A sweet queer POC love story for every generation.
Two black women, Hazel "Elle" and Mari, first met in a church bingo hall and then at school in the 1960s. After a few years of being close friends, a chance kiss finally made them admit their true feelings for one another, going beyond admiration. However, their families, upon discovering just how close their relationship was, forbade the innocently, healthily in-love girls from ever seeing each other again. The threat of a disowning was too much, for family is everything - their very livelihoods are on the line - and poor Mari asked the equally-heartbroken Hazel to forget about her. Forced early marriage arrangements followed their futures, doomed to conservatism and mediocrity.
Nearly fifty years later, Hazel and Mari, both with husbands and children and grandchildren, happen to meet again at a church bingo hall - they both won at the same time - and the schoolgirls-to-grandmothers find that their feelings have not changed. They are so passionately, happily in love, that this time they will not let anything drive them apart forever.
Society has generally changed now, certainly, but what about how their families will feel about them being together? How has family life changed over the decades? Nuclear solutions are sure as hell not easy anymore, or they never have been. Maybe acceptance is coming, if hard-earned...
Hazel, the POV protagonist of this timeless, heartfelt, soulful piece, is narrating this life of hers - her quest for true happiness with the one she's always been made to feel ashamed of loving. All for the benefit of herself, and for someone else residing with her in a care home in the 2030s...
I've heard in most reviews of 'Bingo Love' that anyone who cares for diversity and inclusion must read it (as well as the emphasis on unrealistic dialogue, which I barely paid notice to and didn't mind either way). I thought, well, I care about diversity and everybody communicating and being included in all walks of life (in fact I've tracked down and read a lot of them), so I guess I have to check out this little Kickstarter-funded comic as soon as possible.
'Bingo Love' is a queer romance starring two grannies that is in its own way epic. It is sweet as well as sad, and everything in it is told in earnest, touching on many difficult issues, including and not limited to "coming out" (especially if one is in their sixties and can't figure out how to identify themselves in the LBGTQ spectrum). There are hardly any white people in 'Bingo Love', too, so it is extra refreshing.
For a comic so cute and colourful, the well-rounded, interesting, three-dimensional characters make it so painfully human. I wanted Hazel, the shy, plump nerd turned typical housewife turned badass fashion designer with a college degree at nearly seventy-years-old, and Mari, the sassy, beautiful yet not so self-confident lawyer and businessman's wife (admittedly we learn a lot more about Hazel's life and family than hers), to finally be happy together, regardless of what other people think. They do get their happily ever after, in a way, but that would be revealing massive spoilers. Read 'Bingo Love' yourself; it is imperative that anyone who cares about progress and basic human decency check it out, with very little time lost.
It really made me wonder just how happy people truly were, back when anything straying from heterosexuality was not as accepted as it is now (which isn't saying much, if you think about it, for it isn't widely considered a "norm" yet, but there is still a huge improvement over homosexuality being illegal in western states, over people being killed because of it, over it being viewed as a perversion, and just as baffling and horrifying, it being confused with pedophilia). How many genuinely happy marriages were there, actually? Back when even divorce was quite uncommon? And how many happy marriages are there currently, for that matter? To think of those who have suffered in the closet for so long, maybe their whole lives; how miserable they were in keeping their secret; made to fear sin, disowning, homelessness, and even danger of death; it must have been nothing short of absolutely, unconscionably, unbearable. Painful. Poisonous. And to think of how much straight people are always focused on - in the news, politics, and in every single medium ever conceived - as having to bear the most baggage, emotionally and mentally.
The more you read about these inclusive stories - blissfully coming out in droves in the contemporary comics medium - the more you realize that the LBGTQA community is not, and never, ever has been, a minority, no matter what homophobic straight people or people exhibiting internalized homophobia desperately want to tell us. Oppression kills.
But anyway! That was my little review of a little comic, which doesn't feel little at all. As I read 'Bingo Love', it seemed longer than 88 pages, and I mean that as a compliment. A great amount of careful, wonderful substance is included in its bright, rainbow pages. It's not perfect, but neither is life, or the progression of gay rights (or to call it what it is, as with all "minority" rights, basic human rights), which sadly needs over-privileged straight people to finally start getting their shit together and listen outside of their comfort zones in order to help the queer community in making real, lasting changes happen.
As Hazel's therapist says, "Love is love is love is love".
Because everybody deserves to be loved. Everybody deserves to be happy. Let us waste no more time, and start living how we want to, free of hurt and shame.
'Bingo Love' - yet another fantastically diverse, creative comic to add to my collection.
Final Score: 4/5
No comments:
Post a Comment