"Unrequited: The History of Queer Baiting" Transcript

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The queer community has become incredibly good at finding queer subtext in movies and TV shows, whether it exists or not.

For over a century of film and television, we've probably been the most
underrepresented minority in media. It was never illegal for a character of color to exist in a movie, but it was illegal, for a long time, for a queer character to exist. Writers, directors, and producers could be taken to court under obscenity laws, fined and even jailed, for having the nerve to show a queer character.

At the same time, it's become a culturally agreed upon fact among
cis-straight people, to the point of parody, that the queer community runs Hollywood. The Velvet or Pink Mafia, supposedly now run by David Geffin, is even an assumed queer media cartel that inserts LGBT messaging into movies and TV shows to corrupt the youth of America.

The funny thing is, this isn't entirely false. I mean, we're not trying to corrupt the youth of America; growing up alone in the suburbs is doing a fine job of that all on its own.

But there has always been a loose collective of queer creators that do insert coding into a lot of movies, TV shows, and books, coding that would likely be ignored by straight audiences but immediately recognized by those of us who are on the lookout. It's reached a bit of a fever pitch lately, with Poe and Finn, Steve and Bucky, Teen Wolf, The Legend of Kora, and even Frozen. But just because people outside queer spaces are finally recognizing it doesn't mean it's a new thing. What we now call queer baiting has been around since the early days of cinema. Sort of. Film historians have given the early days of this phenomenon the name "queer coding", which a lot of people confuse with "queer baiting", but there is a big difference between the two.

"Queer coding" is when you're unable to show actual queer characters on screen, either because of the laws or morals of the day, or because studio executives just won't let you. So you create characters that the right audience will obviously view as gay, lesbian, bi, or transgender, to allow for LGBT representation when the entire world is telling you not to. A little golden nugget hidden deep underground for the people who are willing to dig for it.

While "queer baiting" is when you do have the ability to add queer characters to your film or TV show, but just don't want to risk turning off certain audiences or advertisers by doing so. One is an effort to give LGBT audiences at least a taste of representation, while the other is used to reel in said audience with an implied promise of queer characters without ever actually intending on fulfilling that promise.

It's like the cinematic equivalent of edging without the money shot.

So let's look at the history of this practice, discover media you may not know is intended to be read as queer, see when the line between queer coding and queer baiting began to blur, and why we still don't have an out LGBT superhero in the MCU.

[Text printing on screen (typewriter effect)]:

"Your ideas about who you are don't just come from inside you, they come from the culture. And in this culture they come especially from the movies. So we learn from the movies what it means to be a man or a woman. What it means to have sexuality."

-Richard Dryer, film historian

A long time ago, in a Hollywood Far Far Away, gay characters were not all that uncommon. But they were played for laughs. In the early days of silent film,
movies like A Florida Enchantment,
Algae the Minor,
and The Soilers featured gay characters as easy comic relief. The idea of homosexuality was even a gag
in Behind the Screen, an early Charlie Chaplain film that showed him kissing a tomboy and being mocked for it. Being mocked by someone whose eye makeup could make Trixie Mattel blush.

It was around this time that that the "sissy" stereotype was born: flouncy, bouncy, frilly men with creative jobs. Artists, designers... This grew out of the self-hatred among straight men who found it hard
to provide for their families in lean times. You weren't a man if you couldn't support a wife and three kids. You weren't a man if you couldn't go off to war. So to appeal to the egos of these (quote-unquote) "real men",
producers created characters to make them feel better about their masculinity. Movies like Our Betters, The Broadway Melody,
Myrt and Marge, and
Call Her Savage were just a few films with such characters.

This type of representation of gay men was not appreciated.

This wasn't the only representation though. The 1927 film Wings featured a... a very intense friendship between two pilots that culminates in this scene:

But scenes like that were few and far between. So while gay men were played for laughs, lesbians were something else entirely.

Marina Dietrich turned on both men and women with this scene in 1930s Morocco. A woman in a tuxedo wasn't entirely unheard of coming out of the Roaring 20s, but a woman in a tuxedo on film? That was groundbreaking. The lesbian kiss, a cherry on top. Gary Cooper may have been Dietrich's real love interest in the film, but everybody left the theater talking about that scene.

Not long after Morocco, we got Queen Christina the story of a realife Swedish Monarch who was infamous for being a,,, pretty out and proud lesbian for the day, though the filmmakers went out of their way to straightwash the historical figure, her real life sexuality bled onto the celluloid despite their best efforts.

Along with homosexuality, sex, violence, and orgies were pretty common in early Hollywood, oddly in biblical films. And some people we're getting fed up with it.

Starting in 1922, after the earliest of these morally questionable films had become massive successes, and a series of real life Hollywood scandals had rocked the papers, studio heads enlisted William H. Hayes, the former Postmaster General (so he was obviously qualified) to rehabilitate Hollywood's image. He was one of the few unindighted members of Warren G. Harding's administration at the time, so obviously his moral fortitude was robust.

In 1924, he introduced a set of recommendations dubbed "The Formula", which Studios were advised to strictly follow. Back in 1915, the Supreme Court case Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio had already decided that Free Speech laws didn't extend to Motion Pictures, stating that "because film may be used for evil, we cannot regard censorship as beyond the power of the government". So the industry was on thin ice as it was. It could be a disaster for them to draw the ire of conservatives in government. Directors and writers, though, mostly ignored the suggestions.

In 1927, Hayes strongly suggested Studios form a committee to discuss film censorship. The heads of MGM and Fox complied and created a list of "don't"s and "be careful"s. This oddball list included things like:

[Displayed on screen, read out word for word]:

Pointed profanity -- by either title or lip -- this includes the words "God", "Lord", "Jesus", "Christ" (unless they be used reverently in connection with the proper religious ceremonies), "hell", "damn", "Gawd" and every other profane and vulgar expression however it may be spelled;

Any licentious or suggestive nudity -- in fact or in silhouette, and any lecherous or licentious notice thereof by other characters in the picture;

The illegal traffic of drugs;

Any inference of sex perversion;

White slavery

(but not black slavery, that was fine!)

Miscegenation [or] (sexual relationship between the races);

Sex Hygiene and Venial Diseases

Scenes of actual childbirth -- in fact or in silhouette; as long as it isn't shown on screen

Children's sex organs

(okay this one actually, you know, makes sense)

Ridicule of the clergy;

willful offense to any nation, race or creed;

(I feel like not all races were included in that)

Special care should also be taken when portraying the use of firearms, the American flag, men and women sharing a bed, and actual murder[s].

So it was relatively okay to show actual murder, but even the idea, the inference, of homosexuality was a big no-no.

The Federation of Women's Club was one of the loudest voices of the era calling for theaters to be raided by police if they dare show any films released before The Code was put into effect.

In 1930, the code was agreed upon by the studios and put into effect, essentially making the depiction of homosexuality on screen more or less illegal.

Joe Breen ran the code office for two decades. His position authorized him to change anything about a movie, from the script, plots, edits, characters, even camera angles.

Under his rule, The Lost Weekend, a novel about an alcoholic coming to terms with his sexuality, became a movie about an alcoholic with writer's block. Crossfire, a novel about gay bashing, became a novel about antisemitism.

