In this revision of my micro essay, “Gender, Sexuality, and Sports in Check, Please!,” I will focus on the idea of being queer in sports, namely hockey, and how masculinity and sports culture in the webcomic’s world affect these characters (in this case, Jack Zimmermann and Eric Bittle). In order to support this idea, I will be using several of the comics, ranging from year one to the most current update, and analyzing certain aspects of them in depth. This would differ from my original essay, which focused on the analysis of one specific scene and and relied on the use of footnotes to explain.
Ngozi Ukazu’s webcomic, Check, Please!, follows Eric “Bitty” Bittle, a former figure skater turned hockey player navigating his way through college …show more content…
is Jack Zimmermann, who - by the end of the second year - is in a secret relationship with Bitty. As a result of keeping their relationship hidden, others have suspected Jack of being with someone, except he’s only been accused of having a girlfriend (heteronormative, much?). In #3.05 (“The After Kegster”), Shitty drunkenly claims that Jack has a girlfriend on the basis of “the texting...the smiling...and the “Shitty you can’t sleep over on Thursday because I’m having a ‘friend’ over for dinner.”” Jack denies it and the rest of his friends believe him because, according to Holster, “Jack can’t act for shit anyway” (though technically, Jack wasn’t lying when he said he didn’t have a girlfriend). He and Ransom, both residents of the Haus and Jack’s former Samwell teammates, discuss Jack’s past relationships with women and how he “has a lot of things he keeps to himself, but it’s never been the chick’s he’s wheeling.” Bitty is justifiably distraught with how he isn’t able to say anything and how the two of them need to hide their relationship, even with friends. In episode #3.1 (“WAG”), Jack is caught smiling while talking to Bitty on the phone by one of Falconer teammates, and is asked if he’s talking to “his girl.” The general assumption that Jack is heterosexual, as well as the term used in the title, WAG (wives and girlfriends), contributes to the heteronormativity imbedded in sports culture and reinforces the idea that male athletes should only have female partners or be in heterosexual
Ngozi Ukazu’s webcomic, Check, Please!, follows Eric “Bitty” Bittle, a former figure skater turned hockey player navigating his way through college …show more content…
is Jack Zimmermann, who - by the end of the second year - is in a secret relationship with Bitty. As a result of keeping their relationship hidden, others have suspected Jack of being with someone, except he’s only been accused of having a girlfriend (heteronormative, much?). In #3.05 (“The After Kegster”), Shitty drunkenly claims that Jack has a girlfriend on the basis of “the texting...the smiling...and the “Shitty you can’t sleep over on Thursday because I’m having a ‘friend’ over for dinner.”” Jack denies it and the rest of his friends believe him because, according to Holster, “Jack can’t act for shit anyway” (though technically, Jack wasn’t lying when he said he didn’t have a girlfriend). He and Ransom, both residents of the Haus and Jack’s former Samwell teammates, discuss Jack’s past relationships with women and how he “has a lot of things he keeps to himself, but it’s never been the chick’s he’s wheeling.” Bitty is justifiably distraught with how he isn’t able to say anything and how the two of them need to hide their relationship, even with friends. In episode #3.1 (“WAG”), Jack is caught smiling while talking to Bitty on the phone by one of Falconer teammates, and is asked if he’s talking to “his girl.” The general assumption that Jack is heterosexual, as well as the term used in the title, WAG (wives and girlfriends), contributes to the heteronormativity imbedded in sports culture and reinforces the idea that male athletes should only have female partners or be in heterosexual