Harmful Effect of Queerbaiting in Marketing and Media

Queerbaiting harms the LGBTQ+ community by offering false promises of representation. This misleading practice invalidates experiences and can harm mental health.

Queerbaiting is a marketing tactic that winks at homosexuality but never actually produces homosexuality, said Ricky Hill, PhD, research assistant professor at the Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellness at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago.

This practice occurs especially in television shows. However, qeerbaiting also occurs in:

• Movies
• Music
• Books
• Any other form of media

Bait and switch

Directors, authors, writers or producers use plots, characters, images, lyrics, social media and interviews to attract LGBTQ+ people with promises of positive queer representation (the lure). However, they often fail to deliver on their promises (change).

“So viewers, especially queer people, are drawn to the hope of seeing their possibilities reflected on the screen or hearing them in music, and they’re always waiting for that to actually happen,” said Kim Hackford-Peer, PhD, associate professor in the Division of Gender Studies at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Health.

Queerbaiting vs. misrepresentation

However, it is important to note that queerbaiting is not synonymous with imperfect representation.

“If there’s a really bad portrayal of a queer character, people say, ‘We were queered.’ No, there’s a real gay person there. Unfortunately, it’s not good [representation]” said Raina Deerwater, head of entertainment research and analysis at the GLAAD Media Institute. Health.

Although queerbaiting is most often seen as a media tactic, Hackford-Peer explained that it can also appear in politics and advertising.

In the 1950s, the United States was in the midst of what became known as the “Lavender Scare.” The Lavender Scare defines a time when others viewed gay people who held government positions as untrustworthy, putting them at risk of losing their jobs. As a result, LGBTQ+ people anxiously hid their sexuality.

To identify queer people, people used queerbait, falsely posing as allies and promising a safe space. They exploited that trust to expose those who confided in them, Hackford-Peer said.

Although the motivations for queerbaiting have changed, they remain defined by empty promises and harm to the LGBTQ+ community.

Queerbaiting not only attracts the attention of the LGBTQ+ community, but also their money.

Financial reasons

“It comes back to capitalism…[content creators] want money from queer consumers, but [they] will not represent them,” Deerwater said.

According to Deerwater, queerbaiting was particularly popular in the early to mid-2010s, a time when the general public viewed queer representation in media as taboo.

Avoid risks

“It was still considered a ‘risk’ to include queer characters and queer couples on popular shows,” Deerwater said. “And so essentially these shows weren’t and weren’t representing the LGBTQ community, but were teasing them to always get higher numbers and still maintain a fan base. So it’s kind of like having the cake and eating it too.”

However, with popular TV shows like “Sex Education,” “Pose,” and “Dickinson” prominently featuring queer characters, that risk seemingly no longer exists in the same way.

“We can actually have these stories — and these narratives — and these expressions be focused,” Hill said. Health.

Hill remembers watching the TV show “Xena: Warrior Princess” as a teenager in the 1990s, waiting for Xena and her best friend Gabrielle to become an official couple, as the TV show implied. Hill called the experience of being queerbaited “crippling.”

“I kept watching that show for a really long time hoping to see what 13-year-old me really needed to see and never got,” Hill said. “It really pulls the rug out from under you.”

Although some people may not understand the importance of representing different queer relationships in media, Hill argued that visibility has a lot of value. Queerbaiting can impact the mental health of the viewer, which deserves recognition.

“When we’re talking about communities that maybe don’t feel reflected a lot, those relationships mean something,” Hill said. “And they’re not just characters. They’re models of possibilities. So when those models of possibilities are taken away from you, it’s a loss.”

This type of bait-and-switch tactic worsens mental health issues, including depression and anxiety. LGBTQ+ people are more than twice as likely to experience mental health issues as heterosexual people.

Social isolation

“Never seeing yourself reflected is another form of social isolation,” Hill said. “We know that social isolation only increases depression, anxiety, and that has very real biological implications.”

Queerbaiting can also influence and perpetuate stigma surrounding the LGBTQ+ community because it prevents society as a whole from seeing “LGBTQ people as normal, everyday people operating in a culture where they can live happy, healthy, normal lives outdoors,” Hill said.

Invalidate homosexuality

By harassing but never fully showing homosexuality, media creators are “implying that there is something unworthy of accomplishment, that there is something invalid about these expressions and these identities,” Hill said.

Queerbaiting is another form of queer people being “erased, dismissed, or told we don’t matter in the world,” Hackford-Peer said.

It is up to media companies and creators to stop queerbaiting their content. Each year, GLAAD brings together its Studio Accountability Index and Where We Stand in TV Reporting reports.

In 2020, the Studio Responsibility Index revealed that 10 of 44 theatrically released films included LGBTQ+ characters. For the same year, TV reporting found 360 LGBTQ+ characters in streaming, cable and broadcast shows.

TV shows are moving faster than movies when it comes to including queer representation. Deerwater expressed hope that content creators will see the success of television shows that openly feature queer representation and begin to include LGBTQ+ characters and storylines.

While it’s up to content creators to stop queerbaiting, the public can also take steps to help end the practice.

First, familiarize yourself with the concept of queerbaiting, start researching it, and call it out when you see it. Deerwater suggested discussing it with your friends.

“If someone doesn’t understand why queerbaiting is a problem, or why lack of representation is a problem, you can just have a nice conversation with your friend,” Deerwater said.