#queerbaiting

oksanaastankova:

killcommander:

laura and sally you are absolutely fucked

omg

isitandwonder:

laconiclurker:

thanangst:

byebyefrost:

welovethebeekeeper:

isitandwonder:

“The obsession, particularly online, with the homoerotic tension between Sherlock and Doctor Watson… The template for us was the Billy Wilder film The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, which deliberately plays with the idea that Holmes might be gay. We’ve done the same thing, deliberately played with it although it’s absolutely clearly not the case. He’s only a brain, ‘everything else is transport’ to him and John clearly says, “I’m not gay, we’re not together” but the joke is that everyone assumes that in the 21st century that these two blokes living together are a couple– what they wouldn’t’ have assumed in the 19th century. They’d have assumed they were bachelor best friends and now they assume they’re lovers. That’s obviously such fun to play with and the fact that people now assume, in a very positive way, that they’re together is a different joke to it being a negative connotation.”  Mark Gatiss in The Gay Times, February 2012

Hmm, I’m actually not so sure about that. Because I never got this joke (and no, that’s not a generation thing. I’m round about the same age as the show creators). Honestly, to me, two blokes sharing a flat in central London in the 21st century are just two blokes sharing a flat because it’s fucking expensive. I’d never assume anything else.

Even if one of the man was depicted as obviously gay (Girlfriend? Nor really my area. - Boyfriend? I know it’s fine.) - I wouldn’t assume any kind of romatic interest between them. I can’t see a joke there either.

But when their flat sharing gets laden with innuendo? For example, their landlady asking them if they share a bedroom. Another acquaintance taking them for being on a date. Those two blokes gazing at each other as if they were about to eat each other alive. One of the man killing for the other, who, in return, protects him from being prosecuted… Well, thenI’d start to assume something’s going on - because it is shown to me and hammered home.

Only, I can’t see a jokethere either…

So, what Gatiss described in the above interview wasn’t what happened. They were not just showing us two blokes living together. Because then no one in the 21st century would think of them as a couple. Moffat and Gatiss had to actively insert innuendo for their viewers to catch up on their ‘joke’ in the first place. They encouraged this on many levels: text, acting choices, casting, costume, music, lighting, cinematography.

They actively implemented homoerotic (sub)text in their show - only to lament at the same time that people cought up on it? That some viewers expected something to come out of it. Because, in the 21st century, no one thought it possible that it could just be a lame joke! Because there just is no joke to it.

The viewers took the positive attitude Gatiis desrcibes a step further and expected positive representation from the writers after playing with the inherent homoeroticism of the original stories. The fandom was far more advanced than the show runners, it seems.

And why play with the  homoeroticism it in the first place? I really can’t see where the fun might be in there, apart from cracking some cheap gay jokes that feed an outdated no-homo attitude?

What is there to play with when it’s not an issue anymore? And if it’s still an issue, I’m not sure that making fun of it ist the appropriate approach to it.

We’ve done the same thing, deliberately played with it although it’s absolutely clearly not the case.

Clearly not the case??? How can a gay man, an LGBTQ advocate be so obtuse? They have used every gay trope in the book. The result is a desperately broken gay man who is in love with his repressed flatmate. Can Mark and Steven be this stupid, this unobservant, this deep into their own form of homophobia, that they cannot see what their own creation has become? Sorry Mark, but it was never clearly not gay. It was clearly the opposite.

I agree. Sorry Gatiss but that’s bs. In Friends Joey and Chandler shared a flat and nobody expected them to get together.

You know, for a brilliant man, Gatiss can be remarkably thick.  Total BS, in my book.

Here’s the thing from my perspective: there were enough tent poles in the writing (not even the acting or the direction or the cinematography, but just the writing) for people to come up with a reading that Sherlock and John had unusual, deep, possessive feelings for each other that many would not categorize as simple friendship. It’s not even the multiple lines of dialogue where others assume that Sherlock and John are a couple (including everyone cited above, together with the gay innkeepers and Dr. Frankland and Henry’s psychologist and Kitty and arguably Magnussen and ….) I find it morbidly fascinating that despite evidence in the writing itself that was more than third party characters making joking assumptions about John and Sherlock, the creators in their public statements basically chalk it all up to the “delusional fangirl” stereotype and say “play online but don’t talk about it with us, the writers.”

