Ep 371: Queerbaiting
SARAH: Hey, what's up? Hello! Welcome to Sounds Fake But Okay, a podcast where an aro-ace girl, (I'm Sarah, that's me.)
KAYLA: And a bi-demisexual girl, (that's me, Kayla.)
SARAH: Talk about all things to do with love, relationships, sexuality, and pretty much anything else we just don't understand.
KAYLA: On today's episode: Queerbaiting.
BOTH: Sounds fake, but okay.
SARAH: Welcome back to the pod!
KAYLA: Hello, I hope everyone currently experiencing the cold weather and storms is staying safe.
SARAH: I hope everyone who ticketed for BTS got the tickets of their dreams.
KAYLA: Guess how many inches of snow are projected for Boston on Sunday? The day this is coming out.
SARAH: Twelve.
KAYLA: More!
SARAH: Fourteen.
KAYLA: More!
SARAH: Seventeen.
KAYLA: More!
SARAH: Twenty-two.
KAYLA: Eighteen to twenty-four inches!
SARAH: Wow, that's a lot.
KAYLA: That's a lot of snow.
SARAH: On one day? Yeah.
KAYLA: There are some states that have ice tornado warnings.
SARAH: Exploding trees.
KAYLA: And some that have exploding trees, what a time to be alive!
SARAH: What a time to be alive! And then I'm just here in Southern California where I'm like, “oh my God, it sprinkled rain a little bit today, I'm so excited.”
KAYLA: God! Wild.
SARAH: Yeah, it's currently 57 degrees out. Whoa, it's fucking freezing.
KAYLA: I got 28 degrees. Which actually, it was warmer today, it was in the 40s, but it's gonna be like zero all weekend.
SARAH: Yay! Yes, I hope everyone is keeping safe and warm. And for those of you who live in places where it doesn't usually get this cold, y'all gotta listen to the Northerners and the Midwesterners, you gotta be taking their advice, okay?
KAYLA: Well, it's too late. If they haven't taken it by now, by the time you're hearing this, it's quite possibly too late, but that's true.
SARAH: I saw a thing where this couple was like, they're Midwesterners, but they live in Georgia. And they had to drive somewhere when there was snow, and the husband was like, “it's fine, we know how to drive in snow.” And the wife was like, “but no one else does, we're gonna be surrounded by idiots.”
KAYLA: I know I've talked about this several times on the podcast, but when I lived in Louisiana, there was one day when there was frost, not snow, frost, and the city shut down. Dean was working for the government at the time, and he did not go to work for two days, no one went anywhere, school was shut down, and it was frost.
SARAH: That's crazy.
KAYLA: No one knew… Our landlord was like, “run the taps, don't freeze the pipes.” I was like, “this can't be.”
SARAH: Yeah, that's crazy. Well, a pivot, Kayla… do we have any housekeeping? We had our meeting, we had a meeting, guys.
KAYLA: We had a business meeting, it didn't really help us come up with ideas…
SARAH: No
KAYLA: Because we had so much other business, but maybe next month…
SARAH: Maybe next time
KAYLA: When we have less other business, we'll do ideas.
SARAH: Great. Kayla, what are we talking about this week?
KAYLA: This week we're talking about queerbaiting, because it actually was on our idea list from a long time ago.
SARAH: It was.
KAYLA: And the thing is, we feel like we have talked about it before.
SARAH: I'm like quite certain we have.
KAYLA: I found at least one episode where...
SARAH: It came up.
KAYLA: The word came up seven times in one episode per the transcript, but it wasn't what the full episode was about, but I'm sure that it's not the only episode we've mentioned it. But I couldn't find an episode with that in the title, so I just don't know.
SARAH: Look, and sometimes you've just got to reheat your nachos, okay?
KAYLA: Right.
SARAH: Sometimes you've just got to, so here we are.
KAYLA: So here we are.
SARAH: Also, in the context of everyone's favorite gay hockey show, which me and Kayla remain obsessed with and have already mentioned in this podcast that I had to cut out because it was irrelevant.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: It is very relevant to that. So, it's in the zeitgeist these days. Kayla, would you like to start us off by defining what queerbaiting is?
KAYLA: I would, I just found the queerbaiting Wikipedia page.
SARAH: Oh, it's when you go fishing for queer people.
KAYLA: Yes. I mean, kind of. Because I wanted to find some classic examples to help illustrate this.
SARAH: Mm-hmm
KAYLA: Wow, this Wikipedia page is so good. So according to Wikipedia, queerbaiting is a marketing technique for fiction and entertainment in which creators hint at but do not depict same-sex romance or other LGBTQ plus representation. The purpose of this method is to attract or bait a queer or straight ally audience with the suggestion or possibility of relationships or characters that appeal to them while not alienating homophobic members of the audience or censors by actually portraying the queer relationships. The example that is given at the very top of the article, it's a little kind of picture pop-out text box, is the characters of John and Sherlock from the BBC version of Sherlock, the television show.
SARAH: Interesting.
KAYLA: And it says, “Cast and crew of Sherlock have consistently denied that the relationship between the characters is intended to be romantic, but some critics have described it as queerbaiting.”
SARAH: Can I just say, in that case, I was an avid watcher at BBC Sherlock, I never felt queerbaited on that show. For me, they just had a very strong, peculiar platonic partnership, and I could absolutely understand why people would ship them.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But I don't know that it was in the text as it were.
KAYLA: The thing is though I think you have a much more nuanced understanding even before having the words for it when Sherlock was first airing or that type of friendship, your layman person is going to see any dynamic like that and be like, “oh, in love, what else could it be?” Not a codependent friendship or like….
