I want queer people to be able to turn on the tv and see themselves.
i want them to be able to watch a shitty romantic comedy with an obvious plot and see themselves, to watch a serious tv show about vampire killing FBI agents and see themselves, to watch a fairytale kid’s movie and see themselves-
i want queer people to count as people outside of shitty, offensive dramas that see queerness as a gate to more drama, something all-defining and life-ruining, written by writers who don’t care enough to learn what’s a stereotype and what’s reality and still want cookies for putting goddamn cardboard cuttouts on their show-
and i want that queerness to be evident and unarguable.
i don’t want shitty backhanded references to a dude’s “friendliness” with his best friend-
i don’t want half-hearted mentions of a main character’s gay friend in an attempt to prove that the character and that the show aren’t homophobic-
I don’t want queerbaiting, that straight viewers can claim was just a joke, because it was, it’s just a joke the show can profit off for “representing” someone they don’t even fucking count as enough of a person to deserve to be treated with respect-
And i want queer ladies and queer dudes and genderqueer queers and i want them to be different races and classes and have different goals and opinions and lifestyles and fashion choices and interests and lives and challenges, because queer people are not one, shitty, poorly done stereotype
I want to count as a fucking person
i want every single queer person to count as a fucking person
a person whose story isn’t a joke, isn’t something to be ashamed of, isn’t something you see once in an afterschool special about not bullying people, until they get “turned straight” or “fixed” or “just hadn’t met the right person” or fucking kill themselves or turn out to be the villain if they “stay queer” because being queer means one has to be ‘punished’ for it-
I want us to fucking count, and i want the media to acknowledge we count.
a thing about queerbaiting
- a great deal of show creators/writers are aware of fandom and slash. people have been tweeting creators/actors their fanfiction for a really long time.
- also Google is a thing.
- as is the New York Times, TIME, The Guardian and many other news sources.
- fandom and fanfiction is not a secret; the idea that slash is popular among women is not a secret and that involvement with fandom creates loyal fans.
- thus creators and writers will throw little bones to fandom via queerbaiting
- this is sort of bad
- queerbaiting involves fetishizing queerness but never committing to it. queerbaiting is like playing gay chicken, queerbaiting is meant to tantalize but not explore the relationship, queer baiting is the equivalent of telling your friend you care but then screaming loudly as possible NO HOMO
- queerbaiting is not progress
- thank you for letting me use bullet points
On Queerbaiting and Misha's Comments at NJCon
“I did a convention in Seattle. I don’t know what it was I said or what transpired, I don’t know what it was. But people got upset and I feel like it was really unfair, what was said.
First of all, I think the term “queerbaiting” is not accurate. It pissed me off, because I feel like a real champion of that community with all those letters [LGBTQA] - you know, I’ve officiated gay weddings. Also, I don’t understand what the term means.”
— Misha Collins at NJCon 2013
The whole quote is here on youTube.
Let me state first of all that I respect Misha a lot for this comment. I’ve rarely seen celebrities respect slash fandom to a degree where they will engage in a serious discussion about the issues slash fans bring up at cons, often in a less-than-rational fashion. So hey, go Misha. Thanks for engaging. Here’s my answer. It’s long, but keep reading. It’ll all come together in the end.
And Some You Just Can't Tell
No matter your opinion on shipping Destiel, it’s absolutely canon that Dean cares so deeply about Castiel that it can fairly be called love. That he trusts him implicitly, even when there is reason not to. That he is willing to give Cas more chances than anyone except his own brother, and forgive him for staggering offenses. In 8.17, he continued to express that love and confidence even as Cas was literally beating him to death, pleading with his friend in the certainty that he wasn’t operating of his own violition and reminding him how much their relationship meant.
And yet when Cas reached for him after dropping the blade, he still flinched, closed his eyes, drew back and braced himself to die. Because he DOES know Cas. He’s seen him as a warrior for almost five years, and he’s learned that when Cas is going to heal someone, he uses two fingers. When he uses the open palm, bitch gonna get smote. He was coming at Dean with an open palm.
