Thoughts on queerbaiting in comics?

[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.

[SleepingPoppy]

You should at least look at it from a death of the author viewpoint.

Queerbaiting is an intentional tactic purposefully employed to attract an audiences support with no intention to deliver what that audience wants. They are baiting the LGBT audience. I don't know how to divorce that from creator intent! (Maybeyou or someone else can come up with an example that would qualify though? I'm not saying you're wrong, just that I can't see it)

The only way I can see something close to someone accidentally queerbaiting would be that they mimic those qualities that appear in content that intentionally does it without being aware that thats what it is. But either way I don't think you can ignore the intentions of the people making and selling the media.

And yes, we won't always know the intentions of those making things. The answer to whether or not something is engaging in queer baiting might not always be obvious. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[Rasp]

Hence why I deliberately invoked the 'death of the author' interpretation. The purpose of invoking it is to deliberately divorce the authors intent. That's what it means.

[SleepingPoppy]

Death of the Author implies not that we're unaware of the authors intentions but those intentions are irrelevant. My point is that I don't see how they can be considered irrelevant. Maybe I'm just not understanding your point of view though.

[Rasp]

The point is to look upon the work as if we do not know the authors intent to view the work as an audience who has not read any supplemental materials and to gauge how they may react to something. This is valuable as you cannot always expect your audience to do so. It allows you to possibly make changes before they become an issue.

[SleepingPoppy]

Sure. I don't disagree with that.

[Mari]

I'm fine with queer coding, but I hate queer baiting I also hate the fetishization of mainstream BL... Porn comics are a different matter, but so many stories I read are just full of absolutely meaningless "plot" that is written so badly and just seems to function only as something to work in more dub-con. Example;

A and B are a couple. C suddenly appears and is super interested in A (usually it's the bottom, bonus points if C is "straight" but A's magic butt just draws all men to it). Nothing remotely romantic is pictured to happen between A & C. B gets absolutely enraged because A allowed C to touch him (hand on shoulder or something else absolutely normal). Rape ensues. In the end A gushes so sweet it is B is so jealous coz HE MUST TRULY LOVE HIM!!!

I have read this plot so, so many times.

[mong2]

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.

That's a little hard to say . I tell my same gender friends "I love you" often. I've held hands and linked arms. I also hug a lot, I'm a hugger. We have called each other things like love, muffin, cupcake, cutie. My friends make comments like "nice body, nice legs" to each other too. We're all straight though.

[TheThoughtfulBoxful]

I was going to comment something similar abt this... telling someone "i love you" isn't inherently romantic imo, and frankly it depends on the context when it comes to hand holding.

but thank you @DiegoPalacios @SleepingPoppy !