SARAH: Yeah, I guess. Sorry I'm just like…
KAYLA: Took woke
SARAH: Too woke and smart.
KAYLA: So, some examples, the friendship between Poe and Finn in Star Wars, some people see as queerbaiting, especially because I guess J.J. Abrams said in promos or the press tour that he had intended for a queer rep in the film, and it turned out to be that in the background of one of the movies there's a queer couple kissing, I guess.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Oh, people also, the Disney live actions of Beauty and the Beast and Cruella had some characters.
SARAH: Yeah. See, I think in my mind, those are the chief examples of queerbaiting, not just within the text of the media, but when the creators, the producers, the studios say, “oh my God, it's a first, we're going to see representation,” and the representation turns out to be like two dudes hugging in the background for approximately 1.5 seconds, and they make a big deal out of it, and then that's all you get.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Like for me that's such a huge example of like intentional queerbaiting that doesn't live just within the text of the media but is informed by what the creators of it tell the audience and what expectations the audience then has of the media.
KAYLA: Yeah. I mean, that's just the classic, that when you take the part of the definition as the last part of the definition I read, as it's bait to get queer people to watch, but then not enough to alienate homophobic people, I think this is a very perfect example of that. And this section of the Wikipedia is just dedicated to Disney and how some executives or directors have talked about thinking it's the perfect time for queer rep, and then it just turned out, like I said, to be a single line or an unnamed background character, so they're making these promises in pre-film promo and press tours and then... yeah
SARAH: And I truly believe in a lot of those cases that maybe the directors or the filmmakers wanted it to be more significant, but the people up top, the execs at Disney, nerfed it and watered it down until it became what it became. I think a lot of the time queerbaiting as such is not necessarily evil intentions from one person, I think it's people who have good intentions who then it goes through the whole corporate rigamarole, and then it comes out as a pile of steaming garbage.
KAYLA: Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of especially big franchises with big media companies, that's just all it is now, is you can tell that maybe this started as a nice script, and then a thousand executives who have no idea what they're talking about got their hands on it, and now it's watered down, it makes no sense, and it's shit.
SARAH: I mean, I have seen firsthand without going into detail people who have wanted characters to be canonically queer and were told no by the people up on high because they were afraid that the audiences wouldn't receive it well.
[00:10:00]
KAYLA: In those cases, what has happened to those characters? Did they just become unnamed queer? Like they're there and could be read that way, but it's never said, what happens?
SARAH: I think it depends, I think in the instance I am thinking of, the character could very well be queer, but they were explicitly canonically shown to have at least previously been in a het relationship when the initial intention was for that not to have been a het relationship.
KAYLA: I see. Because I'm just wondering, part of this Wikipedia page goes on a long list of characters and couples and individual characters that certain fans or critics have criticized for saying it's queerbaiting and some of me really wonders if some of these were supposed to be. Like, people have complained about the Valkyries in the Thor movies because canonically or, I don't know, canonically, but like when you think of Valkyries from ancient war, everyone is kind of like lesbians.
SARAH: They're all kind of gay, yeah.
KAYLA: And that wasn't there.
SARAH: And that's also a basketball team?
KAYLA: It is.
SARAH: And the WNBA is so gay.
KAYLA: So gay. But I think that team was started after the Thor movie came out.
SARAH: It was, it was, but still…
KAYLA: But… I have a Valkyries hat, so.
SARAH: They’re all queer.
KAYLA: So, part of me wonders, were those supposed to have been and then they were like, “well, we can keep the character the exact same and people can choose to read it like that, but we're not going to confirm or deny.”
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Which at that point, that's not technically queerbaiting.
SARAH: Right.
KAYLA: Or is it? Like if you have a flaming homosexual in your show but don't name it, what is that?
SARAH: Yeah. I think that's a good question, because I think… you see this a lot when it comes to people identifying with characters because they believe them to be aspec-coded, young me was like Katniss Everdeen, girl!
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But is that queerbaiting? First of all, I don't think the people who were making it knew enough about what asexuality was to be able to queerbait that.
KAYLA: They probably didn’t know at all. But I was going to ask… That was one of the questions I had my head coming into this was, is it possible to queerbait with an ace or aro character? I just don't see anyone knowing enough. Or if the reason you're queerbaiting is to get an audience, I just don't think people care that much about ace or aro audiences to go through that much effort to bait them.
SARAH: Right. I would agree with that. But I think that's true of people identifying with aspec characters or people identifying with other queer-coded characters where they see themselves in this character and so they headcanon this person as queer, they write fic about it, they talk about this person as a queer icon. But in canon, there is no hard evidence to show them being queer.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And sometimes that might be completely intentional.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: If you're on a, not to call out CBS, but like when I think of more conservative, traditional, like CBS has a really old audience, like the audience for CBS shows tends to be quite old. So, if you're making a CBS show, you may not want to have a canonically super obviously queer character because it could alienate your audience. I think that's bullshit, but that is what executives will say.
KAYLA: Sure.
SARAH: So, if they're intentionally trying to draw in the people who love all the sapphic television perhaps and bait them to watch the show while knowing that it's never going to be canon, I think that would be intentional queerbaiting.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But it gets to a point where it's like at what point is it not intentional and it's just the audience reading into things? Especially if it's a side character who you know their background and their history and their whatever is not going to get that deep dive, you don't have the time and space to do that.
KAYLA: Yeah, it's just not going to happen.
