Tag Archives: queerbaiting

In Real Life, TV Characters Would Be Way More Bisexual

The best part of watching a show is rooting for your favorite characters to get together, even if they’re the same gender. Especially if they’re the same gender. Sometimes, your favorite pairing seems to have a chance – certain shows are notorious for queerbaiting us into thinking that queer pairings are on the horizon. I’m looking at you, Sherlock.

But at the end of the day, those characters never end up together. They either end up with other straight characters or, if they admit they’re gay, they die.

The problem isn’t that there aren’t shows with lesbian characters. There are some, such as Transparent, How to Get Away with Murder, Sense8, and Orange is the New Black. But in many shows, there are the Designated Queer Characters – you know they’re gay, and their gayness is central to their character development (although straight characters’ straightness is never central to their own character development). They either have failed crushes on straight characters or failed romances with Designated Queer Love Interests, who die. I’m looking at you, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

But in real life, people’s sexual identities aren’t always straight lines. They’re fluid. Straight people have gay crushes. Gay people have straight crushes. Straight people have gay experiences but continue to identify as straight. Gay people have straight experiences and continue to identify as gay or queer or bisexual. People experiment with polyamory and threesomes and open relationships.

But in TV shows, straight people are just straight. And gay people are just gay. Unless they’re women, in which case they usually become straight. Or die.

Similarly, TV shows depict gender as being very static. You are either a Masculine Woman, Feminine Woman, Masculine Man or Feminine Man. If you’re transgender, you automatically become the stereotype that corresponds to your gender. But in real life, many people are a little more nonbinary. Sometimes butch women have days they feel like being more feminine, for no reason. Sometimes cisgender people feel like dressing androgynously.

So what needs to change? TV shows should just make sexual and gender queerness a normal part of life and stop acting like sexuality and gender identity are neat boxes.Characters should be able to experiment bisexually, even if they realize they are straight, and have bisexual feelings, even if they don’t act on them. And if a show is using characters as queerbait, then those characters should actually get together – or at least stand a real chance.

Some shows do this well. On Steven Universe, characters are masculine and feminine and androgynous, and many switch back and forth; for example, the main character, Steven, sees nothing wrong with wearing a skirt. When a character has a crush on someone, it doesn’t matter whether the crush is male or female. Similarly, on Black Sails, characters experiment with bisexuality, polyamory, and homosexuality however they see fit. It’s refreshing.

Hopefully, more shows will realize the fluidity of sexuality and gender. Until then, I’ll continue to daydream.

Shannon Purser Addresses Riverdale’s Queer Baiting Backlash

Shannon Purser addressed some of the issues that Riverdale caused within the LGBT community – namely the queerbaiting that the show has been called out for, particularly in its first episode.

The problems began with a kiss between Riverdale‘s two female leads, Betty and Veronica, but the kiss itself wasn’t the issue. The real mistake was how the CW and Riverdale‘s creators handled it, promoting the kiss in trailers while stating outright that Betty and Veronica would never be an item.

It was a definitive example of queerbaiting.

They used a performance of girl-on-girl action to sell the show, while fans hoped for a sincere representation of queer sexuality.

Archie Comics built an empire on the Betty/Archie/Veronica love triangle, and while Riverdale focuses on other pairings, the show’s fandom still revolves around shipping.

The rivalry between ships is so intense, that Purser inspired backlash by tweeting this mild criticism of shipping culture.

https://twitter.com/shannonpurser/status/854476496299335680

After a few hours of backlash, Purser posted an apology where she came out as bisexual, explaining that she was “very very new to the LGBT community,” and had never heard the term “queerbaiting” before.

https://twitter.com/shannonpurser/status/854538329546780678

Addressing the fact that shows like Riverdale have very passionate fans that ‘ship’ particular characters together, Purser apologized to fans who felt that she and the show were marginalizing them by hinting at relationships which are very unlikely to happen.

Although this was the first explicit statement about her sexual orientation, the star hasn’t been shy about the topic of sexuality in the past.

Earlier this month, she took to Twitter to talk about the anxiety she experienced over her sexuality.

https://twitter.com/shannonpurser/status/851934358516748289

Don’t Be Fooled By Hollywood’s Shiny New Queerbait

Good news: Hollywood is finally embracing queer people.

Bad news: By embracing, I mean “keeping at arm’s length.”

Hollywood keeps proclaiming its “good news.”

In recent weeks, Hollywood has announced some exciting developments, such as the gay character LeFou in Beauty and the Beast that had queer Disney fans tearing apart the internet to figure out what the “exclusively gay moment” was.

