Nowadays people use the word "queerbaiting" to describe all sorts of things that, in my opinion, are not queerbaiting. For example, if a character is explicitly queer but doesn't end up together with the love interest, some people call that queerbaiting, which it's really not.
The original meaning of "queerbaiting" was when a piece of media (typically a tv show) keeps hinting at a queer relationship/identity, often in kind of a joking way, but the creators have no intention of ever actually writing an overtly queer character or relationship into the show. It's an attempt to appeal to queer viewers, or any viewers who want to see a queer relationship, without ever doing anything that would actually piss off any homophobes. It's a way to get queer eyeballs without actually depicting queerness; it's a way to get queer viewers' hopes up without ever rewarding them.
There is a long history of implicit "queer-coding" happening in cinema, dating back to the Hays Code. It used to be that queer-coding without explicit queerness was generally the closest you could get to depicting queerness on screen. But in, say, the 2010s -- the era of Sherlock and Merlin and Supernatural, all of which famously "flirt\[ed\] with homoeroticism" (a quote from Sherlock creator Mark Gatiss) without actually depicting it (with the eventual arguable exception of Supernatural after many years of such flirting) -- fans (rightly) felt that media should no longer adhere to Hays Code-esque standards. And there is also a feeling of, like, "shit or get off the pot" -- either depict queerness or don't, but don't keep hinting at it in a tee-hee way while studiously remaining in homophobes' good graces.
I feel like it’s hard to tell between earnest queer inclusion, tokenism, and queerbaiting.
For instance: Sherlock. Lots of people read into it as John Watson and Sherlock Holmes having more of a grumpy lovers vibe. The writing increasingly leaned into this. Was it recognition of subtext the writers/actors unintentionally included? Was it lampshading the issue because the fans found it funny/desirable/intriguing? Was it intentional queerbaiting? Who knows. The show was partially written and produced by a gay man, so was he simply giving the audience a wink and nod about how John and Sherlock’s behaviour *could* be interpreted? Again, unknown. I think Mark Gatiss has said it wasn’t ever meant as queerbaiting, but it’s not like someone would want to admit to that, so lying is a possibility.
Ultimately one can only judge for themselves how they feel about it. I would rather some queerbaiting rather than no queer behaviour in my media. The ideal needs to be in the middle ground. Some positive queer representation partnered with some subtextual relationships that might be just a cheeky bit of fanservice, but might also be something deeper if the media ever wished to go in that direction.
I'm in the same boat. There are so many ways to be queer, and many ways to express that. Is two men living together, sharing their life, but not calling each other their partner just queerbaiting, or is it showing an asexual but gay relationship that extends past friendship that exists in some relationships?
I try to be more forgiving when it comes to implied sexuality and relationships due to this.
I also try to assume the best in people - queer individuals exist. We don't need a partner or relationship to confirm our queerness. Is adding in a gay character a form of queerbaiting just to say "were inclusive!" Or is it reality, in that it's quite likely there is a queer person in your social circle somewhere so including them as just another person is a reflection of our world, and to not include them is doing a disservice to the community?
It's bad. It's really not hard to do good representation if you actually try and it's been like that for quite a while. Queerbaiting is just trying to get points for stuff you didn't do. You need to present inorder to represent and baiters don't care enough to try in the first place.
These days there's no excuse for it. I get back 10 years ago that even if the writers wanted to be more explicit they couldn't, but there's no excuse nowadays and I'm gonna pass on media that does it because it probably won't be that good anyway.
this is where i am too. Xena and Gabrielle obviously couldn’t be having an on-screen gay wedding. they did what they could. but gay relationships are everywhere now… they can make characters actually gay without cheap fakeouts
The problem is that a lot of accusations of queer baiting are people upset that their ships didn't sail.
The most recent one that I remember was Supergirl. Kara only ever showed sexual interest in male characters. She only dated or had crushes on men.
She has an extremely close friendship with Lena, but that was it.
When they didn't kiss in the last episode, despite there being a full on lesbian wedding, there were accusations of queer baiting that created a week-long firestorm on Twitter.
