Straightwashing takes LGBTQ+ characters and makes them straight – from Velma in Scooby Doo to comic book characters like Deadpool or even real people from history… but how pervasive is it – and what’s the big deal, anyway? Check out my new book Here & Queer: https://smarturl.it/HereAndQueer
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NOTE: the creator of She-Ra goes by Nate or ND now
Additional research and scriptwriting by Yaz Coonjah and Isabel Moncloa Daly
Editing by George Yonge
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NOTE: the creator of She-Ra goes by Nate or ND – thank you to those viewers who pointed this out – I unfortunately wasn’t aware when I quoted an interview from before he came out in this video. I've updated the caption and description but wanted to add a pinned comment incase anyone missed that.
I didn't know that a league of their own had become a TV show. I am 43 and seeing that movie as a kid, I always thought it was weird that we joke about so many lesbians being in sports, and then pretended that all the women who played baseball were just waiting for their husbands to come home from the war. I thought that Gina Davis' little sister was obviously gay, and Rosie O'Donnel's character was obviously the woman in love with her best friend, just watching her sleep with men and wishing things were different. I LIKED that they actually made Marta marrry that guy she met at the bar when she got drunk, because I liked the idea that looking a certain way doesn't make you gay and she was more the tomboy raised by dad, her "butchness" was less of a statement of self and more of a never having been taught feminitinity, so I liked when they helped her get a little prettied up, but looking back I was the chubby girl that was often not seen as sexy, so maybe I identified more with that, than the subversion of the trope, If there were more queer relationships, this would have been less of "see every one of these women is straight" that I see now that I'm older.
Re: Love Actually. They took out the story about a loving lesbian couple and left in the guy using his British accent to get laid and another about a man lusting after his best friend's wife. After learning this, I hate this movie even more than I did before.
Excellent video, as always! Several years ago I embarked on a project to watch all the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar winners and read (or watch) the source material they were adapted from. I wasn't really looking for anything in particular, I just thought it would be interesting, but one of the main things that struck me was the straightwashing. I was rather shocked at how many books included some sort of queer representation (some of which was admittedly rather problematic, but still it was there) that was either completely absent or significantly reduced in the film adaptation, even when it was about real people
I just finished reading Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote. The narrator's orientation is never stated, except he says his love for Holly isn't sexual (Capote was gay, and it's possible the narrator was based on himself). Then there's a side character called Rusty that Holly explicitly states is gay – although perhaps he's bi, if his relationships with women aren't just for show.
Now, I haven't watched the movie in ages, but I'm curious to see it again, to see if they hint at any of that. Of course, given the time it was made, I'm sure they censor a bunch of things – including Holly swearing, being naked in some scenes, etc.
Anyway, thanks for a great video!
I would probably be seen more as gal than straight, because I have at least 4 female friends to every male one. But actually I'm asexual. I would like to see more asexuals around me, because I know more than a few. I like looking at both male and female, but I'd rather see them both fully dressed because I don't look at them as anything except as 'art.'
On Velma and straight washing:
if the original creators of the character, Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, were on record saying Velma was intended to be queer (be that labelled bi ,gay, lesbian, or any other term of choice) then yes it would be a case of straight washing.
If not and it was only coming from later showrunners who were not the creator, it's not straight washing, it's more a case of queerwashing.
The fact that the first canonical occurrence of Velma being confirmed queer happened after both Joe Ruby and Ken Spears had passed away, and thus could not weigh in on the conversation… seems a little off to say the character was always intended to be portrayed as such.
I love that touched on the idea of 'you can't be what you can't see'. I think that is so important. As someone who is asexual and aromantic, I was devastated to realize I was 'broken'. Because at 17+, I had no seen or heard of the ace spectrum, and so of course, I just felt like an alien. I imagine non-binary people have also felt this way in many a time and culture, because it is one thing to know you don't fit in, but it is another to understand why, to have a name for it, to be able to explain it, and to not feel so alone. The LGBTQ community is not new, it is just less quiet.
