User blog comment:MerlinUSA/Merlin -- The Big Picture/@comment-5102537-20130120143649/@comment-5995315-20130122225313

Hi Fimber --

You are are changing my remarks to make it appear I've said things I didn't say. I said your upset with the idea that a character could be less than 100 percent straight, after a certain point, will degenerate into homophobia. I did not say you were homophobic, but the post I responded  to stuck me as coming pretty close.

I do not accept that I'm overly defensive. Instead, I'm encouraging people to look at what they themselves are saying. They claim to have no problem with homosexuality in one sentence, then take it all back by the end of their posts. If I'm mistaken, I'm delighted for you to clear that up.

It is easy to patronize a minority without realizing it. I live in an area where blacks and whites don't get along. Since I'm white, I have to be careful what I say. I always do. But this takes constant awareness that there is a problem. Racism never goes away; we just have to keep working at it, because sometimes it just slips in under the radar despite our best efforts.

In any case I never brought up being gay until it was relevant to a point I was making about the show. I don't care what strangers think of me personally, and I'm not looking for your approval.

But if I see what appear to be anti-gay remarks aimed at Merlin, I think I'm right to ask about it and offer my own version of the show. I've said many of the scenes can be taken more that one way, so in the Was it love/ Was it friendship debate  each of us is right.

When I cite examples of eroticism or even allusions to sex, you take strong exception. Why? It appears to be you who insists that a heterosexual interpretation of those scenes is the only valid way to see them. I'm enjoying batting the interpretations around with Lurker and  Duke01, but  you are going to great lengths to deny that the scenes I mentioned could possibly depict anything remotely gay.

If I explain how I reached that conclusion, you deny or ignore the explanation. You won't acknowledge that there's enough there for more than one interpretation of a scene or episode. Instead, you go to great lengths to deny the possibility. So am I wrong to think something about same-sex attraction in Merlin is really upsetting you?

I did not say gays were  the biggest fan base. I said men-over-forty were a major market segment. I also gave you the direct quote of what Alex Vlahos said, and you now claim I didn't. You're misrepresenting what I've said. I've asked if there's anything you like about Merlin, and you haven't said what. And if you're not even voting for Colin Morgan or Merlin, am I out of line to wonder why it is you're even here?

No, I'm not being defensive, and if you think so go back a re-read what you yourself have posted to me.