SARAH: And then you could always say like, well, it is always the side characters, like it's not, you know
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And there is something to be said about that. But I think sometimes queerbaiting is intentional but I think sometimes people are just like, I want to create this character that reflects what I have seen in the world and it doesn't suit… it's not that it doesn't suit the story to have a queer character, it doesn't suit the story to point out that a character is queer, to make it a side plot, it doesn't always fit, it doesn't always work.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: I have had this problem in my writing being like, I want this character to be canonically aspec but this is not a story about aspecness at, and I like… I tried to have it come up in a pilot I was writing and I was like, this sounds so… it's like an exposition dump, it sounds bad, no one talks like this, no one would say this.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: In my head, this character is canonically aro-ace but that's not going to come out until like much later in the season because it doesn't work, it's not natural to come out at this time.
KAYLA: Well, that's what I was going to say too, is it makes it difficult because… and I was thinking about your writing too because I know you've said that before, sometimes it just doesn't make sense because it's not realistic for it to come up or be a big deal because it's just not, you know
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: It just doesn't always work that way. And so, I think if you're looking at the traditional definition of queerbaiting, there has to be some intention and kind of malice behind it to make it actually queerbaiting, it has to be people making a decision to say, “we want to bring this audience in, we want the views, but we also want the other side's views and so here's the line we're going to dance on to get both.”
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: So where is the line between… like some of these examples are like Veronica and Betty in Riverdale and like the characters in Rizzoli & Isles and like Wednesday Addams and Enid in Wednesday, it's like… those are all things that I have heard those ships, I know about it, I was on Tumblr, you know, like even getting into like Supernatural, which is like a whole thing.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: It's like, how do you know if that was intentional or not, or if it's just people reading into things, which obviously there's nothing wrong with people reading into it and having headcanons in fan fiction, like that’s great
SARAH: And there's always going to be slash fic, like that's always going to exist.
KAYLA: Right. But like, where do we draw… Like with those Disney examples, it's very clear, it's like there was something said in public by directors and executives and then this is what ended up happening.
SARAH: I think it's much easier to identify queerbaiting when it is coming from an outside force rather than when it is existing solely within the confines of the universe of the media.
KAYLA: Yeah. Because like, I don't know, would you consider like Kirk and Spock queerbaiting? Because that is the origin of slash fic, you go back in history, that is how slash fic was invented.
SARAH: Yes. The first fan fiction was Kirk and Spock from Star Trek.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And written on a fucking typewriter.
KAYLA: Like I can't imagine the writers of Star Trek being in the writers’ room like, “you know what we're going to get.”
SARAH: Right.
KAYLA: Like, no, they weren't.
SARAH: And sometimes that kind of stuff, like those sorts of relationships and dynamics bleed into the writing without you intentionally doing it.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And especially if the writer themselves is not queer, they might not even realize that they're doing it, that like they're slipping things in that feel queer-coded to those who are in the alphabet mafia. Like they often I think won't… they won't even be thinking like that. And so, they won't even have that conception. I think maybe these days it's a little harder to claim ignorance of certain things, but like certainly back in the day with Star Trek when it was first becoming a thing, I highly doubt they were sitting there like, “you know what we’re gonna do?” and you know what, if they were thinking that, honestly, more power to them because it's not like they could have ever made them canonically gay.
KAYLA: No. I mean, back then it's like they might… in the writers’ room, they might've been canonically gay and that's the best they could have given people. And I wouldn't even be that surprised because Star Trek was so revolutionary in so many…
SARAH: Yeah. I mean, if you think about like the racial barriers broken by that show, yeah.
KAYLA: Yeah. Like it wouldn't really surprise me if that's something that they were going for intentionally, but I can't imagine it being out of malice.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Like I don't think enough respect was given to the power of gay viewers back then for them to be like, “let's do something sneaky for the gay people.”
SARAH: Yeah, they weren't like trying to draw a gay audience, they were like trying to get gay people to hide and you know, marry in a hetero way.
[00:20:00]
KAYLA: Yeah. I mean, I think that's just the hard thing now, is people have… at least I get maybe started to see the power of queer audiences and the numbers and the money they bring, but there's still not enough courage to really go full for it.
SARAH: Mm-hmm. I saw a tweet today, in the Heated Rivalry verse, not in the universe of the show, but in the fandom. Today it was big news that there's this hockey podcast called Empty Netters who have been like… like these straight guys who have been like reacting to Heated Rivalry and really been into it and like gassing it up. And I had heard things back in December about them being problematic the way they talk about women. And so, I kind of found out in December, I was like, okay, they're not all… they're cracked up to be, or better hockey podcast bros are What Chaos! Shout out to What Chaos!
KAYLA: Okay, good to know
SARAH: I've never listened to it, but we know that… as far as we're aware, they're not problematic.
KAYLA: Love that. Love that.
SARAH: Like Hudson Williams even like shouted them out when he was on Jimmy Fallon.
KAYLA: I know.
SARAH: And an article without sports today came out basically revealing that at least one of the hosts of that show said privately that like the show was trash, like he was like shitting on it. He talked about like, you know, they were just making it to pander to like, you know, blue-haired people.
KAYLA: And that is queerbaiting, that is the classical definition of queerbaiting.
SARAH: And they've now been like selling merch related to Heated Rivalry, they've been getting so many more views, like exponentially more views on their stuff since they started reacting to Heated Rivalry. And then all that came out today and I saw a tweet that said like, “I know all of this sucks but one thing to take away is that it does still pay to pander to queer audiences and that's horrible. But in some ways, it's a good thing because it means we're not backpedaling so much.”
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Because like they still… they were like, “oh, we should pretend to be cool about this for money,” because they knew they would get money from it.
KAYLA: Yeah. I mean, that is an interesting point, because that is something I have been noticing a lot over the past year especially, is especially companies that used to like go all out for pride and really pander, really backpedaled.