Many writers and directors in Hollywood, many of them gay themselves were, not too happy with the implementation of the Hays Code. Especially since in places like Weimar Republic Germany, advancement of queer representation on film was becoming mainstream. (At least until the rise of Adolf Hitler.) They saw what little progress that was taking place in North American Cinema come to a screeching halt with the Hays Code introduction, and they decided to fight back against it any way they could. And the only way they could at the time was to create characters that were quite obviously gay to any queer person watching, but who could fly under the radar of the censors.

One way to get the censors to turn the other way was to code villains as gay. Such as the obsessive Mrs Danvers and Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca. After the titular Rebecca dies, it is revealed to the audience that her housekeeper Mrs Danvers has kept all of her clothes, with a special care given to her underwear.

Another example is 1941's The Maltese Falcon. In the film, Peter Lori plays Joel Cairo, one of the film's villains. In the book on which it's based, Cairo is stated very clearly to be gay, queer in fact, but in the movie it's instead inferred,
with his business card being sprayed with perfume,
a lilting feminine demeanor, and his propensity to orally fondle his cane.

This trend of coding villains as gay lasted for decades, a topic I covered more in depth in my Monsters in the Closet video. Sometimes the censors would turn a blind eye to lesbians on the screen, but only under certain circumstance. The "lesbian prison movie" became almost a cliche in the 1940s and 50s, killing two birds with one stone: scaring girls into following the law lest they end up in prison with big scary lesbians, and convincing many young lesbians to go straight, since lesbians seem to have no fate but to end up in prison.

Lesbians in these movies tended to be played by large imposing women, and they likely had a position of authority within the prison. Not guards or anything like that, God forbid, but the women who had been in prison the longest had relationships with the guards. And so the guards were more likely to turn a blind eye to their sapphic tendencies.

Representation of queer women was more subtle in 1950s Young Man With A Horn, but just barely. Lauren Bacall plays Amy, an obviously bisexual character that becomes a chaotic force in the life of our main character, Rick. While observing Doris Day's Joe Jordan, Amy comments:

She's referred to by other characters as having a twisted mind, and eventually Rick tells her that she's sick; this description falling into the prevailing medical opinion on homosexuality at the time.

An iconic example of queer coding that straddles the line of Hays Code approval is 1955's Rebel Without a Cause. Starring two teen heartthrobs, James Dean and Sal Mineo, both of whom are at least rumored to have been queer. Dean's character Jim is a teenager kicking against authority and parental neglect. Who becomes both friend and fascination to Mineo's Plato, a lonely younger kid.

Plato is obviously gay, although it's easier to say that in 2020 than it was in 1955. If you don't pick up on that from the photo of hunky Alan Ladd that Plato has taped inside of his locker, or the looks of adoration he gives Jim, it becomes abundantly clear when he makes a coded declaration of love to Jim late in the film.

Jim has feelings for Plato too, although the main narrative is him falling in love with Natalie Wood's character Judy. James Dean could read the subtext though. Prior to filming the intense encounter with Mineo in the abandoned Getty Mansion, he told him, "look at me the way that I look at Natalie".

Such homoerotic bonding couldn't be spoken about in the repressive 1950s. Being gay was still illegal in most of the country, and at minimum frowned upon everywhere else, and the censors of the day took pains to keep it that way. A Production Code officer sent a memo to Jack Warner in the spring of 1955 during the filming of Rebel Without a Cause, reminding the Warner Brothers executive that--

[on screen, radio filter]:

"it is of course vital that there be no inference of a questionable or homosexual relationship between Plato and Jim."

Now that's some subtle inference. 😏

Most straight reviewers of Rebel didn't pick up on anything beyond "Boy Meets Girl" and the romantic entanglements. The strongest impact the film makes is non-verbal, operating on an unconscious level. The mere sight of Dean and Mineo exhibiting unabashed love for each other sent a powerful message. Dean's Jim isn't afraid to show affection for Plato as well as Judy.

As brave as the filmmakers were to show a pretty blatant example of a gay, or at least questioningly gay, relationship on screen, they knew the strict morals of the day might take the picture down. So Plato, the more obviously gay of the two characters, has to die in the end. He can't live happily ever after. He can't live at all. Can't give the impression that that kind of lifestyle could result in anything but pain and death. James Dean would die in a car accident before the film was even released. And... Sal Mineo would be stabbed to death in West Hollywood at the age of 37.

And now for an abrupt segue!

You wouldn't expect expect there to be queer coding in Ben-Hur, of all movies -- the book was subtitled "The Tale of the Christ" -- but there actually is. Gore Vidal, screenwriter of the film, said this in 1996:

[Abrupt cut back to James's face]

Ben-Hur wasn't the only surprising movie you'd find queer coding in as the production code began to lose its grip on Hollywood. westerns were also not immune.

Characters meeting the obvious gay stereotypes even started popping up in mainstream comedies, like in Lover Come Back in 1961.

And straight characters started acting gay in order to get a woman in bed. Funnily enough, an awful lot of these characters were played by Rock Hudson.

And then came Some Like It Hot, a movie where two straight musicians dress in drag in order to avoid the mafia killer looking for them. One of the first major studio films to be released without the Motion Picture Production Code... approval since the 1930s.

The Code had been weakening for years as social attitudes became more progressive, and many consider Some Like It Hot to be the final nail in the code coffin. even though it would technically remain in effect until 1968.

A famous instance of gay coding being too obvious, even for the Production Code Office, was 1960 Spartacus, where slave Antoninus, played by Tony Curtis who was also in Some Like It Hot, bathes his master, played by Laurence Olivier.

The bisexual overtones of "snails and oysters" was too obvious even for the pretty oblivious censors of the day.

An adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, also had a blue pencil taken to it to remove queer references.

And even more egregiously with another Tennessee Williams adaptation Suddenly Last Summer. Screenwriter Gore Vidal (...seemed to be writing a lot of these movies at the time) said the film was forced before the legion of decency and cut to bits until it made no sense at all. But the messaging, though now coded, was still there. That the unseen character of Sebastian used the women in his life to attract men
he could sleep with, ending in his violent murder by a savage mob.

When the film was released, the New York Times ran a scathing review, telling potential movie goers "if you'd like incest, rape, sodomy, cannibalism, degeneracy, this sickening picture is the the one for you." Inadvertently they had given the film the best advertising campaign it could possibly hope for! Making it a breakaway success for stars Elizabeth Taylor and Katharine Hepburn.

Coding went out the window with 1961's Victim, giving filmgoers their first gay hero. And a sympathetic betrayal of homosexuals in general.
The British film was attacked by censors in the UK and the US. with UK censors giving it an X rating and America's production code refusing to classify at all. Decades later, when it was eventually released on home video? It was rated PG-13.

[A purple-filtered graphic of the jail door opening on the things banned by the code... and one by one they vanish, save for "sex perversion".]

As the production code slowly began to fade away in America, with original restrictions like open-mouth kissing, nudity, profanity, abortion, and prostitution now finding their way through the censoring process, only one remained: the sex perversion clause.

No major studios and stars had yet tackled the subject of homosexuality in any meaningful way in Hollywood... But that would change with 1961's The Children's Hour starring Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine.

