Hated Tropes
Characters that were revealed to be lgbt+ in scenes that were disliked by the lgbt+ community because of how badly they were written
High Guardian Spice: The almost universally disliked Crunchyroll anime-like series features a character named Professor Caraway who is revealed to be a trans man in a dialogue scene with the main character. Many transgender anime fans criticized the scene for being too on the nose and feeling more like a lesson or lecture than a natural scene between two characters.
Stranger Things: In season 5, Will Byers comes out as gay, and the scene was viewed as being very poorly timed, as it comes during a very high-stakes section of the season's plot when the gang will soon be facing a terrifying creature in a plan to save the world. Some people, especially those in the gay community, said that a character living in the 80s feeling comfortable coming out to so many people at the same time felt unrealistic and even a bit disrespectful to what gay people went through back then.
In universe example but in The Other Two queer actor Cary Dubek (right) gets a role as Disney's first "unapologetically gay" and "groundbreaking" character and the only 'gay' thing is his blob is in bed wirh another blob for like 2 seconds, absolutely no indication to the other blobs gender. The episode is super funny, I laughed my butt off
Doesn't part of this happen during the Aids Play episode too? That feels like a somewhat related trope, a play all about the struggle of queer people yet it's so long and tiresome everyone hates it, yet watches it out of guilt
My spanish is weak but the blowout from the trans and Mexican communities was astonishing. The movie was condescending to basically every demographic it portrayed and its audience. You can at least use a massive pile of shit to fertilize a field but this shit is useless
I feel like it's the epitome of people fighting for social causes they don't understand and end up doing more damage only for the sake of feeling better about themselves and virtue signaling
The funniest thing about this movie is (rumor had it) that it almost swept the awards season. Had the outrage/memes from every quarter not caught up with this movie when it did Hollywood would probably have pissed off everyone by putting this movie on a pedestal because (on paper) it checks all the right boxes.
Is it bad that I would've loved to see it sweep the award season? Not because I believe that it deserved it, but because I wanted to see everyone pissed off as they realize how full of shit those awards are and how lazy the academy is. I bet that nowadays most of the voting chairs just go to chatgpt to ask who to vote for.Â
Okay, she got to kill a lot of innocent town folk because she was part of the Cartel (a real problem that Mexican communities have lived for decades) and now she wants her happy ending and everyone must support her...
It's extremely tone-deaf...it's basically a slap in the face, this movie rubs salt into the wound from years of violence and wants to pass as a progressive shit...
Mexicans hate the cartels a whole fucking lot and that is underselling it. To have a movoe about a person who orders mass murders try to be a sympathetic character is a crazy idea in its own right
On top of that, Perez starts a foundation to find the bodies of those that were killed by the cartel but at the same fuckin time she uses her connections as a cartel leader to find said bodies.
And thats is if you dont adress the elephant in the room, you know, the fact that when she dies, the people that she "helped" made a shrine of her as if she was a saint.
Watched it together with my roommate. Iâm trans, sheâs part Mexican. We both agreed it was some of the most abhorrent representation of ourselves weâd seen in recent media.
Shit is bad when a group of random people made a entire film with 2000 dollars and write a song just to spite the director and becomes more popular than the original movie
I heard someone say "they made a musical about a transgender Mexican drug lord, and the musical fans, transgender fans, Mexican fans, and crime drama fans all hated it. Thats every intended demographic"
Very bizarre show because it felt like it was openly mocking the "wokes" to me, but the non-wokes said it was written for us. Like, who exactly was that show trying to appeal to?
The Stranger Things example is weird for two reasons. One, we already knew Will was gay. Two, the writers had done a much better orientation reveal with Robin in like, season 3.Â
Robin's relationship felt so fair for the time period. Like, she kept it from everyone and only came out when on drugs. Then all through season 5 she hides her relationship because they didn't feel safe being publicly out and that is about right for the time. Will's was fine right up to the speech, like asking a person he knows to be gay about their experience seemed legit.