Of course, we all know that he didn’t smite Dean. Cas not only healed him, it was a gesture kinder, more gentle, and more intimate than any we’ve ever seen him make towards any being. But that doesn’t mean it was wrong, faithless, unfounded, cowardly, or ridiculous for Dean to cringe when he saw the open hand coming towards him.
No matter your opinion on shipping Destiel, the fandom cares so deeply about Supernatural and the characters of Dean and Castiel that it can fairly be called a form of love. We trust them implicitly, even when there is reason not to. We are willing to give them almost endless chances, and forgive them for staggering offenses. Some of these are extradiegetic, like problematic content or badly handled story arcs, but there is also the simple fact that a serial drama intradiegetically HURTS. Week after week, the very nature of the narrative tears our hearts out and plays kickball with them, then hands them back to sob over until the next episode.
But we’ve seen how television works for most of our lives. We know that in an action-oriented genre like this (as opposed to a more social-commentary format), if a show approaches us “with two fingers” on same-sex content, we’re going to be ok. Not great, but no worse off than we were before. That means that there will be subtext, possibly even intentional, but it will be understood that it is never going to go anywhere and that we may walk away with our implictly condoned fanon. From Kirk/Spock to Xena/Gabrielle, Fraser/Ray, Jim/Blair, etc, while they might not LIKE it and may WISH there was more, fans have come to accept the two-finger subtext approach and don’t cringe TOO badly when we see it coming.
But we have also come to learn the meaning of the open palm of outright queerbaiting. When the canon comes at us with overt references to a same sex couple that doesn’t have at least one character previously established as queer (like Jack/Ianto), there’s a smiting coming. We’re about to get laughed at outright (Sherlock) or taken right up to the end and then have it tossed as a Word of God copout retcon (Merlin, Dumbledore).
Now, we have every possible reason to believe that Supernatural is not intending to harm us. They have made it very clear that they are aware of Destiel intra and extradiegetically in a respectful way. There are creative team members LIVING with Destiel shippers and GUESTSTARRING on Destiel podcasts. Cast and crew members have clearly positioned themselves as LGBT+ allies. The show has consistently treated LGBT characters very well. They have, so to speak, already dropped the blade.
But they are still coming at us with an open hand. At this point, we have been brought so far with canon Destiel content - beaten so badly, so to speak - that when their hand makes contact and it goes definitively one way or another (whether that’s in the next two episodes or not until the last shot of the last episode of the series) we are either going to be smote in a more horrible act of betrayal or healed in a more gorgeous act of love than any show has ever done to a fandom on this issue before.
It’s ok that some of us are flinching. That we’re scared. That some of us even have to say “this is too much, it’s not entertainment any more” and walk away. It’s ok that there’s a sick thing in some of our guts saying *this is it, I’m about to be smote*. But that doesn’t make it a foregone conclusion. And that healing wouldn’t have been nearly as beautiful if it HADN’T come out of that breathless, chilling uncertainty.
Fans that are scared that this will all be queerbaiting aren’t “traitors.” They’re not wrong or bad. They’re not somehow lacking in faith. Fans that have to leave because it’s getting too intense are not “jumping ship” or wrong or bad. Fans that are freaking out over the tiniest hint of anything that might be a sign of smiting because the emotional stakes are so high are not wrong or bad. What is NOT ok is to scream that they already HAVE smote us. That is not only objectively untrue, it is incredibly irresponsible towards emotionally vulnerable people who do NOT need to be put through that pain preemptively.
We don’t know what’s going to happen yet.
It’s scary as fuck, and it’s either going to be REALLY good or REALLY bad because they’ve long gone past the point of two fingers, but it’s not done yet. We can argue that the open palm means death and have good points. We can argue that the previous relationship and the needs of the upcoming story structure mean it can’t possibly mean death this time and have good points. We can’t KNOW until Grace flares on flesh, and no, we can’t expect them to castrate their own narrative and tell us ahead of time.
And I’m willing to hang in there, even broken and bleeding, and believe that deep inside, they love us too much to do that to us, even if there are other influences that might.
QUEERBAITING, A USER'S GUIDE.
