According to every trope ever I am super gay-coded. I am literally incapable to put on makeup, I wear "boy" clothes and I am more comfortable with talking to the guys about whatever they talk about. I also have no idea what I actually am sexually, but I am leaning towards borderline Ace, predominantly romantically interested in women. Because they tend to by prettier and Nathaniel is an obvious flaw in that assumption because, have you seen that fine human?
@@Lucylle Friendly reminder from your friendly abro-bisexual that you *can* be asexual and not aromatic. Asexual just means you don't experience sexual attraction, while Aromatic means you don't experience romantic attraction. There are many nuances to the ace spectrum too, such as being sex repulsed (disgusted by sex), sex neutral (you're kinda meh on sex-- you don't find it gross, but you also don't actively seek it out), and then there's sex enthused. That last one tends to confuse others, as our heteronormative society thinks "You can't enjoy sex if you're ace", which is not true at all. While you may not experience sexual attraction, you may still enjoy the physical experience of having sex. The best way I can explain it, is how I saw an asexual panromantic woman explained it on her blog, which was-- "While I have never experienced sexual attraction to anyone in my (at the time) 34 years, I am still capable of having sex with my past partners, and now husband. I view having sex as giving someone a back rub. A nice thing to do that feels good, it just doesn't turn me on." There are also other sexualities that exist within the Ace community, such as Demisexual (a person who only experiences a sexual attraction to someone *after* forming a deep emotional bond with them), Graysexual (someone who feels like their sexuality doesn't fit the more well-known labels of the LGBTQ+ community, while also feeling a bit of an ace tinge to their sexuality), and then you have Abbrosexuals-- like me, a person who experiences a constant, sometimes erratic fluctuation in their sexuality. (The reason why I referred to myself as an abro-bisexual, is due to my sexuality constantly fluctuating specifically between bisexual, polysexual, and pansexual-- often for simplicity's sake, I will just ID as Bi or Bi+, especially around straight and gay folx, and even certain kinds of pansexuals that have a Queerer Than Thou attitude, and act like I'm narrow-minded for being bi, instead of pansexual. Of course what none of them realize is, I'm a genderfluid AFAB-- I'm not cis, but they assume that I am because I don't look like a "real" nonbinary person. (Read: I don't present in a masc-androgynous way.)
@greasy hair: speaking of jessica rabbit, there's an interesting fan theory that her character is ace, which confuses people, since she's considered a sex symbol, but her line, "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way" could easily imply that while she doesn't experience sexual attraction herself, she knows she's sexually appealing to others, and has to use that to make a living. it's a fascinating theory.
Same... I'm a heterosexual female, but I do martial arts, I work with my hands and enjoy physical work in general, I don't care much about fashion and I wear make-up maybe twice a year to Special occasions. I must be a gay coded character. Funny though, literally every actually gay gal I know in real life is very stereotypically girlish LOL
Molly grace blue was the colour because it was really expensive. Girls would have their best frocks in blue to show their value. Pink was for boys as it hides blood.
Yeah, he’s gay coded but not canonically gay...he was originally meant to have a female fiancé, but she was scrapped. He also gets a girlfriend in “The Emporer’s New School.”
On the asexual point - I find it strange that not having a romantic interest in one film is read as a character being asexual as opposed to no one at that particular moment in the character’s life interests them romantically.
That's an interesting point. Of course the thing is in most of these things we're only getting a snapshot of characters in a brief period of their lives, so if it's all we have to go on we're probably going to extrapolate what we see outward unless something said indicates otherwise.
I agree that lack of interest during one point in time doesn’t necessarily need to mean asexuality, however for an asexual like myself it’s nice to have the option to head cannon a characters such. Sort of a “best we’re going to get at this point in time” situation. It’s down to the individual consumers choice and interpretation when it comes down to things not explicitly in the text or narrative, but then again I tend to lean in a death of the author argument in most cases.
Council of Geeks - but it’s actually taking seeing an absence of something not seeing something. It’s not like most people are constantly pursuing someone when they are single..... is it? (Maybe it is, it’s been a long time since I was single so maybe I’m not the best to judge)
Yeah but us aros and aces are kind of starved for representation, so a refreshing break from the "everyone needs to be paired up" pattern is always quite inviting
Anime is a strange one as in Japan there is a very long tradition of traits which in the West we think of as feminine being not so much masculine but as heroic. Young, physically weak and beautiful heroes throughout Japanese legends and myths use skill and precision to overcome boorish and gruesome foes. We automatically would code some of these as gay and of course in the modern era creators often do but there is certainly an underlying idea that simply appreciates skill and beauty over brute strength.
Raj from Big Bang is also coded gay and canonically straight. He’s an interesting one because I believe a lot of that gay coding is done because he’s a foreigner, too
All four of the main male characters are clearly pretty effeminate; they had to be given explicit interest in women so they would be seen just as nerdy instead of as gay.
Rob Gronotte there are frequent jokes directed at Raj in particular about how feminine he is and how he’s possibly gay. The other characters, characters that are seen as less “conventionally masculine”, frequently point out how what Raj likes and says in particular is associated with women and femininity. There are even jokes where he says “ok that time I heard it too”
It doesn't help that he's the only asian male in the friend group and Hollywood has a bad habit of demasculinizing asian males, so theres also a race factor in play there.
@@FMAxEdwin Indians belong to the Indo-European race. The feminine Mongoloid stereotype doesn't apply for them. It rather is the 'overdramatic Indian nerd' stereotype.
The hayes code was also a big contributor to the reason there were so many gay coded villains. It was a set of 'moral' rules enforced by the film industry that, among other things, said 'sinful' people couldn't be shown in a positive light or be sympathetic to the audience or have a happy ending.
I think another reason people code Frodo as gay is just how many times he's portrayed as the 'damsel-in-distress' of the LOTR series, a trope which even by name is overwhelmingly applied to female characters.
Melody Pond I just rewatched this movie on Netflix 😁. When Frodo says he would have married a girl when he was dying I was like “I thought you were gay Frodo, what about Sam”. That’s why I clicked this video.
Hardly. Artanis was greater than FEANOR. Seen all the ages. Before the first age even began. Luthien, among many others too. Same with Lady Morwen. And Èowyn was alot more epic in the books. And the way Faramir speaks to her and complimented her is very nuanced to much more ancient beginnings.
That applies only for the movie. Americans are especially bad at following the book when making films. I watched barely 15 minutes of the movie and haven't read the book so I can't speak in particular. However I have seen Frodo given as an example of INFP character in movies. That means he is affectionate with his close people, very kind, empathetic and idealistic, absolutely altruistic and has gentle and fragile soul. Many of the typical for an INFP qualities are associated with femininity although more common with men. This might lead to a 'gay-ish' vibe.
@Jay Fredrickson well see, maybe it's because I'm British or what ever but you find a lot of guys like Sam over here? Tolkien pretty much based him on a loyal dog and the simple British Tommy (soldier) of WW1. Growing up his affection really wouldn't have stood out amongst lads or young men since we were taught to be that way towards one another because the idea of being "super macho guys" is very much an Americanism that's been brought over by American culture and media, and wasn't really mainstream until fairly recently.
Thanks for your comments. Although I'm not really attracted to men in a sexual way, I've always much preferred men who are more feminine. I've never understood the preference some hetero women have for men who are very masculine. But then, I grew up in an extended family in which there were more decidedly masculine women & more feminine men than in mainstream society (our rural community was a Cherokee community in diaspora). Although my mother & her sisters tended to be very strong (physically & otherwise) & androgenous in many ways, they were also very supportive & loving to the children, & they encouraged the girls in the family to be strong & independent-- all of this was in the repressive '50s when in the US there was a strong national push toward keeping women in the home. It was very confusing when I started school in the nearest town, where girls were encouraged to very much conform to the passive feminine ideal. (Needless to say, I hated school for that reason, but also the pressure had the effect of making me even more determined to not conform to the mainstream view of what girls & women should be like.) Thank you so much for using the term 'feminine' to describe men, rather than 'effeminate'. Although some might think it too picky to make a point of how 'feminine' & 'effeminate' are used, I think it's important to (when possible) eliminate stereotyping of men as well as women. And the way 'effeminate' is commonly used to describe men (but not women) not only reinforces the binary stereotypes, the use of 'effeminate' to describe men reinforces the view that it's unnatural for men to be feminine. Of course it also reinforces the binary view that women are by nature more feminine. In western society we are taught to accept that males are more masculine by birth & that females are more feminine by birth-- the two accepted 'opposite sexes' are not only natural, they are universal. That is, we're taught that these two opposite sexes are natural to all human societies, past & present, & that any other cultural view is unnatural. Of course plenty of societies have had radically different views of genders (such as all known native peoples of the Americas prior to 'contact'), but the western patriarchal view of two genders being biologically determined is so deeply ingrained that it's difficult for many people to imagine societies in which an average of 3-6 genders are recognized as normal & in which gender is considered to be socially constructed. Whenever we refer to males as effeminate, we reinforce the view that only females are feminine by nature, that a feminine male is unnatural (perverted, freakish), & that a masculine female is also unnatural. Unless that is what we really believe, we need to avoid perpetuating that view of gender. That's why I was thrilled to see you use 'feminine men'! Funny, the video topic is LGBTQ coding in films but the use of 'effeminate men' defies any alternative to the '2 opposite sexes' system of belief.
Rei Zak He’s also coded as the British villain. Despite his heroics in the series, At heart, he’s the Devil. And British are usually portrayed as the Devil in many American movies.
Teresa McKeown in the third film they paired them together just because, but you never now, Kelsi might have been a lesbian and they were just playing the straight part
i can see that. honestly i think she was more just coded to be ‘eww men’ than ‘yay women’. i.e not into men as opposed to being into women. though i think after captain marvel (endgame specifically) they began coding her appearance wise as ‘butch’ and i suppose one can say her tendency to sorta punch her way through her problems does also contribute to that. so yeah, captain marvel i think was too plot-y to build her as a person, like they defined her struggles but not like how she is. endgame i’d say really contributed to the gay reading, that and fannon
Jareth was literally Sarah's fantasy, he is based on the theater actor that her mother leaves her father for, but is styled in the attire of one of her action figure toys. The story includes her sexual fantasies of being seduced by the Goblin King, but also the realisation that she has control over her own life. Any gay coding of Jareth is meta-coding from the fact that he is a manifestation of Sarah's subconscious giving him those character traits, even though he was her ideal sexual fantasy.