The Battersea conversation between John and Irene is one example of relationship implications being directly in the writing, despite some posts I’ve seen attributing Johnlock to some manifestation of acting and editing. We all know the scene by heart. John says they’re not a couple; Irene says that they are. John says he’s not infatuated with Sherlock because John is not gay, and Irene counters that she is gay, and “Look at us both [being infatuated?].”

What are we looking at, Moffat? Genuinely, I would like that answered and am confused about Moffat and Gatiss’s hostility towards discussing romantic interpretations of their writing. What was that line supposed to do if not invite us to examine the nature of both John’s and Irene’s feelings towards Sherlock and perhaps the immutability (or lack thereof) of romantic attraction? I know that script page floated around ages ago that said that John then laughs at the absurdity of the situation in response to Irene’s comment, but whether he laughs or gives that rueful huff that we get in the final version, John has no spoken answer to Irene’s comment. Was she right? Was she wrong? What was Moffat trying to convey? Was it only about Irene in that moment? Is she the only one with a bendable sexuality? That’s an ugly implication.

And then someone on their team wrote a scene episodes later where John and Sherlock are the only people at a bachelor party (when there certainly would have been comedic value in Lestrade or Anderson or relatives we’ve never met or Mycroft (like the Ritchie movies, right?) being in on this little celebration). But instead we’ve got no explanation for why there are no guests other than our assumption that Sherlock and John wanted a night alone together, and John saying he doesn’t mind touching Sherlock’s leg. Why is that line there if it doesn’t mean something? That’s 15 seconds of screen real estate that could have been spent elsewhere. I want to hear what Moffat and Gatiss say about this scene, the dialogue, the setup, etc.

These are two examples. We all could pull out at least one bit of written dialogue per episode where something in the writing itself implied “couple” or “attraction” that was not a joke made by a third party. And I really just want to ask them what they were trying to do in any of these types of scenes, because these were not jokes made by third party characters. But no interviewer will ever go beyond asking the question of whether John and Sherlock are a couple with Gatiss pulling out that stock reply about how in the 21st century, it’s cheeky to say that everyone will assume that they are together. Maybe Gatiss’s real answer is that they delighted in the ambiguity, never settling on one thing, raising issues and questions about character motivations without any definitive answers in a way that gives their writing (an illusion of) depth (a show like Mad Men played with raising different questions and not always answering them), and they never thought that anyone would seek to insert answers to these little questions that they toyed with.

I also think from my vantage point of reading and watching some of their interviews that Mark especially is not a fan of ardent fans. I know some interpreted TEH as an affectionate homage to the fandom, but I saw then and still see now his discomfort with fans reading anything into this show beyond the emotional context that they are trying to generate in any individual scene. It doesn’t matter how Sherlock survived or what John went through: what matters is that we have a little laugh at John’s successive losses of temper that send them to progressively seedier establishments in TEH: it’s a joke, it’s a show, it’s not serious beyond taking an emotional journey contained to 90 minutes. I can only see S4 as a massive repudiation of quite a lot of what ardent fans liked about the show, and I think part of it does stem from discomfort with fan expectations (and part of it from writing the season in too short a time period at the last minute).

Very Well said @laconiclurker. Thank you for this!

transfaguette:

what queerbaiting is:

setting up, advertising, or alluding to queer relationships in media with no intention of actually depicting that relationship in order to capitalize off of queer viewers without scaring away general audiences.

what queerbaiting is not:

• popular fandom ships not becoming canon
• ambiguous or unconventional queer stories
• real people experimenting with their gender or sexuality
• and anything else that doesn’t fit the definition above

transfaguette:

what queerbaiting is:

setting up, advertising, or alluding to queer relationships in media with no intention of actually depicting that relationship in order to capitalize off of queer viewers without scaring away general audiences.

what queerbaiting is not:

• popular fandom ships not becoming canon
• ambiguous or unconventional queer stories
• real people experimenting with their gender or sexuality
• and anything else that doesn’t fit the definition above

transfaguette:

what queerbaiting is:

setting up, advertising, or alluding to queer relationships in media with no intention of actually depicting that relationship in order to capitalize off of queer viewers without scaring away general audiences.

what queerbaiting is not:

