The phrase "good representation" should not refer to whether or not the character is a good person. It should refer to their queerness being handled appropriately or not.
Does the story respect their queerness? Is their queerness portrayed honestly and genuinely? Does it lean into ignorant or malicious tropes about queer people?
agreed, absolutely! also. prefacing this with: my original post was about 911 (abc) and broke containment. so i'm not entirely sure whether you are a 911 watcher or not, but i am taking the opportunity to answer it in that context because it touches upon the points you made. the post is broad enough that it is applicable to many other things, which people have been applying it to. and that's fine. but specifically, it was about 911 and a subset of fans demonising and harrassing an actor who expressed his wish for the bisexual character he plays to explore himself post-break up via casual relationships. the argument from this subset of fans was that this is biphobic and would be "bad" bisexual representation because it perpetuates the idea that bisexuals are sluts. and, well. i think that in itself is incredibly harmful. it's restrictive and it's reductive. for a plethora of reasons. but specifically—
1) that people consider the exploration of sexuality via fun, consensual casual sex with multiple partners (or just the existence of bisexual people who do not wish to be monogamous) nothing more than a trope is problematic. the insistence that the only "good" bisexual representation is depicting bisexual people in long-term monogamous relationships and nothing else is not progress. it's the opposite of progress. bisexual people, queer people in general, are not a monolith. and i don't think we can or should consider bisexual people/queer people in general well-represented in media when that representation does not explore multiple, varying experiences. and i think, actually we need to talk more about how actively harmful it is to queer people that when those experiences are genuinely explored, they are labeled "bad". like, we need to consider that it is doing actual harm to real people to see their experiences described that way, to see their experiences ignored because they're not "good" enough. we cannot destigmatise these experiences if we simply refuse to depict them.
and 2) the slut-shaming element. i could write paragraphs on this. but it comes down to this: considering these experiences inherently bad actively perpetuates slut-shaming.
which is where i think intent comes in. because obviously, these experiences have been depicted with maliciousness and ignorance in various media. they have been framed as bad in-media or are disingenuous in their depiction. which i think is the point you are making. in the case of 911, that is not what is happening. the actor himself made a post that highlighted this. they are not depicting this as a bad thing, but are in fact coming at it from a place of care and consideration. specifically
so. yeah. that's the context here.