SARAH: Mm-hmm
KAYLA: And it was like, okay. And we knew this from the start that it was always for money, but it became abundantly clear that this was not your company values, this is not something you actually cared about, you just saw that this is the way the pendulum is swinging.
SARAH: You're not fucking Ben & Jerry's who are like a company with a fucking spine.
KAYLA: Yeah, that like live and die by it. Target is like…
SARAH: Your Target
KAYLA: Yeah, your target, that's… yeah. And that's just like… I mean, it's a different… I guess, slightly a different version of queerbaiting, but like that is queerbaiting, you're just doing it to get the people in and then the minute that you get any pushback, you drop it.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Brother!
SARAH: Brother! But I think that also then brings us… speaking of Heated Rivalry.
KAYLA: Yes.
SARAH: To this other conception that people have of what queerbaiting is, that we have… I know we have talked about this on the podcast before, which is people will say that an individual is queerbaiting…
KAYLA: A real individual.
SARAH: A real person.
KAYLA: A human person
SARAH: Will be queerbaiting about their own identity, a prime example of this is you see this said about Harry Styles a lot.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Where he is not tied to traditional masculinity in the ways that we imagine it.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: He, you know, paints his nails. He like… well, he has done photo shoots wearing like skirts and dresses. He has… oh, I just had a really good word that would have made me sound so smart in my head and then I lost it.
KAYLA: Oh no
SARAH: That is the thing about podcasting, is I can't always… I'm better on paper, but I have a fucking podcast.
KAYLA: That is tough.
SARAH: It's tough, I need some time to come up with the words that I want.
KAYLA: What are you going to do about it?
SARAH: No, but, you know, he has obviously dated many women publicly in his career. But people firmly believe that he is queerbaiting because he has never come on the record about what his sexuality is.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And so, people are like, oh, you're queerbaiting because you're giving people hope that you might be queer and they're more interested in you because of that.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But by not confirming it either way, I mean, that's driving conversation, that's blah, blah, blah, blah.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: So, they consider that to be queerbaiting. And what we have said in this podcast before, and we will say again, is one single individual person cannot queerbait about their own identity.
KAYLA: Unless they're doing it intentionally.
SARAH: Yes, but it's impossible to prove that.
KAYLA: But how could you know unless something… like that they said it and…
SARAH: Right. Unless they were like, “oh, I've been…” then it's like, okay.
KAYLA: Yeah. But I also just cannot conceive of a person… I mean, I guess I could, celebrities are fucking wild. But like… like, is it really worth it? You're like, “I want to bring people in, so I'm going to pretend to be kind of queer.” But that just invites so much speculation and so many invasions of privacy that it's just like, to me, it really doesn't seem worth it, but also I don’t know
SARAH: And it also invites a certain level of hate from other parties.
KAYLA: Yes.
SARAH: So, like, is that really worth it to be faking it if you're also going to be getting hate for it? You know
KAYLA: Yeah, it seems not worth it to me, but…
SARAH: Yeah. But this has been largely in the conversation regarding the two leads of Heated Rivalry, because Heated Rivalry is obviously a queer show where one of the characters is canonically gay, the other one is canonically bisexual. And on that show, you have the two main actors and then you have like a handful of like supporting actors, one of whom is like the other couple on the show.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: I just did something with my hand and Zoom gave me balloons.
KAYLA: I think it's maybe the peace sign?
SARAH: Peace? Oh, it is a peace sign, I didn't even do that on purpose. Oh, I was doing it as a two, it was a two.
KAYLA: Two.
SARAH: Anyway, Zoom loves the gays. But let's call it, let's say that there are these four, we'll call them the four main actors, I wouldn't define them as such, but let's call them that, four men…
KAYLA: Four romantic leads.
SARAH: The four romantic leads, that's right. Four men, two couples. There's like the more minor couple played by Robbie GK and Francois Arnaud. Robbie GK is straight.
KAYLA: I didn't know that.
SARAH: Yes. He has been on the record that he is straight.
KAYLA: On the record!?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Do you see the lengths that we must go to for these poor people?
SARAH: Yeah. And he's great at playing gay, he does a good job.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But like he is straight. Francois Arnaud is bisexual, he has come out as bisexual many years ago.
KAYLA: On the record.
SARAH: On the record. He has publicly dated men.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But the two main leads have never confirmed or denied their sexuality.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Now, a lot of reading into things has been done on this topic.
KAYLA: Of course.
SARAH: A lot of speculation has happened, I have my own personal opinions, which I believe are obviously correct.
KAYLA: Of course you do.
SARAH: One of them has given a lot more hints that he is queer and like the general consensus among the public is that yes, he is queer.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: He just has not been like, “hello, this is my alphabet.”
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: My alphabet mafia soup.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: The other one a lot of people strongly believe is straight, I disagree. However, he supposedly, all of this is alleged, I mean, I kind of believe all of it, but he has a girlfriend apparently.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And when the show first came out, both of these actors kind of like scrubbed their Instagrams and like…
KAYLA: Yeah, smart.
SARAH: Understandable.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And in doing so, this actor Hudson Williams removed all photos that had his alleged girlfriend in it.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And so, people were like, “oh, he's trying to hide the fact that he has a girlfriend because he knows that this is a gay show and that fans won't like it if he's a straight man playing a gay character.”
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Which I don't think that's why he deleted those photos, I think he was just scrubbing his fucking Instagram.
KAYLA: I think he was just being smart about his privacy.
SARAH: A lot of people strongly believe he is straight. I think if you pay attention, he is putting down many hints that he is not, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't still have a girlfriend.
KAYLA: And it also doesn't… like, we can speculate all we want and I think it's… you know, as humans we're going to, it's just like really not our fucking business.
