The Gay '90s - TV Trop

Contents:

• GAYNGST
• GAY OPTN
• GAY CONSERVATIVE
• BADASS GAY
• GAY COWBOY
• THE GAY '90S
• WORD OF GAY
• SETTLED FOR GAY
• THE SPE/FLEXIBILY OF CAMP GAY AND CAMP STRAIGHT

GAYNGST

Characters sufferg om gayngst are prone to alholism and other forms of substance abe, self-loathg, Self-Harm, rampant homophobia towards themselv and others, rejectn by homophobic fay members, fallg tragic unrequed love wh heterosexuals, ntemplatg (and often mtg) suici, and wishg that they were straight. Gayngst is a Pet-Peeve Trope of many bee while ually portrays gay people sympathetilly and addrs an issue many gay people Real Life go through, n be terpreted as sayg that 's impossible to be gay whout beg miserable, or that gay people don't serve Happy Endgs, or at s very worst and most eptly-handled, gay relatnships are nately disastro. If the story wants an upliftg tone, the character will eventually e to terms wh their sexualy, have the obligatory Comg-Out Story, and eher live Happily Ever After wh their love tert or morph to some other gay archetype (ually Straight Gay or Lipstick Lbian; eher this is their natural personaly or they still have some lgerg secury).

Dependg on how they're played, n be a Sub-Trope of Bullied to Deprsn, Why Couldn't You Be Different?, Internalized Categorism, Boomerang Bigot, and You Are What You Hate, and a Super-Trope of Inpatible Orientatn, Armoured Closet Gay, Out of the Closet, Into the Fire, Homophobic Hate Crime, and Gayngst-Induced Suici. Sayaka Saeki is mostly ntent wh beg gay, even though her feelgs for Too go unrequed, but took que hard when her senpai at her old school broke up wh her and apologized for makg her like gays, due to seeg homosexualy as a "phase" (which is actually a pretty monly held belief Japan; see Gay Romantic Phase for more tails).

Averted spe the explic Inpatible Orientatn on Outlaw Star; Fred Luo is perfectly fortable wh his nature as a Camp Gay merchant and even though he profs his undyg love for Gene Starwd, he's perfectly aware of the fact the heterosexual Gene don't reciprote and fact seems to enjoy teasg him by flirtg.

GAY OPTN

Probably the most extreme example of gayngst Milk Moraga's work would be Miu's angst about her feelgs towards Fujiwara Secret of the Prcs, which nearly rults her jumpg off their school buildg's roof before Fujiwara talks her down.

His suatn is even worse an alternate realy where he never left Mars: the people of his village shun him for his homosexualy and force him to live the hospable wilrns, and they eventually try to kill him by burng down his home, mortally woundg his lover the procs. The disntued Chick Tract "Wound Children", f this to a T (although is also full of Narm), bee of his views of homosexualy Chick's tracts on the subject had the msage "There is nothg gay about beg gay" before shiftg to "Those who support or tolerate homosexualy are evil". They have several stanc of Unrolved Sexual Tensn and Distracted by the Sexy until she dnkenly tells Megane her feelgs, but that mak Vicky realize that she n never be happy sce her parents are homophobic and clearly stated they wouldn't hate to disown her if she was gay ('s actually the only thg they still agree on).

Als wh Jenny's bt iend Terry and her gradual realizatn that she's homosexual, engagg wh this trope the procs — particular, Terry at one pot tearfully pleads wh Zot to know whether, his Utopian superheroic 'world of the future! A Magil Eveng has que a lot of this, wh Sofia and Lucda beg terrified for much of the early chapters of what will happen if Sofia’s fay fds out about their relatnship and Hilgard and Cl beg closeted while havg homophobic parents, somethg Cl adms was hell. However, Le gets more secure about when he has a nightmare where his brothers beat him up while shoutg homophobic slurs, his mom cri over havg a gay son (he's bisexual but they don't see the difference), and his dad angrily throws him out of the hoe, while Lka is helpls to stop all.

GAY CONSERVATIVE

In the Hannah Montana fic "Thirst", when Miley realis that she's love wh Lilly she spends time agonisg over how her fay will react, rellg such past stanc as her father sayg nothg about an cint where a boy back Nebraska was beaten up for wantg to take another boy to prom or Jackson always lghg at gay jok.

