Until reading your article today, I honestly thought Katie McGrath was a much more famous/prolific actor than she apparently is. I've been on Tumblr since 2011ish (not proud), though much, much less since 2016ish, and had seen lots of gifs and content of her on my dashboard despite never watching anything she was in myself. She's so beautiful and people seemed to like her so much, so I thought she was more well-known! In 2021 I discovered that if you find Katie McGrath and 1,000,000 other female actors beautiful but only 10 male actors beautiful, you might be bisexual as opposed to straight. I found your article because I stumbled upon some (great) SuperCorp fanfiction yesterday and googled Katie McGrath to reestablish a mental image of her jawline, and was curious about her filmography of gay-coded characters.
I remembered seeing Morgana in the past when Katie turned up in Supergirl and I feel headlong into the Supercorp fandom- I read SC fic weekly even though I’m nearly four seasons behind on the show itself. The gifs abound and I’ve added shows to my watchlist just for Miss McGrath. I personally consider her a spiritual successor to Jaime Murray in the sense you described her in this article- a big name in a facet of sapphic internet fandom who’s virtually unknown outside of it, who’s played several canonically queer characters and tends to queer (intentionally or not) the others. Same goes for the intentional defense of queer fans, though Jaime’s far more online and aware than Katie. I really enjoyed this article and also appreciated you pointing out the supposed ubiquity of white favs as something worth noting and questioning. Thanks for writing!
As a long standing sufferer of tumblr I can confirm that everything about this article is absolutely correct.
I was somewhat aware of Katie as "that lady who was the only interesting thing about Merlin and had me turning to the screen back when I was still an oblivious young lesbian who wasn't actually watching Merlin". Then, later on, as the object of revered attention from the tumblr Sapphics, and now as a suffering "fan" of Supergirl (am I a fan if I'm only watching it for Katie and have absolutely no idea what's happening on that show?)
Don't know what it is that makes us as a group "flock" to certain people, what that undefined gay aura is, but whatever it is, Katie has it in spades, bless her heart. Thank you for the excellent McGrath content you shared!
Firstly, it was such a pleasure to wake up and have "Katie McGrath" be the first words I read this morning. Secondly, in spite of having been on Tumblr for years, I did not see a single image/gif of her until I watched Merlin, heard of Supergirl, and actively sought out Katie content.
I would say that I fall into the category of not really following any of her work but very much knowing about her and being very familiar with her presence through second-hand exposure. What makes her more interesting to me (for reading about her and generally keeping up with queer pop culture) is that she does indeed choose to play queer characters, so it's not all about the subtext with her, which I suppose makes the subtext with her in various roles maybe a bit louder than with other actors.
Great article! I esp. appreciate that you pointed out the whiteness of fandom in this (and many other cases). Thanks for writing/sharing!
I have never watched any of the shows that Katie is in besides Supergirl, but I can confirm that I am very aware of which shows she has been in and I have seen a good number of her scenes in those shows. Also, the only reason I’m still watching Supergirl is because of Katie, Supercorp, and Dansen. For me, this article was very accurate except that I’ve never been on Tumblr.
Until reading your article today, I honestly thought Katie McGrath was a much more famous/prolific actor than she apparently is. I've been on Tumblr since 2011ish (not proud), though much, much less since 2016ish, and had seen lots of gifs and content of her on my dashboard despite never watching anything she was in myself. She's so beautiful and people seemed to like her so much, so I thought she was more well-known! In 2021 I discovered that if you find Katie McGrath and 1,000,000 other female actors beautiful but only 10 male actors beautiful, you might be bisexual as opposed to straight. I found your article because I stumbled upon some (great) SuperCorp fanfiction yesterday and googled Katie McGrath to reestablish a mental image of her jawline, and was curious about her filmography of gay-coded characters.
I remembered seeing Morgana in the past when Katie turned up in Supergirl and I feel headlong into the Supercorp fandom- I read SC fic weekly even though I’m nearly four seasons behind on the show itself. The gifs abound and I’ve added shows to my watchlist just for Miss McGrath. I personally consider her a spiritual successor to Jaime Murray in the sense you described her in this article- a big name in a facet of sapphic internet fandom who’s virtually unknown outside of it, who’s played several canonically queer characters and tends to queer (intentionally or not) the others. Same goes for the intentional defense of queer fans, though Jaime’s far more online and aware than Katie. I really enjoyed this article and also appreciated you pointing out the supposed ubiquity of white favs as something worth noting and questioning. Thanks for writing!
As a long standing sufferer of tumblr I can confirm that everything about this article is absolutely correct.
I was somewhat aware of Katie as "that lady who was the only interesting thing about Merlin and had me turning to the screen back when I was still an oblivious young lesbian who wasn't actually watching Merlin". Then, later on, as the object of revered attention from the tumblr Sapphics, and now as a suffering "fan" of Supergirl (am I a fan if I'm only watching it for Katie and have absolutely no idea what's happening on that show?)
Don't know what it is that makes us as a group "flock" to certain people, what that undefined gay aura is, but whatever it is, Katie has it in spades, bless her heart. Thank you for the excellent McGrath content you shared!
Firstly, it was such a pleasure to wake up and have "Katie McGrath" be the first words I read this morning. Secondly, in spite of having been on Tumblr for years, I did not see a single image/gif of her until I watched Merlin, heard of Supergirl, and actively sought out Katie content.
I would say that I fall into the category of not really following any of her work but very much knowing about her and being very familiar with her presence through second-hand exposure. What makes her more interesting to me (for reading about her and generally keeping up with queer pop culture) is that she does indeed choose to play queer characters, so it's not all about the subtext with her, which I suppose makes the subtext with her in various roles maybe a bit louder than with other actors.
Great article! I esp. appreciate that you pointed out the whiteness of fandom in this (and many other cases). Thanks for writing/sharing!
I have never watched any of the shows that Katie is in besides Supergirl, but I can confirm that I am very aware of which shows she has been in and I have seen a good number of her scenes in those shows. Also, the only reason I’m still watching Supergirl is because of Katie, Supercorp, and Dansen. For me, this article was very accurate except that I’ve never been on Tumblr.