Created by Ngozi Ukazu, Check, Please! is the story of Eric “Bitty” Bittle, former figure skater and baking enthusiast, as he navigates through his college years on a varsity male hockey team full of big, supportive, and emotional jocks.
What makes Bitty and Jack’s hug at the end stand out so much?
The short answer is intimate physical contact. Their feelings for each other aside, the chapter ends with Jack accepting Bitty’s consoling hug at a point where he’s at his most emotionally vulnerable. For Jack, this is no small feat as he is well-known for his naturally stoic attitude. However, for many men, stoicism and emotional repression is a learned behavior, and it is often accompanied by shunning physical comfort from other men away.
In a large portion of Western society, the realm of emotions is ascribed to the feminine. Women are not only described as emotional, but they are also allowed to fully express a fuller range of emotions. As masculinity is described in dichotomous terms to femininity, men are expected to repress their emotions and be ruled by their logic. In similar terms, expressing emotions through physical contact is generally accepted between women but not between men, as emotional contact between men fuels sexual anxieties regarding homosexuality. Thus, men are only allowed to touch each other in certain ways under certain circumstances, for example, in contact sports.
Credit: Ngozi Ukazu
First panel: The hockey team, led by Chowder, Dex, and Nursey, walks into the locker room. Chowder is lifting his goalie mask, tears in his eyes. Dex is shaking, with his eyes closed and head bowed. Nursey is looking at Dex with a sad look on his face.
Second panel: In the background, Chowder is at his cubicle with his back turned. In the foreground, Nursey pats Dex on the back. Dex is still visibly shaking.
Credit: Ngozi Ukazu
Bitty looks at Jack’s empty cubicle. On both sides of it, Holster and Shitty pack their bags alone and in silence. Both men with their eyes closed, heads bowed. In the middle ground, Coach Hall is depicted in perhaps mid-conversation. His eyes are also solemnly closed.
Team sports inevitably create a sense of camaraderie that leads to emotional vulnerability and physical contact, but even then it is kept to a minimum. Nursey gives Dex a pat on the back, and Coach Hall does the same to Holster. That’s it. Holster and Shitty quietly pack their gear with Jack’s empty cubicle between them, even though they both hurting and generally very open and expressive. The range allowed for them to express themselves lies between quiet suffering and explosive anger, as expressed by throwing a hemet to the floor (most likely done by Dex as he is shaking with anger, prompting Nursey’s pat). Jack and Bitty shatter these gender constraints by allowing themselves to be emotionally vulnerable and physical with each other. It is their queerness that allows them think outside these expectations and allows themselves to feel.