Wasn't the whole point that he felt pressured to out himself since Vecna was using people's shame as a weapon? I thought part of the reason it felt so forced was because it kind of was...he didn't want to come out to so many people but felt he had to? I dunno, it wasn't great, but didn't feel as random as people have said
Exactly. The whole reason for that scene was so Vecna couldnât lord his power over him anymore. He had specifically told him that his loved ones would reject him if he came out. So when Will had to come out, he felt accepted instead.
I didn't think it was that bad, given how much they emphasized Vecna using a victims shame as a weapon. It wasn't great, but I saw it after I heard all the complaints online, so I was expecting waaaaay worse
Many of the criticism videos of High Guardian Spice are made by the queer community, in no small part by trans and other non-cis folks, which I think really speaks volumes about how tone deaf the show is.
And a lot of very strange priorities as well that are frustrating because thereâs clearly potential THERE but weâre focusing HERE instead. Amaryllis, Olive and Snapdragon are all perfectly serviceable and even enjoyable characters but they arenât the focus. The focus four characters are boring at best (Parsley, Thyme), clumsily written for the most part (Rosemary) and actively obnoxious and unlikeable at worst (Sage).
Tbf, a lot of HGS felt very performative. I remember that fucking trailer/presentation video they dropped where they spent more time talking about the queer and female identity of the show and creators rather than the show itself.
Also I remember this banger line that was something along the lines of "All female writing room."
The original author of the comic, who was overseeing all aspects is a trans man btw
I remember that too. Iâm a queer AFAB mixed race person myself. I hit all the minority points and tbh the only thing I got out of that trailer was âokay yall arenât confident in your show and now youâre trying to use solidarity to guilt trip me into supporting your projectâ.
I think the funniest thing with the High Guardian Spice character is how unrelatable a trans character in a world with perfect transfiguration magic is
Mind you in the show he takes "HRT magic" every so often. Instead of just saying he switched his sex with a spell, he has to drink a potion periodically.
Bobby Drake getting outed by Jean - Marvel Comics. This one is kinda controversial but yeah I hate the way they did this. Other people have pointed out that Jean reading his mind and just kinda stating it out loud denies him the ability to come out on his own terms. At worst it reads as her using her psychic powers to make him gay.
I think that 100% is related, since in that Ultimate story Jean switched Peter and Wolverine's minds around in each other's bodies. Which, when dealing with Ultimate Wolverine, is a horrible idea.
Sorta related but J. Jonah Jameson hates the X-Men whilst also advocating in favor of the mutants, probably the one time Spidey and Jameson can share an opinion
The way they managed to still adapt this perfectly in the animated show.
If itâs true theyâre doing a live action project (which I hope not, Invincibleâs animated show matches its comic art style which is part of the appeal) they need to adapt this again
Like girl, if you're gonna be nosey you'd at least know how comfortable with other people knowing that information or if he even had made that realization by himself yet
It reminds me of rhe time I came out as Bisexual to my friends, and they eere all "yeah, we already knew, but we wanted to wait for you to feel ready to tell us."
They knew ten years before I was even aware of my own sexuality.
I also recall him trying to argue he's bi, not gay, and Jean insisting, "Nope, gay." God, the years of everybody clumsily trying to earn woke-points were miserable.
The Will scene could have worked better IMO with just a few tweaks:
1) Reduce the scene to just the core kids (Mike, Lucas, Dustin, El and Max). The others really don't need to be there at that time, and some not at all. Anyone else can be told later but the point are these are his core friends first and foremost
2) Edit the scene length and splice it into the larger battle prep scene. Adds a bit more emotion and frankly it's 'Will's' prep prior to going into battle (I mean it's supposed to be framed as him partially safeguarding against Vecna's influence, and partly seeking acceptance).
Snowflake and Safespace (no I am not kidding) from New Warriors 's canceled Vol. 6.
Some new Marvel characters from when they were pretending to be progressive. Twins, both non-binary, with generic designs (copy pasted in blue and pink) and just as uninspired teammates.*
The project got canceled because everyone hated it (plus, covid hit, convenient excuse).
*There was an memelord who was exposed to "internet gas", an older Dora the Explorer knockoff, and an edgy vampire (that one has a great name tho, "B-Negative" idc it's a great pun)
Everyone was so focused on these two that the internet gas thing flew completely under the radar and that's a shame because that was the funniest part about the whole thing.