What queerbaiting is:
- When the creator knowingly and intentionally has two or more otherwise heterosexual characters engage in actions that are classically coded as non-heterosexual with the purpose of courting slash fandom’s interest, while simultaneously having no interest whatsoever in writing any of said characters as non-heterosexual.
What queerbaiting is not:
- When your otp won’t get together in canon.
Things that I know:
- It’s hard for fandom to take their slash goggles off sometimes.
- That’s okay, actually, there’s nothing wrong with that.
- You can ship whoever you want, whenever you want, don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise.
- It can be hard to tell if a creator is queerbaiting even when you don’t have slash goggles permanently welded to your face.
However
- Queerbaiting is a valuable term.
- I for one will be very sad if it goes the way of the spoon metaphor, where a helpful phrase used by the disabled was co-opted by a bunch of people (including myself at one point) who wanted a cool way to say they didn’t feel like doing X, instead of— like in the metaphor’s original use— they were physically unable to do so due to their invisible disability.
So
- Next time you say queerbaiting, just try to… think about… it?
- Like, has the spectre of actual homosexuality and / or bisexuality ever come up in text, only to be refused, smacked down, or ignored?
- I’m not talking like #EYEFUCKING or whatever.
- I’m specifically referring to instances where it’s blatantly brought, either in text or by the media.
In summary
- It can honestly be hard to tell for sure sometimes, especially when you know Adam and Steve’s love is so true and pure. All I’m asking is for you to take a few seconds and take a deep breath before yelling QUEERBAITING.
- If you’re not sure, it might be safer to just say ‘this would be a good opportunity for the creator to write canon gay characters, and isn’t it a shame that they aren’t?’
- Because what queerbaiting means is that the creator is aware of this and is intentionally not doing that, because they don’t actually care about the representation cookies, they’re just banking on your slash goggles.
“To answer the initial question of “what is queerbaiting”: queerbaiting is raising a queer community’s hope for textual queer representation and then ridiculing and shaming them when they actually ask for it. It’s blurring the line between text and subtext and selling subtext as honest-to-god textual representation. It’s putting scenes like the Aaron scene into the show, in the context of season 8’s queer coding of Dean’s character, and later insisting that the scene was only played for laughs.”
—http://t-eyla.tumblr.com/post/50458101524/on-queerbaiting-and-mishas-comments-at-njcon
It is not “jumping ship” to acknowledge that we’re being queerbaited.
Because, newsflash: you can ship something and still acknowledge that the canon your ship builds on is being written in really hurtful ways. For point of fact: a lot of us who call out queerbaiting also ship things that involve queerbaiting.
To make a point of myself, I’m on Team Dean/Castiel and Team Troy/Abed and the former has been queerbaited so, SO much more than the latter (especially with comments from the cast and crew, whereas the Community cast and crew seem to be a little better in this regard), but both of these ships are still problematically written, from a queerbaiting perspective.
I’m trying to put this as simply as I can, because I’m so, SO tired of people going all, “don’t call it queerbaiting, it could still be canon~” or, “don’t call it queerbaiting, that means you’re insulting the ship!!” or, “STOP TELLING PEOPLE HOW TO SHIP THINGS,” or some similar bullshit.
So here, let’s try this out: NO ONE IS SAYING THAT YOU CAN’T SHIP THINGS IN THESE DISCUSSIONS. NO ONE HAS EVER SAID THAT. ALL WE’RE SAYING IS THAT YOU NEED TO BE MORE AWARE OF HOW THE WRITING, AS IT STANDS, IS HURTFUL.
Blog Post 9: No Homo (Queer Baiting)
A technique similar to the ‘gay vague’ technique used by advertising companies is known as ‘queer baiting.’ It has become increasingly common and noticeable in television shows as homosexuality gradually becomes less stigmatized—but the technique is perhaps even more sinister than the relatively harmless gay vague.
Queer baiting* occurs when two characters – “[most commonly] the two white cishet** dude bro protagonists” - are presented in a show as having chemistry. They are often mistaken as boyfriends, which is meant by the writers to create humor; “the joke is their obvious discomfort, because they could obviously never be gay.”
It’s like marriage … only without actual gay people.
