Queer Coding in Media 🏳️‍🌈

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This was originally written on Sunday August 21, 2022. I don't remember what exactly spurred it on. I guess I was just thinking about this idea of queer coding 🏳️‍🌈 that I heard be talked about in a lot film analysis, especially when it came to Disney villains in movies like Pocahontas, or The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, or rather, the direct-to-DVD sequel πŸ“€, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame II, or The Lion King 🦁 (the original animated version). There's a bunch of others that I mention in the main text itself, but those were the ones I was mostly thinking about when I ultimately decided to write this. 

I wanted to give my own opinion on this idea or this term because whenever people bring it up, it's always in a negative way. When people talk about queer coding 🏳️‍🌈, they talk about it as if it's a bad thing that was done in the past, and is still being done today, and that should be avoided. And basically, what I was saying was that while I do think queer coding 🏳️‍🌈 as most people talk about it is retrograde, and that it shouldn't be used to demonize LGBT people 🏳️‍🌈 and I certainly support more positive depictions of LGBT people 🏳️‍🌈, I don't think that LGBT people 🏳️‍🌈 should never be villains in movies or TV shows. Like, they shouldn't be portraying them as only good or as only innocent. LGBT people 🏳️‍🌈 are just like any other group of people. They are just as capable of being bad as they are being good. 

When you only have LGBT characters 🏳️‍🌈 who are good, and none who are bad, you're ignoring a clear and obvious reality, that are bad people out there who happen to be LGBT 🏳️‍🌈. Just like how you can have black characters in movies as villains as well as have them as heroes. We don't have a problem with that because we understand that black people are human beings, and just like another group of humans, they are just as capable of being bad and evil as they are being good. There are really bad, evil people out there, who just happen to be black. I mean, just look at OJ Simpson, or R. Kelly, or Bill Cosby, or Mark Robinson, or Leroy Johnson, the guy behind the Bishop Sycamore High School scandal and is the subject of that documentary about that scandal, BS High

The same goes for any other minority group in America πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ, and it should go for LGBT people 🏳️‍🌈 as well. I mean, I would think that just portraying LGBT people 🏳️‍🌈 as positive and only have LGBT characters 🏳️‍🌈 who are good is kind of limiting and kind of offensive its own way. Like, for me, I'm a Native American (or American-Indian or indigenous if you prefer), and while Native Americans aren't portrayed as negatively as we used to be in movies and TV, whenever we are represented, we still have a stereotype attached to us. 

It's called the "Noble Savage," it's basically an indigenous character in fiction who's primitive, yes, but is also perfectly in tone with nature and innately good and is morally superior to the white man. Noble savages characters are often used to push an environmental message, and present this idea of modern technology is bad, civilization is bad, we should all embrace nature. The Avatar movies by James Cameron are chock full of Noble savage characters, in fact, that whole franchise is a Noble savage franchise. And it is a bit better than Native Americans or indigenous people being portrayed as innately evil, or savage, or murderous, or untrustworthy, it's still a stereotype.

I mean, it's called the Noble savage trope for a reason, it's still portraying Native Americans or indigenous as primitive or less civilized, and like a savage. It's just saying that it's a good thing or that it's an ideal. But, it is still offensive because it's still portray Native Americans as the Other. It's sort of Orientalism, or the fetishization of Asians, specifically of Asian women ♀︎. It's not portraying Asians as negatively as before, but it's still stereotyping them, portraying them as the Other, and only seeing them as people. 

This trope has actually made non-Natives think that Native American are actually like this, that we are more in tone with nature with everyone else, when in reality, we are just as in tone with nature as everyone else is, as any group of people. It doesn't help that there are still people out there in this country that don't even know that Native Americans still exist, and that we are modern people who dress in modern clothes, live in modern homes, and use modern technology. 

But anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that similar how Native Americans have been portrayed in media, and how there was a bit of an overcorrection to only portray them positively, as only noble or only morally good, I think the same is kind of happening to LGBT people 🏳️‍🌈. It's sort of like a "Noble Gay 🏳️‍🌈" trope. LGBT people 🏳️‍🌈 have been portrayed negatively, they've been vilified, and demonized, both directly and indirectly, for so long that people who write fiction nowadays have been over-correcting, by only having LGBT people 🏳️‍🌈 be portrayed positively and only be portrayed as good. 

