Thoughts on queerbaiting in comics?

[KitKat]

This might not be relevant or needed? But it could be?

This is just a new word that I was trying to look for in my English book and I am trying my best to understand it. (because it's so sad my first language isn't English).

According to Wikipedia,

Queerbaiting is the practice of hinting at, but then not actually depicting, a same-sex romantic relationship between characters in a work of fiction, mainly in film or television. The potential romance may be ignored, explicitly rejected or made fun of.

The derogatory term "queerbaiting" is meant to imply that this is done for the purpose of attracting ("baiting") a queer audience with the ultimately unrealized suggestion of relationships that appeal to them.[1] The concept arose in and has been popularized through Internet discussions among the fandom of popular films and television series.

Other opinions, articles, videos and screenshots from people:
From Pink News:

So.. what is your own opinion/thoughts on queerbaiting in comics? Tapastic is known for a lot of BL comics and such. But any thoughts on this when it comes to doing comics? Just curious. I have enough knowledge on what to do in order to avoid this, but I would like to know everyone's thoughts.

In my simple opinion, just simply respect same sex relationship like a normal relationship in your stories. Have development rather than fetishizing.

[joannekwan]

GL and BL are not queerbaiting if the characters do acknowledge they are attracted to the same sex. Even if the couple doesn't end up together in the end, they are still gay, just not for each other.

The fetishization found in the subgenres is a totally different matter.

I suppose queerbaiting can occur in anime adaptations of BLs and GLs, since censorship is still a thing and the production has to dance around the characters' feelings for each other and their own sexual identity. (which is what I heard happened to Yuri on Ice, but mind you I haven't read nor watched it.)

But anyway, I haven't encountered it in webcomics yet, since most of the ones I read are still on-going. And a lot of them are made by LGBT+ creators so I'm sure a bait situation wouldn't be the case at the end of the stories.

[punkarsenic]

I suppose queerbaiting can occur in anime adaptations of BLs and GLs, since censorship is still a thing and the production has to dance around the characters' feelings for each other and their own sexual identity.

i feel like this is a grey area. because theres a difference between the creators erasing a gay relationship from the source material, queerbaiting, and creators having to add queer coding to dance around censors.

for example, the coding in say... adventure time (which became canon in the end, wahoo!) was never queerbaiting, because queerbaiting is explicitly about teasing LGBT audiences to get their money, but with no intention on giving them any representation. queer coding, on the other hand, often comes from a sincere desire to create LGBT representation, but having to keep it on the DL due to censors.

i dont think theyre mutually exclusive, but i feel like they get confused sometimes. like people are accusing she-ra of queerbaiting but noelle stevens is a whole lesbian

[Darkstrong]

I think, that when you promote a Romance with LGBT characters as BL or GL or whatever, that's not baiting, that's just calling it what it is, as an LGBT relationship is the cornerstone of such a work. When you you market an adventure, a sci-fi, a horror (you get my drift) as a "queer sci-fi action", that is 100% baiting, because the sexuality of a character is not very important in these kind of stories. And often writers would specifically add queer characters to such stories, just so that they can market them as such, even though they add nothing to the story. Like in the game Timespinner. The story is about time-travelling girl-mage trying to change the future and defeat an evil empire. We don't get to know anything about either main and supporting cast (around 10 named characters), except that they are all (or almost all) LGBTQ+, and it has zero impact on the story. And it was marketed with these theme in mind. What is it if not baiting?

[joannekwan]

What is it if not baiting?

Well, baiting as outlined in the definition in the opening post, and how I picture it to be, is presenting a situation framed to be one way, but in the end turns out to be entirely different. The way the situation is presented leads potential consumers to jump to conclusions and the conclusion is very different from the canon outcome as the consumer learns and in the end they feel cheated.

Like say in a trailer for a movie, they show a very intimate (not sexual, but borderline romantic) relationship between the two male leads. The way they speak and support each other would suggest they are in a romantic relationship or would form one. People go to see the movie because they want to see this relationship unfold. But oh whoops, turns out they're straight with a wife and kids each and they just are close friends. The way the trailer was framed and maybe the first act of the movie baited the audience, but switched it out in the end.

[Darkstrong]

Well, I think, that exclusion of content, and its nominal inclusion, e.i. just saying that someone is queer or not to fill that position that you promised , is one and the same. For example in "Night in the Woods" we have 3 of the 4 of the main characters as LGBTQ. Two of those are gay guys, and their relationship is a pretty big part of the story. The third one is the main char May, but her sexuality is only briefly mentioned. Of course this was never a part of their marketing campaign, but if it was it would not have been baiting if only Greeg and Angus (guys) were gay in the game. But it would be totally baiting if only May was left queer without any changes to the story.
I hope that I am expressing myself correctly.

