‘Everyone is Straight Unless They State Otherwise’: Why We Need to Be Careful with the Term Queerbaiting
By Cami Mariotti
Harry Styles, Billie Eilish, Madonna, Bad Bunny, Charlie Puth, Andrew Garfield, Taylor Swift and, more recently, 18-year-old Kit Connor. These are some of the big industry names that come up when the topic of queerbaiting is discussed, with some queer people and cishets alike forming a united front to very loudly announce one thing: these celebrities are not queer enough.
Queerbaiting is, in its definition, a marketing technique for fiction and entertainment in which creators hint at but then do not actually depict same-sex romance or other queer representation. TV shows can queerbait because the characters’ plots are carefully designed and planned out; the presence or absence of queer characters is a conscious decision and writers can be held accountable for exploiting queer identities (or the suggestion of them) for views.
When we turn to celebrity culture, we are able to observe a dynamic that is quite loud in its favouring of cisgender, heterosexual narratives over openly queer ones. The idea and the allure of queerness are greatly praised and celebrated, so long as that individual’s heterosexual sex appeal is untarnished – this precise blend makes it easier to market them to a wide variety of audiences.
The industry no longer minds men painting their nails; they can create a narrative where men with painted nails are the new epitome of heterosexual female desire. It doesn’t mind women alluding to being with other women; that can easily be sold through the lens of the male gaze. The same cannot be said of explicitly queer artists, however. When an artist comes out and removes the lens of hypersexualisation through which they can be marketed, a new and reduced audience becomes available: queer people.
The entertainment industry is unfailingly explicit in its catering to cisgender, heterosexual audiences. That is the reason why queer people so often ask for more representation, be it in TV, films, music, books, etc. and are often given no choice but to read between the lines and look for less explicit clues that might indicate queerness in their idols.
Heterosexual audiences, however, will largely step away from queer artists and are less likely to conform to listening to songs or watching films that they can’t identify with. This is, of course, unless the artist’s queerness can conform to a cisgender, heterosexual trope such as the queer best friend, in which case straight women will mostly listen to this artist’s music to hype themselves up before a night out at a gay club (which will naturally play all of their favourite songs and mostly protect them from predatory straight men).
When queer culture is so vastly gauged from a patriarchal, cisgender and heterosexual standpoint, the well-known ‘you’re only doing it because it’s trendy’ that most queer people heard after coming out spreads as an acceptable statement that we can flippantly use in regards to celebrities who don’t conform to the mainstream definitions of queerness, including being proudly and publicly out of the closet. As fabricated as we might think they are, the truth is that real people – no matter how famous – can’t plan out the way the discovery of their sexuality will go. They can’t exactly predict what kind of gender performance will make them feel alive and at their best. We are so used to consuming celebrities’ content like we would binge-watch a Netflix show that sometimes dehumanising these very real people with very real-life experiences is too easy.
By obliviously reducing people’s queerness to cis-boy-who-likes-cis-boys and cis-girl-who-likes-cis-girls we are neglecting to acknowledge and validate much more profound and intimate forms of identity, and we are perpetuating a cishet standard in which everyone is straight unless they state otherwise. The notion that a queer person’s life doesn’t start until they come out of the closet is largely detrimental and inaccurate. It has pushed so many generations of queer people to disregard their experiences prior to coming out or to feel disappointed once they find out that coming out doesn’t equal a happily ever after, as most coming-of-age queer films would have you believe.
We must be cautious of the language we use and of the spaces we create – or refuse to create. Young people are perpetually online, and the discourse they are exposed to will impact them in their process of discovering who they are and what place they are allowed to occupy in the world. Saying that Harry Styles’ sexuality and gender expression aren’t valid unless he publicly comes out with a label (one we all understand and approve of) is teaching young people that they are only allowed to explore their identities under specific circumstances. A very clear message is sent: everyone should ‘stay in their lane’, meaning kids should continue to uphold heterosexual values and gender-typical expressions and aesthetics unless they are ready to firmly and publicly come out, which most are understandably not ready to do.
In the spaces we’re creating, we need to hold celebrities to a standard that prevents them from using their fame, money and power to contribute to fucked up causes and organisations (ahem, Harry Styles waving a pride flag at Coachella or Taylor Swift’s carbon emission levels). But we shouldn’t expect any kind of queer performance from them in regard to their personal lives. We need to be mindful of who we click on, who we listen to and who we praise for their queerness – who we allocate said queerness to.
Instead of labelling people and giving them huge platforms to talk about the labels we’ve decided they should represent, only to then debate on whether or not they did a good job, why can’t we all collectively make space for the artists who choose these labels? Billy Porter, Sam Smith, Janelle Monáe, Tyler the Creator, Frank Ocean, Kehlani, Arlo Parks, Yasmin Finney, Nicco Annan and Michaela Jáe Rodriguez are just some of the many, many queer artists who have labelled themselves and who pose great representations of an ever-expanding definition of queerness within the entertainment industry.
Ultimately, let us remember our goal: to allow each person to explore their sexuality and gender identity in a world that will allow them as much acceptance and freedom as they might need, taking into account that identities can and most likely will fluctuate through time. There is space for absolutely everyone to be themselves.