The film was willing to show that, yes, homosexuality is a thing, it does exist, but it's not something good moral people should talk about. MacLaine and Hepburn play two friends, Martha and Karen, who
opened a private school for girls. When
one of their students, a vicious little bi-- ...bully, is punished by Karen by not allowing her to attend that weekend's boat race, the little wretch concocts a story about the two women being lesbians and tells her grandmother. This leads to a series of ever
escalating circumstances, including a lawsuit,
that leave the two women emotionally drained. And Karen's engagement (to a man) left in limbo.

But even after the accusation has proven false,
their lives are not the same. Karen's fiance leaves, so Karen wants to leave town for good start a new life somewhere else. A fevered back and forth leads to Martha realizing that she actually does love Karen, and not just as friends. She's in love with her best friend and feels terrible about it. She feels responsible for ruining their lives and is disgusted by her feelings for Karen. And so one day while Karen is out for a walk... Martha hangs herself.

The film was nominated for five Academy Awards and is considered one of the best courtroom dramas ever made, but its Legacy is not quite so positive. The entire movie is about how horrible it would be for two nice young women to be lesbians, just the idea of it leads people to gasp, and end with one of them killing herself. Homosexuality was not really a part of the movie, it was only a negative plot device. How people are treated when accused of a crime so heinous. The lesbian experience isn't really expressed in the film at all, and even Shirley MacLaine has gone on record in 1996 saying William Wyler, the director, never even spoke to her about the lesbian elements.

But though the film's depiction of homosexuality and reactions to it are flawed, it still rings true to many. People still live in environments where they're called "sick" and "dirty" for being gay, either by those around them or by depictions of queer people in the media. So Martha's self-loathing is all too familiar to many people. After The Children's Hour, movies about queer self-loathing became more frequent.

And that self-loathing, inevitably, turned to death, suicide, murder, whatever it needed to be, because it was clear that if you were gay, or coded gay, in a movie, you had to die.

But as the 1960s came to a close, there was change in the air. Following the Stonewall riots, Hollywood finally released a truly gay film, with the release of The Boys In The Band in 1970. We saw our first major release, feature gay characters who are out... and nobody dies!

Two years later we even popped up in an Oscar juggernaut with Cabaret.

It wasn't the end of gay coding, but gay stereotypes began to replace it. There would still be stereotypical gay portrayals across every genre of film: Butch lesbians, feminine men, and sneaky bisexual and transgender people. Would become tropes in Hollywood that still find their ways into movies to this day. Representation was rare, but for the most part when it, existed it existed for all to see.

By the new millennium, the queer audience was one the producers, mostly on TV but some movies, were willing to appeal to. Will and Grace became a smash hit for NBC. Queer as Folk and The L-Word broke ratings records for showtime. And Queer Eye For The Straight Guy became a cultural sensation/ In Hollywood Kissing Jessica Stein became a surprise hit. The Hours was an award season darling, and Brokeback Mountain made $178 million, breaking the hearts of movie goers around the world in the process.

But it wasn't all roses. TV networks faced advertiser boycotts and people picketed movie theater showing Brokeback Mountain. There was money to be made by appealing to the LGBT community, but it came with great risk. That risk was compounded by a string of queer inclusive bombs like Running With Scissors, under-performers like Milk, and gay backlash toward movies like Bruno and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.

The queer audience was a volatile one. One that wouldn't accept just any movie you gave them. And if you directly appealed to the queer audience, you ran the real risk of turning off the straights. So producers and writers needed to figure out a way to appeal to the gays without putting off the heteros. And they looked to a burgeoning internet fan community to find the answers.

The Harry Potter series of books and movies had birthed Harry / Draco slash fiction, on online forums, and was becoming a massive trend with stories and art spreading all over the internet. Although the characters have almost no positive interactions at all in the books or movies, let alone romantic ones, fans were drawing romantic conclusions from breadcrumbs that really didn't even exist. This is when creators realized that the queer community would do the work for you. They'd fill in the LGBT-shaped blanks and all you had to do was drop a few hints. And leave a few empty spaces. And straight audiences be none the wiser.

And so, gay-bating was born.

Now here's where I lay out a little caveat for you. In doing my research for this, I found enough instances of gay baiting to fill a whole book, let alone a video. So I decided to break it down into eight instances that stood out amongst the rest. These got the most media attention and the most fanfiction and the most fan attention.

I'm also not going to be covering any queer baiting that was eventually made canonical, like with The Legend Of Korra and Adventure Time. That's actually called "queer catching", which is when a character's queerness is confirmed after a media franchise has finished and therefore you're not running the possibility of impacting its ratings or its sales. Or you reveal that a character is gay on a press tour for a movie but it's never really manifests in the movie itself.

The most infamous example of this would be a certain British author confirming that Dumbledore was gay after her book series had ended. But she doubled down by actually queerbaiting him in a future film installment. But we're not done talking about her and her Wizards. Oh no. Not yet.

An interesting trend in queer baiting is that slightly more loose rules apply to lesbian characters. When two female characters are queer they may actually end up coupling up in the end of the story. This is of course because according to market research (and I work in marketing so I know this), male and female audiences are both more okay with lesbian characters than gay characters. While straight male audiences are likely to turn off immediately when two male characters turn out to be gay. It's even shown that parents are more likely to be okay with their kids seeing a lesbian couple than a gay couple. The assumption, at least among media researchers, is that it's easy for heteronormative audiences to view lesbian couples asexually, since there's technically no penetrative sex. Unless you actually know a lesbian and know that sex toys exist.

But even then, lesbian characters are only likely to be confirmed to be queer at the end of the story if not afterwards in some other form of media, uh novels, comic books, stuff like that. Again, this happened with The Legend Of Korra, notoriously. It also almost happened very recently with the new incarnation of She-Ra, but they got that lesbian confirmation in right under the wire. And of course, that research doesn't cover everyone and there are plenty of people who find lesbians just as disgusting as gay men.

The acceptance of lesbians in mainstream culture is just slightly more prevalent, mostly thanks to Ellen's brand of family safe gayness. But if anyone of you wants to share some videos or articles that cover lesbian queer baiting that I might have missed, please share them with me and I will link them in the description below.

And I just want everyone to know... I tried to include Supernatural, I did, but try as I might I could not follow that show at all, it makes no sense!

So now that the caveats are out of the way...

Merlin premiered on the BBC in September of 2008 and almost immediately became fodder for gay fan fiction. And it's no wonder why: Colin Moran's Merlin and Bradley James's Prince Arthur (he's not a king yet) have so much sexual tension between them you could cut it with a knife.

Merlin is set in ancient Albion, a mythical version of England, in a time prior to the Arthurian legends (mostly prior to the Arthurian legends). Merlin has become the apprentice of Gaius the king's potions master. Merlin, in case you didn't know, also has the ability to use magic, but he needs to keep it secret from everyone. Because--

-- the King Arthur's father Uther is homophobic-- I-I mean he hates magic!

Hates it so much, that he believes people ought to be executed if they have magical powers. Because it's simply not natural.

We soon meet his annoyingly arrogant son, Arthur, and I mean... yeah I'd probably be annoyingly arrogant too, if I looked like that. When Merlin meets the prince, they don't quite get along.