Power Rangers also recently announced that the Yellow Ranger would be queer.

Has Hollywood really had a change of heart regarding gay characters? No. Hollywood is just realizing that mediocre children’s movies can break even by fishing for the $917 billion dollar gay economy.

Here’s why the “queer moments” don’t mean anything.

When Beauty and the Beast announced Disney’s first gay character, fans were excited at the possibilities – after all, the lyrics of Beauty and the Beast were written by an openly gay man who viewed the movie as a metaphor for his excruciating demise from AIDS.

But then Disney announced that the character was LeFou. And lesbians around the world wondered, “Le Who?”

“LeFou” is literally French for “the fool.” In the new Beauty and the Beast , he is a buffoon, the henchmen of the villain who is so overcome by his homosexual passions that he cannot think for himself.

And LeFou doesn’t get a happy ending. No, he gets an “exclusively gay moment” that is nothing more than a few seconds of him dancing with another man at a ball. In case you missed it, that is Disney’s big gay moment. That is the big gay moment that made headlines around the world.

Instead of actually fleshing out one of the main characters with sexual fluidity or even giving LeFou some emotional depth, Disney made being gay the punchline. Again.

Power Rangers isn’t much better. It has a history of homophobia – David Yost left the show in the 90s after being harassed for being gay – so fans were excited about a new queer ranger. Perhaps we expected too much.

Here is the extent of the Yellow Ranger’s queerness:

Her fellow Ranger Billy asks, “Boyfriend problems?” She pouts slightly harder than usual and Billy re-guesses: “Girlfriend problems?” She pouts slightly less signaling agreement. She puts her identity into explicit words, really, but she goes on to bemoan her family’s normalcy and their belief in labels. “I don’t know how to tell them what’s really going on with me,” she says, adding that she’s never admitted any of this stuff out loud before. And that’s basically that.

So what do we do?

It’s natural to be excited about gay (or at least gay-ish) characters in your favorite films, but don’t take the bait. If you weren’t excited about a movie before you found out that one of the characters was a 2 on the Kinsey scale, then don’t purchase a ticket afterward.

If you’re looking for good queer cinema, don’t neglect indie films. Here are seven to get you started.

The Real Reason We Want To Turn Everyone Else Gay

Have you heard about #StopGayingAllTheThings yet?

I hadn’t, until a few days ago. Basically, this hashtag seeks to trend “fighting back” against the “LGBTQAAIP gaystapo”. Because, of course, we as the LGBT+ community, have the potential to majorly change things in our favor.

Like every member of the LGBT+ community is working to change things.

Like we’re trying to overthrow the cishetero patriarchy.

(Ok, so some of us are working really hard at that, and others are kinda just hoping it happens within their lifetime. Whatever.)

I’ll admit that I’m the prime candidate for queerbaiting. As a woman who couldn’t look gay even if I was dressed in nothing but a rainbow sports bra and flannel boxer shorts, I’m always secretly hoping that every might be gay character is totally gay.

I used to make gaydar bets with myself about which of my friends and classmates were closeted. Maybe I still do this occasionally with celebrities. Do I wish that more queer characters were shown on television? Absofreakinglutely.

It’s not really about turning everything gay, though – but this is a numbers game. The chances of producers listening to us are pretty slim, so we’ve got to cast a wide net and hope we catch something.

If we had 100 hashtags about characters we wanted to see gay, we might be lucky if we got one result. We’re not expecting a miracle – we’re just hoping for a little more representation. We’re not expecting a revolution – we’re just hoping for a chance.

Some might say, well, turning a Disney princess into a lesbian isn’t going to fix anything. The LGBT+ community will still face bigger hardships than seeing a queer character on TV. These are both entirely true statements – but we must take our battles one step at a time.

Queer characters on television are some of the easiest battles to win, because the producers understand that the queer viewership is a vital demographic. They need queer viewers, so eventually, they’ll probably give in to a queer character.

We don’t just want more queer characters… We need more queer characters. We need characters with homophobic families, characters with accepting families, and even characters with no family. Each of these archetypes has its own target demographic, and each one represents some kid who’s having a hard time being comfortable in her own skin.

Each one represents a teenage boy who isn’t like all the stereotypes, and just wants to see himself reflected in the show. Each one represents one kid who thought they needed to take their life to finally find peace. Each one is important, and each one needs to be shown as they really are.

Is it about turning everyone gay? No, I don’t really think so. I don’t think there are too many of us who actually seek to “convert” the straight people. I don’t think there are too many of us out there who set out to change who someone really is, and I don’t think there are too many of us who think that you can change who you really are.