It's better than those other depictions in the past, but it's still putting them in a box, it's a stereotype, and it's still not portraying them as people with their own agency. So, there's no room for LGBT villains 🏳️‍🌈, or villains who happen to be LGBT 🏳️‍🌈. And I don't think that's right. I feel we should have more of both, where we have LGBT good guys 🏳️‍🌈 and LGBT bad guys 🏳️‍🌈 to balance things out to show that we aren't generalizing or stereotyping the LGBT community 🏳️‍🌈 one way or the other. I even propose the question in the main text of what if you had a movie or TV show where the main hero and the main villain are both gay 🏳️‍🌈 or both LGBT 🏳️‍🌈? Would that still be considered queer coding 🏳️‍🌈 or would it not? And if not, what would it be, and would it be okay? 

There's another sort of related phenomenon that I didn't think of and didn't mention. It's called queer baiting 🏳️‍🌈, it's sort of like queer coding 🏳️‍🌈, but not exactly. They are different. It's basically this idea that you have characters in works of fiction, either a movie or TV show, and you sort of make it seem like they're gay 🏳️‍🌈 or they're LGBT 🏳️‍🌈 in some way. You have them behave or dress in a way that makes it seem like they're LGBT 🏳️‍🌈. Have things in there that can be interpreted a certain way if people choose to read into it, and see them that way. But, then at the end, it turns out that they're straight, they're cisgendered and heterosexual ⚤. 

They do this in order to gain an LGBT audience 🏳️‍🌈, to gain that demographic's attention, and appeal to them, and get them talking, even if they are just psyching them out, and fooling them with characters who aren't actually LGBT 🏳️‍🌈. That's why it's called queer baiting 🏳️‍🌈, you're baiting the queer community 🏳️‍🌈. Of course, they do it like this instead of just having actual LGBT characters 🏳️‍🌈 to not alienate cisgendered heterosexual audiences ⚤. 

These people may not necessarily be homophobic, or transphobic or whatever, but they might lose interest in a movie or a show if they know that it has LGBT characters 🏳️‍🌈. They might think that it's only made for the LGBT crowd 🏳️‍🌈, that it's only made for that audience and not for the straights ⚤. Even if that's not always the case, and it doesn't always have to be the case. 

You can have a show or movie that has LGBT characters 🏳️‍🌈, even a main protagonist who is LGBT 🏳️‍🌈, and still have it be for a wide audience beyond just the LGBT community 🏳️‍🌈. But, not everyone in Hollywood sees it that way, so they opt for queer baiting 🏳️‍🌈, even if it's blatantly deceptive and it's a total cop out. Top Gun, 300, and Venom: Let There Be Carnage fit more into this than queer coding 🏳️‍🌈 because the characters who are kind of presented as gay 🏳️‍🌈 or act very homoerotic are supposed to be straight ⚤ in-universe, within the story itself. 

In the case of Top Gun and 300 in particular, I feel like people read too much into those movies, and tried a little bit too hard to see gayness 🏳️‍🌈 or homoeroticism where there really wasn't any there. Like, Quentin Tarantino called Top Gun one of the most unintentionally gay films 🏳️‍🌈 ever made, and I just didn't really see it, even with all the moments that people point to make it seem like it's a secret gay movie 🏳️‍🌈. With 300, I can see it a little bit more, like it has a bunch of half-naked shirtless men ♂︎ throughout, and there's moments where they're hugging each other, and a moment, where the main villain stands behind the main hero, puts his arms on his shoulders, and whispers into his ears. But, even still, it's not enough for me to say that it's a secret gay movie 🏳️‍🌈 or an unintentionally gay movie 🏳️‍🌈. 

Venom: Let There Be Carnage is a clearer and more overt example of this sort of phenomenon, of queer baiting 🏳️‍🌈. Because while Eddie Brock and Venom's interactions in the first Venom movie were a bit like an old married couple, like they were always bickering with each other, but they ultimately grew to like each other as the movie went on, Venom: Let There Be Carnage cranked it up to 11 to where they really are like an old married couple. They behave in this movie like a gay couple 🏳️‍🌈, where both are sort of repressed, both are not completely uncomfortable in their own skin and a bit insecure, and they bicker and argue with each other all the time, almost like there's sexual tension between the two. Then they try to part ways. It's portrayed more like a lover's spat rather than a friendship breaking up.