But, while at a royal function as Gaius's guest, Merlin ends up saving Arthur's life. To thank him for his bravery, King Uther bestows Merlin the wondrous honor of being Arthur's manservant. (I mean there could be worse jobs.)

Merlin, though, is not happy. But he decides to go along with it after meeting a dragon that informs him that Arthur is his destiny.

If you've read Plato Symposium, that whole "two halves making a whole" thing will mean a lot. Or if you're not a nerd and just understand romantic language tropes. As a quick aside, as TV dragons go, can you believe Game of Thrones came came out just 3 years after this?

So, how is it that these two characters who hate each other could become friends? Each other's destiny? Oh come on, you've seen a romantic comedy, you know how this works!

By episode 4, they've grown so close, that when Merlin has been poisoned, Prince Arthur risks his life to save him by venturing into the cave of an evil beast in order to get a flower that acts as the antidote to the poison.

Arthur, who starts off as a pompous ass, is willing to risk his own life to save the life of his servant, one that could easily be replaced, maybe even by someone who doesn't need a limb so much.

By the end of the first season, they're both willing to drink poison to save the other's life. But even after that, there's a tension between them, since Arthur is a prince and Merlin is just a lowly servant.

As the seasons go on, Merlin's feelings for Arthur become more prevalent.
He becomes incredibly jealous when women show affection to Arthur. There's a
running gag about him wanting to hug Arthur. And he's not shy about
ripping Arthur's pants off.

But there's a bond between the two, one that Merlin can't let become too strong. He can't become too connected to Arthur because he's gay-- I mean, a wizard. He's gay and a wizard. And Arthur's own father would execute Merlin if he found out about him. In fact the show doesn't exactly hide that magic is a metaphor for homosexuality. It's on the level of obviousness of X-Men 2. Even in the language used, no one ever says they practice magic, they say that they have magic. It's something they're born with, something they have no say over, and yet they're persecuted for it anyway, because of the ignorance of the majority.

Magic is Merlin's greatest weapon, though, and he uses it to save Arthur's life time and time again throughout the series. Merlin is so close to Arthur, so drawn to him, despite the servant-master divide between them, that he's willing to risk his life, not just to save Arthur's life but to even be around him.

If he were to accidentally use magic in front of the wrong person, it would be the end of him. He even hides his magic from Arthur because he fears Arthur would hate him if he found out, a feeling all too familiar to queer kids developing crushes on their... presumed straight friends.

And when Merlin goads Arthur into revealing his true feelings about Gwen, it sounds like he's talking about Merlin.

But even Gwen's not blind to how Arthur feels about Merlin.

And then, Arthur's father dies. And since he was the homophobic-- I mean, magic-phobic? -- son of a bitch that was making everyone's lives so difficult, it's the catalyst for Arthur to become his own person, a king. He can think the way he wants to and love who he wants to.

So it's telling that at a single point in the show where he feels the most isolated emotionally, the most down, the most defeated... he looks to Merlin with longing. He realizes he's not alone, that he'll never be alone, because Merlin is with him. And from that point on, he not only shows real respect for Merlin, but admiration.

When Merlin is in danger, Arthur rides to his rescue. The king doesn't send his Knights to save his servant, he goes himself to save his partner.

At the end of the series, after a battle with Morgana and Mordred leaves Arthur mortally wounded, his final words are for no one but Merlin.

Wanting to be held by the person most important to you, your best friend and partner. A small comfort at the end of your life.

A final prophecy foretells that Arthur will one day return, and so Merlin, the immortal wizard--

--wanders the earth, waiting for that day, when they can be reunited.

Obviously, Merlin and Arthur are never confirmed to be gay. But the chemistry between the two characters was so potent, from the very beginning of the series, that fans immediately ran with it in fan fiction. Fan fiction that made it to the showrunners, who decided to give those fans a little bit more red meat as each new season went on.

And even though there is nary an uncoded queer moment on the show, Merlin is still listed as an LGBTQ show on many sites online. The Merlin fandom turned it into a big hit for the BBC, and it ended up airing all across the world because of it.

But they weren't the only show on the BBC that realized what kind of audience queer baiting could bring you.

Sherlock began its on-again-off-again run on the BBC in 2010. A modern reimagining of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Victorian mystery novels, Sherlock explores the lives of the residents of 221 B. Baker Street London. Those being John Watson and Sherlock Holmes.

The gay question is actually brought up before they even move in together.

Sherlock then does assume John is coming on to him, and explains he's too wrapped up in his work to be in a relationship. While this could easily be read as a fun misunderstanding, Sherlock is a master at reading people. He's practically psychic at times. So if he read the situation as if John had a hard-on for him... well, maybe he did!

Hell, when the waiter approaches Sherlock, he assumes John is his date!

So one must presume that Sherlock has brought men here before. And Sherlock isn't the one to deny it. John is. Emphatically.

Another person who knows Sherlock very well would be his land lady, who also assumes Watson to be Sherlock's boyfriend.

Yet another person to assume Watson to to be at least incredibly close with Sherlock is Moriarty, who knows John is the one person he can threaten and Sherlock will actually give a damn.

John is so no-homo it hurts. He's so no-homo, in fact, that he dates a string of unremarkable women, all of whom he chooses Sherlock over.

Even they think he's gay.

But after Sherlock (quote-unquote) "dies", John is left broken.

He doesn't know how to cope. He wanted to say something to Sherlock before he died, something incredibly important. When his therapist asks him to say it now, he can't. He can't bring himself to say it out loud to another person. It was only for Sherlock.

What could it have been...?

Irene Adler knows...

An expert in human sexuality and how men's minds work. Her statement that she is in fact gay is interesting, since she's obviously in love with Sherlock. Saying, in essence, that you can be primarily attracted to women, but still fall in love with Sherlock Holmes.

Moving forward, John gets so incredibly jealous whenever Sherlock comes in contact with a woman. And Sherlock gets incredibly jealous whenever John interacts with another man.

Then there is Mary, the woman John eventually gets married to. She's a special one,
someone who understands his relationship with Sherlock and even encourages it. They kind of become a throuple for a while. Until she does the one thing Sherlock could never forgive.

She hurts John. John forgives her, but Sherlock
holds on to that anger until the day she dies, jumping in front of a bullet to protect him.

So, does Sherlock love John? Yes. He might be the only person he does love. Does John love Sherlock? Everyone certainly seems to think he does. Is it ever confirmed, really, one way or another? Of course not, because confirming it one way or another means that you might lose one group of fans or another. The oblivious straights or the love struck shippers. They knew better. They knew how to queer bait, and become an international hit show doing it. Plus, it's extra egregious because one of the show's creators, Mark Gatiss, is gay himself!

[Sighs heavily.]

God damn it, British people. I said we'd be getting back to the wizards, didn't I? Harry Potter And The Cursed Child is a two-night play that's been dominating the West End and Broadway since it first opened in 2016. Now, since it's a play without a whole lot of live footage, we'll be relying on quotes from the script here. But before I even start, Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy are gay. Don't care what anyone says! Not going to change my mind!

Now why do I think this? Well, let's start off with how they meet. Albus and his cousin Rose are on their way to their first year at Hogwarts.