Sure, maybe you can rewrite your habits and reprogram your thoughts, but can you ever really change?

I think maybe we’re just ready to have a voice. This is the age where everyone’s opinion is heard, no matter what their station in life. Some people even find a way to make their opinions heard even louder, through their popularity. But everyone’s opinion is heard, and maybe it’s time the queer community was included in that.

So maybe a hashtag isn’t going to change the world – whether it seeks to make it “us vs. them” or “we and ours”. So maybe there are bigger issues at hand. But does that mean we should stop fighting for media representation?

I don’t think we should.

If we’re searching for a voice, we have to first create one.

We can’t be heard if we don’t speak up.

Why Gay Fans Shouldn’t Accept Queerbaiting In TV Shows

Queerbaiting (verb): to deceive or trick the audience of a form of media (e.g film or television) into thinking that a character identifies as non-heterosexual. Often done by networks in an attempt to raise viewership numbers.

Even if you didn’t have a definition for queerbaiting until now, you were certainly exposed to it. Case in point: Glee with Brittany and Santana (in season one), Glee again with Quinn and Rachel, John and Sherlock in BBC’s Sherlock, MTV’s Teen Wolf, Rizzoli & Isles, Once Upon a Time, and Skins (Gen 3).

swan-queen-art-01

Once Upon a Time - Swan Queen Art Work

All of these shows are guilty of it; the production teams behind them have purposefully injected faux queer content into their shows so that queer folk pay attention and begin to support the show.

They dangle a queer carrot in front of us like a rabbit that’s not eaten for a week and then, because we’re a fickle bunch, starved for canon queer content, we often hoover up these scraps and run with them.

Furthermore, not only do we tune in and watch the shows that do this but we’re also incredibly vocal about them on platforms such as Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and YouTube.

With a tuned in queer audience, not only are the networks getting extra viewership but queer fans getting their queer friends to tune into the show too and the TV networks are managing to do this without actually including any real queer content at all.

You see, the beauty of queerbaiting is that it can be explained away, or, in some particular egregious cases, it can just be left alone and forgotten about. A good example is Glee, which I’ve mentioned.

In the first season, there was a throwaway line by Brittany that her and Santana had slept together. Back in those days Brittana didn’t get very many lines and so it wasn’t until season two that the show really elaborated on it – after fans had expressed their vocal support for the pairing.

Brittany-and-Santana-06

Glee - Brittana

Meanwhile, Quinn and Rachel were also extraordinarily close (despite the show pitting them against each other), something shown in season one where Quinn draws a not-so-nice picture of Rachel in her notebook and yet she doodles hearts around it.

Glee was keen to have them face off, though, despite the times that they comforted each other (e.g when Rachel called Quinn the prettiest girl she’d ever met), and it allowed the show to dismiss their relationship as a budding friendship, despite the hints of something more.

But you know and I know that this sort of thing is classic queerbaiting, and shows like Glee should be ashamed.

Are we right to put up with this sort of behaviour from TV creators? In our defence we don’t have a lot of representation so perhaps queerbaiting, even in its weakest form, is a good thing? One clued in TV viewer I spoke to (who we’ll call J, for privacy), disagreed with this idea:

“Just because it’s representation, it doesn’t mean that it’s good representation; LGBTQ people deserve good representation like everyone else. I understand that the intentions are often good, but for me, it’s not good enough.

I don’t want to say that if you’re not going to have good representation (preferably written or influenced by actual queer people) don’t bother at all, but queerbaiting is still unfair.”

When considering a stance on queerbaiting, we should also consider the other nefarious side of the business, along with the outcomes of it.

Queerbaiting doesn’t just pull queer viewers in, but it also satisfies heterosexual ones too. By having viewers ask ‘are they or aren’t they’ and then eventually revealing that no, the character isn’t even the slightest bit questioning, it helps to pander to an audience that would be uncomfortable if the character was anything other than incredibly heterosexual* (*with close gal pals or bromances only).

rizzoli-and-isles

Rizzoli & Isles

On the one hand, this robs real queer people of a chance to see their stories presented on TV but it also tells people that it’s far easier for a character to not be queer. When you skirt around the issue of someone’s sexuality, it suggests that there’s something wrong to be skirted around. And that’s not fair at all.

Essentially, if the queerness isn’t canon, don’t accept it. It’s fine to ask and campaign for it but watching a show specifically for queerness that will most likely never happen in the future means that the queerbaiting production teams have won. If they don’t respect our identities then they don’t deserve our patronage and really, it’s as simple as that.