But then, they start to feel lonely, they start to miss each other, and realize that they do like each other, and still need each other. Venom even says at one point that he's "out of the Eddie closet." This movie was so gay 🏳️‍🌈, unintentionally or perhaps even a bit intentionally, that people just consider it a gay romance movie 🏳️‍🌈. Like, Honest Trailers said in their video on this movie, it's gayer 🏳️‍🌈 than the superhero movie with actual gay characters 🏳️‍🌈, Eternals. It managed to grab the attention of LGBT people 🏳️‍🌈, and a lot of people make fan art of this movie depicting Eddie and Venom as gay lovers 🏳️‍🌈😍, like people ship them. 

I've seen both Venom and Venom: Let There Be Carnage, and I personally didn't see Eddie and Venom's relationship as having any sort of gay undertones 🏳️‍🌈. On my first viewing, I just saw them as friends, like they were friends or roommates, who had a purely platonic relationship, with nothing romantic ❤️ going on between them. It's only until after I saw it, and I watched some other reviews, and videos talking about the movie, that I kind of started to see it, especially that "I'm finally out of the Eddie closet" line. It's certainly gayer 🏳️‍🌈 than Top Gun or 300

One last thing before I close this out, and let you get on with the main text below, there is an update in this that I added after I wrote the main text itself. I don't remember when I wrote that update because I didn't date it. I think this might've been before I started dating everything, to remind myself when I wrote it, but I think I might've wrote a week after I wrote the main piece. I mostly focus on lesbians ⚢, and I talk about lesbian coding ⚢ which I said was a subset of queer coding 🏳️‍🌈, and it is. Queer coding 🏳️‍🌈 is a blanket used to any character that's coded as any kind of LGBT identity 🏳️‍🌈. Usually, it's a guy ♂︎, and they're coded as a gay man 🏳️‍🌈⚣. 

Well, lesbian coding ⚢ is when you have a female character ♀︎, or a couple of female characters ♀︎, or even a whole group of female characters ♀︎ who are coded as lesbians ⚢. Lesbian coding ⚢ is actually more prevalent in fiction than regular queer coding 🏳️‍🌈, especially nowadays. It's also more accepted because there are still people out there who don't like gay men 🏳️‍🌈⚣, who find male homosexual relationships ⚣ to be uncomfortable, but people love their lesbians ⚢. 

Lesbians ⚢ are more accepted than any other LGBT group 🏳️‍🌈. Granted, it is a more fetishized and sexualized version of lesbians ⚢, like people, especially men ♂︎, like lesbians ⚢ because they think they're hot 😍. They like seeing two women ♀︎ kiss or have sex with each other, like it turns them out. And that's what a lot of these lesbian coding ⚢ was doing or what it was for. It was to have lesbians ⚢ without necessarily always having lesbians ⚢, and they wanted it to sexualize it because straight men ⚤♂︎ get off on that kind of shit. Straight men ⚤♂︎ like lesbians ⚢ more than straight women ⚤♀︎ like gay men ⚣. 

But, it's still kind of portraying them negatively because they always make the lesbian coded character ⚢ a villain, or somewhat devious or sinister in someway, especially like female vampires πŸ§›‍♀️, or when a good female character ♀︎ turns bad, that's lesbian coded ⚢ and their turn to the dark side is portrayed as forbidden or sexual deviance or something like. Like, I mention that 2000 low budget direct-to-video adult comic book movie, Faust: Love of the Damned, and how the love interest ❤️ in that movie gets kidnapped by the villains, and the female villain ♀︎, the henchman, starts torturing her, but it's not actual torture, the way POWs are tortured, it's literally BDSM. 

It's kinky torture, "torture" in air quotes, and the love interest gets converted and brainwashed, and she's acting all seductive and horny. It's overtly sexual. But, again, these are things the villains are doing, you aren't supposed to like or agree with them. So, in that way, it is still sort of portraying lesbians ⚢ in a negative way, or trying subliminally tell people lesbians ⚢ are bad. I haven't seen the movie, I've never seen Faust: Love of the Damned for myself. I've just seen Brandon Tenold's review of it which is how I know so much about it, I've seen a good chunk of that movie through his review because he uses clips from the movies he reviews in his reviews. So, it's like you're kind of seeing the whole movie anyway. Speaking of which...

