Hey Hollywood, can you stop exploiting the LGBT+ community?
Like, seriously.
For so long those within the LGBT+ community have fought for equality and representation in society. Throughout most of the world, homosexuality wasn’t even legal until the 21st century. Now that — HELLO — we are in 2019, I would like to think that the media has become better at acknowledging this community and supporting its members. But it has also opened them up to systemic exploitation.
This exploitation is manifesting itself in the form of ‘Queerbaiting.’ Queerbaiting is Hollywood’s latest cheap marketing technique; it occurs when movies, songs, and even social media posts falsely hint or advertise the presence of LGBT+ characters and content. These false narratives work to create higher engagement, and pull in audiences only to disappoint them with little to no true representation. This is an annoying commercial tactic, and damaging to the LGBT+ members of our society. But I also wonder if these instances may be sparking a discourse around the highly underrepresented LGBT+ community, which is always a good thing.
Julia Himberg is a professor of film and media at Arizona State University. In an article published by the BBC Himberg acknowledges Queerbaiting is not an entirely new phenomenon. But its rising frequency in the entertainment industry, coupled with society’s unprecedented social media use has helped it become more powerful.
Recently, Kardashian supermodel Kendall Jenner posted an Instagram story stating she was about to share a personal struggle that ‘she felt a large portion of her community would identify with.’ Her followers were overjoyed by the idea that this idolised celebrity might be ‘coming out’ and that she could become a voice for the LGBT+ community.
But her next post revealed a struggle with teenage acne, which she tied into a new sponsorship with Proactiv skincare. Fans were left feeling…bereft. Kendall’s acne was not the ‘deep and difficult’ struggle her community anticipated; and worse, was likely cured from her visits to LA’s best dermatologists, not from the questionable Proactiv brand. Though the LGBT+community fully supports individuals who choose not to label themselves, Kendall Jenner’s post depicts how Queerbaiting is providing the opportunity for entertainers to capitalise on this ambiguity.
17 year old artist Billie Eilish also released a song called ‘Wish you were gay’, which ended up having nothing to do with a queer identity…Billie sings melancholy in the song about her unrequited love for a boy, and that she ‘wished he was gay’ to soften the blow of his rejection.
This type of Queerbaiting is not just disheartening, it is misleading to those who turn to popular culture for their queer education (one national U.S. survey reports fewer than five percent of LGBT+ school children receive sex ed that includes LGBT+ information), and also to those who may or may not have acknowledged their identity, and want to watch stories and hear songs they can relate to.
Of course I must admit, the wider community has been quick to slap the ‘queerbaiting’ label on some occasions where I don’t believe the message was intended as misleading. Rita Ora’s song, ‘Girls’ struck the wrong note with lyrics like ‘sometimes I just wanna kiss girls’, because the singer trivialised lesbianism, but did not delve further into the topic. After other celebrities called Rita out, she made this Twitter statement: ‘I have had romantic relationships with women and men throughout my life and this is my personal journey…I would never intentionally cause harm to other LGBTQ+ people or anyone.’ Though the community was disappointed by Rita’s song, the whole episode led Rita to reveal her bisexuality, and I believe the ensuing dialogue on different sexual experiences and identities was ultimately beneficial to the wider community.
‘Queerbaiting instances in the media though greatly inadequate, may be an indication of society’s growing acceptance and representation of the LGBT+ community.’
I do not identify as LGBT+, so I cannot fully comprehend the barriers to inclusion this community faces every day. But it appears to me that queerbaiting instances in the media though greatly inadequate, may be an indication of society’s growing acceptance and representation of the LGBT+ community. And this is confirmed by British sociologist and cultural theorist Rosalind Gill in Gender and The Media, who notes that in our technology-dependant society, the media is quite literally ‘producing and constituting understandings, subjectivities and versions of the world.’ That is to say, when certain topics like sexuality start popping up in the media at any level, they will become more widespread in society as a result.
But of course from any perspective, we should strive for better. I would love more genuine LGBT+ representation to grace our tv screens in the future, so that society can embrace the diversity in humanity, and people struggling with their identity can see they are not alone.