Basically, whenever conservatives cry out that the woke media is pushing agenda, is them projecting. It's like the call is coming from inside the house type of thing.
Ted and David's kiss was cut?!? Then what was the tension about after if he didn't kiss his gf's brother?
I do wonder does anyone think making Velma the gay member of the Scooby gang portray queer women in a slightly negative light? I always felt that Velma was what studio think a smart person should look like while Daphne was the pretty "klutz" making her the damsel in distress and that is why she gets paired with Fred. However my big issue with Velma being gay in Trick or Treat Scooby Doo comes from the fact this is the fourth animated movie where someone is interested in Velma and/or she is interested in them. Only one of these movies is Velma's "paramour" not a villain in the story, I can't think of any other member of the Scooby gang that interested in the villain or has the villain interested in them this many times .
Are you seriously calling pushback against queerwashing Velma "straightwashing"? This is ridiculous.
imagine it was the other way around. Where straight characters are gaywashing. Then the straight cis will be mad as hell. But straight cis people never see the irony of that logic how it hurt us LGBT people. In content with LGBT. United States did not adopted the LGBT letter layout until me too movement happen. When I was in high school. I remember here in the US. We said GLBT then LGBT. It just show how thing changes. And I for one. I think we should have more LGBT character. Not just in the good guy side of the story. But the bad guys and side characters in the story. Because when all three are fill with LGBT in it. It make more realistic then have all them straight cisgender.
Though it is gross to know that queer characters had to be villains way-back-when, now, it's honestly pretty awesome that some of the coolest characters in fiction are rollin' with the LGBT. Like think of Him from the Powerpuff Girls or Scar from the Lion King- both clear caricatures of gay men and both iconic. And don't even get me started on the Joker
Ooooooh, Thought that title meant something else.
Like "straight washing is disappearing and that's insidious".
I've been watching Japanese anime since the early 80s, and later in life going back and finding the original sources, I was surprised in a few cases where queer and non-binary characters were effectively erased by selective editing and the choice of English voice actor. I know that anime has had issues with problematic and even exploitative depictions in that regard anyway, but, the erasure of those characters was very clearly political in terms of localising for Western audiences.
Also recently, in Netflix's redub and retranslation of Neon Genesis Evangelion, localisers took a much more conservative translation of a particular line of dialogue (no spoilers) between two main characters which in the past was taken as queer coding their relationship.
While Netflix defended its more conservative translation of the line as "simply being literal", it severely underplayed that the particular Japanese phrase CAN literally be understood in the queer sense, because Japanese is a high context language, i.e. it has that meaning because the context strongly points to that meaning. The translation chosen by Netflix completely cuts off that possibility due to the high specificity of the vocabulary chosen (English being a low context language).
But Japanese fans as well as the studio itself clearly agreed with the queer interpretation of the line, judging by the HUGE amount of unofficial and OFFICIAL promotional and celebratory art that validates it. Even if Netflix was valid in its more conservative translation, it should have had a greater appreciation of where the fandom and cultural discourse surrounding the show had gone since the show's release almost 27 years ago.
Velma wasn't gay in the 70s … Velma isn't gay now … Velma isn't straight now … Velma is a fictional character … Velma is whatever the consumer makes her. Personally, I don't think any of them but Fred and Daphne were overtly sexual. Velma shouldn't even go near sex. Shaggie and Skoob either. Skoob has no genitals at all, yet nobody mentions this!
Love Actually – in some ways I was glad they cut the lesbian story line. It was another 'the gay dies'. Although, I do love the characters played by Frances de la Tour and Anne Reid. It would have been so good to included that couple, without the illness and death.
Multiverse of madness also eluded to her mothers. What I remember (key work remember) her coming from an all woman planet. Which may be wrong because… procreation… but that may just be overthinking things.
To be fair Harley and ivy’s acceptance may be due to fetishization of hot lesbians.