Lampshad As Good as It Gets, when straight Melv (Jack Nicholson) asks gay Simon (Greg Knear) after all the horrible thgs that have happened to him if he thks his life would have been easier if he were straight, which Simon to ask back: "Do you nsir your life easy? In Mar (2018), Mar and Leon suffer homophobic bullyg om their Associatn Football teammat, which clus gay porn taped si Mar's locker, a pk dildo left his shirt, and a letter sent to his dad that says, "Your son sucks dicks stead of srg goals.

BADASS GAY

In a meta sense, however, this trope was subverted; not only is there somethg of a happy endg for Trevor, but the film beme the basis of The Trevor Project, a suici preventn hotle for LGBT+ youth, givg people wh their own gayngst to al wh a place to go to for help. Acrdg to Word of God, Dumbledore om Harry Potter is gay and his rather bad experience wh his iend Gellert Grlwald was actually somethg of a romance, on Dumbledore's part anyway ('s never been said whether Grlwald was gay or not) that end up wh his sister gettg killed and a lifelong rift between Dumbledore and his brother.

GAY COWBOY

Though early Season Three has an episo about him realizg his Camp Gay tennci make him hard to believe as a leadg man a romance, he is now a stable, healthy, lovg relatnship wh Blae (who, himself, is cheerful, out and proud, and an overall aversn of this trope).

Davi, himself gay, has gone on rerd about not beg the biggt fan of this trope, argug that some ways perpetuat gay shame both as somethg experienced by homosexuals and how is viewed by non-homosexuals, and also bee n be a b borg, cliched and stereotypil to watch and wre. Nomi, the lbian trans woman mentned above, is a very happy relatnship and surrounds herself wh the acceptg San Francis LGBT muny, and she don't have any ternalized trans- or homophobia (anymore - she explas to Lo that she did try very hard to be "normal" as a child / young teenager, until an cint of btally vlent bullyg om the boys at her swim club ma her give up tryg to be like them).

THE GAY '90S

Once he's renciled his homosexualy and relig beliefs, he still angsts a ltle about g out, but most of his anxiety om other sourc, like the bs and his var fights and break-ups wh Keh (which is more about personaly differenc and munitn problems between the two men rather than the fact they are both gay).

WORD OF GAY

Vo The Sopranos spends a signifint amount of time Season Six experiencg gayngst when he is advertently outed to both his and Phil Leotardo's (somewhat homophobic) crews, fle to a small town New Hampshire, and stggl wh his duti to his wife and kids, his crew, and the web of li he has to tell his newfound lover New Hampshire to protect himself. Most people are acceptg of the fact that Ellie is a lbian, but durg a social event shortly before the start of the game, she nearly got to a fight wh one of the olr rints of Jackson when he took issue wh her kissg another girl at a party and llg her a homophobic slur. In Katawa Shoujo, is revealed that Misha is gay, and ma a Love Confsn to her object of affectn, Shizune, who rejected the nfsn (most likely due to Inpatible Orientatn) but offered ntued iendship, g her a great al of pa, pecially when Hisao begs a relatnship wh Shizune.

Though, oddly, Riki seems to be the only one bothered by this - none of the other characters ever seem ncerned at all about sayg ambiguoly queer thgs (or overtly queer thgs, Kugaya's se), and while jok abound, nobody ever acts like 'd be bad if Riki and Kyoe dated.

On the other end, we have Sasa who says that she got over the issue of havg a csh on a girl very quickly to foc on the much bigger issue of havg a csh on her iend, and Yoa, who didn't even seem to notice her feelgs were gay until Yuna pots that out, and even then, her first rponse is "But isn't this kd of love rock as well?! Khaos Komix, as a teen drama wh a Cast Full of Gay, pretty much ns on this trope: Steve has ternalized Jamie's homophobia enough that he wrtl wh the ia of beg gay; Mark knows his parents have already disowned his brother for, among many other thgs, his homosexualy; Amber is ightened of the ntroversy, and her mother, although acceptg of Steve and Mark, is ls so wh Amber, bee she's ightened for her speakg om experience; Nay sually accepts her own bisexualy, but she's seeg Amber; Murfs had a basilly pansexual upbrgg, but as a child, ran headlong to Jamie's Frdian Exce, which left him reflexively homophobic until he met Tom; Tom, a transman (by fn, a source of angst s own right), is aaid of lettg Murfs know, much ls sleepg wh him, for fear of beg seen as a woman; and Charlie, a transwoman, has started an outright dangero relatnship wh the homophobic token straight Jamie. Ally and Lisa have entered their first relatnship wh another woman and Lisa didn't nsir herself to possibly be gay until the relatnship veloped past somethg physil to somethg romantic, but even so, obvly don't ncern her due to the small amount of thought she has spared to the topic.