[00:30:00]
SARAH: Like it doesn't fucking matter. And I think the showrunner, Jacob Tierney, has also kind of been on the record being like, it does not matter how they identify because he, as the creator of the show, is an openly gay man and he is the one who is shaping the show. So, it's not inauthentic. And it was written by a queer woman, like the books were written by a queer woman.
KAYLA: It would be one thing to me if the creators of the show were also straight and then were casting a bunch of straight people and there was very little queer involvement because we've talked before on the show.
SARAH: Or even if the creators of the show were straight and they were casting actors who were not going on the record about their sexuality, I can understand how that would feel worse than the situation that we have.
KAYLA: Yeah. Because we've talked in the past about the importance of queer people playing queer people or disabled people playing disabled people, and I think there is merit in that.
SARAH: Mm-hmm
KAYLA: However, we've also talked about from your perspective in the industry that things just don't always work out that way.
SARAH: Yes
KAYLA: With Shane's character specifically, he's half Japanese, half white, he looks a very specific way. And that is something they easily could have just written out and chose to make an even bigger deal in the show than it is in the book, which was a very good and important decision representation-wise.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: So, like these characters needed to look...
SARAH: He's also noticeably autistic.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Like, it's not said out loud, but it has been confirmed by all parties outside of the text, the media.
KAYLA: Yeah. Like, these characters needed to look a very specific way, they also needed to be good actors. And so, at a certain point it's like what is more important to you, the fact that this actor is gay or that they can do their job well? Like we can't always have everything we want.
SARAH: Also, from the perspective of casting, you legally cannot force someone to disclose whether they are queer or not, that is illegal. And so, when you are putting out casting calls for certain roles, the terminology specifically used in Canada, I am aware of this because I've dealt with a lot of casting in Canada, is you can say, we strongly encourage applicants of 2SLGBTQIA+ whatever backgrounds to apply, that is all you can say. And in the audition, you cannot ask them, “hey, are you queer?” If they want to volunteer that information, great. Have I been known when casting for characters who are queer to look up the actor and see if I can find out if they're queer? Absolutely. But they do not have to disclose that.
KAYLA: And legally it cannot come into the decision making.
SARAH: Exactly.
KAYLA: Like Sarah can look that up all she wants, but legally that's not coming into it.
SARAH: Exactly. And so, there's a certain point at which you literally can't ensure that you get a queer actor doing something. And then that brings you also to the example with Heartstopper.
KAYLA: I was just going to say.
SARAH: Where Kit, O'Connor? Kit Connor.
KAYLA: Why was I thinking a completely different name? I knew Kit, but I didn’t... O'Connor. Kit Connor.
SARAH: Kit Connor. No O.
KAYLA: No O.
SARAH: Kit Connor was basically harassed into, you know, forced into coming out, he was 18 years old.
KAYLA: I was going to say, I think he was a minor or very young at the time.
SARAH: He was 18 years old.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And he basically… he tweeted something to the effect of... Let me actually find the exact tweet because...
KAYLA: For context, he was in... He is in the show Heartstopper by a friend of the show Alice Oseman.
SARAH: Friend of the show Alice Oseman.
KAYLA: Playing a bisexual character.
SARAH: Playing a bisexual character. And so, he tweets, “back for a minute, I'm bi, congrats for forcing an 18-year-old to out himself. I think some of you missed the point of the show. Bye.”
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: So, yeah.
KAYLA: I mean, it's just... I get it, right? And we talked about this in the episode we did about speculating about celebrities’ sexualities, I get it, you want to identify with this person, it would be great for representation if we had so many out A-listers. You can think that Hollywood is a very progressive place as much as you want…
SARAH: It's not.
KAYLA: It's not.
SARAH: I'm sorry, it's not.
KAYLA: It's not. And these people are not all feeling safe, you might think it pays for an actor to be queer, it pays for a pop star to be queer, in some spaces it might, but not really.
SARAH: Let me also say, from my personal perspective, as someone who works in Hollywood but also works in Canadian television, the most recent shows that have come out that have been about the queer experience, that have done well and lasted many seasons, it is not a coincidence that many of those shows are not American.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: That is not a coincidence. Because try as you might in the US to make a show like that, there are so many barriers and hurdles and scared execs and scared companies and people who will try and water your shit down and that is why Heated Rivalry was made entirely in Canada.
KAYLA: Yeah. I was going to say, Heated Rivalry was pitched in America and…
SARAH: Heated Rivalry was pitched in America…
KAYLA: And was insanely cut down and so they were like, “no, we're taking this to Canada.”
SARAH: And they were like, “no, we don't even want them to kiss until episode five.” And Jacob Tierney was like, “that defeats the whole fucking point, I don't want your money. Goodbye.”
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Which was the right thing to do.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But there are a lot of creators who would look at that and be like, I have to do this, because they're telling, like… you know. And I appreciate that Jacob Tierney had such a strong vision for the show and he was also established enough as a showrunner that he was able to do that and say, “no, I'm not going to fucking do that, I won't take your money.”
KAYLA: But that's how we end up with… like we were talking about with Disney stuff, that's how we end up with such watered down things, is you have people that are desperate for any sort of representation to get any project off the ground and so they're willing to have their shit cut down and watered down just so that we can have some background characters maybe kiss.
SARAH: Yeah. Or I'm thinking of Glee, I'm thinking of Riverdale, where there are significant queer storylines, but not at the beginning.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: The show has to be doing really well first.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And then they can start introducing those things in earnest. Like, obviously, like they were… you know, in Glee, like we fucking all know that Kurt is gay, like that's not… like in the pilot, like we know. But, you know, the other plot lines about Brittany and Santana, that stuff...