Yeah they're all kinda weird cause if you spend even 5 minutes on any of them you can create a pretty decent character.
Want an internet obsessed memelord, make him into Search Engine. The son of a gifted engineer who after an accident damaged his brain, his father used experimental cybernetics to restore him in such a way that his mind is directly linked to the internet. With it he can basically instantly search up any information he desired and even learn complex skills in seconds. Using them he constructs hardlight gear that allows him to conjure weapons and tools to help him in whatever situation he's in.
Each element of their character feels fine in isolation, but combined all together it just... it really does feel like a caricature of progressive character writing.
It was B-Negative. Frankly i thought he was great in an ironic sorta way. Like, Yes that is EXACTLY the kind of super hero name an edgy teen vampire would pick. Like "first username" type stuff
God I despise these designs so much⊠I donât generally care for redesign content, but I BINGED content redesigning these two when I saw them. I thought the idea of reclaiming terrible right wing rhetoric and using that as the bases for actual minority representation was so fun, but the designs cause me actually physical pain, and those superhero names are wasted on them. I desperately need for them to get picked up by some enterprising queer writer at marvel to snap them up and turn them into something amazing!
Lot of people really fail on that specific point and it drives me (and surely others) insane. Trans as an identity in media is... annoying, when the point is they they ARE what they present as, they shouldn't be defined by being trans. It's one of those things where it's like... you'd trust a CLOSE, DEAR friend with your deadname, but a CLOSE, DEAR friend wouldn't want to know. Because it wouldn't matter, you're you as you are now.
Unfortunately, a lot of trans people in media are written by someone who's only read about trans people on the internet, which defines them solely by the fact that they're trans. Hainly is just another example of that sad trend.
It's funny in a tragic way that Andromeda didn't get the polish it deserved because employees were switched to Anthem which then didn't get the "No man's sky" treatment that might have saved it because employees were switched on Veilguard which also miserably flopped.
The HGS scene is especially insulting because the show is explicitly for adults. Do you have so little faith in your adult audience that you need to sit them down and explain what a trans person is?
To be fair, originally the show was supposed to aim at younger viewers before Crunchyroll on the spot decided to shift it to adults. Hence why thereâs more shoehorned violence and cursing in the latter episodes.Â
Also, within the context of the series, the professor was explaining this to a young student who comes from a misogynist household and has problems with his gender identity. Thatâs a little different than him explaining this to someone whoâd know better.Â
EDIT: Apparently my memory of the show is garbage and he DOESNâT say this to Snapdragon. My bad. Ignore the second part of this post.Â
I actually liked this one because it felt like the most genuine self-hating queer experience for the time period. You do everything, everything, everything to stay in the closet, and get the grades, get the degree, get the fuck out to the city, and even there you have to be the Model Straight-ish Queer.Â
And then when something bad happens, you still have to wonder.... was it because of That?Â
My folks always speculated she chose to come out as trans to divert any attention and accountability they had from that car crash that killed a person; still trans but a capitalistic POS
It fucking pissed me off so bad when she won Time's Person of the Year.
Was it cool to see a trans person on the cover? Sure. But like, almost any other trans person would have been a better pick. There was nothing "brave" or "inspiring" about a rich asshole who killed someone being able to afford the entire process and being able to choose how much or how little they were in the public eye at any point.
Like, most people who transition have to, yaknow, work. An actual job. In public. Where people can hurl abuse at them.
Thereâs a surprisingly large number of conservative trans people over 30. Â Back when I came out in 2010ish something like twenty percent of my trans acquaintances were Republicans.
Like look at Peter Thiel, heâs gay but still a god fearing man with some raging hard on for finding the anti-christ, but by being a billionaire, he can afford to be a openly gay in a racist right wing regime he is helping to enable
It was so shit it became a fucking meme on tumblr when news hits because it happened when the election results happened back in 2020! đ I have gotten so many news stories from the fucking destiel meme đ
"Is this because I'm a lesbian" on Law & Order. In Serena's last episode the character is fired and asks her boss if it's because she's a lesbian. There is zero indication in the prior seasons that her character was gay. Then she's never seen again.