• popular fandom ships not becoming canon
• ambiguous or unconventional queer stories
• real people experimenting with their gender or sexuality
• and anything else that doesn’t fit the definition above

transfaguette:

what queerbaiting is:

setting up, advertising, or alluding to queer relationships in media with no intention of actually depicting that relationship in order to capitalize off of queer viewers without scaring away general audiences.

what queerbaiting is not:

• popular fandom ships not becoming canon
• ambiguous or unconventional queer stories
• real people experimenting with their gender or sexuality
• and anything else that doesn’t fit the definition above

*nails this to the doors of tumblr like I’m Martin Luther*

good evening to the first book in the sge series and only the first book

transfaguette:

what queerbaiting is:

setting up, advertising, or alluding to queer relationships in media with no intention of actually depicting that relationship in order to capitalize off of queer viewers without scaring away general audiences.

what queerbaiting is not:

• popular fandom ships not becoming canon
• ambiguous or unconventional queer stories
• real people experimenting with their gender or sexuality
• and anything else that doesn’t fit the definition above

annabelle–cane:

one annoying knock on effect of queerbaiting is how it kind of kills actually good serialized queer storytelling because audiences will either a) assume deliberate relationship and character progression is irrelevant and ignorable until a really obvious beat then claim it “came out of nowhere” or b) go on the offensive and assume malicious intent. like if your audience won’t give the benefit of the doubt then you can’t have long term slow burn romances, gradual identity discovery arcs, or even standard breakup narratives because those could all look like “baiting” before the resolution episode comes out in three month’s time or something.

dathen:

I fucking love how Our Flag Means death has explicit, unabashed queer romance and character but ALSO has wall-to-wall metaphors and symbolism. We can have the kiss but we can ALSO read into the colors of wardrobes and whether a character wears gloves or not. We can read into the metaphor of Stede’s secret closet and letting Ed in, and ALSO have a fully fleshed-out storyline about a gay man in a loveless marriage telling his wife “his name is Ed.” We have the red silk scene in the moonlight, of gently handling a bit of cloth to represent a heart, and we have “what makes Ed happy is…you.”

We get all the subtle details of brief touches and meaningful glances, but not instead of explicit queerness—it’s that the unabashedly queer characters and story deserve that level of build-up and poetry.

theend:

This is both funny and sad at the same time. David Jenkins was out here writing explicitly romantic scenes but we were all too used to being baited to believe him. I owe this man my life

alice-in-marvelous-land:

buddiebeginz:

from this article

I honestly don’t get why fandom keeps excusing the show runners with these bs takes. First of all when did they explicitly say that Buck or Eddie are straight? And then she denies using Eddie and Buck’s relationship to bait fans but then admits they’ve made “jokes” about their relationship. Yeah like having the elf assume they were a couple and then having Buck not correct her. That to me doesn’t feel like a joke it feels like it’s leading the audience at least a little in the beginning. Even more so in the seasons since then when they’ve become increasingly aware of how much Buck and Eddie are shipped yet they write their scenes and their relationship so different than other relationships on the show.

Also her comments like “if they’re in scenes we’re queer baiting, if they’re not we’re queer baiting.” Feels kind of gaslighting to me. I don’t see people yelling queerbaiting if Buck and Eddie aren’t in a scene together. People might complain if they don’t get scenes of them but that’s not the queer baiting issue. The issue with queer baiting or whatever label you want to put on it (since I know that’s a huge point of contention in fandom). is that the show is acutely aware of how much these two men are shipped. And wether they want to admit it or not they do perpetuate that and they do use Buddie fans to their advantage, without any apparent intent to further their relationship.

Anyway I’ve already written a long post about my thoughts on this whole queer baiting thing with 911 here.

Maybe J.K. Rowling hid the homosexuality so people wouldn’t call her movie The Crimes of Grindrwald

funny thing about stranger things “it’s up to interpretation” is there’s only two possible scenarios, both of which we deserve better & we KNOW from ofmd that it’s possible to have it.