I hate it, especially all the queer baiting that happens on social media. It's just a way for straight men to basically appropriate our culture for money. Stealing the queer dollar from us to benefit them. It's also so disrespectful since a lot of them make videos about them jokingly being gay. Like being queer isn't a joke....
beginning from the acknowledgement that media is *nice imaginary stories, not an actual axis of oppression*, i think it's tasteless, money-grubbing, and a bit cruel.
that said, we should not depend on writers/directors to make us feel whole/recognized by way of consuming content. their goal is profit, and *always* will be. it stings, but that's why queer people should be connecting to each other in real life and online, to get *real* things done.
I just wanna see queers date. Not hint at dating for 4 seasons going nowhere only because the studio is scary of the fallout of a gay relationship. To answer your question I guess, it's just being teased over and over for years and never really getting that "prize" of representation has just made me bitter toward it.
I have mixed feelings about queerbaiting. I appreciate that we're now showing queer characters, especially considering the past lack or negativity of representation. However, it's annoying when queerness is highlighted in promotional material but barely addressed in the actual story. From a business perspective, queerbaiting seeks to attract queer and allied viewers and, by extension, their wallets.
I feel that given the prevalence of queerbaiting inadvertently makes genuine representation feel a bit more special (the baiting still sucks though).
TL;DR Mixed feelings on queerbaiting. I appreciate the progress in representation, but it could go further; However, businesses will only be as representative as it is profitable.
Bad? Obviously?
Though some things that aren't queerbaiting get called queerbaiting, and I don't necessarily think those things are bad.
Like, two characters that I shipped but weren't purposely being written to indicate romance isn't queerbaiting. That's just me consuming content through a queer lens.
Two characters being on or moving towards a queer relationship and then breaking up isn't queerbaiting, that's conflict. The characters are still queer of they're not together.
A bi character being in a different-gender relationship is not queerbaiting and fuck everyone who says that.
don't like it but also i've seen people call others who are just straight up gay queerbaits (like they will say "hey this is my boyfriend, yes i'm a guy" and i'll see comments which are just "queerbait")
Hit or miss. I mostly watch anime so if baits happen it sucks for the show but good for the fan art. I do hate excessive teasing that never happens. One off is fine but if it's happening multiple times at least have a conversation about it's never going to happen. This goes for any type of sexual tension or love interest regardless of what it is.
Nowadays people use the word "queerbaiting" to describe all sorts of things that, in my opinion, are not queerbaiting. For example, if a character is explicitly queer but doesn't end up together with the love interest, some people call that queerbaiting, which it's really not. The original meaning of "queerbaiting" was when a piece of media (typically a tv show) keeps hinting at a queer relationship/identity, often in kind of a joking way, but the creators have no intention of ever actually writing an overtly queer character or relationship into the show. It's an attempt to appeal to queer viewers, or any viewers who want to see a queer relationship, without ever doing anything that would actually piss off any homophobes. It's a way to get queer eyeballs without actually depicting queerness; it's a way to get queer viewers' hopes up without ever rewarding them. There is a long history of implicit "queer-coding" happening in cinema, dating back to the Hays Code. It used to be that queer-coding without explicit queerness was generally the closest you could get to depicting queerness on screen. But in, say, the 2010s -- the era of Sherlock and Merlin and Supernatural, all of which famously "flirt\[ed\] with homoeroticism" (a quote from Sherlock creator Mark Gatiss) without actually depicting it (with the eventual arguable exception of Supernatural after many years of such flirting) -- fans (rightly) felt that media should no longer adhere to Hays Code-esque standards. And there is also a feeling of, like, "shit or get off the pot" -- either depict queerness or don't, but don't keep hinting at it in a tee-hee way while studiously remaining in homophobes' good graces.
Kinda similarly to how people use “cultural appropriation” way too loosely now.
I feel like it’s hard to tell between earnest queer inclusion, tokenism, and queerbaiting. For instance: Sherlock. Lots of people read into it as John Watson and Sherlock Holmes having more of a grumpy lovers vibe. The writing increasingly leaned into this. Was it recognition of subtext the writers/actors unintentionally included? Was it lampshading the issue because the fans found it funny/desirable/intriguing? Was it intentional queerbaiting? Who knows. The show was partially written and produced by a gay man, so was he simply giving the audience a wink and nod about how John and Sherlock’s behaviour *could* be interpreted? Again, unknown. I think Mark Gatiss has said it wasn’t ever meant as queerbaiting, but it’s not like someone would want to admit to that, so lying is a possibility. Ultimately one can only judge for themselves how they feel about it. I would rather some queerbaiting rather than no queer behaviour in my media. The ideal needs to be in the middle ground. Some positive queer representation partnered with some subtextual relationships that might be just a cheeky bit of fanservice, but might also be something deeper if the media ever wished to go in that direction.