I'm glad somebody mentioned the glasses! I was just gonna post something like "...is it wrong that the first thing I noticed in this video was those glasses? THEY'RE SO PRETTY!" :)
On the topic of whether we should stick to an author's intent when reading and interpreting characters (or a story in general), I had the chance to talk to a writer about that once. She wrote a poem about small cannibals coming to her home and eating her. Most of my class interpreted this as being pregnant and having children. The feeling of your kids living off you, especially during pregnancy. When we met her, she told us that it wasn't her intent. She just wanted to write a fun poem. It was meant to be silly. Then she said that our interpretation wasn't wrong, just because it wasn't want she intended. She explained that we all could get what we needed from a work. She wanted her work to connect to people in the way that they needed. She liked hearing about how her work made other people feel.
When it comes to Elsa, I think most of the gay coding comes from the "conceal, don't feel" parallels. If you're aro/ace, you don't _have_ to conceal, because there are no romantic/sexual feelings _to_ conceal.
To me it just screamed childhood depression. Like it's not a matter of sexuality, she's depressed, love interests are the furthest thing in her mind (so nothing can be said on her sexuality). She was trying to get her act together and as a disabled kid isn't easy when you never knew what "normal" was in the first place. Like should I feel this pain, should my legs work like that (based on how other children acted), should I feel this tired from walking, is it okay that I am this scared to social interaction so that people don't ask what's wrong with me (her parents may have locked her up but she stayed there even after their death)...Elsa may have been an inversion of a traditionally disabled person but she has abnormal abilities which are presented with the same consequences as one for someone with a disability. So just chill, not everything is about sexuality. Sometimes people are just having an existential crisis.
Writers and songwriters specifiacally have pointed elsas being and isolation behaviors to spectrum disorder. As a member of the autistic spectrum, i can see both sides but by her rejecting a relationship still after the 2nd film... I think she is further showing accurate female spectrum attributes at this point.
Pleakley & Jumba: humanoid Timon & Pumbaa all the way (physiques, personalities, relationship dynamics, and implied rainbow parenting)! The name of the big introverts in these couples even rhyme!
This is fantastic! As a 90's kid, Xena was single-handedly responsible for helping me figure out my sexuality 😂 First video I see from you, but immediate subscribe. I've written an academic paper on the same topic, except in Broadway musicals; such a blast! Also, I have the exact same glasses! 😍
Gotham's version of the Penguin isn't just gay coded, he's canonically bi. His crush on the Riddler was an overt storyline. Also some of these examples are cases of casting gay actors (who happened to have certain mannerisms matching stereotypes), whether that was the original vision or not, or writing for a certain actor without necessarily intending to make their sexuality part of the character. Point still stands, of course, and there are plenty more examples, just a thing that might be worth noting.
Tasteful Tuna I was about to point that out with Jareth and David Bowie, actually! They may have deliberately casted LGBT actors for the roles though because they wanted the characters to be that way.
@@BlackCover95 Wasn't he at one point? I just remember that show having a surprising number of bi villains, but maybe I'm misremembering Cobblepot. I don't remember whom he showed attraction to or when.
@@Swenglish I suppose you could interpret his interactions with Sofia Falcone as romantic on his end, though I personally don’t. (Here are some clips: th-cam.com/video/raEPWsvOeM0/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/4iduhaP6WDk/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/YersA1i6wSQ/w-d-xo.html )
Interesting that you jump directly to Niles, when Frasier himself is coded gay and, since I've seen the show in its entirety several times, I can tell you that they make more of a joke of Frasier being percieved as gay than Niles (season 2's The Matchmaker, season 11's The Doctor is Out), and remember that the Frasier character existed on a different sitcom (that being Cheers), where he was also a gay coded character confirmed as straight (given that he was introduced as Diane Chambers' new boyfriend on Cheers). As for the whole idea of gay coded characters confirmed as straight, would you include Chandler Bing from Friends in that company? How about Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother? Also, in another instance of why Disney Live Action remakes suck and it's a crime that they're making so much fraking money, I'm realizing that they're removing all the gay coding from their villains and, I don't know if this is as a result of that or not, but they're made so much lamer. That's been one of my biggest complaints with the last two, Jafar and Scar are not entertaining or intimidating in these versions, they're just dull, and I wonder how much of that is removing all of those traits that made them "coded gay" (or the fact that no one over there seems to have enough imagination to replace that with anything else). With Lefou, they basically leaned into the coding that was already there by confirming (in marketing, if not in universe) that the character is gay, but that created its own set of problems, as you Nathaniel have previously mentioned.
To be fair with South Park, their representation with Satan being in a relationship with Saddam Hussein is shown as sympathetic towards Satan. The character of Satan in South Park is actually a pretty nice guy and is rarely ever actually an antagonist in the show. Besides, South Park's always been pretty good with gay representation.
Also, this particular version of this trope kind of makes sense if you think of Satan as an opponent to God (a known homophobe) instead of a personification of evil.
South Park? SOUTH PARK? The show that repeatedly mocks trans people for existing and makes tired "I identify as X" jokes? Their latest episode was them ranting about trans athletes, that is NOT good LGBT+ rep. Typical cis people, all so caught up in your own rep you don't stop to consider anything else they do.
For the Sam and Frodo argument, you do know men were actually more in tune with their emotions and peers back when Tolkien was creating LOR? I remember there being a commentary on how the dynamics and non-traditional masculinity was portrayed in the books and the movies because in that time and era there was no fear of being homosexual if you supported your friend emotionally and physically having a close bond to your bro like how girls could be in same room for girl talk and being actually nude or close to nude back in the day without the fear of your sexuality being assumed from one instance despite that not actually being your sexuality. I'm not saying that attraction couldn't have happened; but when LOTR was created different culture, different context thus a good possible chance of it being a different dynamic than a gay crush coming about verses if LOTR was created in today's culture where such intimacy implies a relationship between two individuals. But there has also been 'traditional' male fictional characters such as aqua lad that has put an emphasis on him being gay that just proves unless the creator has outright said a character is a certain way or the evolution of the character actually shows what their sexuality is you can't assume a character's preference. It's like saying a character likes anything orange flavored just cause they ate a orange, but actually hates orange gummies because of the texture. Thus proving just cause they acted a certain way doesn't mean it can be a umbrella for other closely related subjects. For all we know Frodo is asexual and is just really protective of his friend.
I still have a huge affection for Xena and the Xena/Gabrielle relationship. This show was my first real fandom... first show I checked out message boards for, went to cons for, even created a small website and dipped my toe into fan fic for. Still have many autographs, merch, etc from this era. Yes, it was “subtext”... but it’s hard to state how boundary-pushing it was, and how close the “sub” came to text, especially as the series evolved. Particularly when taking comments by the creators and lead actors into account. Now, we’d be pushing for it to just explicitly be stated... but at the time? Many of us were seeing a part of ourselves portrayed in a long-running show that we had never seen on screen before in that way, and it was great.
Tracy Dale You know the way in which society talks about Xena and Gabrielle, both during the show’s run and afterwards, makes me realise that I just always took it for granted that they were lovers. Even when I was a kid. In other words, I more of less remember the subtext more than the well text, if you will.
Xena's the show that made my old ass realize I was bisexual. The damn subtext was so strong that I think people would have to deliberately bury their head in the sand not to see it but then I remember that 'not hetero" is such an alien concept to some people that two characters would have to fuck in canon for them to get it. (I won't say make out because Xena and Gabrielle did that...through Autolycus. That was my aha! moment)
That example of Xerxes from 300 is especially interesting because the Spartans are famous for having their soldiers sleep with each other, and the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism is one of the earliest religions to openly demonize homosexuality as one of the worst sins possible. In fact some people theorize that the demonization of homosexuality in the judeochristian Bible was put there during Persian hegemony in the region.
4:33 that made me laugh and reminded me of a story I had forgotten. A few years ago, in my early twenties, I (female) went drinking with two male friends. One of them ordered a fancy saccharine cocktail, the other one I can't remember (probably a fancy beer), and I ordered something manly. When the waiter came, he asked whom the the beer was for first, then proceeded to put the fancy cocktail in front of me, and the manly drink in front of my other friend! Without asking! I was speechless... you don't just assume! I think my friends were laughing tho, mostly at my reaction. It's not like we were in a rural place either, it was the most gay-friendly city in Italy, but my friend's appearance was strikingly shabby and unkept. Plot twist: out of three, I was the only straight one. Additional plot twist: I didn't know at the time. Had it been fiction instead of real life, I would have likely recognized it as intentional coding. Or maybe not.
The case of "Him" in the Powerpuff girls is interesting... he wears a skirt and high heels and speaks in a high pitch voice but his name is Him, so you don't accidentally confuse him with a woman!
Eh, I think there’s a bit more to the conversation from a historical view. Masculinity was not quite so easily defined. Viking men were very particular about certain grooming habits. The French Court was defined by extreme attention to fashion. Pretty much every man wore high heels. And all of it was to showcase wealth and power. I feel this is an important aspect of culture that has been overlooked when coding is applied. Scar for example, isn’t so much coded gay as he’s coded “wealthy aristocrat”. Same with Jareth and even Niles to a certain extent.
Seventeen-hundreds especially. A lot of the fashion then was based around powdered wigs, make-up, jewellery, flamboyant/ostentatious clothing (brocade waistcoats, high heeled shoes, ornate frock-coats etc) amongst the wealthy and the foppish behaviour and obsession with hedonistic comforts was viewed as gentile and refined. The social contrasts between the rich and poor, town merchant/socialite and land-working farmer/pioneer were so pronounced that one chunk of society looked extremely "out there" and another chunk looked very literally "down to Earth" and there was a whole spectrum in between.
I'm currently writing a book where the main character is a pansexual male. I define myself as a straight female, and I've been watching videos to help me better write my LGBTQ characters. My friends who are across the spectrum have been giving be advise as well, but I really liked this video. It is really well explained and gives me a better thought process to follow because of the reasoning and explanations. Thank you very much, and I will continue to watch more.
Frodo is not coded gay, that's just individual interpretation. It's actually kinda sad that one of the few major blockbusters where men hold each other for comfort, cry and have close emotional bonds are labeled as gay. And no, I'm not some douche who has a problem with gay characters. Frodo is simply a case of the audience projecting their own idea of what makes a person gay onto the character.
