14 Queer Characters Who Got "Straightwashed" Into Heteronormativity By Hollywood

How is Harley Quinn “queer”?

One thing that stuck out to me was the Jughead one. Asexuality isn't a sexual orientation. It's absence of sexual attraction. Most asexuals I have met don't really care that much about representation because their lack of sexuality isn't a big deal to them. Of course they still feel emotional attraction that can be towards the same or opposite sex (or both). Isn't "queer" shorthand for "not heterosexual"? So, I don't know how asexuality plays into that. It's like saying atheism is a religion.

Huge omission from the list

I know in the Harley Quinn animated series on HBO Max she's in a relationship with Poison Ivy, but I didn't think it was comic canon.

They're slightly wrong about Constantine. Yes, when he had his series on NBC he was straight-washed, but since then the character has been bi - and then some (he had a fling with King Shark in one of the animated films).

The one for PRIDE is stupid. They're not slamming the film itself, but the DVD marketing saying it downplays the LGBTQ theme.

Well, this blurb on Stonewall is something:

[quote] Stonewall, a historical drama about the pivotal moment in the American LGBTQ+ rights movement, got trashed by critics and viewers alike from the moment its first trailer dropped. While the real 1969 riots were "largely incited by drag queens and trans women of color and lesbians," Stonewall invented a white cisgender hero to place at the center of its story, and portrayed real-life leader Marsha P. Johnson as "comic relief." The movie currently has a 9% score on Rotten Tomatoes, with the critics consensus reading, in part, "it's offensively bad."

Apparently gay men were the only people who weren’t there.

Mel Gibson - Man W/Out a Face

You girls are slipping......The gay eroticism between Ethan Hunt and August Walker had nothing to do good versus evil. They were clearly fighting to see who would be the Alpha Top...

Jennifer's sizzling lezbionic affair in "Valley of the Dolls" was gone from the movie.

R3 that would have actually made the new trilogy watchable.

No one is gonna call this cunt out over Stonewall in the comments section of the article??!

[quote]Stonewall invented a white cisgender hero to place at the center of its story, and portrayed real-life leader Marsha P. Johnson as "comic relief.”

But he was, Blanche. He was.

"Mel Gibson - Man W/Out a Face"

Wasn't the original character a pedophile?

I always thought it was strange Gibson wanted to make this movie.

[...]

Queer and heteronormativity? How on earth did I know this was written by a smug faced (and traditionally femme presenting) woman? I must be psychic........God these hot-take millennial pop culture writing women are so predictable. Im not even going to go looking for the obligatory "just because I am in a straight presenting relationship )ie im busy sucking my bfs cock as I write this garbage), doesnt mean its any less KWEEEERRRRR" article that you know she has written. God I hate these chicks so much.

[...]

The writer looks 15.

John Cusack’s character in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

[quote]No one is gonna call this cunt out over Stonewall in the comments section of the article??!

Don't worry, we'll put it on the Buzzfeed list of 15 Articles That "Transwashed" into Queerness by Ignorant "Journalists." 👍

Constantine is openly bi in CW's Legends of Tomorrow. He's even played by the same actor from the series Buzzfeed mentions.

In the books Gossip Girl is based on Chuck and Dan (or is it Nate?) are bi and fight over a guy at one point.

Isn't Russel Crowe's character in A Beautiful Mind supposed to be gay originally?

I agree with the article.

And Margot Robbie has been trying to get the Poison Ivy relationship happening. And yeah, it was in the comics.

Well get to it R10 and report back.

There are too many comic book movies. Enough already.

There really is no way to stop that Stonewall lie is there ?

Honestly, they were right about everything except Marsha being trans. The film was completely off, horrible, and whitewashed. It didn’t even have Stormé.

STONEWALL was mostly rather awful.

Did think the choice of JRM for the Mattachine Society leader was a sound one, though. His performance fits the profile of what I assume from wider reading a member of the time would have been like.

Stonewall was entertaining enough. Don't care for the historical accuracy angle.

John Nash from a Beautiful Mind.

R27 probably just me, but personally I find it more annoying that Nash was mischaracterised and misdiagnosed as a schizophrenic rather than Aspergic. His sexuality wasn’t really an important point of the film.

R4 Raven’s silent reaction to the Constantine/Shark reveal was priceless.

[quote] In the books Gossip Girl is based on Chuck and Dan (or is it Nate?) are bi and fight over a guy at one point.

R19 you are correct that Chuck Bass & Boring Dan Humphrey are the feuding bisexuals. In the books, Nate Archibald is curious asexual/drugsexual, and ends his sexless arc sailing off with an old man on a fishing boat to find his Zen or something.

