#i won't be queerbaited by ted lasso

[vole-mon-amour]

Considering what the show did in 3x09 with this, I'm gonna be VERY surprised if they are actually queerbaiting us. I won't even name ships or characters, whoever you're thinking about, it's about them.

Like, this performance is basically a gay anthem, a part of LGBTQIA history. Funky little football show, huh? I haven't expected anything like that in here, but they did it, so they're clearly aware of what they're doing and on LGBTQIA history.

Like, I'm used to queerbaiting. I wouldn't want it in Ted Lasso, I would be heartbroken, but I wouldn't be surprised. But they used this exact performance and the song at the end. And while yeah, they used it on Colin, but they used it in the credits in general, like when they used Let's Gets Lost on all characters in 3x06. Why would they even go further in interviews and explore the possibility of ships that no one asked about before? They could have ignored it, but they didn't. They put the possibilities in the show and started talking about if.

I'm so confused and so on the fence about what's coming our way in the final 3 episodes. I'm scared tbh.

[avelera]

Why "Our Flag Means Death" Should Teach Media Creators to Stop Queerbaiting the Fans that Made them Rich

If Our Flag Means Death continues to match and even exceed "Ted Lasso" levels of sleeper-hit/word of mouth popularity, it'll confirm a theory I've had for a long time that Hollywood has vastly underestimated how many of their A-List hit movies and stars rose to mainstream popuarity because of fandom and queer culture.

Like, look, obviously I'm super biased as someone who has been in fandom since I was a pre-teen, but I've strongly believed for some time that shows and actors who really get pushed over the edge from "popular" to "super-duper mega-hit that no one saw coming bonkers fame" often owe their rise to the high-octane energy that comes with fandom and queer people shipping two of the main characters in a same-sex relationship. Some examples:

Xena - As an early example (though honestly, you could put X-Files here as a straight version of the same phenomenon) would we even be hearing about this show today if not for the Xena/Gabrielle shippers? I mean, I'm sure the show was good for some value of 90s episodic action show "good", but I'd be willing to put a significant amount of money down that queer kids suddenly realizing something about themselves and going absolutely apeshit over those two gave it popularity and longevity other similar shows in its genre did not enjoy.

Supernatural - I mean, need I say more? Urban fantasy/horror shows are a dime a dozen-plus it's literally one of dozens of procedural shows with arguably the only unique quality in the first season being it's a couple hot guys with a muscle car. But add the early Sam/Dean shippers and the later frothing fandom around the Destiel will they/won't they shipping and you have a season count and popularity that dwarfs other similar shows in its class.

BBC Sherlock - literally catapulted Martin Freeman and the now ubiquitous, Oscar-nominated Hollywood darling Benedict Cumberbatch from near-obscurity to absolutely dizzying levels of fame. After that show, A-List directors like Peter Jackson had to wait their turn to get these guys into their movies. Sure, S1 Sherlock was fresh and cool in ways that should be appreciated but I don't think I'm being a totally biased fangirl to say what fueled the word-of-mouth insanity over the show was fans hoping John and Sherlock would end up together, especially given early buzz and interviews with the creators that intimated that they were more open to the idea than many past reimaginers of Sherlock Holmes.

"But Avelera," you might say, "Didn't these shows queerbait the shit out of their audiences? Didn't they basically drop breadcrumbs through their episodes and interviews teasing queer people with the possibility of these couples going canon and then openly laugh at them when they got their hopes up?"

Yeah! And that's what actually makes me a little insane about all this! For the longest time it felt like shows like BBC Sherlock and Supernatural in particular were aware of the fact that some percentage of the fandom driving their shows into popularity and their actors into worldwide recognition did so because of slash shipping, but for some fucking baffling reason they decided that the straight cis male audience was the one they couldn't risk alienating! Now, sure, I know straight cis men who were fans of Sherlock and Supernatural but let me tell you, those guys weren't watching that show 100x in a row! They weren't signing petitions for more seasons or evangelizing it to everyone they met. They watched the show, liked it well enough, and moved on. Plenty of shows appeal to just those guys and get canceled after a couple seasons, and yet they're still treated as some kind of gold standard for the audience to chase.

So it was kind of insanely infuriating to have these creators openly laugh at the slash fans that, it was my suspicion, weren't just a portion of their fanbase but actually driving the engagement. And where I get especially insane is my conviction that these creators just didn't have the data at their disposal to really understand that the people they were mocking weren't an audience they could risk throwing away. They were still so entrenched in the idea of keeping the mainstream happy and the idea that the mainstream preferred shallow straight relationships over the main shipped pair getting together that they treated their core base as the aberrant fringe and the aberrant fringe who really wouldn't even notice if they got canceled as if it was the core base.

Because who the fuck was watching Supernatural after however goddamn many seasons except insane shipper fans holding out a shred of hope that once the mainstream lost interest they might get more than scraps off the table? Who was clamoring for multiple seasons of Sherlock on the promise that they might see some fulfillment? Who still remembers Xena fondly and not just as some silly mindless 90s show? It's the queer/fandom fans, I truly believe this even if it might just be me seeing everything through the lens of being in that subculture.

There is no more talk about making BBC Sherlock after the final spitting in the face of the queer fans that the last season did, the fans burnt out on getting strung along. Even shows that are more queer-friendly but still resist onscreen confirmation (Good Omens you are on thin fucking ice but I'll give you S2 to stop dancing around the issue trying to appease all your perceived audiences) are seeing frustration directed towards them. Queer/fandom audiences are exhausted with being laughed at and jerked around and treated like the minority audience when they are in fact what drive these shows to worldwide recognition. They're not a bellwether or jumping on the wagon, they are the core audience.

And I think, if Our Flag Means Death continues to triumph in popularity, it will finally provide some quantification for exactly how much queer and fandom audiences really can be the difference between a show that's just one of many in its genre as far as audience engagement goes and shows that suddenly shoot into the stratosphere through word of mouth popularity. Sure, there will still be non-fandom, non-queer mega-hits that do very well too on sheer strength of quality and freshness (for example, Ted Lasso), but as an audience to aim to please instead of the one you just aim to string along so you can have your cake and eat it too, I hope OFMD serves as some kind of awakening.

[thedanceronthestreets]

The problem is that at this point i won't even be mad when the ted lasso creative team queerbaits us. I'll fall to my knees and sacrifice a son or something