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[–][deleted]  (5 children)

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    [–]Neo_Shadow_Lurker 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

    "Queer" characters can never have any depth, they can never be allowed to do bad things or have mixed morals, they can never be villains (because that's "homophobic", you see).

    I see this as overcompensation for the fact most villains on a not-so-distant past were mostly gay/lesbian coded, like Scar and Ursula.

    In fact, Disney admitted to this in the past.

    [–]INeedSomeTime 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

    You got me curious. How they were gay coded?

    [–]Neo_Shadow_Lurker 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

    How they were gay coded?

    In the case of Ursula, she was even inspired by Divine, a drag queen that was relatively famous in the indie cinema scene at the time of the release of the movie.

    Scar is also portrayed to be very effeminate, from his movement to his speech paterns. Hell, people have been joking about him being gay since the original release of the Lion King and Disney completely changed his character in the "live action" remake to avoid potential criticisms.

    Moriarty in the new BBC remake of Sherlock Homes is also heavily gay coded to the point of the writers portraying his obsession with the main character to be near sexual in nature. Also, some of his lines also don't help with this.

    [–]FlyingKangaroo[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

    I remember that Ursula and Divine connection, it’s hard for me to judge if at each case someone really wanted to make them (the characters) gay coded or just wanted to give them specific traits, much different from the protagonists, the good characters etc... I wonder to what extent it was any real coding or just stereotypes.

    Because when I was reading various threads about gay-coded characters I had this thought: “ok, maybe some LGBs act like that but not all” and it’s sexist to claim that because a character has specific mannerism, they must be gay. Maybe that’s also due to different reception of overlooking of that theme (if it really exists) in my country. For example I personally never saw Scar as gay and I don’t know a person who did. But that might be because people in America had more associations for that.

    So, I’m skeptical. It’s an interesting topic but as I said, what is real intended “coding” and what is an afterthought by people who support or oppose LGB?

    My dislike for the acceptance of coding as a real thing also comes from examples like a blog post I saw a few years ago. Someone read an older novel and claimed some man there was gay because he didn’t like sports, was a bit of a shy nerd, not conforming to the stereotypical tough masculinity, etc. Incredibly sexist. Although maybe that case was more of putting sort of self canons (fandom style).

    [–]Neo_Shadow_Lurker 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    I remember that Ursula and Divine connection, it’s hard for me to judge if at each case someone really wanted to make them (the characters) gay coded or just wanted to give them specific traits, much different from the protagonists, the good characters etc... I wonder to what extent it was any real coding or just stereotypes.

    That's is a moot point.

    The whole thing with coding is that writers use it as a way to imply a character is from x demographic without having to explicitly cite it in the text.

    Stereotypes are an easy way to this because they're recognizable by most people.

    Because when I was reading various threads about gay-coded characters I had this thought: “ok, maybe some LGBs act like that but not all” and it’s sexist to claim that because a character has specific mannerism, they must be gay. Maybe that’s also due to different reception of overlooking of that theme (if it really exists) in my country. For example I personally never saw Scar as gay and I don’t know a person who did.

    A character doesn't need to be of x demographic for coding to be a thing. That would be antithetic to coding itself.