#queer baiting

[winnieinthemeadow]

there is no way in HELL enid wasn’t gay. i’m sorry they did not have her mom try to send her to “werewolf conversion therapy” and drop the fact that she’s from SAN FRANCISCO to have her not date wednesday

[macaulaytwins]

idk what you guys are talking about, giving your best friend that you’re in love with relationship advice and then crying in the car right next to them afterwards IS flawless representation

[starlight-bread-blog]

what are the hets on HONESTLY. it's like they watch with no sound and no picture and just have someone tell them, yes, a man and a woman are on screen, and they conclude ah yes romance!!!1!

(Probably about this)

REAL. It's fascinating how quickly people assume romance between a man and a woman, while doubting the same assumptions for same-gender interactions.

So let's check. Using Lokius as a sample. Replace one of them with a women, and ask yourself,

Would it be valid to suggest romantic implications if a man and a women are:

1) Extremely thouchy with each other.

2) Riding on a tandem bike together.

3) Willing to suffer a fate worst than death for another.

4) Falling on each other after that^

5) Trying to speak before potential death, but interrupted by the other's fear of loss.

6) Being framed in this circle.

7) Waiting & giving permission to attack.

8) Fixing themselvs before seeing the other.

Of fucking course yes. Maybe you think some of these are a strech, but ultimately, people would point out romantic connotations across the board.

Except no, it's two men. When it's two people of the same gender, these annoying gays should stop shoving their gayness everywhere.

[the-bar-sinister]

"Heterosexual male friendships are so rare in tv and movies"

No??? they have an entire genre?? They're literally inescapable?

have you ever heard of a buddy cop show? have you ever seen an action movie made prior to 2000??

How about The Flintstones?

Just because heterosexual male friendships are (apparently) rare in the genres fiction that you regularly watch doesn't mean that it's some mystical unicorn relationship and all the male friendship rep is being absorbed by the gays!

[xgoddessoffandomsx]

Remember when MTV had Tyler and Dylan do this to get voted for a Teen Choice award????

And yet sone of y'all say Sterek wasn't baited. Just admit you're homophobic and hate that people just wanted to be represented on screen

[akajustmerry]

"It is quite something for a series that’s core message is to embrace social outcasts with humanity and dignity to use a marginalised and stigmatised community’s aesthetics as promotional material. And, for that same series to use the real trauma of queer conversion therapy as an allegory within the show, without then including any significant queer representation within. 

Queerbaiting is an accusation that has been both diluted and weaponised over the past few years. The solution to this does not lie in harassing young actors to come out, but in holding major companies accountable for their parasitical allyship and appropriation of queerness, supporting openly LGBTIQ+ shows, and demanding queer voices behind the scenes, as well as in front of the camera."

Netflix Wasn’t Queerbaiting With ‘Stranger Things’, But They Are With ‘Wednesday’ by Merryana Salem

[dudesrysly]

Buck: do you ever smell the upsexy in the shower?

Eddie: smell the what?

Buck: upsexy…

Eddie: what the hell is that?

Buck: what are you asking me?

Eddie: *long sigh* what’s upsexy?

Buck: nothing much, you?

[tachiha3]

I'm actually gonna feel sorry for the zukka shippers if it doesn't turn out to be canon 😭 like.. This much bait???

[spiderbae2319]

Omg I saw the cutest love story:

So it starts when person a saves person b’s life. They instantly feel a connection, and spend the next year and a half practically glued at the hip. Then after a tragic accident person a suffers they blame person b, have a massive fight, and the two split up. They go 10 years without seeing each other before reuniting as person a breaks person b out of jail. The reunion is very tense and there’s a lot of fighting both verbal and physical. Then person b tries to kill person a’s younger sister (who he had an affair with over the 10 year gap) and they fight and part again. Another ten years later they meet a third time where person b leaves the cult he’s in (dudes got issues) to save person a’s life after reminiscing on their life together. They part reluctantly a week later. They meet another 10 years later to… not really important they meet again and part amicably a week later. Finally 5 years after that, 35 years after they first met. They meet in Paris, and person b proposes, and person a says yes. They live the rest of their lives in peace on an island in the Caribbean.