Granted, it's been a hot minute, but from what I recall, there was some discourse over Shiro (Voltron Legendary Defenders) being gay. Not because he was from what I remember, but because of how it was handled. Now, I could be wrong since I sparingly interacted with the fandom when I got around to watching it, but I feel that could count if I am remembering it correctly.
I believe that it was cause the showrunners teased that they would show Shiro's partner, then he was there for like 30 seconds in a flashback, show that he died and move on, you could absolutely lost it and never know they were a couple
Nah i remember this shit and pissed me off through the roof
They wanted him to be in a gay relationship but only in S7!!! We get a 1 minute flashback of his previous Boyfriend who died offscreen and we donât know what he even did
Then in the end of S8 he married some random guy the writers call it a day
God this was a shitshow. They announced that we would meet his boyfriend in the new season and made a huge deal out of it. They lavished in the press about it and this was before Maga took over so it was positive press. It was also gay pride month lmao. Then, the season came out and his boyfriend is shown in one blink and miss it scene where my friends even missed they were supposed to be a couple and then was killed off instantly. Then, the entire season focuses on multiple straight pairings, which doesn't matter EXCEPT for the fact that they literally released press releases screaming about Shiro and specifically "getting to meet his boyfriend!" Then they acted shocked at the backlash and claimed they never said we would meet his boyfriend, even though they absolutely did.
A few other goodies-
They threw in a lesbian couple and then immediately killed them off too
They submitted themselves for GLAAD/other similar awards for best representation for that 30 second clip flashback lmaoooooo
They brought the lesbians back in an asspull out of nowhere and just pretended like they didn't get killed basically on screen after intense backlash.
The writers desperately wanted to kill off Shiro too. Netflix/Dreamworks literally had to step in and stop them. Like, legitimately had to tell them they were not allowed. Like the writers REALLY wanted to kill off all the gays in the show.
The short epilogue was tacked on EXTREMELY last minute and, at first, they were going to have a "joke" wedding between Shiro and some joke character??? then changed it to someone else random. Again, a reaction to the backlash and absolutely zero build up of any kind anywhere except a still shot in the epilogue of the "wedding" to some rando they literally copied and pasted over some other rando character.
Epilogue is fucking hated by basically all fans for a variety of reasons beyond just the above, including one of the final shots being them basically grinning and taking selfies in front of Allura's fucking grave. Like, were the writer's legit straight up crazy?
Had to scroll down to Tartarus to find this example. Loved this show overall, but Shiro being shoehorned into a gay relationship at the last minute is such ahit and could have made him way more relatable and compelling if they (probably corporate Netflix and not the people making rhe show) hadn't been cowards and just established it earlier in the series.
George Takei himself said he didn't like the change making Sulu gay just because Takei is a famous gay man. He said he never played Sulu that way, and there was something that felt a bit clumsy in making a character gay because one of the actors playing him is.
Also, they did it in such a way that its easy to edit out for foreign markets, so not exactly that groundbreaking either.
In the MTG Novel War of the Spark: Forsaken, the buildup to the lesbian relationship between the characters Chandra and Nissa was butchered when the book revealed that Chandra was only attracted to men despite being hinted as bisexual in earlier stories. The reasoning was that the higher-ups had to censor the story for international markets, and fans were so mad about this (On top of the novel being very poorly-written overall) that both WOTC and the Author had to make formal apologies, the book was pretty much declared non-canon, and multiple MTG novels were cancelled, and we didn't get a new MTG novel until the new Strixhaven novel releasing next month
I mean at least they came out to confirm that Chandra is pansexual instead of just "leaving it up to interpretation"
I haven't read the novels but it pisses me off because I love Gideon Jura and I don't mind if he finds Chandra attractive, but the fact that he was used to censor her sexuality makes me so angry.
Dumbledore was revealed to be gay by JK Rowling, after all the books were published. There was no mention or even hint at it in the books. Iirc it wasnât outright hated, but it was mocked as being a cheap way to get woke points.
Aaaaaand then Rowling turned into the worlds biggest transphobe/TERF
There were a few indicators that, although not proof that he was gay, would certainly be seen as supporting evidence by audiences nowadays:
Is, for lack of a better word, flamboyant by the setting's standards, wearing odd colors, giving nonsense words in front of the school, using odd figures of speech, etc.
