There’s a new type of queer­bait­ing in emp­ty promises

For any­one unfa­mil­iar with the term, ​‘queer­bait­ing’ is defined as ​‘the prac­tice of hint­ing at, but then not actu­al­ly depict­ing, a same-sex roman­tic rela­tion­ship between char­ac­ters in a work of fic­tion, main­ly in film or tele­vi­sion’. Recent­ly a new type of queer­bait­ing has emerged, where LGBT rep­re­sen­ta­tion is promised but not deliv­ered with­in the con­tent itself.

One such exam­ple is the cou­ple dubbed as ​‘Choni’ on Riverdale. The rela­tion­ship between Toni Topaz and Cheryl Blos­som is fair­ly new to the show, hav­ing start­ed in the show’s lat­est series. But that hasn’t stopped them from hyp­ing it up. For instance, Vanes­sa Mor­gan, who plays Toni, told Refin­ery 29 that the cou­ple would be involved in a one of the ​‘sex­ist episodes yet’, based on film­ing. Instead, in the episode referred to, Cheryl and Toni sim­ply touched hands, where­as there are kiss­es – and more – shared by the straight characters.

Even in terms of lat­er episodes, Riverdale writer Brain E Pater­son tweet­ed that there was ​“bet­ter stuff on tap than just kiss­es” to come for Choni. But that nev­er rang true – the cou­ple have only kissed once, hugged once and held hands once in the entire series, and have had hard­ly any devel­op­ment beyond that in terms of their rela­tion­ship. This pales in com­par­i­son to the ample kiss­es, touch­es, and sex scenes, all of which were cou­pled with emo­tion­al and lov­ing moments and devel­op­ment, that was giv­en to the straight rela­tion­ships with­in the show, in the same episodes.

Choni also suf­fered from a severe lack of shared screen­time. In the 42-minute sea­son two finale, they appeared on screen togeth­er for less than 90 sec­onds. You could argue that more scenes were filmed and sim­ply omit­ted from the episode, as delet­ed scenes are a com­mon occur­rence where this cou­ple is con­cerned – there’s their delet­ed roman­tic musi­cal num­ber, to name just one. (In fact, the song in the delet­ed scene was includ­ed, but sung by Archie and Bet­ty, and then Bet­ty to Veron­i­ca, the two girls who kissed in Riverdale’s first episode but then went on to appar­ent­ly, be straight – in a clear attempt at the def­i­n­i­tion of queer­bait­ing pro­vid­ed above. Riverdale absolute­ly isn’t new to queer­bait­ing its audience).

But this new type of queer­bait­ing is espe­cial­ly cru­el to its LGBT audi­ence. By giv­ing LGBT fans LGBT char­ac­ters and then an LGBT cou­ple to r

oot for, and then not giv­ing them the screen time or devel­op­ment that they do to straight cou­ples and char­ac­ters, is giv­ing them false hope. It’s deeply frus­trat­ing, and almost implies that they don’t care about the LGBT por­tion of their audi­ence – as they just con­tin­ue to string them along, feed­ing them only scraps com­pared to the feast that they cook up for their straight audiences.

You could argue that it’s a major­i­ty ver­sus a minor­i­ty sit­u­a­tion. Even so, LGBT audi­ences are out there, and when you say LGBT char­ac­ters and cou­ples exist in your show, they deserve the same amount of atten­tion than any oth­er char­ac­ter or cou­ple. And in Choni’s case, and many oth­ers, they just aren’t get­ting them. And that’s let­ting a large por­tion of your audi­ence – who in Riverdale’s case are most­ly young adults – down.

This new type of queer­bait­ing isn’t exclu­sive to TV, it’s also become increas­ing­ly preva­lent in film. There have been a few instances of late where char­ac­ters in films are said to be LGBT, but then aren’t explic­it­ly por­trayed as such. Take Tri­ni from 2017’s Pow­er Rangers. Before the film was released, the char­ac­ter was described as the first LGBT super­hero, thus break­ing new ground. But there was no moment with­in the film that con­firmed Trini’s sex­u­al­i­ty – in fact, the only indi­ca­tion was anoth­er Pow­er Ranger ask­ing if she had boyfriend trou­ble, and then ask­ing if she had girl­friend trou­ble; Tri­ni doesn’t reply affir­ma­tive­ly to either remark, leav­ing LGBT view­ers feel­ing a lit­tle deflat­ed.

In 2018, LGBT audi­ences deserve explic­it, con­crete rep­re­sen­ta­tion that doesn’t just exist in pro­mo­tion­al inter­views. They deserve media that lives up to its promises.

There’s also the curi­ous case of LeFou in the 2017 remake of Disney’s Beau­ty and the Beast. While pro­mot­ing the film, direc­tor Bill Con­don said that the revised sto­ry would have an ​‘exclu­sive­ly gay moment’. Yet in real­i­ty LeFou was sim­ply shown danc­ing with anoth­er man. It was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment most view­ers either missed entire­ly, or else were unaware of as LGBT rep­re­sen­ta­tion; LeFou looks more shocked than pleased at the sud­den dance part­ner change. This moment has been described as ​‘one of the most over­hyped events in movie his­to­ry’.

More recent­ly there was the ​“rev­e­la­tion” that Don­ald Glover’s Lan­do Cal­riss­ian in Solo: A Star Wars Sto­ry is pan­sex­u­al. But will audi­ence mem­bers not privy to the infor­ma­tion giv­en in the inter­view be aware that the char­ac­ter is LGBT just by watch­ing what’s on the screen? Don’t get me wrong, Lan­do doesn’t have to just stop in the mid­dle of a fight to exclaim, ​‘Oh, by the way, Han, I’m pan­sex­u­al!’ That would be lazy writ­ing, and a pret­ty shod­dy attempt to shoe­horn in representation.

There are far bet­ter ways to go about includ­ing – and build­ing antic­i­pa­tion of – LGBT rep­re­sen­ta­tion. It’s not just about hav­ing more LGBT char­ac­ters and cou­ples in films and TV, but giv­ing them the screen time and devel­op­ment that’s rou­tine­ly afford­ed to straight char­ac­ters. Rep­re­sen­ta­tion isn’t rep­re­sen­ta­tion if it’s on the cut­ting room floor, delet­ed scenes DVD or only exists in inter­views. Because LGBT fans deserve bet­ter – and it’s time to final­ly start deliv­er­ing on so many bro­ken promises.