Examples include BBC Sherlock, in which John Watson repeatedly insists that he is not gay (I’m not his date!), and USA network’s Common Law, (see above) featuring two straight cops who have to go to couples’ therapy (the title pretty much gives it away). MTV’s Teen Wolf released this video to excite fans of Sterek (Stiles and Derek), but in the canon of the show the characters are never remotely close to getting together for real (and then the writers pulled all this other crap, too). The problem also occurs in BBC’s Doctor Who (thanks to Steven Moffat, who is also one of the head writers for Sherlock) and in CW’s Supernatural (see below).
”Don’t worry Dean, it’s not gay if the writers say so!”
As TV critic Maureen Ryan of The Huffington Post points out,“It might have been funny, a long time ago, for two straight men to constantly fend off the suggestion that they are gay (though perhaps for GLBTQ people, these kinds of jokes were never all that funny),” but the cliché is overused and unhelpful to actual queer people.
This is subtext. But it OBVIOUSLY DOESN’T MEAN THEY’RE GAY I MEAN IF A STRAIGHT COUPLE DID THIS IT WOULD BE TOTALLY PLATONIC.
The unfortunate genius of queer baiting is that it gives TV networks the best of both worlds—they can appeal to gay audiences while never risking backlash because, if asked whether Characters A and B are really gay, they can always just flatly deny that making them gay was even their intention in the first place. That’s what the subtext is for! “[When] push comes to shove, the powers that be [the writers] never actually follow through … I mean, it’s not that kind of show.”
Nope, not a couple.
What makes queer baiting so dangerous and wrong is that it may seem, on the surface, like the queer representation the world so desperately needs. But it is fundamentally NOT, because just talking about queer subtext is nothing like actually having a queer couple on a TV show. It’s not representation. It just erases people who are actually gay—surprise! They actually exist!—and in actual relationships, not fake teasing ones dangled in front of fans’ faces. What the world needs is a show that will promise a queer relationship and then actually follow through and commit to an on-screen relationship between two non-heterosexual characters. Is that really so much to ask?
*of specifically gay characters. Even though gay is only a type of queer, other queer people are unfortunately rarely depicted in media (the term is erasure), so this blog post focuses on queer baiting in a gay context.
**cishet – cisgender, heterosexual
Sources
Ryan, Maureen. Common Law and TV’s Tired “We’re Not Gay” Cliche. The Huffington Post.
crowleyshouseparty on Regarding Queer Baiting: What it Is and What It is Not
Pop Culture is Not Art on Fangirl 101: Queer Baiting
orbitingasupernova (Cate) on Bisexuality in Doctor Who and the Queerbaiting Antics of Steven Moffat
crowleyshouseparty on How Teen Wolf Queer Baits: Stiles to Danny
Johnlock gif: http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxxd13YwKx1r7x7wfo1_500.gif
My problem with tumblr's use of "queerbaiting"
- What "queerbaiting" is:
- Writer: I've got two straight white males who are close friends.
- Pro-Gay Community: If you look at some of these scenes they may be interpreted as romantic rather than platonic. We don't have much representation so we're going to develope the subtext in how heads. It's not much but it's better than nothing.
- Writer: Hey, you really like the gay thing, don't you? Let's drop some hints in interviews that there may be something there.
- Pro-Gay: Wait... are you going to have more going on?
- Writer: And have the actors play it up the suggestion off-set.
- Pro-Gay: Are they actually going to give us some representation on this show?
- Writer: And make the subtext almost text!
- Pro-Gay: Oh my gosh! We've been waiting so long!
- Writer: BUT NO HOMO! They both no get uninteresting female love interests because NO HOMO!
- Pro-Gay: Wait what? But you were the ones building it up!
- Writer: NO HOMO!
- What queerbating means to Tumblr
- Writer: I've got two straight white males who are close friends.
- Pro-Gay Community: If you look at some of these scenes they may be interpreted as romantic rather than platonic. We don't have much representation so we're going to develope the subtext in how heads. It's not much but it's better than nothing.
- Writer: Good for you guys. We're sticking with the interpretation that they are friends but you're free to enjoy the show anyway you want. We will however try and include more canonically gay characters in our work.