To be honest with you, to be fully transparent, I wrote that update specifically because I had Project: Metalbeast, that low budget direct-to-video sci-fi werewolf movie 🐺 from 1995 on the mind. I had seen Brandon Tenold's review of it, he made a lot of comments and jokes about the two lead characters, the two female scientists πŸ‘©‍πŸ”¬ in the movie, and how their relationship is just a little too bit too close for it to just be a platonic work relationship or a platonic friendship, and how they kind of seem like lesbian lovers ⚢😍. 

I couldn't stop thinking about it, and I just wanted to make an excuse to write about Project: Metalbeast, and talk about the two maybe sort of lesbian scientists ⚢πŸ‘©‍πŸ”¬. It's funny how in this sci-fi werewolf movie 🐺, where a werewolf 🐺 gets cryogenically frozen πŸ₯Ά for decades, and then years later, gets thawed out and gets metal skin grafted onto it, the possibility of the two female scientists πŸ‘©‍πŸ”¬ being lesbians ⚢ and being in love πŸ₯° is the most memorable thing about it. But, that just goes to show just how mediocre and forgettable that movie is. Brandon even says it in his review that it's a forgettable movie. 

I also wanted to have an excuse to talk about Musetta Vander, or at least mention her. She's a South African actress πŸ‡ΏπŸ‡¦, she's from South Africa πŸ‡ΏπŸ‡¦ but she lives in the United States πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ, she's a US citizen πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ. She might be a dual-citizen, but I'm not sure, don't quote me on that. She isn't a super well known actress, or anything, like most of you reading this probably don't know who she is and were confused when I mentioned her name. Her biggest role by far, and the role she's known for is Sindel in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, which is unfortunate for her because Mortal Kombat: Annihilation is not a good movie, and a lot of people have said she's bad in it. Like, people still make fun of the line, "Too bad you...will die," and her delivery of that line. But, she has no hard feeling about it, she's in good spirits about it, and she is willing to talk to fans about it. 

But, anyway, she was in Project: Metalbeast, and another movie that Brandon reviewed on his channel, I don't remember which one. I think it might be the Vampirella movie, which also had another actor from Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, Talisa Soto, who actually in the first live action Mortal Kombat movie from 1995. She and Robin Shou were only actors from the 1995 movie that reprised their roles in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation

Musetta Vander played one of the two female scientists πŸ‘©‍πŸ”¬ in Project: Metalbeast that's lesbian coded ⚢ or lesbian baited ⚢ or whatever. She's like a friend of the main character, the lead female scientist πŸ‘©‍πŸ”¬, she's her colleague but the two are really close, closer than two scientific colleagues tend to be. And there's a moment where the main lead scientist πŸ‘©‍πŸ”¬ is begging Musetta Vander's character to look something up for her on the computer, and while initially says declines, she ultimately caves and agrees to do it. It doesn't seem like a particular big deal, but the way it happens, is kind of the way two lovers πŸ₯° interact, or the way two people who have crushes on each other 😍 would interact. That was the moment that made Brandon stop, and go, "are these two in love 😍?" 

Then there's a scene later on when Musetta Vander's character kind of gives the lead character the "do me" eyes for a bit after she hands her a cup of tea ☕️, like she glances down at her whole body for a moment, like she's undressing her with her eyes πŸ‘€. And then the two are having a one-on-one conversation, with the lead scientist πŸ‘©‍πŸ”¬ talking about how she has a bad feeling about what they're doing, working on this werewolf 🐺, and then it fades to black. That was the moment when Brandon was like, "Are those two going to fuck?" Of course, there's that one scene that Brandon included a clip from, where Musetta Vander's character actually kisses the lead scientist πŸ‘©‍πŸ”¬ on the head or cheek 😘 (I think it was probably the cheek), which kind of adds to the speculation that these two characters are lesbians ⚢ and are in love with each other 😍.

I feel like she gets a worse wrap than she deserves. It wasn't her fault that Mortal Kombat: Annihilation was a bad movie, and it wasn't necessarily her fault that her performance in it was bad. Everyone was bad in that movie, and that's because it was terribly written and terribly directed. She is a good actress, and she is capable of giving a decent performance if she's given good material and good direction. She also seems like a nice person from the interviews I've said of her, and plus she's beautiful, like she's pretty hot 😍. Even now, Musetta Vander still looks pretty good. So, I felt like mentioning her in this, and you'll see it once you get to the update. I'll stop writing, and let you get to it now.