The Chuck/Dan fight goes down in book 10 of the GOSSIP GIRL light novel series, and it is nuts. Basically, for no reason other than upper-class boredom and macho posturing (and tbh some creepy subliminal competition over Serena’s affection/attention), both lads make a sex-bet to see who can be first to fuck and lock down this hipster bookstore shopbottom twink they both know...not realising that Greg the Twink is somewhat aware of their seedy game, and is playing them right back.

What then follows: a bucketload of clunky literary-circle allusions that no one outside of NYC would get, blowjob angst, a coming-out party that happens against Dan’s will, and a lovely instance of absinthe-soaked date that is only dubiously consensual. This is a light romance novel written for conventional straight teens, let us remember.

Spoiler alert: Chuck wins in the end, because while both men are equally revolting stalker creeps, Chuck has money as well as style and panache you just can’t buy.

It’s so ludicrous and awful and sleazy, and I’m obsessed with it all. Nothing like this ever happened in the show, and that’s such a waste of a plot.

Kevin from st elmo's fire?

Thread: closed.

Matthew McConaughey's character in Dallas Buyers Club also was not straight, but you'd never know it from the film.

This is a major issue that's always been a problem and deserves more attention. However, there's a big difference between historical characters and comic book characters.

Comic book movies are created to appeal to a primarily young and international office. They don't want to put anything in there that would get them banned in more conservative countries. I don't agree with it, but it is a business decision.

As far as Stonewall, that's not hetero-washing - that's just not putting Marsha Johnson front and center - and that is accurate. MJP never claimed to be the one who started the riots and she showed up after it started, by her own testimony. Sylvia Rivera wasn't fucking there at all and everyone knows it.

[quote]Honestly, they were right about everything except Marsha being trans. The film was completely off, horrible, and whitewashed. It didn’t even have Stormé.

There are people that debate this Storme person was there too. She’s also a “Marsha P Johnson”. I tend believe she was not there.

Or didn’t start anything.

[quote] There really is no way to stop that Stonewall lie is there ?

Go set the author straight in the comment section.

There seems to be an urgency to claim gay men did NOT start the Stonewall riots and lesbians or transpeople did. Maybe they feel gay men are just too “sissy”. I just smell homophobic bullshit with lesbians and transpeople.

R37 - don't throw lesbians into that. Lesbians have done a shit ton for gay rights and were fighting before Stonewall (Daughters of Bilitis).

It's about trying to claim something in order to gain visibility. But there was no 'magic brick' that bestowed gay rights for people or even started the movement. It was bubbling under the surface for decades. And it was a long, hard, bitter struggle with thousands of gay rights activists to get to where we are today.

They see gay men as being oppressors now because they don't turn everything over to them - our LGB centers, our neighborhoods, our political power, our magazines and media. Somehow they think it's fair - and they're using the handful of POC drag queens (they were NOT trans) as the reason to legitimize their claims to everything.

But leave lesbians out of it - they've done more than their share.

Chandler from Friends

[quote]While the real 1969 riots were "largely incited by drag queens and trans women of color and lesbians," Stonewall invented a white cisgender hero to place at the center of its story,

I can't believe that liberals are passing off this myth as fact. The majority of people at the Stonewall riots were gay, white men, with some lesbians, minorities, and drag queens in the mix. Most who were arrested were gay, white men. smh

Pyro & Iceman from the Fox/Singer X-Men movies.

Pyro in particular, who was originally written as a gay character in the comics, until he was redesigned after a dispute between Claremont & Byrne. He’s been gay-coded since inception in the animated series, and is explicitly gay in the current books.

As for the live-action films, Singer left hints throughout the Fox trilogy that he is an angry young closet case. Though clues shouldn’t have been that necessary; his mentor is Ian McKellen, he militantly opposes ‘cure’ therapy, and his power is shooting flames. Still, we never got the much-needed confirmation and closure.

Thank goodness Aaron Stanford dialled up the flirtatious sexual tension with Shawn Ashmore to tide us over (in the third movie, the way he hisses and sneers at Iceman, “oh, looking for your *giiirrrllfriend*” is....wow). At least someone was looking out for us back in 2006.

Unfortunately, R38, lesbians are in that revisionist mix. They’re making Stonewall claims they can’t back up. In pre-woke documentaries about Stonewall, there was never any discussion of lesbians at Stonewall, they were never interviewed in these documentaries. It was just gay white men. Lesbians now are mentioned in the woke-era. It’s okay if lesbians didn’t play a major significant role in Stonewall. They have been there, but claiming that lesbians led the charge, which many are trying to claim, is wrong.

People making claims that lesbians yelled at the Stonewall patrons, “aren’t you going to do something?!” You know that’s bullshit. As if gay men are too afraid, which is BS.

I thought Stormé (butch lesbian) was the one who started it while being arrested.