KAYLA: I mean, the Brittany and Santana thing was actor-advocated.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: That was not originally written, that was the actors being like, “these characters are gay, we need this in the show.”
SARAH: Yeah. And so… and like with Riverdale, like it didn't start out super-gay, it became gay.
KAYLA: Well, Riverdale became a lot of things, if we're to be honest about Riverdale.
SARAH: Riverdale could have been a lot of things, but it wasn't.
KAYLA: Well, it was, but not the kind of things we wanted, Riverdale was objectively a lot of things.
SARAH: It was a lot of things, I meant in the aspec realm, it could have been.
KAYLA: Oh, yeah. It could have been a lot of things for a lot of things and it was a lot of things, but it was a different lot of things.
SARAH: Right. A different set of lot of things.
KAYLA: Yeah. So anyway, pulling it all back, there are so many closeted celebrities of all kinds; sports, actors, musicians, pop stars, whatever. And I think it is very easy and privileged for people to sit behind their screens on the couch and be like, they're so rich and famous, they have all this power, they can do whatever they want, just come out.
SARAH: They might not even have come to terms with their sexuality yet.
KAYLA: Right.
SARAH: Who cares if they're 35? Plenty of people don't realize until they're 35 that they're queer.
KAYLA: Like you have no idea the journey that people are going on. Thinking of what it took for me to come to terms with things and how nervous I was on our small-ass, stupid-ass podcast to talk about things and publicly be like, “okay, this is what I'm going with,” and then when things changed, being like, “well, fuck, that's like on the record,” whatever. If you think about those worries on such a small scale.
SARAH: On our small-ass, niche-ass podcast that was about exactly the identities that you were identifying with, you knew the audience was going to be open to it and copacetic and great about it.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: Most people are not in such a situation.
KAYLA: Right. And so, like… Yeah. Why can't we just leave people alone? Again, I get it, it would be great if everyone was just open and queer. I get it that it can feel confusing that this person you think acts super queer or is a man that's not very masculine or a woman who's doing whatever.
[00:40:00]
SARAH: And sometimes it might be them intentionally hinting to certain audiences.
KAYLA: Sure.
SARAH: That may very well be the case sometimes, which, okay, great. You can read into things as much as you want, but I think you need to also step back and just take things at face value sometimes and keep the... Like, I had to block someone on Twitter today for posting a photo that had Hudson's girlfriend in it and fucking government naming her in the tweet.
KAYLA: Crazy.
SARAH: And I was like, “what the fuck are you doing?” Like, no!
KAYLA: That is a real person who has physical safety needs.
SARAH: It was a paparazzi photo that she was in and they were like, “oh, yes, he's still with his girlfriend, (government name.)” And I was like, “we can't be fucking doing that.”
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: So, like I understand… I'm so nosy, I understand the urge to want to speculate and talk about things, as I've established in this very episode, I have opinions on what people are, I guess. Not how they identify because I don't fucking know how they identify, but like, you know. I see certain things and I see patterns and I say, “okay, I see you.” And a lot of fans are doing the same thing, but at the end of the day, it is completely up to them what they do and don't disclose.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And sometimes when we have these conversations, they get way too big on the internet and I'm like, you need to be having this conversation, like with your friends in the group chat, not on main with 10,000 followers.
KAYLA: Yeah, anyone could see that.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: I also think what I really don't like is the attitude of this celebrity or person owes it to their fans to come out because they have so many queer fans that support them and so they owe it to us to tell us.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: I also really don't like just the, this celebrity owes me x, y, z because I made them who they are today.
SARAH: They don’t owe you shit
KAYLA: Like I was an OG fan, all of their money is because of me.
SARAH: Don't fucking care.
KAYLA: Shut the fuck up.
SARAH: You don't own them, they're not a commodity.
KAYLA: Yeah. Like you singularly did not do this for them, it was like their talent and you happen to like it, whatever. So, I just… that I really don't like, especially when it's coming from fellow queer people, because it's like, do you want to be outed? Do you want to feel like you are owed to someone to come out? What are you doing?
SARAH: Right. Like, okay, imagine that you have a cousin who is a lot younger than you and they're queer and you're queer, but you haven't come out to your family yet, do you owe it to your cousin to come out so that they can have that representation? So that they can see their representation?
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Do you owe them that? No. Because there are implications of you coming out to your family that affect you, and it may affect them to a certain extent, but first and foremost, it affects you and your life.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And you need to make that choice. And maybe one of the reasons that you might decide to come out is with your cousin in mind, sure, great. But your cousin cannot expect you to do that just for them, that's an unreasonable expectation.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Being parasocial is fine to a certain extent, we should all get less weird about our parasocialism.
KAYLA: I just think there are certain things that we should keep to ourselves or, like you said…
SARAH: We have the right to keep to ourselves.
KAYLA: In small groups.
SARAH: Yes.
KAYLA: Like, we all have crazy parasocial thoughts, you can't control what you're thinking, you know? You can't control what you're searching, what you're posting.
SARAH: The internet is public and the internet is forever.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And if something gets big enough, even if you are trying to keep it to certain corners, if the conversation gets big enough, the likelihood of the person it's about seeing it balloons.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: So, keep that in mind.
KAYLA: Yeah. It just makes me especially disappointed in queer people when stuff like this happens, because… I mean, I just hold queer people to a higher standard and so when I see things like this or see people… like this is a completely different example, but I had a friend who was researching some sexuality stuff online recently, and they came across people specifically talking about the split model of attraction and people on TikTok being like, “it's actually only for these people to use, only aspecs can use this, you shouldn't be using it.” And also…
SARAH: Like, weird gatekeeping that's not even true.
