Meaning of queerbaiting | Babel Free

Definitions

The practice of creating homoerotic tension between two characters in a narrative work (particularly a television series) without the intention of ever developing it into an actual same-sex relationship or explicitly addressing the question of either character's sexuality.

slang, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“Queerbaiting is erasure. It’s telling queer people that they don’t exist, or that our stories aren’t worth telling, and it’s harmful.”

“Some feel that fan pressure to emphasize Buffy and Spike’s relationship spoiled the last few seasons of Joss Whedon’s show, and many fans were alienated by Teen Wolf’s recent queer-baiting.”

“Criticism of queerbaiting also does not imply that creators need to be dictated to by fans on how to run their show; […]”

“And as a much better NYT comment piece on queerbaiting put it last year: “As self-serving as some celebrity caginess can be, you can’t build a world in which everyone feels free to self-identify by ordering everyone to self-identify.””

CEFR level