I think you missed the point. Gay coded doesn't always mean they're gay, it means they're being presented in a way that sets them apart from the traditional masculine male. I mean, was Scar actually gay? Doubtful, we know from lion king 2 he had at least one female mate. But his smooth, lilting speech and movements are in strike contrast to the heroes. To set him apart. To make him seem sinister.
In some ways I agree with you (I'm pansexual myself) that it's a shame men who have any physical contact are called gay. It hasn't always been this way. There's a wonderful article I'll try and find that someone put together of all these antique photographs from the 1800s-1930s showing how different the culture was back then where the men are cuddling, kissing, sitting in each others laps, and looking into each others eyes. It was seen as totally normal to do that with your friends. That is, up until gay people started being more in the public eye and homophobia grew, and god forbid someone think that you might be gay, so men stopped touching each other. Edit: I found it! - www.artofmanliness.com/articles/bosom-buddies-a-photo-history-of-male-affection/
considering Jareth was trying to bone that little girl the entire film, and his looks/mannerisms were just based on glam era bowie, i'm not sure he counts as 'gay coded'.
22:42 I think while you are free to interpret and re-contextualize an artwork as you see fit, the mistake some people seem to make is projecting their own opinion/interpretation of an artwork (whether it be painting, game, novel or other) and treating it as if that is the authors fault/intent.
Don't know if anyone else mentioned it but for the Joker/Batman coding trope, I'm surprised you didn't mention the LEGO Batman movie. The whole movie is Joker being upset that he's not Batman's nemesis in a way that he takes it like a breakup! A lot of his lines can be taken about a romantic relationship instead of a villain/hero relationship.
Fez from That 70s show is another interesting example! He was heavily coded as gay if not outright presented as such, but his entire character other than being "weird" was always chasing women. Which also might be using his his latin identity as stereotypical crutch as well.
Though Xena and Gabrielle's relationship was quite obvious, it was outright noted as being a romantic relationship at least once. I forget the title of the episode, but there was a sequence where Xena was storming a mountain or a castle during a battle while Gabrielle and Aphrodite were taking cover behind some rocks. While Xena was off kicking ass, there was a moment when Aphrodite - who, let us not forget, is the goddess of love - asks how Gabrielle and Xena are doing, and it was phrased in the way that one would ask a close friend how things were going between them and their significant romantic other. I don't know if most people would count that as an acknowledgement, and it was done as a rather nonchalant throwaway line, but I'd count it. (And Xena's relationship with Lao Mao, sure as hell seemed pretty blatantly sapphic, though that information was conveyed rather symbolically...)
the opening had me go " I KNEW IT! IT'S THAT GAY AGENDA!" - now I will forever and ever not trust any gays..... Or was I just giggling uncontrollably and sending out a whole lot of rainbow love to my soul fam. Def. one of the two, I'm sure.
The glasses you are wearing are a pair I've been considering getting and this is super random but....thank you for having those glasses so I can see them on a human in motion.
A lot of older southern women who never read the book still say “Fried Green Tomatoes” is a story about friendship. Its explicit in the book but the real story revolves around Evelyn (Kathy Bates.)
My favorite villains as a young kid were Catwoman and Poison Ivy and I've recently become very into Harly Quinn. As Harlivy (or Ivyquinn which is my preferred shipname but whatever) is now canon in both the comics and the new show this could probably count as a sign of my sexuality as well as the whole "dramatic/gay coded villains are more fun."
Couple of examples that instantly come to mind to me when discussing gay coded characters who are confirmed straight. J.D. from "Scrubs" He is definitely coded as gay in regards to his behavior and his relationship with Turk. But, like Niles, he is only involved romantically with women. A curious example in anime (which you were avoiding, and probably for the best) is "Fruits Basket." The anime contains a whole slew of gay coded characters, with some even cross-dressing and/or being portrayed as a member of the opposite sex. But, in the manga, every romantic relationship that the various characters end up in are heterosexual.
I love Jareth, and I love that you included him (and the Bulge - "Damn!" indeed), and while I think he counts as 'coded gay buy confirmed straight' given his pursuit of Sarah, I don't deny that he is coded. Also, dead on with Pavi Largo.
Strange fact, here in the UK up to WWI it was more common for blue for a girl and pink(red) for a boy. This is most likely due to US soldiers uniforms being blue and British soldiers uniforms being red(in the field the red quite often faded to pink) especially parade uniforms. Liked your video .
Great vid as always One of the characters I’ve always been “I don’t really know where you stand “is lex Luthor in main continuity dc comics on one hand he’s definitely been a ladies man shown activity going for the affections of Lois lane and others, but on the other is the really complicated relationship he has with superman, namely the creation of the Conner Kent version of superboy a character who literally has two dads.
Luthor is also one of those people that any affection they show towards anybody you have to wonder about the sincerity of if he's just trying to get something out of them.
Lex's pursual of Lois always seemed to be in terms of a prize to be won- especially when he knows Superman loves her- how better to emasculate Superman, then to steal his lover?. Same with when he pursued Matrix-Supergirl or Lana Lang (on Smallville at least) It's all about aquiring trophies, trophies often intended to screw over Superman (pun intended) not love And, while its been suggested in some story-lines that he has had several wives, it's also been suggested that he had no real deep affection for any of them. Then, there's his weird obsession with his sister Lena, which is too much to get into here. All in all, one can't say that Luthor definitely displays any sort of cis het normalcy
Oddly enough, it actually never occurred to me that Scar was coded gay. So much of his flounciness just read as sarcastic to little 7 year old me, and I figured he didn't have a love interest either because he was too focused on his other goals or because he isn't the leader of the pride and thus wasn't permitted to mate the lionesses. (Yes, I was a nerdy kid. I did a science project on lions when I was 7 and was disappointed in my teacher for thinking wildebeests were made-up creatures and not a major prey source for lions. They're a type of antelope.)
In a lot of ways Let It Go is Disney's equivalent of Defying Gravity from Wicked (they even hired the original Elphaba) so that definitely adds to the gay vibe because of how homoerotic Wicked is and how LGBT people have latched onto Defying Gravity and Wicked in general.Faith and Buffy had definitely had foeyay going on and there was too many jokes about Faith being Buffy's date for me not to notice
Thanks for these. I would be interested in more. I've been writing a book, and I have a lot of diverse characters, that have a lot of traits. This means giving characters traits like gay, asexual, and everything varied in-between. Now no not all the characters, but everyone knows at least a few gay people, and probably at least one repulsive asexual (even if the asexual hasn't ever told them). They also aren't always bad people, or just a trait for a humor break. So the more you write these it helps me write the genders better. I have a asexual characters. One repulsive, and one that not on the asexual scale, and I'd like to see them as dynamic and fundamental characters.
This video has completely opened my eyes to this. Your argument isn’t just fascinating, it’s damn compelling and very articulately made. Wow, I’m subbing and can’t wait to watch more of your videos ❤️
I loved the new (or at least it seemed new) style of this video, from the segway frames to the narrated outro. Gave the video a really polished feeling
The character of Cecil from _A Room with a View_ (1985; dir. J. Ivory), whilst described in the Wikipedia entry for the film as being "wealthy and respectable but snobbish and pretentious," is gay coded through the associations linking the fin-de-siecle dandy with gayness, vis-a-vis Wilde, G&S's _Patience; or, Bunthorne's Bride_ -- and this reflects also the reaction in late Victorian culture against Decadence, Symbolism and Aestheticism.
Dr. Smith was attracted to a female alien and he had affect for both Will and Penny, but never shown as anything sexual, he also got alone better with the female adults. He worry about Judy safe in some episodes, very seldom worried about male adults.
I don't know why this was in my Recommended, but I really enjoyed this!! I'd like to point out two characters that I find very interesting. Chandler Bing in Friends is very weird to me, he is inconsistently refered to as having female traits but the inconsistency makes him confusing. Another more straightforward character is C-3PO from Star Wars. Any thoughts on Chandler Bing?
Most of those Disney villains I've never gotten a gay impression (except for Radcliffe, totally gay :P). Generally they are extremely prideful, they think they are the most attractive, intelligent, just the best and like to flaunt it. While I do agree there are stereotypes out there, a lot of times it seem as if people want to see the gay in close friendships. Maybe you could do a video on shipping culture, that would be interesting.
I've also thought a lot about the depiction of Sam and Frodo. Apart from the dynamic with Gollum coming off as more distrust and concern than jealousy in the book, the feel of the Frodo-Sam relationship is pretty faithfully ported over. First I thought that their relationship wasn't gay, as JRRT fought in WWI, and their relationship was probably modeled on the very close bonds that formed between soldiers. But then it struck me that probably some of these bonds that JRRT observed probably were because of romantic feelings, acknowledged or not, requited or not. It made it kind of beautiful to me that these fictional characters may show some echoes of old, real love stories blossoming in the darkest of circumstances.
this is like the second time i’ve found myself mentioning this this week which is pretty funny But the actor that plays niles crane is actually gay irl!! which makes people assuming the character is gay pretty ironic lol
JAMES BOND! He's well spoken, he's elegant, he's always concerned about his appearance, he's always well dressed and put together, he has a love of fine wine and all things posh! I'M JUST SAYING!
@@elijahfordsidioticvarietys8770 He almost never forms a connection with these women. He mostly just using them or pumping them for information. It's his job.
@@elijahfordsidioticvarietys8770 yeah ... "sleeps with" is not what I meant. That would imply explicit consent to what he does, which is remarkably murky in far too many situations. And the whole point of "know your coding" is that there is nothing that makes you gay except being exclusively attracted to the same gender, BUT media considers certain things gay/straight/masculine/feminine and by telling us 'this thing clearly shows that they're gay' influences people's perception of actual people, not just people in media. Men actually CAN be heterosexual and wear pink shirts and get manicures and be really into manscaping and stay completely heterosexual. Women can actually wear muddy colored hoodies, baggy jeans, converse sneakers, have bitten nails, short or unmaintained hair and not wear makeup or own heels while simultaneously being completely straight and NOT a tomboy. Coding itself is not even stupid. Coding is sometimes (almost) necessary to convey a thing to an audience. There is a reason it exists.
Growing up watching all these was such a weird experience to me now that I look back. I'm bisexual girl but only really realized this when I was in my 20s. It's embarrassing but I really thought I was just that open minded and it was normal to get excited about females the same way as males. Watching shows like Xena certainly didn't help me recognize my bisexuality with all the sexual tension between Xena and Gabrielle with their relationship never talked about. Which I understand why not at the time tho.