SETTLED FOR GAY

Limyaael's Fantasy Rants: She criciz the ovese of this pot 2 of her Rant on gay and lbian characters, particularly when mak ltle sense (or none) wh the fantasy world (where same-sex relatnships have been portrayed as mostly accepted, for stance).

THE SPE/FLEXIBILY OF CAMP GAY AND CAMP STRAIGHT

He starts to thk of his homosexualy as a disease and obtas a magic lamp, tendg to e to wish that he was not gay anymore but the genie he summons ni this wish all bee the genie himself is gay and eventually be Xandir's boyiend. It's not stated outright that he's gay, but 's eher that, he thks Girls Have Cooti, he jt don't like his tend bri or don't want to be (forced to get) married (yet maybe), and the marriage thg is eventually rolved when he almost marri Jumba, his male iend, who was Disguised Drag for the ocsn, and they both seem very ntent wh gettg married.

Had a gay optn as a Non Standard Game Over: If you ed Larry's fly on Gary the flamboyantly gay towel attendant or gave him the key to Larry's room, you were treated to a game over screen featurg the two walkg hand hand to the sunset. In Bahamut Lagoon, pendg on the optns you pick, the Heroic Mime n eher be terted the prcs (who ends up leavg him for someone else halfway through the game anyway), or his old gay mentor, a rpected war general and urt sorcerer.

The two aren't exactly equal, though; while heterosexual marriage provis the player wh a dowry, an ocsnal source of e and ems, and a cutscene tailg the importance of the marriage to the hero's life, the gay marriage jt giv you the e and ems — and the game ocsnally refers to his hband as a "wife" by mistake. The Otan endg of Metal Gear Solid, which Snake shar a romantic scene wh Otan stead of Meryl, is not a te Gay Optn - 's more of a romantic-iendship-nfsn-type thg, and n only be achieved by makg a cisn that poor nocent Meryl to die. Don't have any rout for (though not for lack of optns, as Touma is que open about his preferenc and displays tert Yamato, and Ryuuhei is straight up jt gay), there is a Bad End where Yamato adms he has preferenc he didn't que expect, along wh an implied scene.

In Backstage Pass a gay optn exists for the protagonist Sian, if the player go off the beaten path a ltle (as 's one of the romanc that is not advertised que as heavily as the ma four potential love terts) the form of the mol Nile Partridge, plete wh her own route should the player manage to lock themselv onto . In fact, gay men have the most sexually implic or explic teractns the game, as addn to their own perk-locked ntent, jt about every character that a "heterosexually active" (Black Widow perk-equipped) female PC n get is also available to a gay male PC. When pickg the characters, you eher pick one of each genr, or the gay character and another character of the same genr, and 's not any harr to get the "straight" characters to a relatnship wh the gay character than wh an oppose-genr character.

Jack Donaghy om 30 Rock announc to his nservative lleagu that he's love wh a Democrat ngrswoman, promptg them to stand up and nfs their own partur om nservative orthodoxy; one of them reveals that he is gay, and another reveals that he is black. When the majory lear (who Josh had ced as an active example of what he se as the homophobia herent the Republin party) smary tri to patronize him wh a pat on the back and a "Good job, Congrsman" — only for Skner to give him the evil eye and snap back, "Take your hand off my shoulr, Congrsman.

While ially a nservative stunt of Gger's who would equently argue wh her class, her stggle to fd a place to f (her ultra-relig parents eaked out when she me out, and "the Republin group on mp thks I'm a perv, and the gay group thks I'm a traor! After sleepg wh a guy named Cise, beg outed, acced of beg a hypocre bee of the Conservative Party's posn on LGBT+ rights, and beg herald as evince the morn Conservative Party is welg to openly gay people, all whout beg sure if he's gay or not, he returns home, where his iend Cassie tells him "You n embrace the new, reject the new, or let stroy you".