That does happen, but that is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about things like when the text explicitly frames two men or two women as a couple and then pulls a "haha JUST KIDDING THAT WOULD BE RIDICULOUS CAUSE THEY'RE STRAIGHT."
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Replying to @BinJLG @fozmeadows
Like, I'm not a big Sherlock fan and I've never shipped Johnlock, but WOW does that show queerbait its main characters a lot. That is the level of baiting I'm talking about.
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Replying to @BinJLG
Stephen Moffat fills me with rage for a number of reasons, and I'd agree that his approach to Sherlock constitutes queerbaiting, or at least gross dickishness.
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Replying to @fozmeadows
lol same. I'm still curious tho: does fans (especially queer fans) being upset about a creator saying something like "I never intended for X to be gay" when there is a history in the source material of X being queerbaited fit into your theory?
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Replying to @BinJLG
I mean, again, material can't queerbait on its own, so it depends if the prior source material is the work of the creator in question. I know it pains us all to admit it, but straight people do exist, and simply saying "I thought this character was straight" is not de facto Bad.
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Replying to @fozmeadows
I disagree. If material is written to queerbait, the material queerbaits. It's an actual marketing technique and it was used to death in media in the early 2000s. Every man overhears 2 other men and thinks they're talking about sex scene from action movies.
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Replying to @BinJLG @fozmeadows
The painful "jokey" queerbaiting in Friends (Phoebe calling Monica and Rachel her bitches if they were in jail and Ross Chandler and Joey having a nap together and freaking out about it come to mind).
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Replying to @BinJLG @fozmeadows
Queerbaiting exists in its source material. It can be read with or without the Death of the Author theory. Why shouldn't queer fans be upset about a creator queerbaiting a character consistently and then saying "I never intended this character to be gay?"
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Replying to @BinJLG @fozmeadows
Saying material can't queerbait on its own is basically saying "mostly queer fans are silly for seeing queer subtext" whether that subtext is serious or used as a joke and that is just... not a great stance to have about a classically dismissed, marginalized, and silenced group.
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Replying to @BinJLG
I'm queer myself, and I'm certainly not saying queer fans are silly for seeing subtext: I'm saying the presence of subtext IS NOT INHERENTLY THE SAME THING as queerbaiting, and that the latter is a specific thing done by intent.
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I also think you're perhaps conflating "queerness as a punchline, no homo" with queerbaiting. These are both tacky, gross concepts, but they are nonetheless *distinct* tacky gross concepts that occasionally have a Venn diagram portion of overlap.
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Replying to @fozmeadows @BinJLG
For instance: I'd argue Moffat used no homo jokes as part of his overt, intentional queerbaiting, whereas no homo jokes in Friends, like the bitches line from Phoebe, isn't queerbaiting, it's just referencing gayness as a joke.
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Replying to @fozmeadows
Queerness as a punchline, no homo IS a form of queerbaiting though. It's one of the most used and popular forms. Because it sets up the idea that queerness is inherently a joke or the punchline to a joke.
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