- cross-posted to:
- yurimemes@lemmy.blahaj.zone
- cross-posted to:
- yurimemes@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
There’s this “kids” show called Sakura card captor from the makers of X tv…
My bi partner is still slightly annoyed that she’s had to settle for a man because none of the lesbians wanted to be with a bi girl.
as long as you’re feeling settled-for, that’s what counts
My aunt once told my (then) 10 year old sister to “just marry a man you can stand”. We keep wondering when aunt Wendy is going to kill her husband. He’s a dick.
“just marry a man you can stand”
My uncle in law married the first woman who would have him. He didn’t think long or hard about it, just thought that to be the most expedient and simple. Thought that all women were good and kind and reasonable people like his mother and sisters.
She’s been a complete demon to him, totally solipsistic and money-obsessed, and is not only working him into an early grave but is also stressing him out such that he looks like he’s in his late-eighties. He’s only 64.
Never took to the idea of sex outside of marriage or an LTR (= min. 6 months, usually 12 or more), but daaaaaang… people need to percolate more before filtering down into a cup.
that’s gonna be a fun nursing home confession one day
👍
That’s kind of sad.
For both parties.
It’s bisad.
I’m not saying she feels like she settled, just that I wouldn’t have met her in the first place if she had been accepted by any of the women who she met before me. Candy’s loss though.
I have a bi ex who broke up with me because she knew her lesbian friend group would ostracize her for dating a man. The queer community can be incredibly discriminatory against the bi part of itself
It’s always been the case unfortunately. Biphobia is as rampant among the LGBT community as homophobia is in the world at large. All the things that homophobes do to gay men, they’ll happily turn around and do to bi men.
Yeah my partner and brother are both bi and there is a strong sense that they’re being made to pick a side. I have no problems with her having a girlfriend in addition. Honestly it’d be good for her, but I also think she wouldn’t be terribly successful going into it with a male partner and several kids. Maybe with other bi women but they’d probably think she was unicorn hunting.
The queer community can be incredibly discriminatory against the bi part of itself
Or the trans part of itself. Or the questioning part of itself. Or probably the lesbian and gay parts, let alone the +. It sucks, but it turns out queer folks are just, well… Folks. So we gotta work on that.
sad to see that the scene from chasing amy still rings true
It would be nice if the people who post these comics would give credit to the artist.
I don’t know why, but I read her voice the same as the hydraulic press guy saying “what ze fuck”
I can’t believe the amount of people in the comments that have never seen queerbaiting, I guess none of them watched Supernatural
You can’t convince me that Naruto and Sasuke were not meant for each other. Hinata and Sakura have like 0 chemistry with them.
You can’t convince me they don’t angry fuck on the side
SASUKEEEE!!! NARUTOOO!!! I bet that original dialogue was for their scrapped sex scene
I never finished supernatural. What was the qieerbaiting in that? I swear to the gods if you say “Dean didn’t fuck Sam” I’m gonna lose all hope in humanity.
- Smorty [she/her] ( @Smorty@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) 13•4 months ago
What kind of top is the one our blue girl is wearing?
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
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.
For manhwa readers, Antagonist’s pet is so much this!! Arth’s okay, but they did Rebecca dirty. :(
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Dankon!