My friend: … that sounds familiar

Me: CAUSE ITS THE FUCKING PLOT OF X-MEN

[kitsu-katsu]

I was talking with someone about just how canon the ineffable husbands are in good omens and I brought up how Gaiman said that what they have is canonically a love story (which is really reflected in the show, with their moments of vulnerability towards the other, their despair at the thought of losing one another, their comfort with eachother, the way they stick together through millennia even when they're never trying to, etc), but they don't have labels, as they don't have genders and the human conception of intimacy eludes them as ethereal beings that aren't human

And the complications with that

Because this person I was discussing with is not as versed in fandom discourse, and so they're only now finding the vocabulary of "queer baiting" to talk about that Sherlock show

And so they're like "I hope I see Crowley and Aziraphale absolutely eat eachother's mouths, it has to be canonized" and I'm standing here like. It is canon though. Like they won't add some "hetero romance" cop-out last minute. They are canonically in a love story. What's interesting is how the label-less queerness of it can also explore non-binary aspects and an aroace perspective on what "love" is

And they're bummed out because if they don't "absolutely eat eachother's mouths" it doesn't feel as canon to them. And I'm still standing here in aroace like. Bro. There are so many forms of relationships. A kiss on screen doesn't have to make it any more or less canon

But at the same time, from the amatonormative perspective, I get how the kiss on screen is seen as the end all be all. Because in general media, the main pairings will have the kiss at the end. And they will live happily ever after with that

Before the kiss it is only as canon as the kiss is predictable, and after the kiss, you can point to that one scene as "the moment it was canonized for realsies despite even people in the show making constant remarks about this being an obvious thing"

And I kinda hate it

I just wish the whole community wouldn't have to keep its guards up like this so much to discern whether something is coming from a genuine place of wanting to tell a story for a queer audience or about a queer subject or if it's all just a ploy to get our money, spit in our faces, smile at the traditional homophobic crowd and fund some conservative party with it

Because then we wouldn't have to play it by the boring straight rules. If everything points to it being obvious, then why is an intense kiss necessary? Why is it all you want? Why can't this represent a qpr? Or a loving relationship where intimacy in the form of a kiss just isn't something the characters want? Or a more open thing instead of being a purely monogamous arrangement? Or something completely new, a dynamic you can only describe in an essay lest you don't make their chemistry justice?

Aren't all of those just a much more under-thought about queer dynamics than what "I want these characters to kiss eachother until they can't remember their names on screen or else it isn't canon enough" can convey?

But at the same time, without something as concise and strong in media language, how do you make sure it won't all stay in just subtext and the reason it looks like clear text to you is because you're starved for queer stories and have become way too accustomed to reading between the lines?

I mean, it's also been proven to not be an absolute in instances where the text goes ham in letting you know what it's saying, when it's not implying, it is just telling. For one, Rose and Pearl in Steven Universe never did share a kiss on screen, and nevertheless we all know what was going on there

Idk, it's complicated and it's 1am, and this is all just a ramble, but I am in my aroace hating amatonormativity mood and the sentiment that characters being a canon thing without an explicit kiss bums someone out to the point they say "ok, ok, I get the whole nb ace ethereal beings that aren't human idea, but I want something more explicit because it doesn't feel canon enough" when that isn't strictly necessary for the story to get it across just got me in a weird mood and this is about so much more than good omens, I needed to try and word it out and might as well put it out there

Just. Why does queerness have to be allonormative and also amatonormative to be valid in the eyes of the queer masses necessarily? You'd think we'd figured out that queerness goes beyond just the L, G, B and binary T by now

[wheredidhiseyebrowsgo]

Hello,

Been a sterek fan for over a decade now. Do you think the fans were baited?