[Quote from script on screen]:

Albus opens a door- to look in on a lonely blonde kid, Scorpius - in an otherwise empty compartment.

Albus smiles. Scorpius smiles back.

Well, that's innocent enough. Two boys smiling at each other doesn't... scream gay agenda to me.

Eventually, Rose leaves the two and we get this description:

Scorpius and Albus look at each other and something passes between them.

Things pass between me and my straight friends all the time when we were starting puberty, no big deal.

The play moves on to follow the lives of our two boys over the next few years. Focused obviously on Albus, since he's Harry Potter's kid and all.

We learned more about Albus's life at home, his awkward relationship with his family -- he feels like he doesn't fit in, especially after being sorted into Slytherin with a family entirely made up of Gryffindors.

Same for Scorpius: he doesn't live up to his father's expectations either. He's a bit weird, kind of a goofball, which doesn't fly with the Malfoy family.

So although they both feel alienated from their families, they feel at home with each other. A safe harbor in an otherwise rocky sea.

Harry tried to make Albus feel welcome, but he just doesn't understand his son. It's an easy allegory for parents of queer kids trying to be accepting, but they're just can't get it right. Scorpius is the only person that Albus feels comfortable with.

Albus hugs his friend.
With fierceness.
They hold for a beat. Scorpius is surprised by this.

Scorpius
Okay. uh, Hello. Um, have we hugged before? Do we hug?

The two boys awkwardly dislocate.

Albus will not hug his father or family. But he'll hug Scorpius. Fiercely. With passion.

So because the structure of this play is a bit... off, we're in year four now! And Albus wants to go back to his father's fourth year and save Cedric Diggory from being murdered. Because that's something his father couldn't do.

So he and Scorpius ditch the train to Hogwarts in order to find the last surviving Time Turner and save Cedric.

SCORPIUS: If we're doing this, we're doing it (he puts on a pair of familiar-looking glasses with a smile) together.

Tagging along with them is a girl who -- in case you haven't seen the play or read the script... I don't want to say who she really is because it's a spoiler and... stupid. But there's a girl named Delphi^[Del-fi] or Delphi^[Del-Fee] and Albus kind of digs her and... Scorpius is conflicted about this.

SCORPIUS appears at the back of the stage. He looks at his friend talking to a girl -- and part of him likes it and part of him doesn't.

Delphi won't be going back in time with them though because... reasons. As they make their way through the Forbidden Forest, the pair talk about their lives. And Albus reveals how how much he hates it at Hogwarts, how terrible it is for him.

SCORPIUS: Not for me.

ALBUS looks at his friend, shocked.

All I ever wanted to do was go to Hogwarts and have a mate to get up to mayhem with. Just like Harry Potter. And I got his son. How crazily fortunate is that?

They more or less succeed in saving Cedric but... when they return to their time everything is odd. Albus is in Gryffindor now and Harry doesn't want him seeing Scorpius anymore.

HARRY: I need you to stay away from Scorpius Malfoy.

ALBUS: What? Scorpius?

HARRY: I don't know how you became friends in the first place, but you did, and now -- I-I need you to --

ALBUS: My best friend? My only friend?

HARRY: He's dangerous.

This reads painfully like a parent finding out that their son has a boyfriend, and telling them that under No circumstances... are they to see them again. Albus gives in and promises not to see Scorpius anymore.

SCORPIUS: Albus? You're okay. That's fantastic.

HARRY: He's completely cured. And we've got to go.

ALBUS looks up at SCORPIUS and his heart breaks. He walks on.

SCORPIUS: Are you mad at me? What's going on?

ALBUS stops and turns to SCORPIUS.

ALBUS: Did it work? Did any of it work?

SCORPIUS: No . . . But, Albus--

HARRY: Albus. Whatever gibberish you're talking, you need to stop it, now. This is your final warning.

ALBUS looks torn between his dad and his friend.

ALBUS: I can't, okay?

SCORPIUS: You can't what?

ALBUS: Just -- we'll be better off without each other, okay?

SCORPIUS is left looking up after him. Heartbroken.

Harry's a dick.

Hell, even Draco becomes the voice of reason, confronting Harry about the situation.

DRACO: I'm not here to to antagonize you. But my son is in tears and I am his father and so I'm here to ask you why you would keep apart two good friends.

HARRY: I'm not keeping them apart.

DRACO: You've changed school timetables, you've threatened both teachers and Albus himself. why?

HARRY looks at DRACO carefully and then turns away.

HARRY: I have to protect my son.

Again, Harry is a dick.

Later on Delphi approaches Scorpius.

DELPHI: Albus needs you, Scorpius. That's a wonderful thing.

SCORPIUS: He needs me to do what?

DELPHI: That's the thing, isn't it? About friendships. You don't know what he needs. You only know he needs it. Find him, Scorpius. You two -- you belong together.

Scorpius's life is even worse now that Albus isn't in it. The two eventually have a fevered argument that leaves Scorpius even more distraught and lost. People think he's the son of Voldemort. (It's complicated, very complicated, stupidly complicated.)

He thinks he's a terrible person. That maybe all the horrible things said about him are true. Albus disagrees.

ALBUS: No. They're not true. And I'll tell you why. Because I don't think Voldemort is capable of having a kind son -- and you're kind, Scorpius. To the depths of your belly, to the tips of your fingers. I truly believe Voldemort -- Voldemort couldn't have a child like you.

Beat. SCORPIUS is moved by this.

SCORPIUS: That's nice -- that's- that's a nice thing to say.

ALBUS: And it's something I should have said a long time ago. In fact, you're probably the best person I know. And you don't -- you couldn't -- hold me back. You-You make me stronger -- and when Dad forced us apart -- without you --

SCORPIUS: I didn't much like my life without you in it either.

The two boys reconcile, finally realizing that they need each other in their lives. They go back in time again to fix the mistakes in the timeline, but they... screw it up even worse. So bad, now, that Albus doesn't even exist. Dolores Umbridge is head Mistress of Hogwarts, and Voldemort is still alive. Time travel is problematic.

In this new timeline, Scorpius is super popular. The guy everyone wants to be, but he hates it. He wants his old life. Even with how unhappy he was, none of this new happy life is worth it, because he can't have Albus with him.

Scorpius finds out that Snape is still alive and approaches him to help in getting Albus back. Snape, along with alternate timeline Ron and Hermione, agree to help Scorpius. In the process, Ron and Hermione are attacked by Dementors. Albus is terrified, but Snape tells him that the memory of one person, one person who makes you so happy, that memory is enough to defeat the Dementors.

Snape even compares how Scorpius feels about Albus to how he felt about Lily Potter. As problematic as Snape's infatuation with Lily is, he loved her. And he sees that Scorpius feels the same way for Albus. Taking the Albus Scorpius relationship beyond even a teenage romance, and into a love that lasts for decades. That death, murder, war, and magic cannot stop.

And unlike with Snape and Lily, though, Albus feels the same way. They're completely devoted to one another.

Scorpius succeeds in bringing Albus back and is speechless when he sees him again, though Albus is completely unaware of what's taken place and thinks he's only blacked out for a couple of minutes. Scorpius grabs him and hugs him tight.