KAYLA: Women who use it to like say that they're into women sometimes but then just end up dating men, like, they’re… whatever. It was just, like, a very gatekeepy, very, like, touch grass. And I was just like, “it's just so disappointing when queer people are like this, because we're supposed to have our shit together for God’s sake”
SARAH: Yeah. And, like, we're supposed to be a welcoming community, and you are making it so hard for people to want to identify with these people.
KAYLA: You’re making it stinky, you're making me embarrassed.
SARAH: So embarrassing. Also, regarding... I'm thinking of this specifically in the context of Heated Rivalry, but this can be true in any context with an individual person who you claim to be queerbaiting, would you like the content any less if they were straight? Is the content any worse if they're straight? No.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Because they're actors or they're musicians, and they're creating art, and you like that art for what it is. And as long as they're not being like disingenuous or being offensive...
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Great. Like, I'm sorry, is it offensive… like, is it offensive for a gay person to play straight?
KAYLA: I just, like, if someone... Like, say Harry Styles starts dating a man, and then later it comes out that he just did it for clout, yeah, stinky, that's bad, that's objectively queerbaiting, he just did it for money or whatever.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: But, like, you guys, no one is doing that.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Like...
SARAH: And there's, like, that whole, like, that phrase that people will, like, kind of use to attack people, like, ‘gay for pay.’
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And it's like… especially nowadays, there's so much blowback for being gay.
KAYLA: It just does not seem worth it to me.
SARAH: Also, in the case of Heated Rivalry, people are like, “oh, he's just gay for pay,” and it's like, what pay? He was gay for essentially free.
KAYLA: He got two dollars. Like, he's getting money now, but when the show was first filming, his paycheck was probably the saddest thing you ever saw.
SARAH: And his paycheck for season two is not going to be much more, the money he's getting is for other things.
KAYLA: Already paid, yeah.
SARAH: And he has also said, on the record, that he just really loved this project, and he felt strongly about it, and he would have done it for free.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: So, he came out as gay for free!? Like what!?
KAYLA: The money is not coming from the show.
SARAH: Yeah. So… yeah. And I do really appreciate how the showrunner and other cast members of Heated Rivalry have defended Connor and Hudson in their right to not explicitly say how they identify, because they don't fucking have to, it doesn't fucking matter.
KAYLA: I also, in a situation like theirs, where privacy is so hard to come by, even if they are not expecting any blowback from coming out, if you were them, would you not hold on to any shred of fucking privacy that you have at this point?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: They have like one or two things that people don't already know about them. Can you really blame them for wanting to keep their most intimate relationships to themselves? Like, hello?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Anyway!
SARAH: So, in conclusion, a single person cannot queerbait about themselves unless they're doing it extremely maliciously, which is hard to prove.
KAYLA: It's just hard to prove and hard to believe that Harry Styles would be doing that to us, I just don’t know.
SARAH: Second of all, queerbaiting in media, the more traditional definition, it can be done intentionally and with malice, but I don't think it always is.
KAYLA: I think the word is perhaps used to bait loosely, I think perhaps we need a different word for what more often happens.
SARAH: Queer, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty, pspsps, pspsps, pspsps, pspsps…
KAYLA: Queer, pspsps, pspsps, pspsps, pspsps, perfect.
SARAH: That's all I have to say. Do you have anything else to add?
KAYLA: No, this may be angrier than I expected.
SARAH: Sorry.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: What's our poll for this week?
KAYLA: When have you felt queerbaited?
SARAH: Yeah, I would like to know. Have you ever truly felt queerbaited?
KAYLA: Yeah, think about what we've said, have you really been queerbaited? Think critically.
SARAH: Think critically.
KAYLA: Think critically. Listen to these two fucking idiots tell you to think critically, two people who are loud and wrong all the time.
SARAH: All the time. But listen, we've got degrees. Are they in thinking critically? Well, they're liberal arts degrees.
KAYLA: I have a psychology degree, I'd like to think that's a critical thinking degree, not that I use it.
SARAH: I have a degree in...
KAYLA: But it is one of my degrees.
SARAH: My degrees aren't explicitly about critical thinking, but they are liberal arts degrees, which means we had to take classes.
KAYLA: I had to do critical thinking classes.
SARAH: That made you critical think.
KAYLA: It's true.
SARAH: Yes. Okay, Kayla, what's your beef and your juice for this week?
KAYLA: My beef is A, I mean, I guess I don't know if this is a beef or a juice, we'll see how it comes out, but the 18 to 24 inches of snow, I'm very interested to see what effect that has on me. Luckily, I already work from home on Mondays, so I won't have to traverse that.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: My other beef is working at a school, this is not shade to the specific school I work at.
[00:50:00]
SARAH: More so the concept.
KAYLA: This is more the concept of in this day and age and political climate, the physical safety concerns that come into the feelings I have walking into my work building every day. And that I just don't think that people should be going into work concerned for getting murdered.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: And so, I do think that sucks.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Also, my other beef is literally everything else going on.
SARAH: Right.
KAYLA: My juice is my favorite author, TJ Klune, has a book coming out in April, which was already announced and then he just announced another book that's… like the launch book of a new imprint of Tor, which is my favorite publisher, they have a new imprint. And he has another book coming up next January.
SARAH: Wow
KAYLA: So, he has two books he has already announced and he's akin to that, like he has like 30 more that are like already done and waiting to come out.
SARAH: Wow
KAYLA: So, I'm going to be poor and have so many books to read.
SARAH: And reading. I'm a little offended that I'm not your favorite author.
KAYLA: Um… yeah.
SARAH: Do we need to like hash this out in couples therapy?