Tim Drake's Robin has pretty strong ace coding (had numerous girlfriends but never show interest beyond kissing, has aversion towards sex and casual hookups, etc.) And I'm not even gonna mention his (b)romance with Superboy (he literally changed his uniform colors in his memory).
Hey Nathaniel, should there be a distinction between gay coded characters and the acting styles of gay actors? I’m thinking like Kenneth Williams and even Vincent Price, who was bi himself. No matter how a role was written, they brought themselves to it.
British radio, movie and TV culture of the 50s, 60s & 70s has its own very particular gay coding. They would often have obviously gay-male-coded characters (often played by gay actors) revealed to be straight characters. I would suggest checking out the Carry On movies (particularly those characters played by Kenneth Williams and Charles Hawtrey.) But what might interest you more is the characters of Julian and Sandy on the radio series Round The Horne. They are a real education in the history of gay culture. I suspect nothing like them would have been allowed in the US at the time.
I would add Q in ST:TNG, etc. That’s how we (LGBTQ2+ activists and fans) read him at the time. Every appearance reinforced it. Especially his “bed scene” with Jean-Luc in “Tapestry.” I mean the flashes, the manners, the quick costume changes... Even the name! Supporting character or vilain? ❤️🏳️🌈
I would really like to hear your take on the AJxRainbow Dash bit in the last episode of the current installment of MLP. Personally, as every other character either entered alone or with their partner/child I saw the two of them entering together discussing household chores as indisputable evidence that they were being confirmed as a couple. This is helped with the fact that last episode confirmation is starting to become a trope in animation for teased gay couples. However MLP DID do a background proposal of two females proving they're not afraid to explicitly state these things. But then, there's a big difference between doing it for background characters and doing it for main characters, whose toy sales plummeting could hurt your bottom line. There are a lot of parents to this day that would refuse to let their children play with the gay pony... people are stupid. So anyway, if you feel like watching I would love to hear what you think, was the subtext explicit enough for someone with no skin in the game (as far as shipping is concerned anyway) to say yay or neigh?
It's come up more than once where I or someone I know has had to explain to The Youth that Xena wasn't queerbaiting, Xena was doing the best damn job it could. It was all about plausible deniability and what you could fool the censors into not noticing. (See also: Susan/Talia on B5.)
I cackled at "the bulge"! I mean-- I love Repo so I was just excited you mentioned it tbh. I am glad you mentioned that coding was the only way to get LGBTQ+ characters on the screen. A lot of people do forget that (while there needs to be a stop to this, it is important to acknowledge the importance)
Very interesting video. I would certainly lean more to the side of interpreting the work within the time period that the creator lived as a direct interpretation, primarily. You can test how well a work has "aged," but even that is kind of odd. But people are free to judge any work, by any framework they see fit. The idea that a work created today will be judged by whatever moral ground we end up standing on in 100 years (as the primary way of interpreting it, rather than the time period in which it was written) just isn't something I can get on board with. Enjoyed the video. As an aspiring author, I am generally trying to avoid shortcuts (unless useful), and expanding how I view those is very helpful. Thank you.
I have enjoyed your videos during social distancing, to listen to when sewing. Thankyou so much for your content! I am unsure how to approach this subject but I have thoughts on Xena. I looooved that show. Still do. I watched every episode of it and have all seasons on my computer. For me, as a straight white cis woman from Sweden, during that time I really really longed for a strong female character and to ME Xena was that. I was a bit bothered though... I don't know if anyone remembers this BUT at that time (mid to late 90's) it was EXTREMELY unusual with strong female characters. And those who did exist was ALWAYS lesbians. I never found one to identify with as a straight woman. It did sadden me that they portrayed Xena as a lesbian. Because I was like "well OF COURSE all strong female characters MUST be lesbians, how else do you explain their strength!". It saddens me. I know it is better today. I just wanted to put this out there. It's not only bad that the tropes hurts the lgbtq+ community - some tropes are used so much they work the other way around. Like ALL strong females must OF COURSE be lesbians, that's the ONLY way a woman can be strong. I still love Xena. I lean heavily to the fact that she seems at least bi, so that's something. I love everything that Sam Raimi has done, actually. He is an amazingly creative person!
Lis, you look pretty, and I really love your glasses (Seriously, the trans pride colours on the front frames is absolutely a clever design). This video was really interesting, and informal much like the others. Keep up the good work.
What's interesting is that I could do a very similar video to Jewish coding. Why? Because it's there. Hollywood enhances Jewish stereotypes in Jewish characters. Even characters that never say they are Jewish...you can tell. Paul on "Mad About You" Fox Mulder on "X-Files". Part of it might be ignorance...part of it may be that it's harder to enhance a character whose appearance doesn't necessarily make them stand out. There are blonde jews, Jews are all races. It's hard without enhancing stereotypes to bring aspects out in characters. And I think it's interesting that yes, villains are often now portrayed as gay or with gay stereotypes. But it was never uncommon (even in reality through history) that villains and the devil were portrayed with Jewish stereotypes. It's not right...but there you go. Interesting video...provoked a lot of thought.
Extremely thoughtful, structured and eloquent! This is a really good video essay. Thank you for talking about these topics, they are always interesting to watch.
Villains on Starblazers (Deslok) and Robotech and Voltron (The lead Drool) were often voice acted as over the top, soft spoken and campy, prone to similar coding. But since these were cartoons dubbed into English in the late 70s and 80s, the voice actors might have been asked to make them campy. Still in some cases they were translated pretty accurately, such as Deslok in Starblazers and Kyron (althought with him he was more of an aggressive wolf hyperactive type) in Robotech. Although it was the 80s so they tended to be homophobic in some ways. Also in Robotech they had some heroes who were similarly coded, including Lancer and Max. But Max was bi and fell for an alien woman, and Lancer allegedly did the same. Star Trek DS9 had Garak, although he never directly came out and said he was. Now they have Stammets in the new one, but he's not coded and his arkc is a bit too obvious and doesn't really make sense sometimes.
About the colours: There is an historical reason for this. Pink used to be the boys colour and red the colour of men due Mars being red and Mars being the god of war which was considered the most manly thing around. With the industrial revolution and the increased popularity of the blue jeans among the working population especially in the US but also an increased fascination with the sea in some European countries like Germany, blue started to be more associated with men since it became both the colour of war but also the colour of work. Red slowly became seen as emotional and hence was started to be associated with women. This turn around happened approximately at the turn of the 19th into the 20th century. Is this association bullshit? Of course it is. But was it completely arbitrary? No.
I don't blame you on not wanting to touch the potential coded side of anime for it's quite overwhelming. I could name over twenty characters that could be perceived gay (including who most would pair them with) but are titled as heterosexual without even breaking a sweat.
I'm not gay, I'm just coded that way.
According to every trope ever I am super gay-coded. I am literally incapable to put on makeup, I wear "boy" clothes and I am more comfortable with talking to the guys about whatever they talk about.
I also have no idea what I actually am sexually, but I am leaning towards borderline Ace, predominantly romantically interested in women. Because they tend to by prettier and Nathaniel is an obvious flaw in that assumption because, have you seen that fine human?
@@Lucylle Friendly reminder from your friendly abro-bisexual that you *can* be asexual and not aromatic. Asexual just means you don't experience sexual attraction, while Aromatic means you don't experience romantic attraction.
There are many nuances to the ace spectrum too, such as being sex repulsed (disgusted by sex), sex neutral (you're kinda meh on sex-- you don't find it gross, but you also don't actively seek it out), and then there's sex enthused. That last one tends to confuse others, as our heteronormative society thinks "You can't enjoy sex if you're ace", which is not true at all. While you may not experience sexual attraction, you may still enjoy the physical experience of having sex. The best way I can explain it, is how I saw an asexual panromantic woman explained it on her blog, which was-- "While I have never experienced sexual attraction to anyone in my (at the time) 34 years, I am still capable of having sex with my past partners, and now husband. I view having sex as giving someone a back rub. A nice thing to do that feels good, it just doesn't turn me on."
There are also other sexualities that exist within the Ace community, such as Demisexual (a person who only experiences a sexual attraction to someone *after* forming a deep emotional bond with them), Graysexual (someone who feels like their sexuality doesn't fit the more well-known labels of the LGBTQ+ community, while also feeling a bit of an ace tinge to their sexuality), and then you have Abbrosexuals-- like me, a person who experiences a constant, sometimes erratic fluctuation in their sexuality. (The reason why I referred to myself as an abro-bisexual, is due to my sexuality constantly fluctuating specifically between bisexual, polysexual, and pansexual-- often for simplicity's sake, I will just ID as Bi or Bi+, especially around straight and gay folx, and even certain kinds of pansexuals that have a Queerer Than Thou attitude, and act like I'm narrow-minded for being bi, instead of pansexual. Of course what none of them realize is, I'm a genderfluid AFAB-- I'm not cis, but they assume that I am because I don't look like a "real" nonbinary person. (Read: I don't present in a masc-androgynous way.)
@greasy hair: speaking of jessica rabbit, there's an interesting fan theory that her character is ace, which confuses people, since she's considered a sex symbol, but her line, "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way" could easily imply that while she doesn't experience sexual attraction herself, she knows she's sexually appealing to others, and has to use that to make a living. it's a fascinating theory.
@@JackieBorelli oh wow that actually really interesting, and even more sad like how she has to play into it.
Same... I'm a heterosexual female, but I do martial arts, I work with my hands and enjoy physical work in general, I don't care much about fashion and I wear make-up maybe twice a year to Special occasions. I must be a gay coded character.
Funny though, literally every actually gay gal I know in real life is very stereotypically girlish LOL
FUN FACT: blue was considered the feminine color before Eleanor Roosevelt popularized Pink
Mamie Eisenhower, not Roosevelt.
Thanks for correcting me
Molly grace blue was the colour because it was really expensive. Girls would have their best frocks in blue to show their value. Pink was for boys as it hides blood.
@@annecaldwell2468 wasn't that Hitler?????
Blue was considered a more calme and soothing color and thus for girls
You think Kuzco was not coded gay except for the "not interested" thing? This boy was a drama queen par excellence!
Yeah, he’s gay coded but not canonically gay...he was originally meant to have a female fiancé, but she was scrapped. He also gets a girlfriend in “The Emporer’s New School.”