— 


(This is the rainbow pride flag 🏳️‍🌈. It's used to represent the LGBT community 🏳️‍🌈 as a whole, but it's also used to represent gay men ⚣ specifically. In fact, nowadays it's mostly used to represent gay men ⚣ because every other LGBTQ+ group 🏳️‍🌈 has their own pride flag. Even straight people ⚤ have their own pride flag, and even groups that aren't necessarily a sexual orientation or a gender identity like polyamorous people. Polyamory is not a sexual orientation or a gender identity, it's a type of relationship, it's a relationship where you're in love 😍 with multiple people, and where you have multiple romantic and sexual partners. Some of these partners can be same sex or opposite sex, it just means you have more than one of them.)

 
I know some people about movies, TV shows, books, and video games using "queer coding" for their villains. Queer coding, for those of you who are unaware, is a writing phenomenon or trope where a writer ✍️ will make their antagonist super flamboyant, both in dress, mannerisms, and personality, to the point that they almost seem gay 🏳️‍🌈. Like, they make them very fruity as LGBT people 🏳️‍🌈 would say. Sometimes, a writer ✍️ will actually make their antagonist homosexual 🏳️‍🌈, and sometimes in a very stereotypical way; this is the case if the antagonist is male or female, a lesbian. Sometimes this is done intentionally, but a lot of the time, it's unintentional.

And the reason why some people complain about this is that they feel that by writing an antagonist in this way, the writer ✍️ is implying that homosexuality or queerness in general 🏳️‍🌈, and LGBT people are evil 🏳️‍🌈, especially since these antagonists often play into negative stereotypes about LGBT people 🏳️‍🌈, whether they actually gay or not 🏳️‍🌈. Some examples of this that people often name and I can think of off the top of my head are Ozymandias in the Watchmen graphic novel, movie, and TV show, who is actually gay 🏳️‍🌈, the crossdresser guy in Con Air, the villain in Pocahontas, the villain in The Hunchback of Notre-Dame II

LeFou in the live action Beauty and the Beast remake, who was revealed to be gay 🏳️‍🌈, whereas his sexuality was not explicitly mentioned nor alluded to in the original 1991 animated version, Kaworu in the Evangelion franchise, Mileena and Tanya in Mortal Kombat X who were both revealed to be bisexual in that game, Riku from Yashahime, who starts out as a villain, but becomes an antihero later on? I think 🀷‍♂️. And Griffith in the Berserk manga and anime, who I think is supposed to be a villain, maybe? I'm not exactly sure; I've never read the Berserk manga or watched any of the anime adaptations.

But, can it really considered queer coding if both the protagonist(s) and the antagonist(s) are gay 🏳️‍🌈 or LGBT 🏳️‍🌈 in some way? I imagine that would balance things, so as long as neither of them are portrayed in a stereotypical way. I mean, a lot of people push for LGBT representation 🏳️‍🌈 in entertainment, but in my mind, you can't always have the LGBT character or characters be heroes or protagonists, and the villains be homophobic or transphobic or whatever. That would just get kind of old and played out after a while. You should have at least one of the LGBT characters 🏳️‍🌈 be an antagonist or a villain. Not every LGBT person 🏳️‍🌈 is a good person, and if you really want representation, then why not show that LGBT people 🏳️‍🌈 can be flawed or terrible human beings just like the rest of us?

Of course, you shouldn't push this too far, to where all your villains or antagonists are LGBT 🏳️‍🌈, you're stepping into queer coding territory where you're perpetuating negative stereotypes about LGBT people 🏳️‍🌈. It really should be a balance, or at least I think. Part of me thinks that no matter what writers ✍️ do in terms of LGBT representation 🏳️‍🌈, there will be people who have some issue with it.

It is definitely true that you cannot please everyone, and you really shouldn't strive to, just do what you think is right for your story and character, and what you think is right morally. Just don't be racist, sexist, homophobic, biphobic, or transphobic or whatever, unless you're intentionally writing a character like that and they're meant to be bad and in the wrong.

That's my feeling on the matter. And like I said, most of the examples that people name as "queer coding" are unintentional, and were never meant to cast LGBT people 🏳️‍🌈 in a negative light; especially the writers ✍️ that have more liberal or left leaning views. Some of the examples that people name I just don't see. Like, Scar from The Lion King 🦁, or Ursula from The Little Mermaid 🧜‍♀️, I never saw them as some characters that were meant to subliminal tell people that queer people were bad 🏳️‍🌈. I think people are just overanalyzing and seeing things that are there in those two examples. Even the villain in Pocahontas is a bit of a stretch. The only thing that really makes him "queer coded" in the eyes of some people, is that his outfits are colorful and a bit flamboyant.




