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starting to think y’all don’t even know what “queer baiting” is. it’s not a person writing a song about gay people... or a celebrity being vague about their identity... it’s a term used to describe media that explicitly markets to queer people but doesn’t actually deliver the rep
a good example is beauty and the beast live action. disney made a big deal out of the “first out gay character” and all we got was Lefou dancing with a man in a *very* brief shot. that’s queer baiting, not harry styles being in a music video with *checks notes* women and not men.
there’s a thread from Stan Twitter™ circulating around right now, a list of celebrities and whether or not they’ve “queer baited.” every bullet is nonsense, but the one that irked me the most said lady gaga has “queer baited” at some point in her career.
lady gaga is openly bi.
lady gaga is openly bi.
i’m just tired of young people accusing content creators of “queer baiting” for making campy music videos or releasing inclusive songs or even writing LGBTQIA+ narratives. a lot of these people end up coming out anyway but even when they don’t, all of that is still okay and GOOD.
when we talk about profiting off the LGBTQIA+ community, we’re not talking about a creator acknowledging and/or including genuine representation in their art. we’re talking about corporations that market to our community solely for profit, like what happens in june during Pride.
when movies, games, books, and tv shows use us for profit, it’s queer baiting. we are so starved for representation that Disney can get extra ticket sales from gay people by saying there will be an openly gay character in their film, but instead we get nothing. we were baited.
queer baiting is when a queer romance is heavily insinuated in order to attract queer fans and no kiss scene even though the cover on Netflix is the girls who are *sold* as maybe ending up together. it’s giving us crumbs. it’s building up our expectations then delivering nothing.
queer baiting is meant to be a trick. it’s meant to use us to make money. genuine inclusivity, even if small, is not queer baiting. media that mentions the existence of us is not queer baiting, and saying that it is does real harm to creators, many of whom end up being queer too.
here, have the messiest flowchart ever