On the asexual point - I find it strange that not having a romantic interest in one film is read as a character being asexual as opposed to no one at that particular moment in the character’s life interests them romantically.
That's an interesting point. Of course the thing is in most of these things we're only getting a snapshot of characters in a brief period of their lives, so if it's all we have to go on we're probably going to extrapolate what we see outward unless something said indicates otherwise.
I agree that lack of interest during one point in time doesn’t necessarily need to mean asexuality, however for an asexual like myself it’s nice to have the option to head cannon a characters such. Sort of a “best we’re going to get at this point in time” situation. It’s down to the individual consumers choice and interpretation when it comes down to things not explicitly in the text or narrative, but then again I tend to lean in a death of the author argument in most cases.
Council of Geeks - but it’s actually taking seeing an absence of something not seeing something. It’s not like most people are constantly pursuing someone when they are single..... is it? (Maybe it is, it’s been a long time since I was single so maybe I’m not the best to judge)
Wild Wesley - good point. I can see how head connoning that makes sense given lack of clear representation of asexuality in media.
Yeah but us aros and aces are kind of starved for representation, so a refreshing break from the "everyone needs to be paired up" pattern is always quite inviting
Anime is a strange one as in Japan there is a very long tradition of traits which in the West we think of as feminine being not so much masculine but as heroic. Young, physically weak and beautiful heroes throughout Japanese legends and myths use skill and precision to overcome boorish and gruesome foes. We automatically would code some of these as gay and of course in the modern era creators often do but there is certainly an underlying idea that simply appreciates skill and beauty over brute strength.
Skill, and beauty, golden hair, blue eyes and white skin defeating tanned, black-eyed foes 😏 Definitely going to watch some hentai tonight 😈
Raj from Big Bang is also coded gay and canonically straight. He’s an interesting one because I believe a lot of that gay coding is done because he’s a foreigner, too
Yes that ! Why foreigners are always coded as either villains , freaks or gay !?
All four of the main male characters are clearly pretty effeminate; they had to be given explicit interest in women so they would be seen just as nerdy instead of as gay.
Rob Gronotte there are frequent jokes directed at Raj in particular about how feminine he is and how he’s possibly gay. The other characters, characters that are seen as less “conventionally masculine”, frequently point out how what Raj likes and says in particular is associated with women and femininity. There are even jokes where he says “ok that time I heard it too”
It doesn't help that he's the only asian male in the friend group and Hollywood has a bad habit of demasculinizing asian males, so theres also a race factor in play there.
@@FMAxEdwin Indians belong to the Indo-European race. The feminine Mongoloid stereotype doesn't apply for them. It rather is the 'overdramatic Indian nerd' stereotype.
The hayes code was also a big contributor to the reason there were so many gay coded villains. It was a set of 'moral' rules enforced by the film industry that, among other things, said 'sinful' people couldn't be shown in a positive light or be sympathetic to the audience or have a happy ending.
"Scar flounces about all over Pride Rock." I giggled.
Same, he's kind of adorable when he's not kill hungry
Add a reference to The Little Mermaid's Sebastian and you could bring in the B52's...
So did I
@@alexbenjaminlubbers ''Pride'' Rock. Wow.
@@rigelb9025
I'm a trans girl who loves Disney. Bite me.
I think another reason people code Frodo as gay is just how many times he's portrayed as the 'damsel-in-distress' of the LOTR series, a trope which even by name is overwhelmingly applied to female characters.
Melody Pond I just rewatched this movie on Netflix 😁. When Frodo says he would have married a girl when he was dying I was like “I thought you were gay Frodo, what about Sam”. That’s why I clicked this video.
Hardly. Artanis was greater than FEANOR. Seen all the ages. Before the first age even began. Luthien, among many others too. Same with Lady Morwen. And Èowyn was alot more epic in the books. And the way Faramir speaks to her and complimented her is very nuanced to much more ancient beginnings.
That applies only for the movie. Americans are especially bad at following the book when making films. I watched barely 15 minutes of the movie and haven't read the book so I can't speak in particular. However I have seen Frodo given as an example of INFP character in movies. That means he is affectionate with his close people, very kind, empathetic and idealistic, absolutely altruistic and has gentle and fragile soul. Many of the typical for an INFP qualities are associated with femininity although more common with men. This might lead to a 'gay-ish' vibe.
I don't know about Frodo, but Sam was so obviously in love with him ....
@Jay Fredrickson well see, maybe it's because I'm British or what ever but you find a lot of guys like Sam over here? Tolkien pretty much based him on a loyal dog and the simple British Tommy (soldier) of WW1. Growing up his affection really wouldn't have stood out amongst lads or young men since we were taught to be that way towards one another because the idea of being "super macho guys" is very much an Americanism that's been brought over by American culture and media, and wasn't really mainstream until fairly recently.
Omg THAT'S WHY I'M ALWAYS ATTRACTED TO THE VILLAINS
I just like me a feminine man
anna same!
Thanks for your comments. Although I'm not really attracted to men in a sexual way, I've always much preferred men who are more feminine. I've never understood the preference some hetero women have for men who are very masculine. But then, I grew up in an extended family in which there were more decidedly masculine women & more feminine men than in mainstream society (our rural community was a Cherokee community in diaspora). Although my mother & her sisters tended to be very strong (physically & otherwise) & androgenous in many ways, they were also very supportive & loving to the children, & they encouraged the girls in the family to be strong & independent-- all of this was in the repressive '50s when in the US there was a strong national push toward keeping women in the home. It was very confusing when I started school in the nearest town, where girls were encouraged to very much conform to the passive feminine ideal. (Needless to say, I hated school for that reason, but also the pressure had the effect of making me even more determined to not conform to the mainstream view of what girls & women should be like.)
Thank you so much for using the term 'feminine' to describe men, rather than 'effeminate'. Although some might think it too picky to make a point of how 'feminine' & 'effeminate' are used, I think it's important to (when possible) eliminate stereotyping of men as well as women. And the way 'effeminate' is commonly used to describe men (but not women) not only reinforces the binary stereotypes, the use of 'effeminate' to describe men reinforces the view that it's unnatural for men to be feminine. Of course it also reinforces the binary view that women are by nature more feminine. In western society we are taught to accept that males are more masculine by birth & that females are more feminine by birth-- the two accepted 'opposite sexes' are not only natural, they are universal. That is, we're taught that these two opposite sexes are natural to all human societies, past & present, & that any other cultural view is unnatural. Of course plenty of societies have had radically different views of genders (such as all known native peoples of the Americas prior to 'contact'), but the western patriarchal view of two genders being biologically determined is so deeply ingrained that it's difficult for many people to imagine societies in which an average of 3-6 genders are recognized as normal & in which gender is considered to be socially constructed.
Whenever we refer to males as effeminate, we reinforce the view that only females are feminine by nature, that a feminine male is unnatural (perverted, freakish), & that a masculine female is also unnatural. Unless that is what we really believe, we need to avoid perpetuating that view of gender.
That's why I was thrilled to see you use 'feminine men'! Funny, the video topic is LGBTQ coding in films but the use of 'effeminate men' defies any alternative to the '2 opposite sexes' system of belief.
Aww... wish you would've mentioned Lucifer from the show Lucifer. Then again he's actually openly bisexual if not pansexual.
Lucifer Morningstar will sleep with anyone that's willing, I think he's just coded as seductive to everyone, humans, demons and angels alike.
Rei Zak He’s also coded as the British villain. Despite his heroics in the series, At heart, he’s the Devil. And British are usually portrayed as the Devil in many American movies.
Honestly surprised they mention Moriarty but didn't mention the BBC Sherlock, as in, John and Sherlock as a gay coded couple.
Hell....I think even John's wife kinda shipped it lol.
@@peggedyourdad9560 She definitely did!
I'm sorry but I just intensely dislike Johnlock, so I'm happy it wasn't here 😣😣😣
Ryan Evans in high school musical.
Good one!
avionpiscean33 immediately what came to mind when I saw the title lol 😂
Didn’t he have a crush on Kelsi?
Teresa McKeown in the third film they paired them together just because, but you never now, Kelsi might have been a lesbian and they were just playing the straight part
What, no Captain Marvel?
Heavily coded gay, including living with and raising a child with another woman...
Honestly my impression of Carol was that she *was* in a relationship with Mariah.
YES!
@@ashlabelle I was literally shocked when one of my friends said they didn't "see" that.
i can see that. honestly i think she was more just coded to be ‘eww men’ than ‘yay women’. i.e not into men as opposed to being into women. though i think after captain marvel (endgame specifically) they began coding her appearance wise as ‘butch’ and i suppose one can say her tendency to sorta punch her way through her problems does also contribute to that. so yeah, captain marvel i think was too plot-y to build her as a person, like they defined her struggles but not like how she is. endgame i’d say really contributed to the gay reading, that and fannon
Jareth was literally Sarah's fantasy, he is based on the theater actor that her mother leaves her father for, but is styled in the attire of one of her action figure toys. The story includes her sexual fantasies of being seduced by the Goblin King, but also the realisation that she has control over her own life. Any gay coding of Jareth is meta-coding from the fact that he is a manifestation of Sarah's subconscious giving him those character traits, even though he was her ideal sexual fantasy.
Also it was the 80s. I can't believe they put Jareth on the list but left off John and Sherlock.
@@AderynBach42 agreed
Yeah, Jareth is the quintessential female gaze sexual fantasy character.
Unrelated to the video content, but your hair is amazing today!
I love the glasses!
Lol, and I was going to say how envious I am of those gorgeous nails!
The flower, though...
can I add and ask if the teeth are real? coz I was mesmerized, they were beautiful
I'm glad somebody mentioned the glasses! I was just gonna post something like "...is it wrong that the first thing I noticed in this video was those glasses? THEY'RE SO PRETTY!" :)
I nominate the super-foppish Jafar from Aladdin in the villains category.
"Novadays, being gay is kinda normal and being normal is kinda gay."
I forgot where this is from but it's my favourite bad joke.
@@RobOzeusonfire87
👍
On the topic of whether we should stick to an author's intent when reading and interpreting characters (or a story in general), I had the chance to talk to a writer about that once. She wrote a poem about small cannibals coming to her home and eating her. Most of my class interpreted this as being pregnant and having children. The feeling of your kids living off you, especially during pregnancy.
When we met her, she told us that it wasn't her intent. She just wanted to write a fun poem. It was meant to be silly. Then she said that our interpretation wasn't wrong, just because it wasn't want she intended. She explained that we all could get what we needed from a work. She wanted her work to connect to people in the way that they needed. She liked hearing about how her work made other people feel.
