To Gay or Not to Gay: The Evolution of Queerbaiting

To gay, or not to gay? That is the question asked by producers and executives in the entertainment industry as queer representation in mainstream film and television becomes more normalized.

While onscreen appearances of queer characters used to be considered groundbreaking, risqué, and highly controversial, they are now considerably commonplace and a popular way to “diversify” a cast.

This summer alone, two blockbusters geared toward child audiences, “Power Rangers” and “Beauty and the Beast,” featured confirmed gay characters. Spy movie “Atomic Blonde” was led by queer female characters, and “Wonder Woman,” the origin story of America’s favorite bisexual superheroine, broke box office records.

While this seems to be ample queer representation, most of it only appeared in the marketing of the films and not in the actual films themselves. The only movie of these four to truly portray a same-sex relationship was “Atomic Blonde,” and it was hypersexualized to appeal to the male gaze. Moreover, the main character’s same-sex love interest, brutally killed off in a careless manner, was treated as a disposable object. Queer, especially queer female, characters are killed off in movies and television shows so frequently that there’s a name for it—the “bury your gays” trope.

In the other three movies, there was little to no queer representation. In “Power Rangers,” there were only slight implications in a brief onscreen moment that the yellow ranger could be a lesbian. The flamboyant LeFou of “Beauty and the Beast” was not much more than a messy conglomeration of stereotypes; the only actual indication of his sexuality was located in his two-second-long dance with a man in the credits. Though Wonder Woman was confirmed as bisexual by DC Comics, the “Wonder Woman” movie does not acknowledge this aspect of her character at all.

Yet, these movies widely marketed these subtle nods to the queer community as “gay characters,” “gay moments,” and “exclusively gay,” giving the impression that queer representation was a central aspect of these films. They primarily did this for three reasons: to pretend that they care about diverse representation, to be radical and groundbreaking, and to attract a large queer following.

The act of marketing a movie or TV show to appeal to the queer community without thoughtfully portraying queer characters is called “queerbaiting.” Queerbaiting has been a frequent practice in mainstream media for quite some time. It was coined on the internet by queer fanbases in the 2000s and has since evolved as the entertainment industry adapts to a rapidly changing political climate.

The term was first widely used to describe the subtextual relationships between two male characters in “Sherlock” and “Supernatural” and the similarly subtextual relationships that evolved in television shows like “Merlin,” “Once Upon a Time,” and “Rizzoli and Isles.”

These shows would acquire a queer following by purposefully portraying same-sex platonic relationships with slightly romantic undertones. Producers, directors, showrunners, and even actors would acknowledge the possibility of these relationships to keep fans on edge, but would never make them a reality.

While these television shows have had no problem enticing fans with subtextual same-sex relationships, they have been averse to explicitly portraying them because of the potential controversy and lowering in ratings. They use the queer community for optimal viewer numbers and ratings, treating them as a commodity.

However, the growing desire for legitimate, thoughtful representation has compelled many people to speak out against queerbaiting, warning fans not to fall for these tricks. With queer subtext yielding less and less success, producers turned to the next trick in the book—the “bury your gays” trope—introducing queer characters, effusively promoting them, and then quickly disposing of them.

The CW’s “The 100” advertised the relationship between two female characters masquerading as fervent advocates of the queer community in March 2016, and then abruptly and recklessly killed off one of these characters. The showrunner and writers were met with an overwhelmingly negative reaction from fans, and viewership plummeted. Since then, awareness of “bury your gays” and “lesbian death syndrome” have spread, and they have become less common—though not completely extinct—practices.

That brings us to where we are now. In a sociopolitical climate more tolerant of queer media representation than ever before, gay characters are able to exist without dying, but they still don’t have any real onscreen presence. Lesbian couples are two women briefly shown standing next to a stroller in “Finding Dory,” and if you look closely enough, you may see two men dancing in the background of the credits of “Beauty and the Beast.”

Positive representation of the queer community becomes more prevalent each year, with movies like “Moonlight” and “Carol” and TV shows like “The Bold Type,” “Shadowhunters,” and “Orange is the New Black,” but queerbaiting is far from a dying practice. To treat queer fanbases as disposable commodities is demoralizing and dehumanizing and perpetuates negative attitudes and opinions of the queer community.

I’m not going to be naïve and pretend that Hollywood cares more about making art than making a profit, but it wouldn’t hurt the film and television industries to tell a story that has not yet been told—the story of a queer person who is more than a one-dimensional character, the punchline of a joke, or a brief cameo. Better yet, tell the story of a trans person. Well-developed trans and nonbinary storylines are seldom present in mainstream media.

If stories don’t involve the LGBTQ+ community, they shouldn’t be advertised as such. Instead of letting queerbaiting continue to manifest in new ways, we should end it altogether.