- The "Fan"girls: OMG! THESE MEN ARE SOOO ATTRACTIVE! I GET ARROUSED BY THE THOUGHT OF THEM MAKING OUT AND TOUCHING EACH OTHER! THEY ARE SOOOO IN LOVE!
- Writer: Okay... whatever floats your boat. We still say they're just good friends but they do love each other, just not romantically.
- The "Fan"girls: SEE! THE WRITER ADMITTED IT! THEY ARE SO IN LOVE WITH EACH OTHER AND THEY ARE GOING TO HAVE BABIES TOGETHER AND HAVE SEX ALL THE TIME. THIS SHIP SAILS ITSELF!
- Writer: No we meant just as friends. Platonic love.
- The "Fan"girls: LOOK AT MY GRAPHIC FANFICTION AND FANART.
- Pro-Gay: That's a little fetishitic. You're kind of treating these characters and their actors as sex objects rather than human beings.
- The "Fan"girls: BOO! YOU HOMOPHOBES! YOU HATE GAYS! GET OUT OF THE FANDOM YOU GAY HATING HOE!
- The Fangirls who are fangirls: Whoa, calm down. I like the ship too but they've said it isn't going to happen. It's just for fun. It doesn't need to be canon.
- The "Fan"girls: BOO! YOU ARE SO STUPID! OF COURSE THEY ARE GOING TO GET TOGETHER! THEY ARE IN SO MUCH LOVE THAT THEY WOULD DIE WITHOUT EACH OTHER! THEY ARE UNHEALTHILY CO-DEPENDANT AND WE WILL ROMATICISE THAT FACT! WE'RE GOING TO WRITE A 10000 WORD ESSAY ON A GIF-SET WHERE THEY STARE AT EACH OTHER LONGINGLY!
- Actual fangirl: Wasn't that scene literally two seconds long in the actual show and had a very different meaning in conext:
- The "Fan"girls: IT WAS EYESEX!
- Writer: Okay. Well here is one of the character's love interests that we have been developing for a while.
- The "Fan"girls: ...
- The "Fan"girls: WHAT!
- The "Fan"girls: WHAT!?!
- The "Fan"girls: HOW DARE YOU!
- Writer: What?
- The "Fan"girls: HOW DARE YOU MISLEAD US BY PRETENDING YOU'RE GOING TO SHOW US GAY PORN!
- Writer: We've had this female character in mind for a long time...
- The "Fan"girls: SHAME ON YOU! QUEERBAITERS! HOMOPHOBES!
- Writers: We've always said these guys weren't gay. Just give the female character a chance.
- The "Fan"girls: SHE'S A SLUTTY, PRISSY, USELESS, WHINY, EMOTIONLESS, SHIPWREAKING, MARY SUE WHORE.
- Writer: She hasn't even been on the show yet.
- The "Fan"girls: QUEERBAITERS!
Alright. I'm officially confused and would like to be educated.
So, I’ve heard the topic of ‘queerbaiting’ used a lot around here. And how it is a negative and offensive thing.
I’ve tried to look it up but it just confuses me, to be honest.
Also, some of the shows ships that I watch are attacked for queerbaiting. But I still have no idea what that is.
This is why I am turning to you, friends of tumblr, to please explain to me what queerbaiting is and why it is offensive.
(I will be tagging this with subjects and ships that have been associated to help get a response.)
Wiggleroom vs Weasling
I never said they’d say “haha just kidding” (which would be queerbaiting), I said they’d leave themselves a plausibly deniable out in case of overwhelming negative reaction (which would not be). I’d also like to clarify that by plausibly deniable, I mean intradiegetically, not extradiegetically. As in, the show could move forward on the premise that Dean had only kissed Cas because Sex Pollen or Mindfuckery or whatever, while the creators said “we were considering it, but Reasons said no” much as they did with Jo or Anna.
Queerbaiting is a thing that has been getting confused a lot with “ship not going canon,” and that can be a very hurtful and harmful misunderstanding. I’ve talked about it in other meta, but I’ll break it down again here.
Queerbaiting is when a creative team knowingly creates and fosters the belief that a subtextual queer relationship or character is or could be canon with no intention of ever making it anything more than subtext or after-the-fact “Word of Gay.”
