Queer Baiting: The Whys, Whos and Whats

June. What a stellar month for LGBTQIA+ folks. Out of the 12 months, the people of this community get one month to celebrate themselves, and joining in on the celebrations, capitalist companies change their social media display pictures, adorning it with the rainbow colours and flag emojis. There are PRIDE sales, “Get 10% off for every purchase during Pride Month!”, but there's an obvious loophole here. These companies have country-specific social media pages. For example if I own a multinational company called XYZ, it will have a social media page  ‘XYZ India’ for consumers in India. Since the annulment of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, multinational companies in India have definitely ramped up their "support" for the LGBTQIA+ community. 

(Image via Melodie Vo/The Eagle Eye)

Before I digress further, let's talk about Queer Baiting. So what is exactly does this term mean? Queerbaiting is a techinique used for marketing by creators in order to depict LGBT+ relationships for entertaining audiences. 

However, the question that arises is why is it used? Queer baiting is used to grab the attention of a queer person or a straight ally by very subtly hinting at queer characters and/or relationships. But the creators are super clever about it, and they have to be, so as to not offend and alienate audiences that are not supportive of queer people. 

Is queer baiting bad? According to Professor Eve Ng of Ohio University, this technique of queer baiting is falsely leading audiences on, by misleading them with the idea of a queer narrative but not actually delivering it. 

(Image via Supernatural/The CW; Sherlock/BBC)

Case in point: Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. There's an obvious chemistry between the two; an awkwardness that was thoroughly teased throughout the show. You may agree to disagree, but it is evidently present. Case number 2: Dean Winchester and Castiel in Supernatural. Castiel confessed his love for Dean with his dying breath. Are you honestly saying there's no queer baiting being done there? Why not take up some books? JK Rowling famously claimed that Dumbledore is gay. Okay, we understand that. But why is this revelation coming now? And why was the same teased in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald between Dumbledore and Grindelwald?

Professor Julia Himberg of Arizona State University said that queer baiting isn't new and considers its origin in the fandom of early 2010s. According to Himberg, queer baiting is essential in targeting multiple audience demographics without alienating a conservative audience, and telling the queer audience that they want them as audiences as well. Prof Himberg also called this technique for being a cheap marketing tool that commodifies queer culture and identities.

According to Prof Ng, queer baiting is also contextual. They believe that the complaints and frustrations that audiences now have with queer baiting comes up because of a mismatch between what pop culture provides in terms of representation versus what audiences want. With increased representation in pop culture, audiences wan tmore genuinely respectful and meaning depictions of the characters’ relationships. 

According to experts, musical icons like David Bowie, Elton John and Madonna had a very ambiguous sexual identity, but they weren’t scrutinized back then because they made up for the lack of representation that many queer people faced in popular culture. 

(Image credit: Chris Duffy)

Queer baiting is common in popular culture. Off the top of my head, I can give you five examples but obviously, there are more. If we look at the 2010s, there's Rizzoli and Isles from the eponymous police procedural show, there's Annalise Keating and Bonnie Winterbottom of How to Get Away With Murder. Then there's Finn and Poe from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. JJ Abrams actually courted quite a bit of controversy for his queer baiting comments during the promotion of the movie. 

Celebrities too have come under fire for queer baiting. Katy Perry's 2008 song I kissed a girl was accused of appropriating gay relationships for attention, although Perry has never specified her sexuality, even though she has claimed to have been attracted to women. Social media trends and challenges have frequently used queer baiting. This includes false coming out stories, false claims of being in a same sex relationship, or claiming to be bisexual for April Fool's Day pranks.

(Jamie Clayton and Freema Agyeman in Sense8, Image via Sense8/Netflix)

However, all is not bleak. There are some really good shows, films and books out there that are true representations of queer people. Sense8, Atypical, Sex Education, Love, Simon, Special, Moonlight, Made in Heaven are some of the shows that did well in terms of queer representation. Of course, there's the issue of straight people playing gay roles on screen, but that is another debate. But queer actors not getting typecasted in roles because of their sexuality or gender orientation is a huge win. Patti Harrison, a trans actress, played Anna, a surrogate in the 2021 film Together, Together. If you compare that to Eddie Redmayne's portrayal of Lili Elbe in The Danish Girl, I call that moving forward in the right direction. Eve Lindley, a trans actress, playing Simone, a trans woman, in Dispatches from Elsewhere is a win. 

(Patti Harrison, Image via Courtesy of Bleecker Street/Tiffany Roohani; Eve Lindley, Image via Jessica Kourkounis/AMC)

Queer coding is a thing too. But let’s leave that for another day.

So things aren’t that bad, and they're gradually improving. They'll continue to do so, Happy Pride Month to everyone! 🏳️‍🌈

(Originally published on SABIA June Newsletter)