Ace Freely: Miranda Ruth in "Princess Cyd" (2017)

I haven’t been asexual yet for a whole calendar year, but one thing has become abundantly clear: media representation sucks. Seriously, when looking at the core components of the LGBTQIA+ acronym, it feels like everyone else is decades ahead in the quality department. There’s richer sensitivity, a sense of history, and a whole host of culture to pull from. Sure, asexuals have that in spades, but that’s still not enough. For every quality representation that is seen, much more exists in the frigid outsider status. They lack sexual attraction, so they must not like the idea of humans at all. We get Sherlock Holmes and SpongeBob Squarepants. I hate to say it, but our cultural cache is lame.

An issue with exploring identity is the difficulty to find great representation. I’m sure to some the idea of a crime-solving savant is incredibly flattering, but it also feels far removed from any sense of reality. These characters can exist in fiction, yes, but what about those who are down to Earth real people who have everyday lives full of minor conflicts? After all, every other letter in The Alphabet Mafia feels represented with much more of a dynamic, a chance to feel like they exist in spaces I’m likely to inhabit. It makes their occasional dive into genre fare more plausible. But asexuals? We get robots, aliens, and psychopaths. Basically, a lack of identity.

I don’t honestly know how long this column is going to run. At the moment it could be anywhere from 1 entry to 1000. My ultimate goal is to answer the question of what I think great representation looks like. I want to be able to pop something on and be able to recognize parts of the journey in a performance, not having to explore it through backbreaking coding that may be far from the original intent. I know what queerbaiting is, and it makes me skeptical of wanting to discuss any Disney on here even if Luca (2021) hits the vibes perfectly.

Because the thing is that identity is difficult. I feel like unless you dedicate your life to scholarly duties, half of the details will be lost on you. Some of it will just come from experience, but others are things that only reinforce the idea that, yes, this is a spectrum. In particular, asexuality has so many subcategories that it may as well require a math degree to fully understand. It’s the main reason that determining if you belong here is difficult. There needs to be characters that reflect many sides of it just to break the taboo, to show that it’s not just made up of prudes.

That is why I want to start with Aunt Miranda Ruth of Princess Cyd (2017). 

The general conceit for asexual characters, or at least those written “properly,” is that you often cannot tell. They have a docile quality that makes them sexually ambiguous. If they end the story without any grand romantic gesture, they are often deemed as something else. Maybe they’ll be mistaken as gay. There is always a push to have two people end up together. They NEED to have a kiss, a Hayes Code-approved sign that they have deeper, more intimate feelings. That’s just what cinema believes we want. Everyone wants to have those deep connections with others. Everything needs to be a love story.

Without delving too far into specifics, I want to note how incorrect this read is. Not everyone wants to end up in a relationship. At the same time, sex isn’t equal to romantic attraction. The Split Attraction Model reflects the various differences, notably that one can be asexual but not aromantic. Asexuals are capable of love both platonic and romantic. It’s just that most representation can’t tell the difference and makes it often one big void. A theory is that this is because asexuality breaks from amatanormativity, meaning it’s too confusing to reflect their journey with a three-dimensional pay-off. Who wants to hear a story about somebody just being friends when romantic dramas have driven culture for centuries? 

I am personally not opposed to stories where two people fall in love, though it often feels like queer narratives especially HAVE to focus around this aspect. There needs to be proof that they have that attraction. More than straight narratives, queer ones are about finding community often in the form of these deep romantic bonds. It makes sense. It’s the most direct way, though honestly raises bigger questions around identity. Is being queer simply a way of loving? Is that all there is to a person? It definitely is a big component, but what feels absent is how the rest of the world is perceived. I suppose for asexuality in particular, it’s about the absence of this central drive and the general sense of being gaslit by society.

To some extent, Princess Cyd is one of the most incredible depictions of sexuality that I’ve seen in years. I feel like everything that I’ve discussed is informed in the dynamic between athletic teen Cyd and the bookish Aunt Miranda. Cyd is at the start of her sexual exploration and it makes sense that she is so naïve, believing that the world subscribes to amatanormativity, that one needs to have sex to feel connected to someone. There is nothing wrong with her story, featuring a romance with non-binary barista Katie. It’s actually the delightful and surprisingly wholesome center of the film. It’s just that throughout the film there is one major conflict between Cyd and Miranda: her lack of desire for a relationship.

Again, for audience members who don’t have the language, Miranda just comes across as normal. It may be weird that she wants to be alone, but her solitude isn’t criticized as something negative. She is a writer, capable of deep reflection and bringing to life the inner lives of people she finds interesting. She even writes a book based around a then-infantile Cyd that the film’s title is derived from. This is what she finds pleasure in. She enjoys sitting by a keyboard, looking out the window, and imagining a side of the world that many don’t see. Her idea of a great time is inviting friends over to read book excerpts, appreciating the literary craft. She has a closeness with others, but nothing resembling that deeper bond.

