#especially in queer fandoms like. how are you gonna not know queer history then complain abt queer media engaging with it

[grntaire]

i NEED corners of the internet to familiarize itself with camp PLEASE i am tired. weak. malnourished. “it’s bad/cringey/over the top” yeah. it was meant to be. hope this helps

[ratherashleigh]

killing eve, queerbaiting, and why what sandra oh said in that interview is both 100% true and also entirely irrelevant

1. your personal disappointment that a tv show did not do exactly what you want is not queerbaiting just because what you wanted involves queer characters.

1a. yes, i'm going to refer to characters as queer. no, i do not take feedback.

2. actually i don't think 1. is sufficient to cover this topic. so i present:

What Are We Talking About When We Call Something Queerbaiting In 2019?

because this isn't just about language and how words may or may not have evolved to mean different things or include more things or people are just misusing a word because they just don't know. forget about the word. the word is irrelevant. WHAT IS THE ACTUAL COMPLAINT BEING LEVELLED BY FANDOM AT KILLING EVE RIGHT NOW?

pre-that gay times interview: they are never going to get together in a romantic relationship, i feel tricked into watching this on the promise of Queer Content.

post-that gay times interview: the show is denying that it is queer at all. fuck them they're wrong.

3. why the pre-interview complaint is, uh, wrong: queer content is queer content even if it's not the queer content you want.

fandom in general is obsessed with relationships. literally the verb for our single unifying activity is derived from the word relationship. the reason we, fandom, exist as a group at all, by and large, arises out of our collective desire for something that performative media does not do particularly well: relationships, specifically romantic ones, very especially queer romantic ones.

maybe it needs to be pointed out at this point that the relationship between fandom and the source is a bit like a dog chasing its own tail. or a snake eating its own tail, depending on the way the wind is blowing. fandom exists because it's not getting what it wants. and fandom turns on the source when it doesn't get what it wants. the problem: performative media, and especially longform media like television, is pretty much constructed by design in such a way that it will not give fandom what it wants.

(and it's weird that "fandom" is a term reserved pretty exclusively for ship-based fan activity, right? it's weird because fandom seems to imply we are fans, but all of this is about how the thing we are supposedly fans of is in some way not giving us what we want.)

i keep saying "what we want". i'm going to pause for a moment here to say something controversial: the story queer fandom wants has almost never, ever in the entire history of television, been provided to straight ship fans. because it's not a thing television provides, generally, at all. let me spell out what i think fandom wants, a conclusion based on excluding all the things i see being complained about, and attempting to find common elements in what's left over: queer couple in an expressly declared romantic relationship without conflict and with storylines centering around said relationship.

don't get me wrong, sometimes those things magically happen on tv, and overwhelmingly the examples of that will be het couples. H O W E V E R. those het couples are rare as fuck.

it's actually pretty straightforward as to why this is the case, and it is the reason i say performative media, especially television, does not, by design, give us what we want: narrative storytelling revolves around conflict. whether or not this is a good thing or not is irrelevant to the fact that it just is. romantic relationships in film and television tend to have two modes: UST and relationship problems. both of which involve conflict that impedes the relationship itself. the reason UST is generally what gets people shipping things is because the conflict is what's keeping them from being together, the implication being that but for the thing getting in the way the narrative has made some effort to show that these two characters WANT to be together. the reason tv tends to piss people off so much is because the default conflict once there IS a relationship is something that is going to break them apart. maybe they DON'T want to be together. the first inspires that sportsfan-like mentality that if we just try hard enough, we the characters but also we the fans cheering them on, will overcome the obstacle in the way. but overcoming something trying to break a couple apart is one of the singularly most unsatisfying narrative resolutions because the very fact of it required us to believe on some level that they could be broken apart. when your team is on top, it's not triumph you feel when they win but relief that they didn't lose. "they survived" is not the same happy ending as "they're together now," even if functionally it is the same outcome.

the other is more a function of how a tv show (much more than film) is actually constructed: a two lead cast with only minor secondary characters is RARE now. the kinds of shows that have the largest fandoms tend to be long season, large cast ensembles with either a plot of the week that means different characters interacting each episode OR is beholden to a larger narrative arc that needs to work to bring those other characters in over and over again. either way, the focus will never be exclusively and exhaustively on the two main leads interacting with each other.