Smithers and Mr Burns always had something going on and I totally ship it
Smithers being in love with Mr. Burns had been canon for years, even before Smithers was officially gay.
When it comes to Elsa, I think most of the gay coding comes from the "conceal, don't feel" parallels. If you're aro/ace, you don't _have_ to conceal, because there are no romantic/sexual feelings _to_ conceal.
You often have to conceal the lack of them though
Maddie her coding is more visible in frozen 2 she straight up dismisses relationships and love and shows no intrest
To me it just screamed childhood depression. Like it's not a matter of sexuality, she's depressed, love interests are the furthest thing in her mind (so nothing can be said on her sexuality). She was trying to get her act together and as a disabled kid isn't easy when you never knew what "normal" was in the first place. Like should I feel this pain, should my legs work like that (based on how other children acted), should I feel this tired from walking, is it okay that I am this scared to social interaction so that people don't ask what's wrong with me (her parents may have locked her up but she stayed there even after their death)...Elsa may have been an inversion of a traditionally disabled person but she has abnormal abilities which are presented with the same consequences as one for someone with a disability. So just chill, not everything is about sexuality. Sometimes people are just having an existential crisis.
Writers and songwriters specifiacally have pointed elsas being and isolation behaviors to spectrum disorder. As a member of the autistic spectrum, i can see both sides but by her rejecting a relationship still after the 2nd film... I think she is further showing accurate female spectrum attributes at this point.
Pleakley & Jumba: humanoid Timon & Pumbaa all the way (physiques, personalities, relationship dynamics, and implied rainbow parenting)! The name of the big introverts in these couples even rhyme!
This is fantastic! As a 90's kid, Xena was single-handedly responsible for helping me figure out my sexuality 😂 First video I see from you, but immediate subscribe. I've written an academic paper on the same topic, except in Broadway musicals; such a blast!
Also, I have the exact same glasses! 😍
Gotham's version of the Penguin isn't just gay coded, he's canonically bi. His crush on the Riddler was an overt storyline. Also some of these examples are cases of casting gay actors (who happened to have certain mannerisms matching stereotypes), whether that was the original vision or not, or writing for a certain actor without necessarily intending to make their sexuality part of the character. Point still stands, of course, and there are plenty more examples, just a thing that might be worth noting.
Tasteful Tuna I was about to point that out with Jareth and David Bowie, actually! They may have deliberately casted LGBT actors for the roles though because they wanted the characters to be that way.
Bi? When was he ever interested in women?
@@BlackCover95 Wasn't he at one point? I just remember that show having a surprising number of bi villains, but maybe I'm misremembering Cobblepot. I don't remember whom he showed attraction to or when.
@@Swenglish
I suppose you could interpret his interactions with Sofia Falcone as romantic on his end, though I personally don’t.
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th-cam.com/video/YersA1i6wSQ/w-d-xo.html )
Interesting that you jump directly to Niles, when Frasier himself is coded gay and, since I've seen the show in its entirety several times, I can tell you that they make more of a joke of Frasier being percieved as gay than Niles (season 2's The Matchmaker, season 11's The Doctor is Out), and remember that the Frasier character existed on a different sitcom (that being Cheers), where he was also a gay coded character confirmed as straight (given that he was introduced as Diane Chambers' new boyfriend on Cheers). As for the whole idea of gay coded characters confirmed as straight, would you include Chandler Bing from Friends in that company? How about Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother?
Also, in another instance of why Disney Live Action remakes suck and it's a crime that they're making so much fraking money, I'm realizing that they're removing all the gay coding from their villains and, I don't know if this is as a result of that or not, but they're made so much lamer. That's been one of my biggest complaints with the last two, Jafar and Scar are not entertaining or intimidating in these versions, they're just dull, and I wonder how much of that is removing all of those traits that made them "coded gay" (or the fact that no one over there seems to have enough imagination to replace that with anything else). With Lefou, they basically leaned into the coding that was already there by confirming (in marketing, if not in universe) that the character is gay, but that created its own set of problems, as you Nathaniel have previously mentioned.
To be fair with South Park, their representation with Satan being in a relationship with Saddam Hussein is shown as sympathetic towards Satan. The character of Satan in South Park is actually a pretty nice guy and is rarely ever actually an antagonist in the show. Besides, South Park's always been pretty good with gay representation.
Also, this particular version of this trope kind of makes sense if you think of Satan as an opponent to God (a known homophobe) instead of a personification of evil.
Ah nice, that's an interesting point.
I honestly love Satan from South Park. He’s just so adorable.
@@someonerandom8552 He was nice enough to lecture Stan on addiction and help him cope with it.
South Park? SOUTH PARK? The show that repeatedly mocks trans people for existing and makes tired "I identify as X" jokes? Their latest episode was them ranting about trans athletes, that is NOT good LGBT+ rep. Typical cis people, all so caught up in your own rep you don't stop to consider anything else they do.
For the Sam and Frodo argument, you do know men were actually more in tune with their emotions and peers back when Tolkien was creating LOR? I remember there being a commentary on how the dynamics and non-traditional masculinity was portrayed in the books and the movies because in that time and era there was no fear of being homosexual if you supported your friend emotionally and physically having a close bond to your bro like how girls could be in same room for girl talk and being actually nude or close to nude back in the day without the fear of your sexuality being assumed from one instance despite that not actually being your sexuality. I'm not saying that attraction couldn't have happened; but when LOTR was created different culture, different context thus a good possible chance of it being a different dynamic than a gay crush coming about verses if LOTR was created in today's culture where such intimacy implies a relationship between two individuals.
But there has also been 'traditional' male fictional characters such as aqua lad that has put an emphasis on him being gay that just proves unless the creator has outright said a character is a certain way or the evolution of the character actually shows what their sexuality is you can't assume a character's preference.
It's like saying a character likes anything orange flavored just cause they ate a orange, but actually hates orange gummies because of the texture. Thus proving just cause they acted a certain way doesn't mean it can be a umbrella for other closely related subjects.
For all we know Frodo is asexual and is just really protective of his friend.
I still have a huge affection for Xena and the Xena/Gabrielle relationship. This show was my first real fandom... first show I checked out message boards for, went to cons for, even created a small website and dipped my toe into fan fic for. Still have many autographs, merch, etc from this era. Yes, it was “subtext”... but it’s hard to state how boundary-pushing it was, and how close the “sub” came to text, especially as the series evolved. Particularly when taking comments by the creators and lead actors into account. Now, we’d be pushing for it to just explicitly be stated... but at the time? Many of us were seeing a part of ourselves portrayed in a long-running show that we had never seen on screen before in that way, and it was great.
The same can be said about not only FGT, but maybe Utena or Thelma & Louise.
Tracy Dale You know the way in which society talks about Xena and Gabrielle, both during the show’s run and afterwards, makes me realise that I just always took it for granted that they were lovers. Even when I was a kid. In other words, I more of less remember the subtext more than the well text, if you will.
Same with Willow and Tara.
Ooooh, I forgot Willow and Tara!! (Facepalms 😑) 🌈🏳️🌈
Xena's the show that made my old ass realize I was bisexual. The damn subtext was so strong that I think people would have to deliberately bury their head in the sand not to see it but then I remember that 'not hetero" is such an alien concept to some people that two characters would have to fuck in canon for them to get it. (I won't say make out because Xena and Gabrielle did that...through Autolycus. That was my aha! moment)
That example of Xerxes from 300 is especially interesting because the Spartans are famous for having their soldiers sleep with each other, and the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism is one of the earliest religions to openly demonize homosexuality as one of the worst sins possible. In fact some people theorize that the demonization of homosexuality in the judeochristian Bible was put there during Persian hegemony in the region.
4:33 that made me laugh and reminded me of a story I had forgotten.
A few years ago, in my early twenties, I (female) went drinking with two male friends.
One of them ordered a fancy saccharine cocktail, the other one I can't remember (probably a fancy beer), and I ordered something manly.
When the waiter came, he asked whom the the beer was for first, then proceeded to put the fancy cocktail in front of me, and the manly drink in front of my other friend! Without asking!
I was speechless... you don't just assume! I think my friends were laughing tho, mostly at my reaction.
It's not like we were in a rural place either, it was the most gay-friendly city in Italy, but my friend's appearance was strikingly shabby and unkept.
Plot twist: out of three, I was the only straight one.
Additional plot twist: I didn't know at the time. Had it been fiction instead of real life, I would have likely recognized it as intentional coding. Or maybe not.
Thank you sosososososo much for bringing up asexuality when talking about "just not interested". This often still gets ignored by people (in fandom).
The case of "Him" in the Powerpuff girls is interesting... he wears a skirt and high heels and speaks in a high pitch voice but his name is Him, so you don't accidentally confuse him with a woman!
Any character in Merlin with magic.
Isla Sullivan and even one without magic is bi coded cougharthurcough
Merlin dressing up as a lady multiple times to trick Arthur
I’m a simple person, i see Frodo, i click
Eh, I think there’s a bit more to the conversation from a historical view. Masculinity was not quite so easily defined. Viking men were very particular about certain grooming habits. The French Court was defined by extreme attention to fashion. Pretty much every man wore high heels. And all of it was to showcase wealth and power. I feel this is an important aspect of culture that has been overlooked when coding is applied. Scar for example, isn’t so much coded gay as he’s coded “wealthy aristocrat”. Same with Jareth and even Niles to a certain extent.
Seventeen-hundreds especially. A lot of the fashion then was based around powdered wigs, make-up, jewellery, flamboyant/ostentatious clothing (brocade waistcoats, high heeled shoes, ornate frock-coats etc) amongst the wealthy and the foppish behaviour and obsession with hedonistic comforts was viewed as gentile and refined. The social contrasts between the rich and poor, town merchant/socialite and land-working farmer/pioneer were so pronounced that one chunk of society looked extremely "out there" and another chunk looked very literally "down to Earth" and there was a whole spectrum in between.
Raj from the Big Bang theory, chandler from friends, the male nanny from friends. All straight but their “feminity” is a constant gay joke.
I'm currently writing a book where the main character is a pansexual male. I define myself as a straight female, and I've been watching videos to help me better write my LGBTQ characters. My friends who are across the spectrum have been giving be advise as well, but I really liked this video. It is really well explained and gives me a better thought process to follow because of the reasoning and explanations. Thank you very much, and I will continue to watch more.