The rest of the play is pretty much a hot mess. Eventually dark wizards are after them, ready to go in for the kill.

[There's a completely unrelated quote that is now scrolling on screen, but James is reading it like it's part of the Cursed Child script. The quote on screen is as follows:]

"You know, early there was an idea that Lou and Debbie having been in a relationship might be the case, but we seemed to move away from that the shooting went on."

[What James is reading out:]

SCORPIUS: So, we hide in a hole?

ALBUS: As pleasurable as it will be to hide in a hole with you for the next 40 years, they'll find us and we'll die, and time will be stuck in the wrong position. No, we-we need something we can control, something we know he'll get [at] exactly the right time. we need a--

SCORPIUS: There's nothing. Still, if I had to choose a companion to be at the return of Eternal Darkness with, I'd choose you.

Good wins out over evil, of course, and Albus and Scorpius's lives go back to normal. And at the very end of the damn play, we get a forced scene where Scorpius acts like he has interest in a girl. Because even the writers knew these two were in love with each other, but families were going to go see, this so God forbid we don't no-homo them as hard as possible in the last 5 minutes!

So, She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has said there will never be a Cursed Child movie. (Which Warner Brothers might disagree with considering how well this play is doing.) But, I think she's right. Because no one will be able to watch this movie and not see these two boys as gay, no matter how many no-homo endings, you tag^{[sic: tack]} on. Honestly, Harry-Draco helped kind of helped create modern gay fan fiction, and then Albus and Scorpius were this close to making a version of it canon. This close.

I am thoroughly convinced that at some point in the writing process, the playwrights did intend on them being gay. And it got switched somewhere along the line. It's not unheard of, it's not the first time that's happened.

The reboot / sequel to The Ocean's Eleven franchise stars an amazing, almost all female cast, including Sandra Bullock, Kate Blanchett, Aquafina, Sarah Palson, Anne Hathaway, Rihanna, Helena Bonham Carter... the first time I watched the movie, I was honestly shocked at how a major movie with some of the biggest stars in the world... had two lesbian leading characters. But then the movie ended and... oh, they're not lesbians. I call bullshit.

Debbie Ocean, played by Sandra Bulock, and Lou, played by Kate Blanchett, are essentially a couple. I don't care if it's never stated in the movie. They're a couple. Or at least they were a couple before Debbie landed in the slammer. And I wasn't the only one who saw this. Queer people around the world noticed it. Even straight people! One could even argue that this movie is meant to set straight women onto the proper path of lesbianism and crime. But nothing of the sort is ever stated outright in the movie.

So... why did so many people read it that way? Well first off, Blanchett's character is coded extremely gay. The outfits that she wears are crafted to queer perfection. But if you look past the aesthetic glory of the film, you'll see that there's a real love between Debbie and Lou.

Coming at this film with a queer lens, I initially felt like the filmmakers were saying it without actually saying it, giving us queer characters whose whole point in life isn't just being queer characters. While telling about her history of running cons with Lou, Debbie refers to Lou as as her partner. Business partner? Life partner? Yes.

When recalling a rock bottom moment for the two, when they were pulling scams at a retirement home's bingo night, Debbie refers to this as their "rough patch". Were they strapped for cash? Or on the Rocks romantically? Again, yes.

Queer people would read this phrasing as an obvious admission of their lesbian relationship, while straight people would just read it as "awww, they're such good friends." Because straight people can be clueless like that. There's actually a term for this obliviousness in the gay community, it's called "The Great Straight Divide", when straight people are so clueless, they actually believe that two men are roommates or two women who have lived together for 20 years are "gal pals".

Additionally, there's physical flirtation between the duo. In a diner, Sandra spoon feeds Kate a bite of her food, in a very intimate "Lady and the Tramp"-esque manner. I don't know about you, but I never delicately placed sporkfuls^{[sic: placed forkfuls]} of diner food onto my platonic friend's tongues. Whenever the duo interacts, it’s clear there’s a shared intimacy between them that the other women don’t experience with each other.

So for me, nothing about their relationship points to just being friends.

And honestly, I could keep going on but it's actually been confirmed. Sarah Edwards, costume designer for the movie said in an interview after the film's release:

[Quote from above now placed correctly, scrolling on screen]:

"You know, early there was an idea that Lou and Debbie having been in a relationship might have been the case, but we seemed to move away from that as shooting went on."

So when they started production, Lou and Debbie had been in a relationship, but by the time they'd wrapped, that was no longer the case. Secret lesbians confirmed. Now give me a sequel so they can kiss already!

Oh God, here we go...

Hitting TV screens in 2011, the MTV show became famous for its propensity to show nearly naked men in nearly every episode.

Maybe it was their way of paying reparations for the "I'm not a fag. I'm a werewolf" line from the 1985 movie.

The whole show is pretty gay, if we're being honest, kind of like a teenage version of True Blood in more ways than one, but the relationship that drove the series into will-they-won't-they territory was
between lovable nerd Stiles and brooding alpha werewolf Derek. Fondly known online by the couple name "Sterek".

Much like with Merlin, the pair start the series off on a bad paw. But over the course of a few seasons, end up in a scenario that, if they were a man and a woman, would undoubtedly end in a relationship. But because they're two guys...

So pretty quickly, it set up that Stiles is bisexual. Is it said outright? No! Of course not! That would be too easy. But is it made painfully obvious?

Yes, yes, it is.

When Stiles and the main character, Scott, go to a gay bar, Stiles even gets frustrated when a guy buys a drink for Scott and not for him. Why are they at a gay bar? Because it's Teen Wolf, why would wouldn't they be at a gay bar?

[Over Black screen]: Okay, this is becoming a "look how queer Stiles is" clip show, so let's move on to Derek.

Derek is straight. Very straight. He has
all the girlfriends. He's emotionally distant, locked off, and doesn't like being touched. But Stiles can't get him off his mind.

In one episode, Derek is paralyzed by a monster and has to be held afloat in the middle of a pool by Stiles, because... the monster can't swim.

Stiles holds him up for over two hours.

Much like Merlin, Stiles risks his life for Derek
over and over
and over again, and becomes visibly jealous when girls show interest in his hunky were-crush. His feelings for Derek are not subtle.

And this is not an accident. Even the action is pointing toward romance, whether it's obvious or not. Take this scene, where they're both paralyzed (a-again). Stiles falls on top of Derek the same way that we've seen women fall on top of men in a hundred romantic comedies. The way they lock eyes, time and time again. The way they annoy each other, needle each other, but always come to the rescue.

👏 This 👏 is 👏 not 👏 subtle! 👏 This is on purpose.

In an interview with AfterElton, show creator Jeff Davis said:

"I'm trying to create a world where there's no racism, there's no sexism, there's no homophobia. And I know it's not real life, but I kind of don't care. I'd like to create a world where none of that matters: you have the supernatural creatures for that to work as an analogy. In my mind, if you can create a world like that on TV, maybe life starts to imitate it."

That's a very noble pursuit, but it's not realistic to even try to achieve it.

There are plenty of out queer characters on Teen Wolf, but none of them are leads. The Sterek fandom became rabid online with art and fan fiction, becoming just as popular as the show itself. Some of the cast encouraged the shipping, including Dylan O'Brien and Tyler Hoechlin, who would cuddle with each other at fan events. They baited Sterek as a couple, they baited Stiles's sexuality, with absolutely no intention on following through.