[skicoak]

There's also the odd activity of "shipping" where readers might attach personal context to a story that wasn't in the creators initial intent. This can create an unintended claim of queerbaiting in the eyes of some readers.

[HGohwell]

I think the most important thing to note is that there's a huge difference between hinting at a romance, characters not getting together, not explicitly stated romance, and queerbaiting.

For instance, lots of shonen anime and childrens cartoons, you don't have romances front and center, so it would be weird to go out of your way to point it out or get together these two gay characters more than any other relationship implications, just because they're same sex. One anime I watch consistently put a male character in the love interest shots with the two other girls, and had a highly implied gay couple in the background, and this was never considered queerbaiting because only one couple ever actually got together, a background couple in the last minute epilogue.

Yuri on Ice, falls more into never explicitly stated (although I'm told the DVD release moved Victor's arm in that episode where he jumped on Yuuri and did show the kiss rather than just imply it). And is another excellent example of gay relationships have to be shown more explicitly than het ones to be accepted. If a het couple had a kiss hinted at that strongly, hidden by an arm position, love confessions and wedding rings, they'd be accepted as canon instantly, because YOI is gay, there are some people who aren't sure. The same with Symphogear, how often do a pair of girls have to share a bed and bath, call herself her wife, say I love you, hold hands and so on before they're accepted as a couple and stop being called queerbaiting and accused of using lesbian relationships as a draw.

And that's the thing about queetbaiting. It's a conscious decision to use same sex relationships to draw in the crowds, even though you have no intentions of ever doing it. Sherlock is often accused of this, for constantly playing up to people mistaking them for a relationship and constantly teasing it but never making anything of it, but continuing to do it. Yes, shippers were a lot of the problem early on, but more and more people are playing up the shippers. Not that it's a new thing. Remember how shows you to hype a lesbian kiss weeks in advance because it was such a big deal just to get people excited about a possible scandalous lesbian relationship, only to turn out it was a game of dares or something equally pathetic? It's the same sort of thing.

As for why it rarely seems to happen in webcomics, because webcomic creators tend to be independent. They don't have to get around censors or executives who aren't sure gay relationships will sell, or that they'll turn away their more conservative audience. Much of the webcomic population knows that LGBT material is desired and will give it. Lots of the community are LGBT themselves and want to create media themselves. I'm sure there are some people who play up to BL's popularity for views with no intention of every doing anything with it except to get people interested and talking, but I think it's rarer. And possibly because there's far less money in webcomics, so people aren't driven to make things that will sell to a mass market so don't offend anyone.

[TJSchongar]

The best (read: worst) example of queerbaiting that I have personally come across is Sherlock. The sexual innuendos between Holmes and Watson are rampant, blatant, and ultimately meaningless. The threatening flirtations between Moriarty (who is gay) and Holmes (who is not) are there for sexual tension as much as it is for any other kind of tension. In fact, Moriarty’s homosexuality is PART of his threatening persona. There are even episodes that provide fake outs where Holmes and Watson are NEARLY intimate...and then “oh no, it’s just a fiction made up by another character, can’t have the ACTUAL gays, that’d be too gay! But you guys were excited for a moment, weren’t’cha? Weren’t’cha? But keep watching, maybe NEXT TIME they’ll ACTUALLY kiss!” Please. Kill me. Now.

Queerbaiting is purely there to fuel the shipper fandom fires. It’s manipulation at its most effective.

To BRIEFLY play devil’s advocate, media has a long, healthy history of using sexuality to excite and manipulate audiences. It happens all over the place, it’s nothing new. But what makes queerbaiting insidious is the fact that same sex or other culturally non-normative pairings are coded as a ‘forbidden’ act. ‘Forbidden’ has a sexy side...but it is also damaging. Hetero pairings are sexy, exciting, and VIABLE - LGBTQ pairings are sexy and exciting, but only in a fantasy kind of way. The message it leaves: Don’t actually do this, kids. Find yourself a nice person of the opposite gender - we assume you identify with one gender 100%, of course. This Holmes/Watson thing can’t ACTUALLY work out; this is just for you to dream about while you go off and live a ‘normal’ life.

Any media that make obvious moves to hint sexual attraction between two characters that strongly suggests they are on the LGBTQ spectrum, and then never confirms that promise, even going so far as to claim these people were super straight all along and WE were just too stupid to see it, is queerbaiting. And it is absolutely not cool.

[Darkstrong]

Well, with well known and established character it is always mostly wishful thinking from the part of the fandom. It is very unrealistic to presume that they will ever go further than jokes. Unless you will call out Peter Jackson for all that baiting with Frodo and Sam =)

[HGohwell]

Saying they're well known and established characters means nothing. We've made Waston a girl, why not make them gay? Even if not with each other like Sherlock kept teasing. Their love interests rarely mattered as way as I remember anyway, so why not let one of them like men rather than just constantly teasing and hyping it up. It's about it being purposefully played up to try and draw in an LGBT fanbase without actually giving anything.