Note:

 

(This is the poster or VHS cover πŸ“Ό for Project: Metalbeast, the science fiction werewolf horror movie 🐺 where a bunch of scientists πŸ‘¨‍πŸ”¬πŸ‘©‍πŸ”¬ working for the military are being hunted by a werewolf 🐺 they resurrected and put metal skin on like a bunch of dumbasses. Like, you guys gave a werewolf 🐺 metal skin, how did you think that was going to turn out? You were pretty asking for trouble when you thawed out that frozen werewolf πŸ₯ΆπŸΊ, and decided to give it metal skin, you were pretty much begging to get killed and eaten. The whole movie takes places inside of a laboratory, the scientific institute where they work, and where the werewolf 🐺 was first captured and experimented on. 
 
The werewolf 🐺 is actually a US Army soldier πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ who worked for this institute, and he injected himself πŸ’‰ with the blood 🩸 of another werewolf 🐺 that he killed and collected blood 🩸 from, and that's why he turned, and why the other scientists πŸ‘¨‍πŸ”¬πŸ‘©‍πŸ”¬ decided to experiment on him. But, of course, being that he was a werewolf 🐺, he became too dangerous, and they no choose but to freeze him πŸ₯Ά. That's all told in a flashback before the main events of the film. The rest of the movie is centered on a different group of scientists πŸ‘©‍πŸ”¬πŸ‘¨‍πŸ”¬ years later, and they're the ones who thaw out the werewolf 🐺 and decide to graft metal skin onto him. I'm showing this because I mention Project: Metalbeast in this update, and I thought that it was important for you see a poster for it at the beginning so that you know what I'm talking about.)
 


Something that I didn't mention when I originally wrote this is a subset of queer coding 🏳️‍🌈 called "lesbian coding ⚢." Now, I did mention Mileena and Tanya in the original text, but those two characters were revealed to be bisexual, not lesbians ⚢, since they're both shown to like men ♂︎, as well as each other 😘. Though, Mileena is definitely more into Tanya 😍 than Tanya is into her; Tanya's just kind of manipulating her and using her to serve her own ends, but I'm sure she had her "fun" with her πŸ˜‰πŸ˜˜. So, they count more as example of queer coding 🏳️‍🌈, or I guess bisexual coding to be more specific.

 


(These are the lesbian ⚢ and bisexual pride flags. The one on the top is the lesbian pride flag ⚢ and the one on the bottom is the bisexual pride flag.)

 

Lesbian coding ⚢ as the term would suggest is when a female antagonist ♀︎ is written intentionally or unintentionally to act like a lesbian ⚢, even though they aren't explicitly stated to be lesbian ⚢. Like, they act super lustful and almost homoerotic towards other female characters ♀︎ in the story, usually the main female protagonist ♀︎.

Sometimes this is done to make them seem more "sympathetic," like they have a tender side, or it's to give the hero and villain a type of love/hate relationship (like they're ready to kill each other at one moment πŸ—‘πŸ©Έ and then they're ready to bang πŸ› in another), or it's sometimes there to add more sex appeal to the story because hey, guys ♂︎ love seeing two women ♀︎ kiss or do other sexual things with each other 😍.

One example of the latter that I can of is in the Faust movie adaptation, where the female villain ♀︎ of the film, Claire kidnaps the main hero's love interest ❤️, Jade de Camp, and starts having her way with her in a very BDSM type way. This causes her to become more corrupted and hypnotized enough to participate in the main villain, M's ritual to summon a demon called Homunculus, though the female villain was working independently of M, and had betrayed him before she subjected de Camp to sadomasochistic torture. And while de Camp is in her corrupted state, she's acting all seductive and horny; very similar to Barbara Crampton's character, Katherine McMichael in From Beyond actually.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't say that lesbian coding ♀︎ is purely limited to antagonistic characters, though it usually kind of is. Sometimes, it's applied to a protagonist character, and the character has something taboo or out of the ordinary about them that is used as an allegory for lesbianism ⚢. Like, the Wikipedia article on this topic stated that there was this one vampire novel πŸ§›‍♀️ πŸ“– that focused on a female vampire πŸ§›‍♀️ and her vampirism πŸ§›‍♀️ was used as a metaphor for coming out of the closet. Like she had to come out being a vampire πŸ§›‍♀️ just like a lesbian girl or woman ♀︎ would have to come out being lesbian ⚢. Yes, I know that Wikipedia's one of those sites that people love to hate, I mean, JJ McCullough made a whole video recently talking about how bad it is, but I'm still going to use it. Just like how people still use Amazon, Facebook, and Google despite complaining about them being monopolistic tech conglomerates.