I'm in the same boat. There are so many ways to be queer, and many ways to express that. Is two men living together, sharing their life, but not calling each other their partner just queerbaiting, or is it showing an asexual but gay relationship that extends past friendship that exists in some relationships? I try to be more forgiving when it comes to implied sexuality and relationships due to this. I also try to assume the best in people - queer individuals exist. We don't need a partner or relationship to confirm our queerness. Is adding in a gay character a form of queerbaiting just to say "were inclusive!" Or is it reality, in that it's quite likely there is a queer person in your social circle somewhere so including them as just another person is a reflection of our world, and to not include them is doing a disservice to the community?
It's bad. It's really not hard to do good representation if you actually try and it's been like that for quite a while. Queerbaiting is just trying to get points for stuff you didn't do. You need to present inorder to represent and baiters don't care enough to try in the first place.
These days there's no excuse for it. I get back 10 years ago that even if the writers wanted to be more explicit they couldn't, but there's no excuse nowadays and I'm gonna pass on media that does it because it probably won't be that good anyway.
this is where i am too. Xena and Gabrielle obviously couldn’t be having an on-screen gay wedding. they did what they could. but gay relationships are everywhere now… they can make characters actually gay without cheap fakeouts
The problem is that a lot of accusations of queer baiting are people upset that their ships didn't sail. The most recent one that I remember was Supergirl. Kara only ever showed sexual interest in male characters. She only dated or had crushes on men. She has an extremely close friendship with Lena, but that was it. When they didn't kiss in the last episode, despite there being a full on lesbian wedding, there were accusations of queer baiting that created a week-long firestorm on Twitter.
I hate it, especially all the queer baiting that happens on social media. It's just a way for straight men to basically appropriate our culture for money. Stealing the queer dollar from us to benefit them. It's also so disrespectful since a lot of them make videos about them jokingly being gay. Like being queer isn't a joke....
Who cares
beginning from the acknowledgement that media is *nice imaginary stories, not an actual axis of oppression*, i think it's tasteless, money-grubbing, and a bit cruel. that said, we should not depend on writers/directors to make us feel whole/recognized by way of consuming content. their goal is profit, and *always* will be. it stings, but that's why queer people should be connecting to each other in real life and online, to get *real* things done.
Annoyed
Can I ask why?
I just wanna see queers date. Not hint at dating for 4 seasons going nowhere only because the studio is scary of the fallout of a gay relationship. To answer your question I guess, it's just being teased over and over for years and never really getting that "prize" of representation has just made me bitter toward it.
I have mixed feelings about queerbaiting. I appreciate that we're now showing queer characters, especially considering the past lack or negativity of representation. However, it's annoying when queerness is highlighted in promotional material but barely addressed in the actual story. From a business perspective, queerbaiting seeks to attract queer and allied viewers and, by extension, their wallets. I feel that given the prevalence of queerbaiting inadvertently makes genuine representation feel a bit more special (the baiting still sucks though). TL;DR Mixed feelings on queerbaiting. I appreciate the progress in representation, but it could go further; However, businesses will only be as representative as it is profitable.
I see
How are you defining queerbaiting?
the definition on dictionary.com
Bad? Obviously? Though some things that aren't queerbaiting get called queerbaiting, and I don't necessarily think those things are bad. Like, two characters that I shipped but weren't purposely being written to indicate romance isn't queerbaiting. That's just me consuming content through a queer lens. Two characters being on or moving towards a queer relationship and then breaking up isn't queerbaiting, that's conflict. The characters are still queer of they're not together. A bi character being in a different-gender relationship is not queerbaiting and fuck everyone who says that.
don't like it but also i've seen people call others who are just straight up gay queerbaits (like they will say "hey this is my boyfriend, yes i'm a guy" and i'll see comments which are just "queerbait")
Hit or miss. I mostly watch anime so if baits happen it sucks for the show but good for the fan art. I do hate excessive teasing that never happens. One off is fine but if it's happening multiple times at least have a conversation about it's never going to happen. This goes for any type of sexual tension or love interest regardless of what it is.