The reason this is so onerous is because the queer baiting didn't even stay in the show! They moved it over into real life. Stiles wasn't just coded adorably bisexual, they used queer baiting to get you to do something for them!

I don't know! Maybe I'm inordinately frustrated by this because... Dylan O'Brien's so cute. [Shrugs]

This is probably the most obvious example of queer baiting to have ever existed in modern media. But it wasn't the most well-known. Bringing out the big guns now.

Arguably, the three biggest media franchises in the world right now are Star Wars, Frozen, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. They all have a few things in common: they're all owned by Disney and they've all been accused of queer baiting. Disney is actually kind of terrible for this. Not only do they queerbait their characters, they actually create queer media... and then yank it away from you!

Love, Victor was a sequel TV series to the hit film Love, Simon. It was announced alongside Disney Plus as one of the big reasons to buy into the service. But then when the show actually had gay content, Disney shafted it over to Hulu. Which is not available in nearly as many places as Disney Plus, essentially segregating a gay show that they had promised their viewers. Putting it on a service with a fraction of the subscribers. That way when the ratings aren't that great, they can just say it wasn't popular, and let it die. Maybe even use it as an example as to why queer content doesn't sell! Like I said in my Stonewall Film Effect video, as far as executives are concerned, a queer movie or show or book that fails always fails because it's queer, never because of the circumstances around it.

Okay. Rant over. Frozen!

There's not a whole lot to show about Frozen because most of the queer coding is in song. And Disney will come down on me with the Intellectual Property Hammer^TM if I play a song from Frozen. But the first film was read as super queer by a sizable portion of the population. So much so that homophobic bloggers accused Disney of "indoctrinating children" with the gay agenda. (But they wouldn't have anything to write about if children weren't being indoctrinated in the gay agenda, so let's ignore them!)

But actual LGBTQ fans of the film latched on to Elsa being the first potentially queer Disney princess, creating the Evergreen social media trend #GiveElsaAGirlfriend. "Let It Go" became a sort of a gay anthem, and the film featured queer icon Idina Menzel in the lead and gay heart throb and (my future husband) Jonathan Groff voicing Kristoff. So fans were hoping for a lot when Frozen 2 finally hit theaters this past year. While the film didn't state Elsa's sexuality one way or another, it left the door open, hinting at a gay relationship between her and Honeymaren. And the new song "Show Yourself", while not a cultural phenomenon like "Let It Go", became a gay anthem. I mean, with these lyrics how could it not?

[About the clip playing at that moment]: ...That's right, Elsa, you run down that ice vagina.

But seriously though, those lyrics sound like an email I wrote to my online boyfriend in Ohio in the seventh grade. So is Elsa gay? Eh... maybe? Frozen 3 is in development, so Elsa might climb out of her sapphic slump, or Disney will continue to not say "yes" but not say "no" either, just like they did with one of their other Global spanning IPs.

Star Wars: the Force awakens introduced us to Poe and Finn, a rebellious pilot and a stormtrooper who meet up by chance, escape together, and fall madly in love.

Well, they didn't tell us "they fell madly in love", but the actors certainly showed it. When they escaped the first order, they crash land. When Finn comes to, he searches for Poe, but he's nowhere to be found. Assuming he's dead, Finn is heartbroken and takes Poe's jacket as a reminder of him.

Finn is then set up for what would usually be a love story with the lead female character Rey, but no, that doesn't go anywhere! Finn shows interest, for sure, but it's not reciprocated, leaving the door open for Finn to fall in love with someone else maybe...

And eventually, we find out that Poe is still alive. And we get this scene:

The eye fucking! Oh my God!

Before the movie was released, the cast went on to the Ellen show.

So though it wasn't obvious, Oscar Isaac and John Boyega were certainly playing it that way. So would it be more obvious in The Last Jedi? Well, leading up to the release of The Last Jedi, Star Wars producer Kathleen Kennedy was asked about the potential relationship. She said:

[Quote scrolling on screen like a Star Wars opening text crawl]:

We've talked about it, but I think you're not going to see that in The Last Jedi. In the next six or eight months we will have some meetings about the stories that we will develop next... After 40 years of adventures, people have a lot of information and a lot of theories about the path these stories can take, and sometimes those theories that come up are new ideas for us to listen to, read and pay attention to.

So not The Last Jedi, okay. Running out of time here guys. How about Rise Of Skywalker? Well, JJ Abrams teased for months before the film's release that there would be real LGBT representation in the film. A gay kiss, even. Obviously fans thought it would be Poe and Finn. But no, instead, Abrams made sure to give Poe a female love interest, neuter Finn entirely, and tossed in an out-of-focus, blink-and-you'll-miss-it lesbian kiss between two ascended extras.

After the release of Rise Of Skywalker, Oscar Isaac had "this" to say in an interview:

So he wasn't happy about it. The fans shipping FinnPoe weren't happy about it. The gay community wasn't happy about it. And the Rise Of Skywalker became the lowest grossing film of the new trilogy. Star Wars is now in brand-rehab at Disney, who are trying to figure out what to do with the property after it seemed like no one could agree on any of their five Star Wars movies that they made to date! With Solo bombing at the box office, and Rise Of Skywalker coming nail-bitingly close to losing money.

I'm not saying making Poe and Finn gay would have saved the box office, probably the opposite, to be honest. But at least Disney could have said that they did something before any other studio. That they put gay characters in a giant cinematic spectacle before most studios are willing to even give us a movie at all. But this is the company that tossed Love, Victor back into the streaming closet, so what else would we expect?

I mean, I'm sure Disney hasn't done anything like this before. [Turning as if someone's speaking to him from off-screen] What was that?

Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America, (AKA Chris Evans, because he's the real superhero), and Bucky Burns, AKA The Winter Soldier, are two of the many many many characters in the Disney-owned Marvel Cinematic Universe. They were originally created way back in the 1940s, when Bucky was actually Steve's kid sidekick. Because every superhero had to have a kid sidekick.

Fast forward seventy years and about a hundred iterations later, and we see the pairing that become known the world over as "Stucky". Right from the off, there's a sort of chemistry between them, with Bucky kind of acting as a big brother figure to Steve, who needs help fighting the bullies in his life. Steve's got a big heart, but that's about the only part of him that's big. (Wait, does the Super Soldier serum make your--?)

One of the things I noticed the first time I saw the movie, which was the first MCU movie I saw, by the way, was that Steve seemed way more interested in joining the Army than being with girls. It's easy to read this as him just being so darn patriotic, but it was actually extremely common for gay men in the first half of the 20th century to join the military. An all male environment seemed pretty appealing to a lot of gay men at the time. Even if you did run the risk of getting shot by a Nazi. But at least you'd die a hero instead of people back home finding out that you're a queer, and dying ashamed and alone.

There's also a hint of gay shame. Steve feels like he's not good enough, not a real man, and he wants so badly to be like everyone else that he's willing to go through a very risky procedure to make it happen. Was this gay coding in the 1940s? Of course not! It was just a superhero origin story. It may not be allegorical, but it's certainly applicable. Which is something that makes superheroes so timeless: no matter who you are no matter where or when you live, you can project yourself onto a superhero.

