Queerbaiting: A Complicated Issue
By Anonymous
By now, I’m sure we’re all aware that Hollywood (and practically every other setting) has a serious representation issue, and progress is slow yet steady. Despite lingering challenges, the selection of media about underrepresented groups today dwarfs what it was when I was growing up, and as we continue to show our appreciation for these changes, I’m hopeful we’ll get even more representation in many areas. As we receive more and more well-rounded representations of LGBTQ+ people in popular media, Hollywood still can’t shake the Dr. Hyde of queer representation: queerbaiting.
Queerbaiting refers to the hinting at—but not actual depiction of—queer individuals or relationships in media with the attempt to lure a queer audience. From Sherlock to Killing Eve to the MCU (Kevin Feige, if you’re reading this: make Bucky queer you absolute coward), it’s a trope as old as time. Queerbaiting draws LGBTQ+ viewers in, hopeful for the canonical depiction of relationships that resemble theirs that they won’t have to write for themselves (seriously, have you ever considered why so much fanfiction is about noncanonical same-sex relationships?), and slaps them in the face when the relationship ultimately amounts to nothing.
Backlash against queerbaiting has led to the tactic’s evil cousin: the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it queer representation. From a same-sex couple’s brief kiss in The Rise of Skywalker (especially when the chemistry between Finn and Poe was right there dammit), LeFou’s male dance partner in Beauty and the Beast, and Marvel’s “first openly gay character” that turned out to be a 30-second cameo by a director in Endgame, these are poor excuses of “representation.” Instead, these choices aim to placate audiences asking for queer representation but are easy to edit out without affecting the overall plot of the movie so the movie can still be shown in less queer-friendly places like Russia, China, or your homophobic relative’s living room. Similarly, when writers include a queer main character, that character often ends up alone (Callie in Grey’s Anatomy), dead (Castiel in Supernatural), or written off without a meaningful storyline (Eric in Gossip Girl).
However, queerbaiting and tactics to prevent it also bring several other problems to the table. Many queerbaited couples are two men who have a strong friendship on screen. With ongoing, important efforts to promote positive masculinity and emotionally healthy friendships between men, it can be problematic to assume any strong, physically affectionate friendship between men must have homosexual undertones. Additionally, the part of me that still squirms at the idea of attaching my name to these articles hesitates at the notion that everything must be spelled out clearly for it to count. The few people in my life who know of my bisexuality did not know it until a few months ago, but I didn’t need to label myself to others to establish my bisexuality. I’m just as bi now as I was years ago before I was out to anyone, before I knew what bisexuality was or that the lingering thoughts I had about girls meant something. Sexuality is fluid, and I’m hesitant to require a character say the words “I’m gay” for it to matter.
As much as I wish this were the case, that’s not how the world of Hollywood works. While we’re thankfully moving away from the need for queer people to label themselves, straight people have never needed labels because straightness has always been assumed as the default. As much as I may believe in my heart that Bucky’s tiger comment in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is indicative of his queerness, in the eyes of most media consumers, he and every other character are “straight until proven otherwise.” We can’t move past this heteronormative structure without proving it’s not a norm. This requires explicit queer representation, not just two same-sex characters that stare a bit too long into each other’s eyes and base their motivations around each other only to become the butt of everyone other character’s jokes.
At the end of the day, it’s not “just a TV show” or “just a fictional character.” When straight people get to see relationships that look like theirs and queer people, especially queer kids growing up in a heteronormative world, get strong same-sex friendships that have so many hallmarks of a romantic relationship only for their closeness to become a running joke, an exploratory phase that went nowhere, or a product of people “seeing way too into things,” it feels invalidating, like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown over and over again. At its worst, it takes you right back to the vulnerable time in your life when you were first figuring out your sexuality and wondering if this was all in your head, and as you see your favorite relationship that most likely would have been explored if the characters were of different sexes balked at for even thinking it could be romantic, you begin to doubt yourself once again.
There’s work to be done on all fronts of the battle for representation, and as discussions about queerbaiting, tokenism, overuse of stereotypes, and the fetishization of queer individuals demonstrate, the fight for LGBTQ+ characters with depth and purpose on the screen is far from over. We’re making progress, but I hope someday, we’ll see queer stories as just stories in the same way we see straight stories as just stories. They’re not political statements or punch lines or edgy accessories or invisible. They’re just people living their lives and hoping to find a special someone to accompany them along the way, and what’s more relatable than that?