I've never read the LOTRs because those are some long tough books so I don't know how accurate the book, but I certainly don't remember the films being sold on any sexual tension between Sam and Frodo, compared to Sherlock and similar that put more emphasis on the relationships and implications that weren't really there than actual plot sometimes. I mean the BBC was so invested in getting this fanbase for things like Sherlock and Merlin they created ship names.

[TJSchongar]

Exactly. When a sexual LGBTQ relationship is hinted at to sell something, it’s awful. Frodo and Sam don’t really fall into that because there’s no sexual overtones. Someone could read romantic feelings between Frodo and Sam if they wanted to - their relationship is deeply loving, whether it be friendly or romantic. Personally, I think it’s limiting to think that people who love each other deeply must OBVIOUSLY want to be together ‘in that way.” Love’s a single word trying to express something that has a lot of variety.

When media uses sex, that’s when it gets messy.

[qwerty]

Wait, I watched Sherlock and I don't remember picking up on any romantic anything between Sherlock and Watson But maybe I'm just totally blind to those kinds of things.

TBH I don't really know anything about queerbaiting since I never care about romantic relationships between characters so I guess I just don't look for it. But definitely I think (probably especially on Tapas comics) a large percentage of this is just shippers looking too far into everything.

Personally I really like seeing relationships where two characters are just really close but it doesn't imply anything romantic or sexual. If I ever made a comic with more than, like, two characters I'd probably fill it with such relationships. A horde of shippers would come, they'd all be disappointed in the end, and I could easily be accused of queerbaiting lol.

It really comes down to whether you have the actual intention to deceive for marketing purposes, and people's intentions are hard to know.

[HGohwell]

Wait, I watched Sherlock and I don't remember picking up on any romantic anything between Sherlock and Watson But maybe I'm just totally blind to those kinds of things.

It really comes down to whether you have the actual intention to deceive for marketing purposes, and people's intentions are hard to know.

One particularly awful thing Sherlock did that made its intentions pretty obvious, which seemingly was pulled pretty quickly but not quick enough not to be seen, was a carefully edited advert implying for the wedding one to imply some kind of romantic confession between them was going to happen.

[DiegoPalacios]

About teasing relationships, there is the common mistake of confusing different kinds of closeness and afection with romance.

Maybe some characters are close friends from childhood, bandmates, master and disciple, or really close brothers. But that doesn`t mean their bond is romantic.

Other times it happens because the closeness is awkwardly written and goes on ways that it could easily be seen as homoerotic subtext. There is even a trope for this.

Ho Yay - TV Tropes

For what i understand, queerbaiting would be the intentional attempt of unneccesary ship teasing LGBT
couples to attract LGBT audiences and/or encourage shipping.

[Rasp]

I've been worried about being accused of this because my romances tend to be slow burners so for EoV I put a married couple right up front. That's often a good way to go about it... have existing relationships even if they are tangential. Assure the audience you're not avoiding depicting it. Its a way of assuring them things CAN go in that direction they if they hold on for a while. You cant string them long indefinitely but you'll get way more patience out of an audience if you assure them its on the table. It may not happen the way you think it will but its gonna happen.

[TheThoughtfulBoxful]

This is a really interesting topic... I've honestly been thinking about this a lot as I've got two upcoming characters who have a really close relationship, but they aren't necessarily gay for each other

how should a writer handle close same-sex relationships without queerbaiting? is it inevitable in some cases?

[DiegoPalacios]

Close friendships and romantic relationships have many differences. There are thing people would do with their couple and thing they would only say to a couple.

For example, saying "i love you"or holding hands.

If they give each other nicknames they wont choose cute affectionate things like "honey"

If they compliment each other a lot about their beauty, that is a thing too. Some female friends may compliment each other, but is not a thing that happens too much.

Some friends getting too clingy or possesive about their friend can be mistaken for that if it is a recurring thing during the story.

There are other things, but as a general rule, the key is to understand the esential differences between romantic and nonromantic afection.

[SleepingPoppy]

how should a writer handle close same-sex relationships without queerbaiting? is it inevitable in some cases?

Queerbaiting is done intentionally. Showing two people that are not in a romantic relationship but have a deep bond isn't queerbaiting, even if it comes across as queer to some people. Intentionally playing up their closeness as sort of winks to the audience, or suggesting there might be a romantic component to the closeness when you have no intention of exploring it would be baiting.

[Rasp]

Unfortunately there is a subjective element to consider. You should at least look at it from a death of the author viewpoint. Just because you didn't intend it doesn't always mean you didn't do it from the perspective of the viewer. At that stage your intentions might not matter if the story communicates something different. You cant always accurately predict the reaction of your audience but you kinda need to be prepared for it.