A butch lesbian who may be or may not be Stormé was there. Transwomen of color were not.

But the overwhelming majority of Stonewall rioters were white gay men.

[quote] "Straightwashed" Into Heteronormativity

Add the cast of Netflix's "Chilling Tales of Sabrina."

By the end of the series, any traces of gay from 90 percent of the cast were wiped away.

I have to give credit to The Magicians for at least never failing to acknowledge that their two male leads had been fucking even when one went off and got an off again/off again girlfriend.

[quote]I thought Stormé (butch lesbian) was the one who started it while being arrested.

🙄^^

I’m so relieved that HIV/AIDS activism was recorded on video because I just know lesbians and transpeople would absolutely claim they led that charge too. They can’t take that from us at least because it’s on tape.

“Gay men were too weak and sickly to fight the government, so butch lesbians and transwomen of color picked up the mantle and SAVED those sickly, do nothing faegs!”

Wayne Knight's character in Jurassic Park.

[...]

Ryan from High School Musical

Mulva/Dolores from Seinfeld

I’m sure we also let bums and druggy women into Stonewall, gays are just accepting. TWOC for fucks sake...

[quote]gays are just accepting.

To their own detriment.

I don't know who started Stonewell. I can only assume, based on the time period, that a lot of white gay men had a lot more to lose with a public protest than groups who were already marginalized, but again, I wasn't there and don't know. For all I know it was all white gay men. What bothers me about this "reimagining" of history is the language. I hate it when we use modern terms to "correct" the past, which is not an accurate account of history. I don't think trans was a thing back then. I think they called themselves transvestites and that is not the same thing as trans. I could be wrong, but I don't think crossdressers want to be women/men whatever.

Who would assume gay men, white gay men specifically would be too afraid to stand up to cops, when they stood up to the government only 10-15 years later? It was the same generation of gay men. This whole notion that it was lesbians or transpeople who led Stonewall doesn’t seem logical.

[...]

Well, Fonzi, R57, to me it doesn’t make sense to believe gay men...white gay men...would be afraid to stand up to cops during Stonewall when they led the fight against HIV/AIDS a short time later. They didn’t need “butch” lesbians or transwomen of color to fight the fight for them. The 80s showed the character and fight of gay men during that time, and these are the same gay men (practically) who fought in Stonewall. They weren’t that much older. So I don’t believe for a minute that it was lesbians or trans people who started Stonewall, but I guess it’ll be perceived that way now, unfortunately because of those two groups revising history, and making demands, and threats. And calling gay men “misogynists” because they said “lesbians didn’t start Stonewall”, which I’ve read from lesbians. It’s really disgusting what they’ve done. All of this woke propaganda has changed so much history—revised and eliminated it.

Thankfully, the HIV/AIDS crisis was documented otherwise it those groups would, in fact co-opt the activism like they’re did with Stonewall, painting gay men as “wimps” and “weak”. Which is what they’re doing, hence “masculine” and “butch” and all that crap.

Instead of celebrating these fights and achievements, they co-opt for some bizarre reason. They steal and change history. These people suck.

Are DeBlasio and his wife still dedicating two statues to Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera in honor of Stonewall?

I think 1969 and the mid 80s are two entirely different eras and milestones in the fight for gay rights and acceptance. Again, as I stated, I wasn't there and I don't know. My point was not to call gay white men, cowards or weak, far from it. My point was simply that it may have been harder for someone who could easily blend into the mainstream, versus someone who was already in a marginalized group, to take such a public stand in favor of gays in 1969. I'm not saying that it didn't happen.

It's kind of a shame that so much about Stonewall is lost to history from neglect and the fact that we lost many of that generation during the AIDS crisis.

R60 but we DO know what happened. There had been books/documentaries over the past 50 years, featuring many who were actually there. But within the past 10-15 years or so, the far-left has been trying to rewrite history to fit their agenda. That is what most of us here are complaining about.

In fact, the first Pride parade was held in June 1970 was to commemorate the first anniversary of Stonewall. There has been much written about that first event, too.

r59 you mean the black, former radical 'lesbian', who is now married to a conventionally attractive, tall (and no doubt hung), ambitious, white guy? These women actually hate gay people, and gay men in particular. No wonder she spews the bullshit that Marsha is the source of all gay liberation - she/he did not show up until litterally hours after it happened by their OWN account. 'Queer' women are just hypergamous str8 chicks. No more, no less.

I haven't seen Stonewall, but did it tie in the Judy Garland death angle?

I always read (and loved it) that the death of Judy and the fact that the bar was being raided/harassed AGAIN was to much for the community and the rest is history.

I just adore the "No FUCKERS, you harass us all the time but now JUDY'S DEAD! Oh HELL NO!"