Sometimes, it's applied to two female protagonists ♀︎ who are supposed to be best friends in the story, but they're relationship is so close and intimate that it almost borders on being a romantic relationship ❤️. An example of this would be the werewolf movie 🐺, Project: Metalbeast, where there are these two female scientists πŸ‘©‍πŸ”¬, they're the main characters (or at least one of them's the main character, the other is more of a supporting character), they're supposed to just be friends and colleagues, and one of them is played by Musetta Vander (the actress who played Sindel in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation).

And yet throughout the film, there are moments where their relationship seems a little bit too close and intimate to just be friends or colleagues, and seems more like a romantic relationship ❤️. There's an even scene where the main female scientist πŸ‘©‍πŸ”¬ kisses the female scientist πŸ‘©‍πŸ”¬ played by Musetta Vander on the head or on the cheek (I don't exactly remember) after she agrees to do a favor for her. I know that girls and women ♀︎ interact with their female friends ♀︎ in a different way than boys and men ♂︎ interact with their male friends ♂︎, but come on, that's a little bit too intimate for just a friendship or a close workplace partnership. It really does come across in the film that there's something more between those two.

Of course, anime and manga are full of lesbian coding ⚢, most in Sh
ōjo anime and manga (anime and manga targeted towards a female demographic ♀︎), but also in some Shōnen anime and manga (anime and manga targeted towards a male demographic ♂︎) as well.

Sometimes, they feature overt lesbianism ⚢ like in Sailor Moon πŸŒ™. That show featured two lesbian characters ⚢ who were actually meant to lesbians ⚢, rather than it just being hinted at or it being unintentional and accidental like was in say, Project: Metalbeast that I mentioned earlier; which wasn't an anime or manga, but I'm using it as a comparison because it's the only thing I can think of off the top of my head.

However, its lesbian overtones ⚢ were infamously censored in earlier English dubs when it was brought over to American TV networks πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ; especially ones aimed more towards kids. Newer English dubs of Sailor Moon πŸŒ™ maintain all the lesbian themes and characters ⚢ rather than "straight washing ⚤" them or whatever.

There's also yuri anime and manga, which are basically lesbian romance stories ⚢❤️. The male equivalent ♂︎ to yuri is of course, yaoi (sometimes referred to as BL, or Boy Love ❤️), which is very popular among female readers and audiences ♀︎. It is one of the few types of gay entertainment 🏳️‍🌈 that attracts a female audience ♀︎, in fact it mainly attracts a female audience ♀︎ rather than a gay male audience 🏳️‍🌈♂︎ that was probably originally intended.

There are definitely mixed feelings about lesbian coding ⚢. Actual lesbians ⚢ and other LGBT people 🏳️‍🌈 who are more active in the activist or political space tend to not like this writing trope ✍️, seeing it as demeaning and offensive towards lesbians ⚢, especially when it's used for an antagonist, a character who's meant to be evil. But, the criticisms towards lesbian coding ⚢ are not as loud or as harsh or as frequent as those for queer coding 🏳️‍🌈 in general, or more specifically gay coding 🏳️‍🌈 or trans coding 🏳️‍⚧️.

And a lot of straight men ⚤♂︎ seem to like lesbian coding ♀︎ because straight men ⚤♂︎ love lesbians ⚢ 😍, they just love girl-on-girl action ♀︎. Lesbian porn ⚢πŸ”ž is a popular porn genre πŸ”ž for a reason. In fact, I'd go as far to say guys ♂︎ like girl-on-girl action ♀︎ more than girls like guy-on-guy action ♂︎.

That's not to say there aren't any women out there who like gay porn 🏳️‍πŸŒˆπŸ”ž and watch it frequently, but usually the only time you'll see women or girls ♀︎ willingly watch guy-on-guy action ♂︎ is in yaoi anime and manga; a genre of anime and manga that is frankly geared more towards straight women ⚤♀︎ these days than it is actual gay men 🏳️‍🌈.

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