What is your opinion on queerbaiting in Movie and TV shows?

It might help if you give examples to help spur conversation further.

I'm conflicted over it because of different ways I've seen it. For example, in Teen Wolf a lot of people claimed that the show queerbaited the audience with Stiles and Derek. Despite the fact that the characters were only ever depicted as heterosexual and in heterosexual relationships so that I don't consider queerbaiting especially since Teen Wolf was such an LGBTQA+ positive show.

Now, I haven't watched it personally, but I've read up on the queerbaiting in the new seasons of Voltron on Netflix. It promotionally hinted at a character's sexuality and hyped it up and then killed off the love interest (again, haven't watched it so may get some stuff wrong) and faced a lot of backlash. That was queerbaiting.

To me, it depends on whether it's a headcanon that people are getting so worked up over (like shipping Stiles and Derek) or if its actual queerbaiting.

 

Those examples you gave are the fake kind of queerbaiting, which I get annoyed by. People who get annoyed because their head canon of same sex characters with a strong relationship doesn't become canon cry queerbaiting when in fact, it actually isn't. Some same sex friendships just have very intense, strong relationships.

The problem is that media doesn't really show a lot of intense same sex friendships, they show typical ones. And when they do, especially in comedies, they'll mock that they might be gay. Because of this, when media does show these deeper, more intense friendships, people think "Well, this has to be romantic because they hug a lot/they touch each other a lot/they do everything together/etc." when in fact it's just a friendship. I know straight guys who hug a lot and touch a lot and just have that kind of friendship, they're out there, we just don't see them a lot on media.

For example, a book I'm reading right now, one of the main characters is gay with a straight best friend. And they're touchy feely, they hug, kiss on the cheek, but it's very obvious that they're just friends. Like I'm not expecting some major plot twist at the end of the book with the straight guy declaring his romantic, undying love for his best friend.

Guys and guys can be just friends. Girls and girls can be just friends. Guys and girls can be just friends. Of course, all of those three can be more than friends but they don't have to be.

 

I tend to think it’s usually unintentional at first. Then, after the show runners see the essentially no-risk boom they’ve been handed, they run with it. They never have to commit if they sold the character as straight in the first place. They can always cry that fans were just “reading into it”.

The show that comes to mind for me is Once Upon a Time. A lot of the scenes in season 1 come off as a bit suggestive - - but the apparent eyesex seems to be a byproduct of overacting on Lana Parilla’s part and the general cheesey melodrama that pervades the show. It’s also Disney and a family show at that. To me, there’s no chance in hell that the tension between the two female leads was intentional. I even think Lana Parilla’s character was originally slated to be killed off after season 1.

Did the show play it the hell up once the Swan Queen fandom booted up though? Yes, they absolutely did. Just look at this photo of the actresses wearing the Swan Queen sweaters. The queer baiting ended up backfiring, as I understand that fans made some nasty online posts about the show and harassed the actresses, but the show definitely stoked the flames.





As for how I feel about it, I guess I just usually find it annoying. It is better than nothing though. At least we have something to work with, even if the intention behind the queerbaiting is exploitative and kind of cheap. In an ideal world, we obviously would prefer more portrayals of actual queer relationships, but those are currently few and far between. The queer bait relationships are often even better than 100% confirmed queer relationships. It’s sad, but it’s what we got.

 

But there was never any chance of Swan Queen becoming sexual or romantic, though. As someone who watched this show religiously up until the last season (in which Emma was only a guest star), I can thoroughly attest to this. This is the first kind of queer baiting I referred to with my Teen Wolf example, the unfounded kind.

Emma and Regina were Henry's biological and adoptive mothers, of course there was tension between them and of course it was intentional. But both of them were only ever shown with male love interests and a main foundation of the show was "True Love's Kiss."

Ship names like Swan Queen can also, of course not often, refer to friendships and Emma and Regina do gradually become actual friends by the time the show ends.

But, I will afford you queerbaiting in Once, just not with Emma and Regina. Two examples actually:
-The Mulan and Aurora storyline was queerbaiting. It was made more and more obvious that Mulan was in love with Aurora and maybe Aurora wanted something but then LAST MINUTE, Aurora gets her prince and is pregnant and Mulan is left in the dust. Mulan then also vanishes for a whole season Constant hype and then literally nothing. That's queerbaiting.
-The Ruby and Dorothy storyline I mentally debate between queerbaiting and a tease. There were no indications of Ruby being into women until Season 5 and then there is one episode and suddenly Ruby is able to wake Dorothy up with True Love's Kiss? A whole LGBT-oriented episode (or is it two?), but simply an episode, not even a whole storyline and then they vanish after that too. That's queerbaiting.

Swan Queen? Not real queerbaiting, that's fans reading way too much into a friendship between same-sex characters.

