jm barrie = queer?

[geeksdoitbetter]

i watched Finding Neverland over the weekend

there's an unnamed character with only one scene, where he explains to barrie that everyone thinks barrie's relationship to the Davies boys is ... problematic

in the commentary, the film makers point out the character was meant to be conan doyle and then they try to defend barrie's moral uprightness by saying "he wasn't at all a pedophile, if anything, he was asexual"

~sigh~

anyone have more of a clue?

i'm interested in barrie's relationship with doyle

as well as potential interpretations of barrie as closeted queer rather than the stereotypical slander of pedophile

(and, if this post is inappropriate for this comm, please let me know. i check the rules and i'm hoping i made a proper choice)

Comments

[naraht]

Although biographers will no doubt be discussing this forever, I don't think that we'll ever really know about JM Barrie. It doesn't seem too much of a stretch to describe him as queer, but whether that queerness took an asexual, pederastic or homosexual form (or some combination of the three) is another question.

[geeksdoitbetter]

~ponders~

i'm going to resist the notion that pedophilia is a form of queerness

[naraht]

I wouldn't equate the two generally, except in the broadest sense that queerness denotes non-normative sexualities. But I would say that pederasty and queerness were very much linked during the time period that we're discussing, especially given the influence from Greek and Latin models. So I think it's difficult to draw those lines.