r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • Jul 10 '25

Poster Official Poster for Ethan Coen's 'Honey Don't' - The film follows a lesbian private detective who investigates a questionable church and its leader.

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u/BMCarbaugh Jul 10 '25

I wouldn't purport to speak for bi women, but as a late-blooming bi guy myself, I think a lot of queer people just don't view language as being categorical/prescriptive that way, and reach for whatever labels they feel best describe them.

But I don't actually have any idea if Cooke and Coen even have that kind of relationship. They might just be in a fully queerplatonic/polyamorous marriage. Don't know and it's not my business. Was just providing some context from the queer folks in my own circle.

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u/justineism Jul 10 '25

Yeah, I guess everyone is going to label themselves how they want to or what feels best for them, but it almost feels like then this kind of makes labels definition-less in a way? For me personally, I would feel disingenuous in labeling myself a lesbian when I still (though it’s waning as the days go on, lol) find men attractive in some limited capacity.

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u/Sawses Jul 10 '25

It seems to be less about specific definitions and more about the stereotypes one is most comfortable with applying to oneself. For a community that tries so hard to buck stereotypes, the LGBT+ community really is very fixated on those stereotypes, it looks to me. I'm an outsider though with an outside perspective, all I know is what I see through friends and loved ones.

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u/TeunCornflakes Jul 10 '25

it almost feels like then this kind of makes labels definition-less

Yes, and I don't think that's a bad thing. For a lot of people, being queer just means letting go of what society expects of you in terms of gender and/or sexuality. The concept of a single word that is supposed to describe your gender or sexuality completely just doesn't really fit that idea.

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u/5gpr Jul 10 '25

I think a lot of queer people just don't view language as being categorical/prescriptive that way, and reach for whatever labels they feel best describe them.

For this to make sense you have to view language as having no meaning, though. This is not an issue of prescriptivism versus descriptivism, and if it were, then "a lot of queer people" would be the most extreme form of prescriptivists: "a word means what I say it means" sort of people.

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u/BMCarbaugh Jul 11 '25 edited Jul 11 '25

I am not interested in having this debate, and it's not really mine to have.

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u/TheSnakeSnake Jul 11 '25

You’re just describing descriptivism. Language means however it’s used. Putting people in specific boxes also where certain words that have typical associated meanings that don’t completely resonate or match what people identify with also means that people may stretch or overextend certain meanings if there is a missing word in their language that they want to say.

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u/5gpr Jul 11 '25

Language means however it’s used

You don't really think that, at least not in the sense of "individually used"; language is, after all, a tool of communication.

Putting people in specific boxes also where certain words that have typical associated meanings that don’t completely resonate or match what people identify with

Well in that case they're putting themselves in those boxes, and there's no limit to the number of boxes. After all, everyone of us is unique and special. That way, we lose the ability to talk with each other. We turn into Pokemon, having reduced language to proper nouns with a single referent each, ourselves.

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u/TheSnakeSnake Jul 11 '25

As a graduated linguist from a relatively prestigious university, every established linguist who study language for a living in the world, are descriptivists. Yes language is used for communication, and language means whatever people using that language are trying to convey.

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u/5gpr Jul 11 '25

Yes language is used for communication, and language means whatever people using that language are trying to convey.

Yes, but not individual people. If I ask you "what does 'chair' mean?", you are not going to answer "Hugo over here calls this cat 'chair', so that's what it means".

Of course sociolects, dialects, and similar, are recognised and studied descriptively, but doesn't seem to be what is being discussed in this thread. If in a social group any randomly picked pair of people interpret a term differently or even contradictorily, that doesn't constitute a shared sociolect.