Frodo is not coded gay, that's just individual interpretation. It's actually kinda sad that one of the few major blockbusters where men hold each other for comfort, cry and have close emotional bonds are labeled as gay.
And no, I'm not some douche who has a problem with gay characters. Frodo is simply a case of the audience projecting their own idea of what makes a person gay onto the character.
I mean, if i were on an erupting volcano in hell, i'd hold anyone next to me same gender or not.
The Renegade Cut talks about that issue in his "queer theory and 90s action movies" video.
They're just best friends who don't care if anybody thinks they're strangely close.
I think you missed the point. Gay coded doesn't always mean they're gay, it means they're being presented in a way that sets them apart from the traditional masculine male. I mean, was Scar actually gay? Doubtful, we know from lion king 2 he had at least one female mate. But his smooth, lilting speech and movements are in strike contrast to the heroes. To set him apart. To make him seem sinister.
In some ways I agree with you (I'm pansexual myself) that it's a shame men who have any physical contact are called gay. It hasn't always been this way. There's a wonderful article I'll try and find that someone put together of all these antique photographs from the 1800s-1930s showing how different the culture was back then where the men are cuddling, kissing, sitting in each others laps, and looking into each others eyes. It was seen as totally normal to do that with your friends. That is, up until gay people started being more in the public eye and homophobia grew, and god forbid someone think that you might be gay, so men stopped touching each other. Edit: I found it! - www.artofmanliness.com/articles/bosom-buddies-a-photo-history-of-male-affection/
considering Jareth was trying to bone that little girl the entire film, and his looks/mannerisms were just based on glam era bowie, i'm not sure he counts as 'gay coded'.
He seemed more interested on the baby, really (not in a sexual way, just obsessed or curious of what the heck a baby was, like a new toy)
glam rock is very gay without necessarily being gay.
22:42 I think while you are free to interpret and re-contextualize an artwork as you see fit, the mistake some people seem to make is projecting their own opinion/interpretation of an artwork (whether it be painting, game, novel or other) and treating it as if that is the authors fault/intent.
Don't know if anyone else mentioned it but for the Joker/Batman coding trope, I'm surprised you didn't mention the LEGO Batman movie. The whole movie is Joker being upset that he's not Batman's nemesis in a way that he takes it like a breakup! A lot of his lines can be taken about a romantic relationship instead of a villain/hero relationship.
Fez from That 70s show is another interesting example! He was heavily coded as gay if not outright presented as such, but his entire character other than being "weird" was always chasing women. Which also might be using his his latin identity as stereotypical crutch as well.
Chandler Bing was also coded gay, especially at the start of the show, but confirmed straight.
I know this is shallow as all hell, but I spent the whole video just admiring your hair.
this is ryan evans from high school musical erasure
Thank you for discussing Xena and Fried Green Tomatoes! Of the few female gay coded movies and shows out there, those two are my favorite
Though Xena and Gabrielle's relationship was quite obvious, it was outright noted as being a romantic relationship at least once. I forget the title of the episode, but there was a sequence where Xena was storming a mountain or a castle during a battle while Gabrielle and Aphrodite were taking cover behind some rocks. While Xena was off kicking ass, there was a moment when Aphrodite - who, let us not forget, is the goddess of love - asks how Gabrielle and Xena are doing, and it was phrased in the way that one would ask a close friend how things were going between them and their significant romantic other. I don't know if most people would count that as an acknowledgement, and it was done as a rather nonchalant throwaway line, but I'd count it. (And Xena's relationship with Lao Mao, sure as hell seemed pretty blatantly sapphic, though that information was conveyed rather symbolically...)
the opening had me go " I KNEW IT! IT'S THAT GAY AGENDA!" - now I will forever and ever not trust any gays..... Or was I just giggling uncontrollably and sending out a whole lot of rainbow love to my soul fam. Def. one of the two, I'm sure.
The GAY AGENDA? Is that the one that includes Brunch?
@@wolf1066 I hope so!!!
The glasses you are wearing are a pair I've been considering getting and this is super random but....thank you for having those glasses so I can see them on a human in motion.
I was thinking the same thing!
Had to pause at 0:00.
A big smile spread on my face.
Looking at your style just makes me happy.
Had to be said!
Someone: so, a queer coded vi-
Me: loki! and! billy hargrove! *slaps hands on table* LOKI ! AND ! BILLY HARGROVE
Loki does look a lot like Johnny Weir
Billy could have a 80's new romantic style, but to me he looks so much like Rob Lowe
I've just come back and rewatched this video, and I think it still stands as one of the best you've ever produced on your entire channel :)
you put gotham's penguin as gay coded but actually, he's just gay, canonically. he's in love with the riddler on the show and says so out loud.
A lot of older southern women who never read the book still say “Fried Green Tomatoes” is a story about friendship. Its explicit in the book but the real story revolves around Evelyn (Kathy Bates.)
My favorite villains as a young kid were Catwoman and Poison Ivy and I've recently become very into Harly Quinn. As Harlivy (or Ivyquinn which is my preferred shipname but whatever) is now canon in both the comics and the new show this could probably count as a sign of my sexuality as well as the whole "dramatic/gay coded villains are more fun."
Couple of examples that instantly come to mind to me when discussing gay coded characters who are confirmed straight.
J.D. from "Scrubs" He is definitely coded as gay in regards to his behavior and his relationship with Turk. But, like Niles, he is only involved romantically with women.
A curious example in anime (which you were avoiding, and probably for the best) is "Fruits Basket." The anime contains a whole slew of gay coded characters, with some even cross-dressing and/or being portrayed as a member of the opposite sex. But, in the manga, every romantic relationship that the various characters end up in are heterosexual.
I love the idea of ace Elsa.
I love Jareth, and I love that you included him (and the Bulge - "Damn!" indeed), and while I think he counts as 'coded gay buy confirmed straight' given his pursuit of Sarah, I don't deny that he is coded.
Also, dead on with Pavi Largo.
Strange fact, here in the UK up to WWI it was more common for blue for a girl and pink(red) for a boy. This is most likely due to US soldiers uniforms being blue and British soldiers uniforms being red(in the field the red quite often faded to pink) especially parade uniforms.
Liked your video .
Great vid as always
One of the characters I’ve always been “I don’t really know where you stand “is lex Luthor in main continuity dc comics on one hand he’s definitely been a ladies man shown activity going for the affections of Lois lane and others, but on the other is the really complicated relationship he has with superman, namely the creation of the Conner Kent version of superboy a character who literally has two dads.
Luthor is also one of those people that any affection they show towards anybody you have to wonder about the sincerity of if he's just trying to get something out of them.
Could be bi? In my headcanon he is...
Lex's pursual of Lois always seemed to be in terms of a prize to be won- especially when he knows Superman loves her- how better to emasculate Superman, then to steal his lover?. Same with when he pursued Matrix-Supergirl or Lana Lang (on Smallville at least) It's all about aquiring trophies, trophies often intended to screw over Superman (pun intended) not love
And, while its been suggested in some story-lines that he has had several wives, it's also been suggested that he had no real deep affection for any of them.
Then, there's his weird obsession with his sister Lena, which is too much to get into here.
All in all, one can't say that Luthor definitely displays any sort of cis het normalcy
I was reading a fanfic so
archiveofourown.org/works/240930#bookmark-form
Oddly enough, it actually never occurred to me that Scar was coded gay. So much of his flounciness just read as sarcastic to little 7 year old me, and I figured he didn't have a love interest either because he was too focused on his other goals or because he isn't the leader of the pride and thus wasn't permitted to mate the lionesses. (Yes, I was a nerdy kid. I did a science project on lions when I was 7 and was disappointed in my teacher for thinking wildebeests were made-up creatures and not a major prey source for lions. They're a type of antelope.)
When you mentioned Frasier I was really surprised when you didn't talk about Gil Chesterson.
In a lot of ways Let It Go is Disney's equivalent of Defying Gravity from Wicked (they even hired the original Elphaba) so that definitely adds to the gay vibe because of how homoerotic Wicked is and how LGBT people have latched onto Defying Gravity and Wicked in general.Faith and Buffy had definitely had foeyay going on and there was too many jokes about Faith being Buffy's date for me not to notice
Thanks for these. I would be interested in more. I've been writing a book, and I have a lot of diverse characters, that have a lot of traits. This means giving characters traits like gay, asexual, and everything varied in-between. Now no not all the characters, but everyone knows at least a few gay people, and probably at least one repulsive asexual (even if the asexual hasn't ever told them). They also aren't always bad people, or just a trait for a humor break. So the more you write these it helps me write the genders better. I have a asexual characters. One repulsive, and one that not on the asexual scale, and I'd like to see them as dynamic and fundamental characters.
This video deserves an award. The script is very well written, and you do a great job presenting it. Brava!
This video has completely opened my eyes to this. Your argument isn’t just fascinating, it’s damn compelling and very articulately made. Wow, I’m subbing and can’t wait to watch more of your videos ❤️
Xenia and Gabrielle's relationship had a pretty good gay subtext and Joxer's crush on Gabrielle was pretty cute as well.
I loved the new (or at least it seemed new) style of this video, from the segway frames to the narrated outro. Gave the video a really polished feeling
You are the only you tube reviewer I actually look for after a Dr Who episode
When you talked about Niles, I thought you'd also bring up Andy Bernard from The Office. Same basic deal.
The character of Cecil from _A Room with a View_ (1985; dir. J. Ivory), whilst described in the Wikipedia entry for the film as being "wealthy and respectable but snobbish and pretentious," is gay coded through the associations linking the fin-de-siecle dandy with gayness, vis-a-vis Wilde, G&S's _Patience; or, Bunthorne's Bride_ -- and this reflects also the reaction in late Victorian culture against Decadence, Symbolism and Aestheticism.
Don't forget Dr. Smith from the original Lost In Space! He was a big ol' Queen!
Dr. Smith was attracted to a female alien and he had affect for both Will and Penny, but never shown as anything sexual, he also got alone better with the female adults. He worry about Judy safe in some episodes, very seldom worried about male adults.
I don't know why this was in my Recommended, but I really enjoyed this!! I'd like to point out two characters that I find very interesting. Chandler Bing in Friends is very weird to me, he is inconsistently refered to as having female traits but the inconsistency makes him confusing. Another more straightforward character is C-3PO from Star Wars.
Any thoughts on Chandler Bing?
