To start off, what is queerbaiting or queercoding and why is one bad and the other not?

Now here are some examples from the media that queerbait(ed):
Teen Wolf (stiles)
Sherlock (john & sherlock)
Riverdale (betty & veronica)
Voltron (keith & lance)
Once Upon a Time (regina & emma)
Marvel (steve & bucky)
Supernatural (castiel & dean)
Star Wars (finn & poe)
Pitch Perfect (beca & chloe)
& many more

Before you raise your pitchforks at me, let me explain. I won't go over all of these examples because honestly I haven't watched all of these movies and shows and honestly if I want to discuss all of those in depth I'm going to be writing forever and like I don't have time for that. You can look up these examples for more information.

Anyway Stiles, he is portrayed very bisexual. At one point this girl asks him if he's into guys and he gets uncomfortable and never answers and it's constantly hinted that he could have feelings towards men. In Sherlock it's constantly implied by others that John and Sherlock are a couple while both men only having hetero relationships. In season 1 of Riverdale one of the promo pictures was of Betty and Veronica kissing, leading many people to think they were queer. Voltron....it's Voltron, the queer romances are brushed to the side and Keith and Lance have SO MUCH CHEMISTRY I SWEAR TO— HOW CAN YOU KEEP GOING ON ABOUT A BONDING MOMENT AND HAVE THAT SUNSET SCENE WITHOUT ANY ROMANCE—. In OUAT, Regina and Emma are hinted as a couple on various occasions, can't think of any examples right now because I quite literally watched the first five seasons years ago. Marvel... must I explain? HOMOPHOBIC PEOPLE THOUGHT STONY AND STUCKY WERE GAY!! Finn and Poe should be a couple, are portrayed as a couple in many ways and you can pry their relationship from my cold dead hands. Beca and Chloe in Pitch Perfect.... Fat Amy gave them a freaking ship name and just in general.

Why are these examples queerbaiting? Well they encourage queer fans, like me, to watch the show even when they might think the show is meh. Take Riverdale, the kiss was shown to people without any context whatsoever, I remember people genuinely thought that there was going to be a genuine lesbian couple among the main characters (doesn't matter that y'all eventually got Cheryl and Toni) (also does anyone still watch that derailed train of a show? like unironically?). Some of these shows really had canon queer characters like Voltron and Teen Wolf, but it was still queerbaiting because the main queer romance that was implied was treated like complete and utter 💫garbage💫.

Disclaimer, Joaquim Dos Santos (Voltron's showrunner) did take to twitter and wrote a long post apologising for the queerbaiting in the show which is great. Look don't do cancel culture, the creators learned from their mistakes. That however does not take away from what Voltron did and we should talk about it, but any shows after Voltron could be better.

From what I've heard in Supernatural the implied romance between Castiel and Dean really kept a lot of the show going. And that's the problem here. It's big media profiting off of a minority, in this case the queer community, and giving hardly to no representation.

Now let's look at queercoding

Why is queercoding not bad in comparison to queerbaiting? Well, queercoding isn't like giving someone an empty box as a present as queerbaiting does. While queerbaiting basically always involves queercoding, queercoding doesn't have to go hand in hand with queerbaiting.

Here are some queercoded characters
Bucky Barnes (marvel)
Newt (the maze runner)
Elsa (frozen)
Li Shang (mulan)
Pleakley (lilo & stitch)
Stiles Stilinski (teen wolf)
Poe Dameron (star wars)
Han Solo (star wars)
Finn (star wars)
Steve Rogers (marvel)
Jimmy Woo (marvel)
Keith Kogane (voltron)
Lance McClain (voltron)
Ji-yeong (squid game)
Kang Sae-byeok (squid game)
Luca Paguro (luca)
Alberto Scorfano (luca)
SO MANY DISNEY VILLAINS (DISNEY I'LL FIGHT YOU)
& many many many more