4. so is killing eve not giving fandom what it wants?

like i said, the way stories are told does not, usually, facilitate this hypothetical dream ship: conflict free and the focus of the story. the thing being asked for barely exists at all. killing eve, magically, manages to tick one of the boxes, because the show does indeed revolve around the relationship between eve and villanelle. but the conflict? OH BOY IS THERE CONFLICT. it's not the relationship that fandom wants. it's not even close.

i'm not even going to pretend to understand how anyone watching this show concluded that the logical or even rational outcome for these two characters was happily ever after. but i'm also not going to straw man that extreme and dismiss the argument entirely. they certainly could have been together, even in an entirely fucked up manner. but what does that look like? sexual intimacy? i would argue we got that. expressions of attraction? we got that too. YALL. THAT'S QUEER AS FUCK.

what else, exactly, is required of this particular relationship to legitimize it in the eyes of fandom that doesn't take these characters entirely out of who they are? this is where i draw the line: WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT, GIVEN WHAT THIS SHOW IS? based on everything i have seen, apparently the answer is a kiss between them. and i think that ties back to this very specific fandom desire for evidence that the relationship isn't JUST queer, but also romantic. that distinction is the one that i'm starting to feel is the true conflict between those who call something like killing eve queerbaiting and those who think calling killing eve queerbaiting is bonkers.

and to be real fucking honest now, i don't just think it's bonkers, i also think it is misleading as fuck. because let's go back to what queerbaiting is, really, when you don't start trying to roll in every damn sin of storytelling about queer characters: queerbaiting is a maliciously intended trap. it's behaviour that is meant to entice people who want queer storylines, only to offer them nothing.

AND NOW TO BE REAL CLEAR: being offered nothing is NOT AND WILL NEVER BE the same thing as being offered something you don't like, or don't want, or don't give a single fuck about. it's not even the same thing as being offered something queer but harmful.

5. LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK: QUEERBAITING IS MALICIOUS WITHHOLDING OF QUEER CONTENT SAID TO BE ON OFFER.

the fact that metro dot co dot uk in 2019 had to define queerbaiting as "marketing an LGBT romance to attract an LGBT audience without exploring it properly on-screen" is honestly offensive in how it completely manages to miss the mark on what exactly is the harm caused by actual queerbaiting, and yet that really is the claim being made, isn't it? it doesn't count unless it's a romantic relationship? so let me say this: if one more person implies i'm not queer because i'm not in a romantic relationship, i'm gonna lose my shit.

(5a. and inb4 BUT THAT UK ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN. if you read that as a promise that the show was going to be ROMANTIC and not VILLANELLE IS A LITERAL PSYCHOPATH, i'm surprised you read this far.)

it's really obvious how this became the catchcry of the campaign for queer representation. it's a moral judgement against creators' manipulation of people's desire for something we are coming to recognise as an important aspect to popular media. representation IS important, and taking advantage of people's need for that is at the bare minimum a shitty thing to do.

it's not shitty to give people that representation. it's not shitty to write complex characters with queer sexualities that are not demonized but are also not in a romantic relationship. this endless cry of being baited with the promise of a romantic relationship only sends a message that we don't want actual representation, we only want one kind of representation. and that's not representation at all.

6. why the post-interview complaint is also totally wrong: literally all sandra oh said is that it wasn't a romantic relationship.

see: literally the last 1500+ words about why not giving fandom queer romance is not the same fucking thing as queerbaiting.

WHAT SANDRA OH SAID IS 100% TRUE: IT IS NOT A ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP. IT'S STILL QUEER AS HELL.

the actual literal entire quote from the interview: 'And could that possibly mean a romance together? It's a discussion that the show's star... was quick to dismiss, saying to Gay Times that the idea is sadly not a "focus or a message" for the show.' in case long sentences are a struggle: the idea of a ROMANCE is not the focus or the message of the show.

7. and in case i haven't made this abundantly clear, killing eve isn't a romantic show?: GOOD.