More than a few folks have brought him up. I didn’t think of him because I didn’t watch Friends as much as most folks my age.
@@CouncilofGeeks Ok, I see! I would love an analysis of him though, just bc he is so inconsistent.
Most of those Disney villains I've never gotten a gay impression (except for Radcliffe, totally gay :P). Generally they are extremely prideful, they think they are the most attractive, intelligent, just the best and like to flaunt it.
While I do agree there are stereotypes out there, a lot of times it seem as if people want to see the gay in close friendships. Maybe you could do a video on shipping culture, that would be interesting.
Hades is literally my favorite Disney villain. I take no complaints
I've also thought a lot about the depiction of Sam and Frodo. Apart from the dynamic with Gollum coming off as more distrust and concern than jealousy in the book, the feel of the Frodo-Sam relationship is pretty faithfully ported over. First I thought that their relationship wasn't gay, as JRRT fought in WWI, and their relationship was probably modeled on the very close bonds that formed between soldiers. But then it struck me that probably some of these bonds that JRRT observed probably were because of romantic feelings, acknowledged or not, requited or not. It made it kind of beautiful to me that these fictional characters may show some echoes of old, real love stories blossoming in the darkest of circumstances.
this is like the second time i’ve found myself mentioning this this week which is pretty funny But the actor that plays niles crane is actually gay irl!! which makes people assuming the character is gay pretty ironic lol
JAMES BOND! He's well spoken, he's elegant, he's always concerned about his appearance, he's always well dressed and put together, he has a love of fine wine and all things posh! I'M JUST SAYING!
@Rebecca Woolf 'bed' is a very nice term for what Bond does to women.
@@elijahfordsidioticvarietys8770 He almost never forms a connection with these women. He mostly just using them or pumping them for information. It's his job.
@@elijahfordsidioticvarietys8770 yeah ... "sleeps with" is not what I meant. That would imply explicit consent to what he does, which is remarkably murky in far too many situations.
And the whole point of "know your coding" is that there is nothing that makes you gay except being exclusively attracted to the same gender, BUT media considers certain things gay/straight/masculine/feminine and by telling us 'this thing clearly shows that they're gay' influences people's perception of actual people, not just people in media.
Men actually CAN be heterosexual and wear pink shirts and get manicures and be really into manscaping and stay completely heterosexual.
Women can actually wear muddy colored hoodies, baggy jeans, converse sneakers, have bitten nails, short or unmaintained hair and not wear makeup or own heels while simultaneously being completely straight and NOT a tomboy.
Coding itself is not even stupid. Coding is sometimes (almost) necessary to convey a thing to an audience. There is a reason it exists.
And now, he's bi, lol!
Don't even!
Growing up watching all these was such a weird experience to me now that I look back. I'm bisexual girl but only really realized this when I was in my 20s. It's embarrassing but I really thought I was just that open minded and it was normal to get excited about females the same way as males. Watching shows like Xena certainly didn't help me recognize my bisexuality with all the sexual tension between Xena and Gabrielle with their relationship never talked about. Which I understand why not at the time tho.
Troll, ogres and such were described this way in ancient legend, way before fantasy writers used them.
Tim Drake's Robin has pretty strong ace coding (had numerous girlfriends but never show interest beyond kissing, has aversion towards sex and casual hookups, etc.) And I'm not even gonna mention his (b)romance with Superboy (he literally changed his uniform colors in his memory).
Hey Nathaniel, should there be a distinction between gay coded characters and the acting styles of gay actors? I’m thinking like Kenneth Williams and even Vincent Price, who was bi himself. No matter how a role was written, they brought themselves to it.
Liked for the Pavi shoutout, subbed for the gorgeous look 💜
(but forreal, loved the vid, loved your commentary and analysis, excited to watch more ❤️)
Wow - recently discovered your channel...I appreciate the thoughtful discourse, thank you!
Amazing video. Subscribed about 5 mins in. So thoughtful and super charismatic!
British radio, movie and TV culture of the 50s, 60s & 70s has its own very particular gay coding. They would often have obviously gay-male-coded characters (often played by gay actors) revealed to be straight characters. I would suggest checking out the Carry On movies (particularly those characters played by Kenneth Williams and Charles Hawtrey.) But what might interest you more is the characters of Julian and Sandy on the radio series Round The Horne. They are a real education in the history of gay culture. I suspect nothing like them would have been allowed in the US at the time.
I would add Q in ST:TNG, etc. That’s how we (LGBTQ2+ activists and fans) read him at the time.
Every appearance reinforced it. Especially his “bed scene” with Jean-Luc in “Tapestry.”
I mean the flashes, the manners, the quick costume changes... Even the name!
Supporting character or vilain? ❤️🏳️🌈
I would really like to hear your take on the AJxRainbow Dash bit in the last episode of the current installment of MLP. Personally, as every other character either entered alone or with their partner/child I saw the two of them entering together discussing household chores as indisputable evidence that they were being confirmed as a couple. This is helped with the fact that last episode confirmation is starting to become a trope in animation for teased gay couples. However MLP DID do a background proposal of two females proving they're not afraid to explicitly state these things. But then, there's a big difference between doing it for background characters and doing it for main characters, whose toy sales plummeting could hurt your bottom line. There are a lot of parents to this day that would refuse to let their children play with the gay pony... people are stupid. So anyway, if you feel like watching I would love to hear what you think, was the subtext explicit enough for someone with no skin in the game (as far as shipping is concerned anyway) to say yay or neigh?
I don’t watch the show so I wouldn’t be comfortable making a call on one bit out of context.
-first 9 seconds of the video plays-
Me: ELLEN SAID WE'RE NOT ALLOWED TO TELL!!!!
It's come up more than once where I or someone I know has had to explain to The Youth that Xena wasn't queerbaiting, Xena was doing the best damn job it could. It was all about plausible deniability and what you could fool the censors into not noticing. (See also: Susan/Talia on B5.)
I cackled at "the bulge"!
I mean-- I love Repo so I was just excited you mentioned it tbh.
I am glad you mentioned that coding was the only way to get LGBTQ+ characters on the screen. A lot of people do forget that (while there needs to be a stop to this, it is important to acknowledge the importance)
Very interesting video.
I would certainly lean more to the side of interpreting the work within the time period that the creator lived as a direct interpretation, primarily. You can test how well a work has "aged," but even that is kind of odd. But people are free to judge any work, by any framework they see fit. The idea that a work created today will be judged by whatever moral ground we end up standing on in 100 years (as the primary way of interpreting it, rather than the time period in which it was written) just isn't something I can get on board with.
Enjoyed the video. As an aspiring author, I am generally trying to avoid shortcuts (unless useful), and expanding how I view those is very helpful.
Thank you.
I have enjoyed your videos during social distancing, to listen to when sewing. Thankyou so much for your content!
I am unsure how to approach this subject but I have thoughts on Xena. I looooved that show. Still do. I watched every episode of it and have all seasons on my computer. For me, as a straight white cis woman from Sweden, during that time I really really longed for a strong female character and to ME Xena was that. I was a bit bothered though... I don't know if anyone remembers this BUT at that time (mid to late 90's) it was EXTREMELY unusual with strong female characters. And those who did exist was ALWAYS lesbians. I never found one to identify with as a straight woman. It did sadden me that they portrayed Xena as a lesbian. Because I was like "well OF COURSE all strong female characters MUST be lesbians, how else do you explain their strength!".
It saddens me. I know it is better today. I just wanted to put this out there. It's not only bad that the tropes hurts the lgbtq+ community - some tropes are used so much they work the other way around. Like ALL strong females must OF COURSE be lesbians, that's the ONLY way a woman can be strong.
I still love Xena. I lean heavily to the fact that she seems at least bi, so that's something. I love everything that Sam Raimi has done, actually. He is an amazingly creative person!
Lis, you look pretty, and I really love your glasses (Seriously, the trans pride colours on the front frames is absolutely a clever design). This video was really interesting, and informal much like the others. Keep up the good work.
What's interesting is that I could do a very similar video to Jewish coding. Why? Because it's there. Hollywood enhances Jewish stereotypes in Jewish characters. Even characters that never say they are Jewish...you can tell. Paul on "Mad About You" Fox Mulder on "X-Files". Part of it might be ignorance...part of it may be that it's harder to enhance a character whose appearance doesn't necessarily make them stand out. There are blonde jews, Jews are all races. It's hard without enhancing stereotypes to bring aspects out in characters. And I think it's interesting that yes, villains are often now portrayed as gay or with gay stereotypes. But it was never uncommon (even in reality through history) that villains and the devil were portrayed with Jewish stereotypes. It's not right...but there you go. Interesting video...provoked a lot of thought.
Extremely thoughtful, structured and eloquent! This is a really good video essay. Thank you for talking about these topics, they are always interesting to watch.
the point about the master has me in fits but also "I can't decide" was such a bold choice and plays even more into that coding
Villains on Starblazers (Deslok) and Robotech and Voltron (The lead Drool) were often voice acted as over the top, soft spoken and campy, prone to similar coding. But since these were cartoons dubbed into English in the late 70s and 80s, the voice actors might have been asked to make them campy. Still in some cases they were translated pretty accurately, such as Deslok in Starblazers and Kyron (althought with him he was more of an aggressive wolf hyperactive type) in Robotech.
Although it was the 80s so they tended to be homophobic in some ways.
Also in Robotech they had some heroes who were similarly coded, including Lancer and Max. But Max was bi and fell for an alien woman, and Lancer allegedly did the same.
Star Trek DS9 had Garak, although he never directly came out and said he was. Now they have Stammets in the new one, but he's not coded and his arkc is a bit too obvious and doesn't really make sense sometimes.
About the colours: There is an historical reason for this. Pink used to be the boys colour and red the colour of men due Mars being red and Mars being the god of war which was considered the most manly thing around. With the industrial revolution and the increased popularity of the blue jeans among the working population especially in the US but also an increased fascination with the sea in some European countries like Germany, blue started to be more associated with men since it became both the colour of war but also the colour of work. Red slowly became seen as emotional and hence was started to be associated with women. This turn around happened approximately at the turn of the 19th into the 20th century. Is this association bullshit? Of course it is. But was it completely arbitrary? No.
I don't blame you on not wanting to touch the potential coded side of anime for it's quite overwhelming. I could name over twenty characters that could be perceived gay (including who most would pair them with) but are titled as heterosexual without even breaking a sweat.