• IsoSpandy ( IsoSpandy@lemm.ee ) 
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      3 years ago

      No there is a difference I guess. Like personally I love brooklyn nine nine and Kevin and Holt are my all time favourite couple, period. It doesn’t matter if they are gay or not, they are just perfect. But on the other hand I had to quit modern family midway because I can’t tolerate cam. Mitch is a very good character but Cam feels very over the top. Online I have seen that people just love cam and sure he has his moments too. But I cannot stand him in general. So I believe there is a psychological line for every one. Now people may differ from my opinion and I have no qualms with that, entertainment is for enjoyment and it is actually beautiful that different people have different tastes. I just shared my opinion.

      • Solivine ( solivine@sopuli.xyz ) 
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        3 years ago

        To me, that just applies to relationships in shows in general. Some are just completely unnecessary, and sometimes that extends to queer ones too, but it’s not the queerness that is to blame, it’s the forced or uncomfortable romance.

        I think romance is overused in shows in general, but I suppose it makes sense since it does make up a lot of people’s existence, so I guess it’s something to be tolerated.

        • For the straight relationship being unnecessary bit, I think Pacific Rim did it right.

          When it looked like they were about to do the whole “let’s make out while the search party finds us” bit, I was going “oh come on, don’t do it, it’s completely unnecessary. I came here for mechs vs kaiju punch fests, I don’t care about some bullshit romantic d plot”

          I know plenty of people who were pissed they didn’t go there, but it’s completely irrelevant.

          Plenty of hetero couples on screen have 0 chemistry and it ruins the shows or movies a bit for me… Really, if it’s not necessary to the plot, why have romantic things at all? Why does the generic white guy on the screen need to have a wife and 3 children never see? It doesn’t come up during the plot points, nobody else mentions them, so why?

          Don’t even get me started on the gay panic certain producers of Star Trek had and forced awkward hetero relationships that made no sense and were almost never mentioned…

        • Jo Miran ( JoMiran@lemmy.ml ) 
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          3 years ago

          I’m on season two of Resident Alien and I love how (so far) the relationship between the sheriff and the deputy is growing deeper and more intimate and loving yet carries not an ounce of romance. If they hook them up I’m going to riot.

          I am a fifty year old man. If my wife were to leave me or pass away, what I would miss is the caring and loving relationship with someone I can trust and talk to. The romance I can live without and sex is easy to get.

  • Laticauda ( Laticauda@lemmy.ca ) 
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    3 years ago

    I absolutely find it annoying when romance is prioritized over friendship but this isn’t quite what queerbaiting is. At least, not on its own. Two same sex/gender people being very close and sharing a strong connection or even having some romantic undertones that never become “official” isn’t automatically queerbaiting. Those things can happen in real life without those relationships being or becoming romantic. Queerbaiting is when the writers/showrunners purposefully insert romantic subtext into the story and advertise it as if it will become canonically romantic with the primary intention of gaining more lgbt viewership, while never actually following through on those implied (or even occasionally explicitly stated) promises. The way it is presented and marketed is an important part of what makes it a problem, hence the “baiting” part. There’s nothing wrong with keeping a relationship ambiguous, or portraying a platonic relationship as being as deep, important, and emotionally intimate as romantic ones are typically portrayed without making them romantic, but if you try to manipulate or outright lie to viewers to make them think a relationship is going to be something it isn’t in order to gain their viewership and support, only to pull the rug out from under them, then that’s when it becomes sleazy, especially if you’re taking advantage of the fact that they’re a marginalized and under-represented group desperate to see more people like them in media.

    I know this is just a joke comic so “it’s not that deep” but I see a lot of people online who misunderstand what queerbaiting is and accuse shows/series of queerbaiting unfairly so I thought I’d bring it up.

    • That was a very interesting read. Do you have any examples of queerbaiting or portrayed relationships that are commonly mistaken for queerbaiting in shows? Being a very boring stereotypical heterosexual, I’ve never paid attention to that, and I admit I haven’t heard the term before today.

      • poppy ( poppy@lemm.ee ) 
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        3 years ago

        I think the above comment was kind of blowing the comic out of proportion—I mean it’s a 4 panel comic it’s obviously not going to be able to give great nuance but I think it’s easy to read it as “proper” queerbaiting.

        Anyway, the Wikipedia page has a good list of examples if you’re interested in mainstream examples.

        Ones that stick out off the top of my head I’ve personally watched were Sherlock, and Teen Wolf and Rizzoli & Isles to a lesser extent.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queerbaiting

      • Laticauda ( Laticauda@lemmy.ca ) 
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        3 years ago

        It’s hard to think of off the top of my head because I admittedly have not gotten into a lot of the more popular examples, and a lot of them mix together, but a typical indication that someone is using the term wrong is if they try to point to evidence inside the show of how the couple should be canon because they have so much chemistry but the creators just won’t commit and make it canon. Those are typically just people wearing shipping goggles using the word as a way to say “I want them to be canon, therefore they SHOULD be canon, but they’re not, so it’s queerbaiting” even though the creators have never at any point indicated that the two characters will ever be in a relationship in advertising, interviews, previous drafts of the script, or otherwise, and at most the actors may have joked about how the ship is popular or mentioned that they personally enjoy it (which isn’t the same as using it in marketing or promotional material or teasing the possibility of it becoming canon). Queerbaiting can also take place even if a couple or sexuality DOES become canon if it’s halfassed or skimmed over or done poorly. Some famous examples of this are Shiro and his relationships from VLD and Destiel from Supernatural.

    • The issue is that romance tends to be prioritized over friendship in media even for straight relationships, and so many romantic relationships are incredibly shallow or have very little reasoning behind them (the “I met this guy I have nothing in common with 2 days ago and we’re so totally in love let’s shoehorn in a sex scene” thing is played out so often for hetero romances) and LGBT relationships are so rare, that any subtext that even remotely hints at a queer romantic relationship has people grasping at straws. So companies use that to their advantage. They just dangle the barest hints of anything, because that’s all they need to get people. And they dare not show anything more than the tiniest of subtext anyways, because anything LGBT is considered sexually explicit by default. Just look at how much the creators behind The Legend of Korra and Steven Universe had to fight for the queer romances in their respective shows. Both almost got cancelled because the writers wanted to show those relationships (and the Korra one was even completely unintentional, the writers just kinda realized it was developing over the course of the series and decided to go all in on it).

      Edit: Forgot the part where they don’t openly hint at or mention it because they don’t want to piss off the homophobes. They want to straddle that line that let’s them have their cake and eat it too.

    • girl ( girl@sopuli.xyz ) 
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      3 years ago

      probably layering a spaghetti strap cami over a tshirt

      edit: if you’re also curious about the necklines, the tshirt is crew and the cami is sweetheart

  • Jojo ( Silentiea@lemm.ee ) 
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    3 years ago

    Girl is developing a very clear relationship with another girl, building over multiple arcs. And then a different author gets to write a book and instead of even trying to be subtle he just has the characters up on stage, announcing how they feel (it makes me feel angry):

    Chandra had never been into girls. Her crushes — and she’d had her fair share — were mostly the brawny (and decidedly male) types like Gids.