All of the characters I mentioned in the queerbaiting list are queercoded but some on here don't fall into queerbaiting category. Let's take Newt, Han, Li Shang, Ji-yeong, Sae-byeok and Jimmy for a second to prove my point. Newt is confirmed to be gay by James Dashner (the author) and both in the movies and the books Newt had some subtle queer hints but was never confirmed until Dashner tweeted about it. Is it sad that Newt was never confirmed in the movies and the books? Yes, but his queerness doesn't haul along part of the story and Dashner doesn't rely on it to continue the story.  Han has queer vibes but he doesn't have implied romances with any men and just dates Leia (they're a great couple🥺). Shang looks at Mulan when he still believed her a man, the same way he looked at Mulan as a woman. Ji-yeong and Sae-byeok have a bonding moment in episode 6 that could be seen as hinted romance from one or two sides or as romance, but the story doesn't evolve around their relationship in any way and keep in mind LGBTQIA+ representation is hard to find in most Asian countries and while that's sad, it's understandable considering same sex marriage isn't legal in most countries. Honestly had they kissed I would have disliked it because they knew each other for two days! I prefer the possible romance that could have developed under different circumstances or that they're just friends. Jimmy is implied queer by the way he asked Scott to diner, it's a small scene and I like it. It implies Jimmy is queer in a very natural way and leaves it at that.

The queercoding here isn't leading anyone on, it's not boosting the story persee. This is the good kind of queercoding. Not everything needs to be constantly labelled.

Now, there is also queercoding that's not queerbaiting but still bad. *glares at queercoded cartoon villains*

Ursula being based on a drag queen, Jafar, Skar, about every villain in disney, the Joker, and in many other cartoons for kids. Why is this bad? Well the only queer like characters are evil, does that really sound like acceptable representation? NO! Just....this speaks for itself. It would be fine if the villain wasn't the only queer character and there were some queer protagonists, sadly this usually isn't the case.

Elsa is another example of questionable queercoding. The parallels with being locked up in a room, hiding away from family and friends is seen as symbolism for being in the closet by a lot of people. Now personally I didn't notice it that much at first and I do see similarities but don't find it as much of an issue. This is a typical example of a grey area, some people find Elsa a bad queercoded character and I don't really, at least not as much as others do.

The movie Luca is often said to be queerbaiting and this is one of the many examples that I actually don't agree with. The ending is very clearly mimicking coming out. The granny's speech on some people always hating Luca but him being able to find the right people who would love him, I was 💫weeping💫.

Now, I do see the clear queercoding in the movie but I don't find it queerbaiting because they're literal children! Would I like a sequel where Alberto and Luca are a couple? Yes. Will I be inherently mad if a possible sequel doesn't? No. Again, they're kids! Yes the average age that people consciously realise they're queer is 12, but that doesn't mean they have to be aware about stuff yet. Maybe one of them knows they're queer and maybe the other is developing later. Yes queercoding, no queerbaiting in my opinion.

There are many more examples I could give and at the end of the day there will always be a debate about this. To me the difference between queerbaiting and queercoding is that queerbaiting is the story indicating it quite clearly and (trying) to profit off of it and queercoding is just hinting that a character possibly isn't cisgender and/or heterosexual. I admit that the term queerbaiting has gained more popularity through social media , especially TikTok and while more people should acknowledge this issue, the problem here is that people are getting hasty and start throwing the term around every time they suspect someone to be queer. I genuinely don't think Raya and The Last Dragon, Luca, Squid Game and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier queerbaited the audience. (TFTWS is only debatable to me due to how the mcu has queercoded Bucky to be bisexual and used him in queerbaiting, although Sam x Bucky doesn't spark queerbaiting to me persee. There were some scenes that seemed to come near the line, but it wasn't crossed for me)

We should call queerbaiting out more and this issue should be addressed and dealt with, but we have to keep in mind that not every act of queerness in a show is related to queerbaiting. Just because two characters don't kiss/aren't officially stated to be queer doesn't make it queerbaiting. Maria and Carol are queercoded much like Sae-byeok ans Ji-yeong are, but I find neither example queerbaited because both instances are on the border of platonic and romantic and it depends on the person and it doesn't spur on the movie/show.

What are your thoughts on this matter? Do you agree or disagree with some of my points?

This Monday I have to give a class at my school as part of sex ed but LGBTQIA+ and I, a student, had less than a week to prepare the class. I'll keep y'all updated on how it goes. That Monday is also Coming Out day and as the leader of my school's GSA that means I will be 💫stressed💫 not to mention I start working at my new workplace that day, have a test the next day and a doctor's appointment and another school asked if they could interview me. So mostly a lot of good things ✌🏻yay! But also anxiety ahhh!

Hehhe, I wrote this a while ago, coming out day went great! And my class went well, my friend and I had fun and we found a new member for our GSA. We did many things including coming out stickers like this one.

Now my handwriting is terrible and I was writing my sticker and messed up and my crush (ahhh!) who was sitting with me and two of my friends just sighed and grabbed a sticker and asked me what to write down 🥺