 

So the sweaters with the swan queen logo doesn’t count as queerbaiting? Even if the audience is in on the joke, that still seems like queerbaiting to me.

 

Like I already pointed out, ship names like Swan Queen can refer to friendships in addition to relationships. Lana even used #SwanQueen on her social media. There was never anything in the show to point to a romantic or sexual relationship. Just become some people referred to Swan Queen in a sexual or romantic sense, doesn't mean everyone did. It was a recognized ship in the show, but a friendship. The ship name was still frequented after both Emma and Regina got in relationships with men.

People fail to acknowledge that same-sex friendships can be intense and passionate but just friends. Stiles and Scott from Teen Wolf. Leslie and Ann from Parks & Rec. Joey and Chandler from Friends. The list can literally go on and on.

Queerbaiting is also very much about perception and how much people read into things. If you look intensely into any same-sex friendship you could find something to build a case for "oh, maybe they're into each other." Sure, a case can be made for Swan Queen, but there's literally zero reason to get bent out of shape because I watched that entire show and there was never a chance of anything happening. There are legitimate cases of queerbaiting that are highly advertised to bring in LGBT crowds only to give them hardly what they're watching for like I gave examples of.

 

For those of you who know about Xena the Warrior Princess I thought there was a lot of queerbaiting between Gabriel and Xena. The intensity of their relationship made a lot of people think that they were more than just friends. Generally I have no problems with it because it kind of adds another layer of complexity to the characters.

 

I would like to disagree. The actors actively promoted Sterek for first two seasons. Examples like Holland saying her favorite ship is Sterek. Colton bringing up Sterek in interviews. O’Brien’s comment when someone mentioned Scott and Isaac ship has become the main ship of teen wolf series.( I don’t know how to phrase that)
Take this into comparison Sterek vs Stydia
Both started with enmity ( at least Derek acknowledged Stiles)
Both grew to accept and respect each other.
In season 3 finale we see that Stiles is Derek’s anchor ( the dream sequence). In season 6A Lydia is the only one who remembers Stiles when he is taken by riders.
If that can taken a pivotal moment why can’t the anchor thing be treated as the same?
You have to acknowledge that if either of them were a girl, there will be higher chance of them becoming a couple, right? They might crash and burn, but they would at the least have a fling.
They did not actively pursue queer baiting but when they saw an opportunity they took it.

 

But the biggest biggest queer baiting award goes to Destiel i.e Dean and Castiel of supernatural.



Even Charles x Erik or even Steve x Bucky are less obvious.

 

Okay, so I will counter with what I already said:

However, obviously substitute Swan Queen for Sterek in this case. Acknowledging a ship in a fandom does not constitute queerbaiting.

Just because a ship name is being actively promoted doesn't mean shit. "We love Sterek!" can very easily mean "We love the interactions between Stiles and Derek and their growing and developing friendship!" and does not have to mean "We want to seem them fuck!"

Also, a ship can literally be created between any two characters no matter how realistic. I'm now going to start shipping Rachel and Phoebe from Friends, because once Phoebe kissed Rachel. Rachebe is now a thing and I'm accusing Friends of queerbaiting because they didn't end up in a relationship. That sounds silly, right? Because I'm angry that two obviously straight (Phoebe could be bi, but as far as we know, straight) women did not end up together?

Stiles and Derek literally never showed same-sex attraction in the entire series so getting mad because Sterek was never made canon and claim queerbaiting is silly. The ship name can easily be accepted as friendship, because yeah, the two develop a very interesting relationship by the end of the series, but that doesn't mean we were teased. Stiles especially literally only ever showed interest in women.

And you know, I will acknowledge that if one of them was a girl it could be more of a relationship and you want to know why? The characters are depicted as heterosexual. As in, if one is male and the other is female then the chance of a relationship is there more than between two heterosexual men or women. However, it's not a given. Sure, heightened chance but literally because they're heterosexual.

And as for the videos...they literally prove my point that people can look into any friendship and pull up random, sometimes minuscule things and claim that it's evidence that the characters are gay. They discredit passionate same-sex friendships and promote a stereotype that if two men are physically close and are touchy feely and are in anyway not dudebro unemotional...they must be gay.

 

There is this episode where Stiles asks Danny if he is attractive to gay guys. There is this other episode where Danny offers to have sex with Stiles, stiles gets happy but when Danny tells him he is only joking, Stiles gets upset.
I may be wrong but normally straight guys feel uncomfortable when a gay guy offers to have sex with them.

Scott and stiles are the opposite of dude bro unemotional but they only have their bromance shipped. Same goes for Jackson and Danny even though Jackson turned out to be a closeted homosexual later in the series. See there was potential ( at the least trope culture wise ) for shipping with Danny being gay and being the only person other than Lydia that Jackson loved. But they lacked the spark or oomph factor. But it was different with Sterek.