A huge hurtle is probably the American rating board having no oversight
It’s kinda funny that this pops up on my feed right along side a video that Hollywood and Disney are dead due to wokeness. I don’t watch videos on either subject but there they sit. I guess I watch a lot of men’s rights stuff. Honeybadgers and anti feminist stuff (I shouldn’t have to say, but I will, that I’m left leaning non binary male) so maybe that’s why… anyways I gave a listen and I think this info is slightly useful. I think things are getting better for inclusivity. I don’t think it’s widely helpful to bring up old movies on the topic tho as times are changing. Things that were made decades ago wouldn’t fly today and vise versa.
this video is great accept for the comic book part, it seems you dont understand fully how comic books work, they are not one story, not one of the characters you listed are just gay, theres a plethora of runs that have nothing to do with eachother, entirely different univereses and years they were released, i mean for loki, hes been around since the first thor run, and it makes no sense to adapt the one gay story when the rest is all straight yk.
This is why I love the boys. Maeve had to hide her sexuality for years.
Used to watch your vids AGES ago. Your vid quality has always been great but it's lovely to see it's gotten even better.
I grew up being obsessed, really really obsessed with Hans Christen Anderson stories. I even watched the musical with Danny Kaye in it (which is a mahusive bit of straightwashing) and I didn't learn how one of the most beautifully tragic stories of love was really the expression of a man's love for another until I was 20. I feel robbed in a way, not knowing that since I fell in love with his stories since I was 4 but I'm so glad the knowledge came to me eventually. I can now see the queerness in so many of his fairy tales and it makes me love them all the more.
My straight friend was so happy to see two women kissing in Rise of Skywalker and couldn't understand how it was not a representation, but a thing to cut out when needed to make sure the movie sells in homophobic markets.
🙄 this is such first world BS lol
It's sad how homophobes continues to keep straightwashing every fictional characters in all medias when they're not the ones who created all the work, but the creators themselves. They think they can grasp at what's canon or find any excuses to think the characters are straight and only straight, meanwhile most officials never cared too much for labels as it seems, to give them such and only wants to write anything they want to. Homophobes gatekeep tryna everything, but we can break in.
A lot of gay and queer kids join Martial arts classes when they are young for obvious reasons and yet Cobra Kai doesn't have even one gay male character on the show.
I read the title as that straightwashing was being earased and was so confused, because sure maybe it was finally decreasing but being insidiously earased?! Surely not. Suffice to say I'm glad that's not what the video is about at all.
DC's Joker has been so straightwashed that most people don't know he was originally written as homosexual
Elsa is ace, and nobody can tell me otherwise.
Watching movies with gay characters isn't what I want to see. I think it's safe to say that LA (where most actors and film are made) is very much more gay than the rest of the world population. That's where you get the "straightwashing". It's happening because the rest of the world isn't near as gay as the places the movies are made. People like me won't stop watching because they see something gay in it, but when the show is very much forced gay propaganda I'd rather just move on and watch something else. Yeah I hate the idea of catering things to audiences for the sake of money but generally having a "gay" character doesn't add or detract from 99% of scripts.
Was Velma straightwashed or gay washed? I find it ironic that Velma was not Canon gay until 2020 the same year that both the Original Scooby-Doo creator and Co creator passed away. Until that point not only was Velma not gay but had multiple male boyfriends and even a child with Shaggy. I think she was intended to be nerdy and awkward, more interested in smarts than relationships.
This issue should be at the forefront of every priority in the world. I can't believe people around the world can just go about their day without realizing this.
And, once again, I must ask: What, besides wishful thinking and a cultural overacceptance of other people's stereotypes, gave you the FAINTEST impression that Velma on the original Scooby series was ever "lesbian"?
Because she has a bang haircut? Glasses? A big turtleneck? Is a science nerd with a gamma-girl name?
Y'know, the rest of us Str8 people ever said these things… 🙄
Is there a spanish version of the book? Btw i'm just want to mention Wiccan and Hulkling as one of the best romantic relationships in Marvel
Algohairithm!
I still don't understand why they didn't make Velma bi or pan, I don't care how she was intended decades ago, she's been in love with men in the past, probably to them being "bi/Pan is not enough "progressive"?
'queer fières' is a GREAT french alt title!
American Christ fanboys are the main problem