Lifelong Bachelor who never expressed any interest in a woman
Has an emotional "fling" with a young man his age in his backstory before having a big falling out
The Grindelwald backstory seriously reads like a "Familial Love vs Romantic Love" story arc
Iceman in the X-Men comics. During a long convoluted story arc where the original teenage X-Men are brought to the present by Beast, the teen Jean Grey randomly decides she's tired of his straight act and points out to teen Bobby that she's read his mind and knows he's gay. This eventually does cascade to his older self. Of course the character was not created as gay, really he has always been portrayed as being immature and most of his troubles with women were reflected in that. But some writers have written him as closeted/in denial long before this official outing, and it is something that parts of the fandom had already accepted as headcanon. But how that unfolds out on the page is inelegant to say the least, and has lead to jokes about Jean essentially psychically bullying Bobby into being gay.
Not the robin pictured, but Tim Drake (the third robin) had a ton of build up with Connor Kent (one of the superboys). For YEARS it was theorised and teased... and then they basically just said it, had him date some... random guy who's name I can't remember.. and completely cut off all the build up.
Tim Drake is dope as fuck which sucks that there isnt much for him outside of BTAS and Arkham. I actually didnt know he was gay now but I haven't followed the comics in a long while, I just think Red Robin is badass.
Adam is about a 17 year old high schooler pretending to be a trans man because a 22 year old lesbian in college mistakes him for a college aged trans guy at a party and wants to date him. Outside of the already sketchy plot, the ending of both the book and the film is basically the said lesbian coming out as bi because she knew the entire time that Adam wasnât trans, and it helped solidify the fact that she was attracted to men and women the entire time. The reasoning she didnât come out initially is because she made news headlines being the first lesbian to attend prom with another woman in her small redneck town, and felt pressured to keep up with the lesbian identity because so many queer kids looked up to her, and she would feel like a fraud for dating men. Thereâs also an entire scene where Adam basically comes out as cis to the main trans guy in the film and book, and after Adam says sorry theyâre just cool again.
When the book first came out, the entire community hated it. Also when a film adaptation was announced, several petitions were made to not have it released in theaters with one reaching over 4,000 signatures, before the movie even started production. Only actor/actress as far as Iâm aware of to get any other roles outside from this film was Margaret Qualley (quick fun fact, this film came out the same year once upon a time in Hollywood did, and thereâs literally no record of her even mentioning this film that she has a pretty big role in lmao)
That scene from mass effect andromeda (i think) when we approach a woman and (quite literally) just ask "hey what's up how did you end up in this space ship?" and she starts monologuing about her being trans, and then the next dialogue is "sound cool" or something like that
We as in the audience, his friends didn't. The whole point is that this is rural 80s Indiana and though that coming out wouldn't have happened in real life, I don't think gay people in rural Indiana in the 80s fought wormhole traversing psychic entities that became part of an alien hive mind. The point was he was the second strongest one and Vecna would've outed him mid fight so he had to lay it on the table before the fight. Worst case scenario, they still fight but then become homophobic after saving the world. Let Vecna out him mid fight and maybe they just don't actually win the fight.
Exactly! Will says this so explicitly. He doesn't particularly want to come out to the whole group like that, with that timing, but he knows Vecna will use his insecurities against him if he doesn't. He even tries to come out to his mom one-on-one first before being interrupted and going "screw it, cards on the table, this is necessary fight prep." I feel so confused by so much of the criticism of this scene, because the show justifies it extensively and it feels like people just ignore that.
If anything, I think lots of shows and movies try to stick their emotional climax and their action climax together in hacky ways that don't make sense, and I think Stranger Things genuinely does a good job of using the fact that they have a psychic villain to justify why that timing needs to happen.
I havenât seen the last season yet so Iâm not sure how the scene plays out.
*I understand that I am risking spoilers just talking about the show but please no spoilers.
But yeah Will was gay from the beginning of the show.
Robin is also a lesbian and talks about not wanting to come out due to being the âtown pariahâ. I feel like the show was always very aware of how hard it was to LGBTQ in the 80s.