Now, let’s walk that through Destiel:
a creative team knowingly creates and fosters the belief that a subtextual queer relationship or character is or could be canon
The creative team HAS explicitly and publicly said that they are aware of how Dean and Cas’ relationship is being perceived by a large chunk of fandom and confirmed that this is at least not an invalid interpretation of subtext. They also have continued to include content that they are aware is being read as queer by a significant majority without making any efforts either in-text or outside of it to counter or oppose those impressions. This differs from, for example, Wincest, where although they HAVE acknowledged that some people see it that way, they have also repeatedly - both in the story and outside it - said that they do not have any intention of ever making the Winchester brothers in a canon incestual relationship. Ergo, Wincest is automatically knocked out of the running for potential queerbaiting while Destiel makes it to the next round…
with no intention of ever making it anything more than subtext
This is where we get the part that intersects with your question. If they intend for Destiel to be a valid option but something else shoots it down, even if they’ve left deliberate narrative room for that possibility? (Fan backlash, ratings plummet, advertiser backlash, network backlash, something happening to Misha or Jensen, etc) That is not queerbaiting.
If Cas and Dean acknowledge their attraction/feelings for one another but choose not to enter a relationship for any reason, including in favor of a woman? That is not queerbaiting.
If Cas and Dean screw everything that crosses the screen with a vagina before addressing their feelings for each other? That is not queerbaiting.
If Cas and Dean never actually “say the thing” in terms of acknowledging that they have feels, are non-heterosexual, are in a relationship, etc, but it is clear by any reasonable person’s standards that they are not platonic (kiss scene, shared bed, etc)? That is not queerbaiting.
If they take Destiel canon but they wind up breaking up and either remaining single or pairing off with other characters? That is not queerbaiting, even if those other characters are women.
If they don’t take Destiel canon until the last shot of the last scene of the last episode and make it clear-but-subtle or even certain kinds of could-go-either-way-if-you-squint, like a kiss that diehard homophobes could still insist was platonic because it didn’t come with a spoken “I love you” but would absolutely still make Destiel canon? That’s not queerbaiting.
If they write and film canon Destiel content but it gets cut against their will? That’s not queerbaiting.
If they intend to take Destiel canon but the story winds up going in another direction and they acknowledge that? That is not queerbaiting.
Would these things all suck for shippers and, to an extent, for queer people? Absolutely. But they would not be queerbaiting.
It will only be queerbaiting if we get to the last shot of the last scene of the last episode of the last season of the series and not only has Destiel not gone canon, the creative team acknowledges that they never intended for them to be anything beyond subtext.
the thing that always gets me is how fandom always blames queerbaiting in media as being slash fans’ fault
these multi-million-dollar, hegemony-fueled, content-producing entities aren’t the ones to blame here for making dishonest overtures toward incorporating queer content and then rescinding it
oh, no, it’s the dumb slash fangurls’ fault for being invested in depictions of queerness
if only girls would quit liking things, systematic equality in media would be solved forever!!!!! huzzah
ok misha
i like you and a lot of things you’ve done
but i am so disappointed in you right now
you don’t get cookies because you think you’re a great ally to the community “with all those letters”
i know you think you’re being funny but your words hurt people
i know you think that every queer person ought to hold you in high-esteem because you’ve officiated gay weddings and have gay friends and have probably been to pride parades
but no that’s not how it works
i know you think that people are just throwing around accusations of queerbaiting at you
but when queer people, when the people of the community you claim to be a champion of, tell you that you’ve done something wrong
you sit the fuck down and listen
i know it’s hard but you do it anyway
i know you think you’re awesome for supporting the lgbtq community, but if your support is conditional upon all queer people being nice to you, then you are not an ally
if your support is conditional upon everyone laughing along with jokes that hurt them or degrade them, you are not an ally
if your support is conditional upon never being pissed off or feeling hurt when someone calls you out on problematic things, you are not a fucking ally
everyone fucks up, makes mistakes at some point
but if you’re not willing to listen to the people you’ve hurt and learn from them?
then why would they want you as a champion