Brings a lump to the throat of this wore down by life bitter curmudgeon.

^too no to

I. Couldn't. Care. Less.

How many of the 14 were GAY and LESBIAN, but then "Queerwashed"?

[quote]but we DO know what happened. There had been books/documentaries over the past 50 years, featuring many who were actually there.

If there accounts of this Storme person in these books or documentaries going back way pre-woke, I’d like to see them. Anything from the 70s and 80s that talk about her—would be great.

*are

Buzzfeed is nothing more than a Huffington Post marketing arm for Amazon that slashes staff without notice.

[quote]No wonder she spews the bullshit that Marsha is the source of all gay liberation - she/he did not show up until litterally hours after it happened by their OWN account. '

And Sylvia Rivera wasn't even there that night. Marsha confirmed it. But these two have become the face of Stonewall.

Stonewall was not a one night event. The rioting continued over the next several evenings around the Village.

Sylvia was never at any of the Stonewall riots, and Marsha denied starting the riots though they both have been credited as doing so by recent biographers who wanted to make the story more diverse. As has been stated before, it was mainly white gay men. Photographs of Stonewall and the first Gay Pride a year later show a sea of white people, mainly white men.

Night and Day, the 1940s musical biography of Cole Porter, had Cary Grant playing him as a debonair ladies' man who was in love with his wife. Likewise Mickey Rooney as Larry Hart in Words and Music.

Stormé and multiple witnesses said she started it, but for some reason the people in this thread don’t want to accept that because she’s a biracial (black) butch lesbian?

David Carter, the only person with the most in-depth research into Stonewall said her story was shaky and not reliable. I don’t believe any lesbian fought police because after Carter’s book came out in 92, it was hailed as a great piece of history and no lesbian historian or activist came forward at that time to criticize Carter for not including lesbians? Not one friend, or family member, or acquaintance could come forward? It took “witnesses” almost 30 years to come forward to claim a lesbian, who was not Storme by the way, to claim a lesbian fought police? Not buying it!

Carter article:

The established facts are these: a lesbian in male clothing who was being taken in handcuffs from the Stonewall club to a patrol car fought the police as they handled her roughly. After she was placed in the patrol car, she escaped and was caught again and put back in the patrol car. She escaped a second time, and either she or another lesbian shouted, “Why don’t you guys do something?,” before the police heaved her back into the car. At that point, the crowed exploded with anger, throwing objects at the cops. The witnesses I spoke to all described her as being tall, “beefy,” with a “bigger, huskier build,” in her 20s or 30s, and Caucasian.

Like Rivera, DeLarverie was inconsistent in her accounts of the Uprising’s first night. In June 1997, she stated she was outside the bar, being “quiet, I didn’t say a word to anybody, I was just trying to see what was happening,” when a policeman, without provocation, hit her in the eye. Later, at a panel discussion, she said that a policeman attacked her without warning from behind and that she then hit him, breaking his jaw so that it had to be wired.

The established facts of the lesbian who resisted arrest, however, have the altercation between her and the police beginning inside the club, where her hands were cuffed. There is no record of her having injured a police officer. But DeLarverie — who had an African-American mother and a white father, was of average height and build, and was 48 in 1969 — has her fight with the police beginning on the sidewalk when she was not cuffed. The only recorded head injury to a police officer that first night was an eye injury to Gil Weissman.

My research concluded that DeLarverie could not have been the lesbian whose resistance to the cops helped set off the Uprising.

Could you all maybe take the Stonewall stuff to a separate dedicated thread? Not that it isn’t important and nobody cares, just that OP thread isn’t about it at all.

We were getting a nice little list of gay-coded characters going, but now those replies are buried in a hundred replies arguing about Ts at Stonewall and easy to scroll past.

We all agree the 2015 movie was shitty and inaccurate, and that it’s diffficult to ascertain actual facts about the real event. We don’t need to know anything else for the purposes of this particular thread. Cheers.

Brick from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - movie version.

Freddie Mercury

Sherlock Holmes and John Watson

r80 actually according to queers on twitter in 2021, Freddie has been 'gay washed'. They are all mad that his bisexuality is ignored and that people call him gay.

[...]

DaVinci in that shitty TV show.

The fabulous Michael Greer’s character in THE MAGICAL GARDEN OF STANLEY SWEETHEART (1970). Considering his past film and stage roles, I always wondered if the straight-acting (but sexually ambiguous) role was his idea or the director’s. It was one of his later ones, maybe he wanted to try something new. He just did hilarious, quick-witted queen SO well.

R85 Similar to Divine’s later TV and film roles where he seemed to really be trying to make it as a male actor? You can’t blame him considering how long and looming his drag career had been, buuttt...