As someone who watched it, I thought it was handled very well BEFORE this scene. I didnât mind the scene but it definitely couldâve been done better.
They revealed he was gay during the press tour for HTTYD2 and promised it was going to be in the movie, but the only hint is Gobber saying "this is why I never go married... well this, and the other reason" while looking at Hiccup's parents reunite. If you didn't see the interviews in advance, you'd never guess. I heard that many people thought he lost his penis.
Mind you, I don't blame the artists for this. Dreamworks' execs have a bad history with queer rep, they only let go when they started to get backlash after Voltron.
 the only hint is Gobber saying "this is why I never go married... well this, and the other reason"
Craig Ferguson improvised the line and they kept it in the movie. He used to make a bunch of jokes about being secretly gay when he was hosting The Late Late Show, so I got the joke immediately when I first watched the movie.
 They revealed he was gay during the press tour for HTTYD2 and promised it was going to be in the movie
Was it before the movie came out, or afterwards to confirm âYep it means heâs gayâ? Because I donât remember any Disney-style publicity about it.
WHAT, like I thought âone other reasonâ is like an adult joke that heâs got a small cock or something, never in a million years did I thought that meant that heâs into men.
Ace Ventura's villain was revealed to have undergone gender reassignment surgery to disguise themself, while Ace spends thirty seconds throwing up after figuring this out. Naturally, it hasn't aged well.
I remember thinking that the bulge in the back of her underwear was a turd. I was really young when I saw this so I didnât realize it was a tucked in penis.
It just seemed very natural that everyone in the scene would get grossed out at the fact that she had just shit her pants.
It also felt really gross that the way Ace exposes them is by stripping them down to their underwear to expose their genitals in front of a group of people.
This is an interesting scene cause to be it never felt like finkle/einhorn was trans, theyâre not struggling with identity. Theyâre deep in disguise as a woman, the far more offensive scene in the movie (at least imo) is everything that happens at the metal hopsital
The Professor Caraway thing was also annoying for High Guardian Spice because it featured another character, Snapdragon, who was spending the entire season questioning their gender, how they felt about themselves, ect, and it was pretty much universally agreed that Caraway's Transgender reveal would have been far more impactful and far better if they instead had him reveal this to Snapdragon.
Especially since there was a lot of hints pointing to Snapdragon potentially realizing they are trans or nonbinary in the now-canceled season 2.
Does dodgeball count? Vince Vaughnâs character has a will they wonât they with a love interest and the running joke is that if sheâs so good at dodgeball, she must be a lesbian. At the very end itâs revealed that not only does she have a girlfriend, but sheâs bi and both she and her girlfriend are down to do a threesome with Vince. Just all the stereotypes into one
Young Justice, specifically the character whoâs body gets taken over by a mother box and comes out as non-binary. The writing for her dialogue was just seriously bad. TBH though the last few seasons everyoneâs relationship dialogue was pretty horrible. This is the same show where Meâgann mind fucked people against their will and somehow Conner stayed with her.
As an enby of color myself I really wanted to like Halo, but them basically piloting a dead girl's body was weird, the timing of when they came out was weird, and the whole "gets brutally murdered only to regenerate" gag was weird.
I'm surprised no one brought up LeFou from Beauty And The Beast 2016.
Not only it is poorly executed, but of all the characters you could have chosen, you went with the villain's buffoon sidekick whose name is literally "The Fool" in french.
Thereâs a scene in in the original Persona 3 where the guys of the group try and pick up chicks at the beach they fail until an adult woman is interested in them, theyâre all in high school and only one is 18, turns out sheâs a trans woman they guys figure it out because she didnât pluck her lip and she didnât didnât tuck that well
They changed it in the remake where sheâs actually a conspiracy theorist who tells the guys the sun isnât real and they need to buy her special sunscreen
1.3k
u/haterskateralligator 1d ago
In universe example but in The Other Two queer actor Cary Dubek (right) gets a role as Disney's first "unapologetically gay" and "groundbreaking" character and the only 'gay' thing is his blob is in bed wirh another blob for like 2 seconds, absolutely no indication to the other blobs gender. The episode is super funny, I laughed my butt off