In another time, she might be written more to the spinster trope, the older woman who has no conventional relationship. It would be seen as the worst feeling in the world, something incomplete in her life that needs to be fixed pronto. At the same time, her interest in writing isn’t seen as something debilitating that pulls her away from any emotional connection. It’s clear that she loves Cyd and wants what’s best for her. She lives a full life. It just doesn’t have a significant other or any dreadful midlife crisis. Cyd’s youth isn’t seen as a threat. It doesn’t motivate Miranda to change course. She is confident in her own skin… and that’s a revelation. If you didn’t think to ask if she was asexual, there’s a good chance that it wouldn’t be noticeable.

Of course, there’s some good in proudly declaring a character in clear terms. It allows viewers to potentially connect with a piece of themselves that has felt strange. At the same time, there is the risk of singling out a person based on these labels, making them feel reduced to one aspect of themselves. We don’t need Katie to say they’re non-binary to understand the character. All that’s needed is one playful scene where they convince a stranger that they’re a boy, resulting in a cute take on the first dance. Stephen Cone is very good at making it feel natural, not forcing neon signs to hang over the characters for those unwilling to learn to judge.

Time and again, Miranda is given similar treatment through her conflict with Cyd. During an early scene, Miranda discusses the last time she had sex years ago. It’s not treated as traumatic or life-changing. She simply didn’t enjoy it enough to keep trying. As the story continues, Cyd prods Miranda on potentially having sex again to feel less stressed out. At this moment, the great conflict between asexuals and allosexuals is brought to the surface, done so without any forced soapbox feel. Miranda isn’t about to suggest that she’s different, that Cyd is ignorant. Instead, she takes the more compassionate route, and one that perfectly conveys how empathetically the film handles sexuality.

Miranda’s response is to point out that she finds pleasure in other things. Whereas Cyd loves hanging out with Katie, Miranda enjoys a more insular and solitary life. She enjoys reading. When discussing her social life, she points out how fulfilled she is when hearing others share poetry and literature. These are things that mean more to her. It becomes Cyd’s personal journey to understand her aunt on an emotional level, seeing her as more than a cliché, someone much different from herself. It results in a very cute reveal at the end that one of Miranda’s pleasures is making a cake – itself one of two asexual tropes featured in the film (the other being wearing purple). The deeper understanding makes them love each other more, reflecting a queer bond that goes beyond romantic and straight into the sense of familial acceptance.

It can be argued that Miranda isn’t an exemplary character. She plays the parental figure with enough strictness that you can see a heterosexual read that’s not too different. Miranda is still a figure at odds with Cyd’s understanding of maturity, needing to understand how complicated emotional connections can be. Even then, Miranda ultimately loves her still and wants to protect Cyd from any potential harm (such as the 9-11 call that opens the film, giving context for her visit). Even as Miranda helps save Katie from an abusive encounter, there is a sense of protection that makes her more maternal, capable of being compassionate to others. She accepts Cyd and Katie for who they are. She is open about a lot of personal details. 

Watching Princess Cyd this time around, I am amazed at how perfectly she conveyed what I want in asexual representation. Even if the word is never uttered, so many of the small details spoke to aspects that I want to see explored on film. For starters, I love how the film breaks down the idea that people are asexual due to trauma, that they’re cold and distant. Miranda simply doesn’t enjoy sex. That’s it. She’s allowed to feel pleasure when she reads books with friends. She’s allowed to be protective and even motherly while educating Cyd on how much more complex life is. 

To be completely honest, no two asexual stories should be the same. What they should be is respectful and reflective of the fact that not everyone acts the same. While I still think there’s more effort needed to make it more accepted and remove any stigma, for now, this is a sign of someone who understands how complicated the spectrum is. This is one of the best that is far removed from the tropes while cleverly finding ways to comment on identity in ways natural to the story. While Miranda is ultimately a secondary figure, she is allowed to have so much to her personality that one can answer the question “Is Miranda more than asexual?” and have the answer be a certifiable yes.

This is the type of representation that I think matters, that is so mundane and familiar. Sure asexuals deserve to be seen as heroes, but they also should be something more important: human. In Princess Cyd, Miranda embodies someone who is proud of her identity. She doesn’t need to be coerced into a different way of thinking. She is allowed to be herself, and there’s something fulfilling about witnessing that magic. Without doing much of anything, she breaks stereotypes and shows the ways that queer characters are more deserving of being explored. In the modern asexual canon, I think this is what we should strive for: someone who has their own journey that doesn’t subscribe to certain norms. Isn’t that what this has always been about?