1: they are just straight-up queerbaiting under the excuse that “he doesn’t know himself yet.” yes, he is still pretty young in the show and taking time to figure yourself out is ok! but you can make a character queer without having it all figured out yet, or even saying any identity at all. in ofmd there is not a single use of a label, and stede is clearly figuring things out throughout the first season. but the queerness is not subtext. there are scenes that make it very clear without using labels. and we all love it! the problem is when your character’s queerness is entirely subtext, tiny hints here and there, and your cast hypes it up in fairly clear terms, then you say, oh. well maybe he is maybe he isn’t it’s 2022 we don’t need labels ❤️

2: volume 2 will make him explicitly queer, the cast was hyped about this and said too much, netflix freaked and told them to walk it back because, spoilers i really wouldn’t be surprised with netflix’s track record. but y’all don’t need to do this! if people are excited, let us be excited. if the cast is spoiling too much, just tell them to be more careful. you don’t need to drop the line that’s been weaponized against us for YEARS that it’s up to interpretation. and again, we have seen in ofmd that cast/creators basically spoiling things is not a big deal, if anything it promotes more hype around the show within reason. they’ve pretty much confirmed izzy is gay. vico talked about the idea of roach giving jim top surgery and having a polyam relationship with spanish jackie and olu. david jenkins said the next season is going to focus on heartbreak. nathan is freely tweeting as if he’s going to be part of season 2 despite supposedly being dead. we don’t care! we eat it up!!!

Just a Pride month reminder that The CW can go fuck themselves.

They baited us along for about a decade, and ended the show with no gratification.

Making Cas’ love for Dean is NOT, I repeat, NOT making Destiel canon, and does NOT satisfy.

Destiel is NOT canon- we in the LGBTQIA+ community have just been taken advantage of for years.

Stay pissed, my friends! ✌

The irregulars really said we’re going to give you cannon Johnlock but we’re going to make it so fucking toxic <3

well it ain’t gonna be hard to replace supergirl’s queerbaits since every show is constantly queerbaiting us dumb miserable sapphics

toomanyfandomstowrite:

Reasons why it’s not biphobic to be upset about Sylki:

• Number One: many people interpret selfcest as incestuous (same person, same parents, same DNA, that stuff) or are just generally uncomfortable with the idea. Don’t shame or insult people who perceived the dynamic as sibling-esque in nature.
• Number Two: Disney ‘confirmed’ their bisexuality and Loki’s gender fluidity in a way that can be easily censored or edited out. It’s painfully obvious they did this so they can win some woke points but still get the cash from homophobic countries.
• And finally, Number Three: Disney is too gross and cowardly to have a popular main character be in a blatantly, expressly queer relationship and it really shows (see also: Bucky Barnes).

They can say all they want that Loki and Sylvie are bisexual, they can pat themselves on the back for slipping ‘Sex: Fluid’ onto Loki’s paperwork, but the fact of the matter is that Sylki is Disney’s queerbait heterosexual cash cow: applause from people praising the ‘queer rep’, and revenue from the countries who don’t want to see gay people onscreen.

Signed: an angry queer person with angry queer friends

transfaguette:

what queerbaiting is:

setting up, advertising, or alluding to queer relationships in media with no intention of actually depicting that relationship in order to capitalize off of queer viewers without scaring away general audiences.

what queerbaiting is not:

• popular fandom ships not becoming canon
• ambiguous or unconventional queer stories
• real people experimenting with their gender or sexuality
• and anything else that doesn’t fit the definition above

consistently surprised at the cw’s ability to raise the queerbaiting bar higher and higher. every time I think it can’t get worse, they pull out another showstopper. 10/10 I have been baited.

You know, I went to see Mark Gatiss (and Ian Hallard) in the Boys in the Band tonight and I still cannot reconcile how a man who stars in this seminal queer play together with his husband, a man who supports a number of LGBT+ causes and charities, a man who’s gone on record about the instrumental role of “incidentally gay” fictional characters in making “the revolution” happen……I don’t understand how this same man can enjoy enveloping his own characters in swathes of homoerotic tension, yet refuse to acknowledge the queerbaiting that’s inherent in the said relationship not coming to fruition or having any sort of narratively appropriate resolution. 

Something doesn’t add up here. 

femmejohn:

there is no acceptable use of “gay jokes” just for the sake of a joke on your tv show in the year 2017 and you shouldn’t have to be gay to agree with that

Nor “homoerotic tension.’ I get that Moffat is a hopelessly clueless and crass arsehole, but Gatiss should know better than that. 

tomatomagica:

tomatomagica:

“queerbaiting in real life” you mean exploring self expression regardless of the outcome bc it’s good for you and not owing it to people to come out???

queerbaiting is a marketing technique real people aren’t products or your fictional blorbos even the mega celebrities are owed privacy jesus christ