But I'm not here to say that Captain America and Bucky Barnes are gay. ...I'm here to say that the MCU's Captain America and Bucky Barnes are gay. Now, of course, Steve is madly in love with Peggy Carter, but look at the woman: she's smart, she's gorgeous, she's a badass, how could you not help but fawn over her? She's not just any woman, she's one hell of an exceptional woman. And also the obligatory love interest, but she's awesome, so we'll ignore that.

Interesting use of the word "partner", there. Could have said "the right girl".

So, after Steve becomes Captain America, Bucky is captured and presumed killed by Hydra, the super Nazis, and Steve goes out to save him. Bucky means the world to him, and if there's even a chance of him being alive, he's not going to lose him. Cap saves the day, of course, and this tiny gesture...

[Showed clip of Cap putting a hand on the back of Bucky's neck for a second.]

I don't know, it really caught my attention the first time I saw the movie.

As they're escaping, the facility begin begins to melt down, but Bucky refuses to leave without Steve. Eventually they both escape, and the dynamic between them changes. Steve is no longer the little guy looking up to his bud Bucky. Bucky is now admiring Steve. Becoming his partner. Fighting the Nazis with him. Until... Bucky falls from a train into a frozen European Wasteland below.

This breaks Steve. The All-American man of men superhero breaks down into tears the loss of Bucky. He's seen so much death in this war, so much carnage, so much loss, but it's the loss of Bucky that breaks him. Then Steve decides to die rather than be with Peggy, and crashes a Nazi super plane into a glacier, where he's found a few decades later and resurrected. Because superheroes.

Then in Winter Soldier, we find out that Bucky isn't dead. He's been kept alive by Hydra all this time, and is an assassin for them. Again, because superheroes. So while Steve is slowly acclimating to living in the 21st century, the return of Bucky shakes him to his core. A part of his life he thought he'd lost forever is back.

Steve's already seen Peggy, but she's not the Peggy he knew. She's aged, dying. He still cares for her, of course, but Bucky's the same age as Steve, give or take. He's like a memory, plucked from the past and placed smack dab in Steve's present. Like Steve, he's a part of a world that no longer exists. So even though Bucky has been brainwashed and has the blood of hundreds of murdered people on his hands, Steve cannot bring himself to kill him. Not his Bucky. Not in this world of a new millennium, where being LGBT isn't so frowned upon, and maybe he and Bucky could be a real thing. Peggy even kind of gives Steve permission.

And Bucky's the only person in this whole wide crazy world that Steve feels he can really connect with. Though Bucky doesn't remember Steve and everyone around him tells him Bucky needs to be taken down, Steve refuses. He hopes beyond hope that he can bring Bucky back, not just to save Bucky but to save himself. To be not so alone.

After fighting in a doomed helicarrier, Steve backs off, takes off his helmet, and bears his soul to Bucky, literally dropping his shield, something he hasn't done before. Something that's only worth it because it's for Bucky. He does this again in Civil War, literally and metaphorically letting his guard down. For one person, and one person only. When Bucky holds Steve's life in his hand, about to land the killing blow, Steve tells him to do it:

Steve trusts Bucky, even now in this demented state. He trusts him with his life. And we can see in Bucky's eyes, he's remembering. He's remembering his friend. Looking down into his face, he sees someone he loves. He can't kill him. And when Steve falls from the helicarrier with Bucky left alive, he could just let him fall and drown in the water below. But he saves him. Just like Steve saved him back in World War II. So even after being reprogrammed a hundred times by Hydra, the memory of his love for Steve is so strong, platonic or romantic, it doesn't matter, their bond is so strong that he overrides all of that programming, and saves the most important person in the world to him.

Bucky disappears in into the ether after that, but Steve knows he's alive out there, and he won't give up looking for him. A mission that culminates in Captain America: Civil War. In Civil War, Steve is willing to let the Avengers fall apart to save Bucky. He's willing to let the might of the whole world come down on his shoulders to save Bucky, even after it's revealed that Bucky killed Tony's parents, he still won't let him go, and by abandoning his shield he's even willing to leave the identity of Captain America behind. Because he doesn't need to be Captain America anymore, he doesn't need to be an Avenger, because he's got Bucky.

So Steve and Bucky love each other. Even Joe Russo, the director of Civil War, said so! Calling the movie a love story between the two heroes.

Now you can say, "James, they're just good friends." These arguments often start out under the guise of progressive thought, making claims like "there's so few examples of non-toxic masculinity in media, so we need more portrayals of a positive friendship between two men." This sounds like a good argument at first, until you think about it for a minute or two and remember that almost all media is about male relationships and male friendships.

When it comes to Captain America, and Bucky Barnes specifically, that well has been tapped quite thoroughly. The relationship between two men who fought alongside each other in a war has been the topic of many stories throughout millennia. It's one of the most popular male friendship stories ever. And why shouldn't that relationship go beyond just a friendship? Does it ruin the value of the friendship if it's also non-platonic? The Iliad's story of Achilles and Patroclus' relationship should serve as an early counterpoint here.

Ideally, people in a relationship with one another would also be friends. If the idea of characters being in a relationship ruins that for you, then perhaps you should think about why you feel that way.

And flip the coin for a second, say Bucky's a woman. Watching these movies, seeing this relationship, would you think for even a second that these two people aren't going to end up together in the end? Really? But of course, they don't, because fucking Disney.

And oddly enough the Stucky pairing would probably be the most Disney friendly gay relationship they could have. Because fans of the proposed couple aren't fans because of the expected sex. (Sure, there's plenty of porn online of the two of them, if you're willing to go look for it.) But that's not what draws people to them. It's a bond between them. It's a bond that lasts for decades, travels through time, goes through hell and back, and yet in the end, they're still dedicated to each other. It's a love story.

I don't even think it was done on purpose, to be honest. Unlike Teen Wolf and Sherlock, I don't think the writers wrote this pairing or the actors played these parts with the intent on baiting gays into loving them. We were going to go see Chris Evans anyway it's just kind of happened. A natural outgrowth of the chemistry between the two actors, playing two characters that are innately drawn to one another. I think it's a beautiful accident that can be read as either platonic or romantic love. The fact that so many gay people read it as being a queer love story just shows how starved we are for representation in movies. Just like in the days of queer coding, we're willing to dig deep into our favorite media to find any hint of us possibly being represented. Whether those golden nuggets are actually there or not. But we keep looking and looking, someday, hopefully very soon, there will be a gold rush. Even if right now we're only finding fool's gold.

This video has been a long time coming. I originally started working on it about a year ago, and it was called "For the Love of Stucky" and was just a look at the Stucky relationship. To say it's grown a bit as a bit of an understatement. uh, I'm hoping to get another video out, oh, maybe sooner than a year from now? Uh, you can check out my patreon if you'd like to help out in the production of these videos, or... just like, share, and subscribe. Nothing gets this channel out there more than that. You can also follow me on Twitter, @je_summerton, or check out my Community page to vote on what video I'll be doing next. So, thank you, so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed this beast of a video. uh, I will be back soon with more content, I promise. So until then take care stay safe.