Shakespeare's time, would have been a young man pretending to be a woman pretending to be a man. How's that for gender fuckery? The kind that Crowley has a penchant for?
Specifically, it reminds me of the description Dorian Gray makes of Sybil Vane wearing that outfit, the "dainty little green cap with a hawk's feather caught in a jewel" (only, obviously, in Crowley's color, and with what appears to be an Angel's feather instead, supremely interesting that; we don't know if the jewel is there or not, as it would have been at the back), which was a heavy nod to queerness since he specifies "she had never seemed to [him] more exquisite" than crossdressing as a boy, and that she reminded him of a male Tanagra figurine in Basil's possession. That style of pearl earring was all the rage during the Elizabethan era, both for men and for women, but it was much more common for men to only wear one. That seems to be what's happening here, but due to the way that Crowley's hair is arranged we can not know whether it's one or two being worn. That makeup is not regular makeup, at least not around the eyes: the lily white skin and rouged cheeks and lips may well be worn by an affluent woman, but not those heavy dark shadows and shapes on and around the lids. It's theatrical makeup. Women weren't allowed onstage, but there's also plenty of theory about individuals we would today categorize as some flavor of transfem taking to the profession and the female roles. The "fair youth" the artist references is established to have been a man, but who that young man was is anyone's guess, a subject of contention, and of plenty of theories, one of the most popular being that it was one of the actors in Shakespeare's own company, whose age and physical description as per the sonnets would have made him suited for the female roles. And let's not forget the centuries-long erasure and insistence that Shakespeare could only be talking about a woman.
In short: the portrait manages to capture an almost perfect androgyny and plaster a giant question mark over Crowley's current gender while simultaneously visually referencing the mystery and misdirection applied to the inspiration for said portrait, this "fair youth" of the sonnets that, in the Good Omens universe, could very well have been Crowley themself, and create a visual impression that is nothing short of masterful both in those regards and in its sheer beauty, and my little queer history nerd Crowley-loving nonbinary heart couldn't possibly be more thrilled.
Wow, thanks so much for writing such a long analysis!!! It's so spot on. Indeed this portrait is all about gender fluidity and a mix of men's and women's styles of the era (Crowley seems to like dressing themself this way in the TV Series). I also thought about the fair youth in the GO universe could very well be Crowley themself! Whee!
I'll just add a few portraits I used as references for Crowley's style here. The sitters' dates are pretty close together but I wasn't being too strict...
- The Earl of Southampton (1573 - 1624). Known for his beautiful long hair. He is also a popular candidate for Shakespeare's 'fair youth'.
- The Duke of Buckingham (1592 - 1628). He was James I's lover and seemed to have a penchant for pearls (which were indeed more commonly worn by women), as he was painted with LOTS of them in two of his portraits.
- Sir Walter Raleigh (1552 - 1618). No reason, I just really like his little bonnet in this portrait.
yesterday I went to a little meeting at my local queer community center and I was admiring their bookshelves and mentioned that I work at the public library and someone said "well I bet they don't have any [LGBTQ+ books] at our library" and I was like um. yes we do. we have tons of them. half of our employees are queer leftists so they said "oh well I bet they don't in [nearby rural county]" and I was like uh once again yes they absolutely do. gay people live and work there as well
so here's a quick reminder that if you don't think your local library has enough queer centered materials you should actually check before assuming, and if you're not satisfied with their collection you should submit a request for more such books. I don't know what the political landscape of libraries looks like outside the us rn, but within the us no matter where you are, I promise you there are employees at your library fighting for inclusion and intellectual freedom and they can't win without vocal public support
“Authors should not be ALLOWED to write about–” you are an anti-intellectual and functionally a conservative
“This book should be taken off of shelves for featuring–” you are an anti-intellectual and functionally a conservative
“Schools shouldn’t teach this book in class because–” you are an anti-intellectual and functionally a conservative
“Nobody actually likes or wants to read classics because they’re–” you are an anti-intellectual and an idiot
“I only read YA fantasy books because every classic novel or work of literary fiction is problematic and features–” you are an anti-intellectual and you are robbing yourself of the full richness of the human experience.
"you are functionally a conservative" is such a good and clarifying insult
Literally right after I saw this post, I saw another post in a discord chat for BOOK EDITORS in which an outspokenly liberal editor talked about how Nabokov should have never been published because he wrote about p*dophiles and described women's bodies in ways that made her uncomfortable. She described his writing as "objectively terrible" and said she wanted to burn his books. And other editors were bringing up classics they didn't like and talking about how they wanted to throw them in the trash. This wasn't like a light "unpopular opinion!" conversation. This was actual book editors talking about how books should be destroyed and censored.
There is something so scary and toxic in global culture right now. The revival of fascism is influencing everyone's mindset and approach to art, regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum.
I see far more books being censored today than when I was a kid. Librarians handed me The Catcher in the Rye, The Sexual Politics of Meat, and Animal Farm when I was literally 8-11. My mom would never have taken a book away from me. I read everything from the Tao Te Ching to the Qur'an to atheist texts under my desk at school. Teachers thought nothing of it or encouraged it. Books seemed universally acknowledged as sacrosanct to me.
Now I can't find any adults who don't hesitate or want to make exceptions when it comes to censorship. Even the most liberal social activist librarians I know go, "well except for book X..."
Functionally conservative. It's so important to have the language to express that.
Thank you for this addition!
The best little fanon thing they confirmed for me was making the Bentley a little pet. Cause in the book it’s just a one off joke about how the CDs turn into queen if you leave them in A car long enough but it’s like no…the Bentley loves aziraphale and gives him sweets and plays whatever he wants and turns yellow for him and parks where he tell it to and plays “a nightingale sang in Berkeley square” when crowley is heartbroken and plays “good old fashioned lover boy” when crowley is racing back to help aziraphale. And crowley coos to it like it’s a puppy. Love that car
Something something the way that Crowley introduced himself to Aziraphale the first time they met in the garden and reacted as if they had never met before. Something about him later behaving as if he did actually have those memories of their time in Heaven together and trying to pass it off as being someone different now. Something about Heaven's way of punishing angels that go against the plan by erasing their memories. Something about Crowley seeing Gabriel without his memory and saying "ask him properly." Something about "remember it now" "it hurts, to remember. my head isn't built for that" "I know. Do it anyway"
Something about "I know. Looking at where the furniture isn't"
Something about I know
It feels like a lot of love is lost for Aziraphale after what happened in S2, and some abuse is currently being hurled about. I surely hope none of it is serious, and we'll be able to restore the, uh, good old humour when everyone calms down for a bit. We're mid-story, and there is S3 to look forward to.
In the meantime, I'll do all I can to paint the Ineffable Husbands, as reminders of both of their debonair gentleness :)
Aziraphale is the easy target right now because we can all see what he can’t. We all know something he doesn’t.