KAYLA: Yeah, maybe. It's also just like he has written a lot more books than you. So, like I've read more of his work. If maybe you… if you ever let me read your work, it would be different but I've read a lot of his work and I've read like two of your work.
SARAH: Two of my work!?
KAYLA: I like don't actually know that that's an exaggeration. I've read the book you wrote with me and the play we made together. And like, other than that, maybe like an essay once. But other than that, I just couldn't say other work of yours that I've read. So, it's like, how are you supposed to be my favorite author when I've read two of your work?
SARAH: I've got works on the internet, you just got to find them.
KAYLA: And you sent me a link to it, and so, I could, but it's like, I know you have a lot of other work that you're keeping from me. And it's like, how am I going to like an author who's gatekeeping their work for me? Like that just feels like, how could my favorite author be an author that's not nice to me?
SARAH: Okay. Do you want me to send you my pilot and then you tell me if it sucks?
KAYLA: Yes.
SARAH: Okay. I'm having other people read it, so.
KAYLA: Oh, oh, she's having other people read it.
SARAH: People who work in film and television, not just like randos.
KAYLA: I guess I'm not your favorite reader.
SARAH: Have you ever read a screenplay?
KAYLA: Probably.
SARAH: Okay, the fact that you don't know for sure is why I didn't.
KAYLA: It's just like, if you're going to get mad that you're not my favorite author and I'm not your favorite reader, it's like, well then like, what are we doing here?
SARAH: Okay. My beef and my juice is BTS ticketing.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Big beef, potentially big juice.
KAYLA: Who’s to say?
SARAH: It's not done for me yet, I've done some of it, but not all of it.
KAYLA: Sarah and I are in a group chat together and someone wished Sarah luck on getting the tour tickets and another person didn't know the context and thought Sarah was going on tour and I got a good giggle out of that.
SARAH: Yeah. Also worth noting is that the two people who said this are people that like neither of us really know very well.
KAYLA: I've never met them in my life, except on the internet.
SARAH: I have definitely met one of them, I'm not sure about the other.
KAYLA: No idea what these people look like, I don't think I know what they look like. I know what their online versions of… like me's of them look like.
SARAH: Yeah. On the Pikmin game.
KAYLA: Never seen them in my days.
SARAH: My other beef is just like I continue to be itchy. Oh, my juice also fucking… I saw TWICE last night in concert and the night before I saw Taemin at the Grammy Museum in a theater with 200 people in it.
KAYLA: How close were you?
SARAH: Quite. It was like partially like a conversation and then he performed a couple of songs. He performed Move twice because the first time he did it his mic was fucked up and he's like, “no, no, no, I'll be doing that again. Thank you. Mic on.”
KAYLA: Mic on.
SARAH: And then he did Move. He did Want. He did Press Your Number. And then he did his new song that he only performed for the first time like last week and it has the most insane mic stand choreo.
KAYLA: Oh.
SARAH: Transcendental, life changing. He was so close to me, they turned the house lights up for a bit and I was like, “no, turn them off, he can't perceive me.”
KAYLA: “He could see me.”
SARAH: Like he could have perceived me even with the house lights off. But like when they were on, I was like, “no, no, no.”
KAYLA: “Too close.”
SARAH: “My face is not in peak condition right now, please turn them off,” I was sweating the whole time. Okay, that's all. You can tell us about your beef, your juice, your experiences queerbaiting on our social media @soundsfakepod. We also have a Patreon, patreon.com/soundsfakepod if you would like to support us there. Our $5 patrons who we are promoting this week are Rebekah Monnin, Rick Turpin, SammyO, and Scott Ainslie. And also, Loev? Lowe? Who bumped up to five dollars from… so, thank you, icon. Actually, they're in Swedish Krona, but, you know, it's…
KAYLA: Krona? That's fun.
SARAH: Krona.
KAYLA: Even more fun.
SARAH: Okay. Our $10 patrons who are promoting something this week are Clare Olsen, who would like to promote Impact_Frame, Danielle Hutchinson, who would like to promote Rainbow Pride Knits, Derick & Carissa, who would like to promote supporting each other through the transitions we face, Elle Bitter, who would like to promote normalizing the use of tone indicators /srs and Eric, who would like to promote Queer ASL. Our other $10 patrons are my aunt Jeannie, Johanna, Kayla's Dad, KELLER bradley, Maff, Martin Chiesl, Purple Hayes, Quartertone, Barefoot Backpacker, Song of Storm, Val… Actually, I'm sorry, it's SongOStorm, I inserted an F that didn't belong.
KAYLA: Idiot.
SARAH: Alastor, Ani, Arcnes and Benjamin Ybarra. Our $15 patrons are Ace, who would like to promote the writer Crystal Scherer, Nathaniel White who would like to promote NathanielJWhiteDesigns.com, Kayla’s Aunt Nina who would like to promote katemaggartart.com and Schnell who would like to promote accepting that everyone is different and that's awesome. Our $20 patrons are Changeling & Alex, who would like to promote their company ControlAltAccess.com, Dr. Jacki, Dragonfly, my mom, and River, who would like to promote having friends who help you get BTS tickets when you end up forty… no, when you end up fifty thousand and fifty-five thousandth in the queue.
KAYLA: Oh no.
SARAH: My friend was ninety-five thousand and a hundred thousand.
KAYLA: That's no good.
SARAH: Fuck Ticketmaster, by the way.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Shout out to Jenny and Lauren and also Bam and Bam's friend, Jaka? Who I don't know who you are, but you got me really good tickets. Thank you for listening, tune in next Sunday for more of us in your ears.
KAYLA: And until then, take good care of your cows.
[END OF TRANSCRIPT]