I’ve watching the show repeatedly(stop at 3b) and that’s only because of O’Brien and Hoechlin.

Ok I did start watching after 3b when I heard O’Brien was fantastic as the Nogitsune. He was!

I’m not a fan of Posey, I find him pompous and not a superior actor. I could understand why he would be upset but again I don’t like him.

I still find question if the writers added in when O’Brien and Hoechlin were looking at one another slips Derek had Stiles pinned on his door. And even in the police car. Both from season one.

And the way Derek looked so scared when Argent was pointing a gun at Stiles in the loft when he was the Nogitsune.

Were we baited? Thanks for you time!

I'm sure this will garner some controversy lol. But no, I don't think we were baited really. To me baiting is being promised queer rep and not getting it. Maybe a little when they saw how much the fans dug it. They threw some *wink wink, nudge nudge* scenes. But then when they saw it get out of hand (or they thought it was anyway) they pulled way back. To the point where it feels like they would deliberately not put them in scenes together. Almost in a gaslighting way. ("You thought this would actually happen? Yeah ok." kind of vibe.)

I think the show fucked up a lot and was really shitty to it's fans. It treated queer characters and POC characters unforgivably. It's writing got so bad that they must have thought we were idiots to put so little effort and send it out and still expect us to support it.

But I'm not totally convinced it was writers rubbing their hands like "let's make them think something will happen." It was really more the reaction after the fans started shipping them that pisses me off the most.

[greenteacryptid]

Getting into a ship that you just KNOW is queerbating is a whole different kind of self-inflicted suffering

[unfilteredthotspot]

this just makes sense to me

[malevolent-muse]

What is SVU? A Random Synopsis

One time I had a reader tell me they had never watched SVU ... this was my response:

Wait.... what? You've never watched SVU?!!!! OMGosh! Okay, SVU. Let me tell you about how amazing it is.

There's this cop, his name is Elliot Stabler. He's an ex-marine with a wife and a bunch of kids. He's partnered up with this smoking HOT babe. You know her, Olivia Benson. The sexual tension is REAL but that doesn't stop them from having a great dynamic and the shows is basically a buddy cop adventure with people getting raped... and Ice T! But he's a good man and doesn't cheat on his wife. In fact, Elliot and Cathy separate for a bit and he still does NOTHING with Olivia.... Instead, he gets his estranged wife pregnant and they get back together. Everything is great until the actor did not renew his contract and the whole show devolves to revolving around Olivia.

Now, don't get me wrong. I LOVE HER. She is my favorite. But since she has to carry the whole show, the writers turn her into a saint. So no more hooking up with hot guys, no more flipping out on bad guys... instead she gets her act together, gets promoted, and adopts an orphan. Yeah... she's a saint. Blah blah blah.

Then Carisi joins the squad and that character pretty much SAVES the show. He came on and we were all like... oh no, here's another character that will be around for a season or two and then gets shot or arrested or killed. But no, not Carisi. He's so sweet and naive... But thinks he's tough. He has a terrible New York accent. He's cute but sucks at knowing how to attract women. He is smart and gets his law degree. He has CRAZY sexual chemistry with Rafael Barba (the SVU assistant district attorney) but of course Barba is a man... And Carisi is "straight" and catholic so it's basically queer-baiting but we all love it anyway.

What else can I say? I LOVE SVU :D

[herbirdglitter]

If Crowley and Aziraphale don’t get together in season 2, you know full well people are going to claim it’s queer baiting, despite them having been canonically queer since the beginning.

Crowley is gender-fluid and aziraphale is agender. People don’t have to be in a relationship to be queer. Trans people exist. Asexual people exist. Aromantic people exist. Intersex people exist. I could go on.

And you know what? Friends exist. They’re allowed to be friends.

[awesomefringey]

Wonderful conversation and conclusion about the queer baiting allegations around Harry. 🌈