Let’s break down the homophobia from season 7 together!
now before i get into the obviiiiiious let down there are many other instances that i would like to talk about just kinda to give the people saying “youre just mad you didnt get your ship >:///” a more informative breakdown of why this season was such queerbait and homophobia.
ah yes, the warlord lesbians. now i dont know about you but when i saw their scene my first reaction other than wtf happened to zethrid’s eye was OWO LESBIANS?? i mean
those are the faces of two women in love. for a hot second it feels like oh shit! lesbian space pirate warlords! what a nice surprise! until… we see one of the first cold slaps in the face of team voltron’s homophobia.
now dont get me wrong. just because a person or character is lgbt+, it doesnt make them a sudden saint. there are bad people and characters that are lgbt+. however the big red flag is we go from this sweet, sentimental moment of lesbian affection to
this. there is immediate whiplash as we go from this tender representation of what a lot of us immediately grasped onto as something relatable. and then they INSTANTLY twisted these characters and proceeded to have them begin torturing a 15 year old girl to get information from the paladins who obviously knew nothing. now you can argue that “well wait kina! the generals have always been nasty etc” that’s true and valid! however it was no mistake the way they crafted this. you literally see ezor’s face go from affection to twisted pleasure in the pain of others. they did that on purpose to associate this behavior with lesbian affection subconsciously.
now let me start with saying, this isnt about ships despite yknow well… being a post naming out ships. i personally am a multishipper and while i do enjoy klance, shance, etc i also really enjoy allurance! ive seen wonderful fan content of the ship and think its really cute. that is.. fanon allurance. canon allurance well…. hahahahah… ugh.
from the message to boys that if you keep hitting on a girl she’ll eventually fall for you to the sudden shift of lance being the rebound guy, the way the team has been writing their relationship has been extremely forced and unfair to the characters. now a lot of you may be like, “ok. agreed. the way allurance is being written is extremely forced, sudden and just not ok. but how does this tie back into the queerbaiting/homophobia?”
it ties back to.. you guessed it!
this image! as it’s commonly known, a lot of people headcanon bisexual lance. when this image was released, the combo of shiro being declared gay and lance holding the sign gave us great hope! and some of you may be thinking, “well… just because lance is heading down a forced romantic plot with allura doesnt make it bait. if anything you saying that is biphobic!” ah-ah-ah. not quite.
there is nothing wrong with lance ending up with a girl. there is nothing wrong with lance ending up with allura. (yknow,, if it was written in a healthy way) the issue is that images like this, the staff drawings of klance, those posts from netflix and staff talking about how we’d be getting solid rep, were all constructed to bait and pull us along.
the issue with the allurance this season isnt the ship itself when it comes to the queerbaiting. its the erasure of the lgbt rep for lance they’ve been baiting us with this whole time. theres no trace of lance’s sexuality anywhere. whether he’s bi, straight, gay, whatever. the only on screen rep we’ve had the entire show has been him flirting with girl after girl. and again, if they hadnt been giving us all these hints and teases, (ffs jeremy shada even had klance stuff put in SU posters and adventure time stuff) then sure. the writing for allurance isnt that great, but it wouldnt be a result of queerbaiting. but the fact is, they did bait us with lance’s sexuality and the rep of it. and the forced allurance interactions are only solidifying that.
this one is a sub section of my points for lance and for adashi
for those of you that have seen these you probably are already very upset by the baiting these images created. like, what the hell. sure you can argue that these images arent bait.. but they really are. because with all the teases from the VA’s, the creators, and even netflix with it’s twitter post about shipping klance, these images only fueled the bait of lgbt+ rep in canon klance and adashi.
hHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH ok. OK. i dont even have to say much on this one cAUSE BITCH WE ALL BEEN KNOWIN. plus this post is getting long. my only “in their defense” for this entire post is that during the convention they did quickly mention that adashi was a last minute choice encouraged by bex taylor. that was a red flag that we as a fandom failed to miss because we were so excited by their sugar coated words of gay rep and shiro’s sexuality.
with adam’s sudden death that was planned from the beginning, plus the very small scene we had that showed no signs of their relationship, it quickly dawned on us all that when they said it was last minute, they meant it wasnt real. this was by far the biggest and most fucked up offense of queerbaiting from the voltron staff in my opinion. because they got everyone hyped, they had everyone believing. and they had these proud smiles like they had done god’s work. like even bex at the convention is seen smiling at rainbow bayard’s made for cosplay and stuff like she hasnt just dont something awful and scarring. heres the thing. whether theyre the VA’s, the storyboard team, the artists, etc. the entire team is at fault for what happened. because they all knew. theyre not stupid guys. they knew what they were doing. jeremy shada, bex taylor, lauren montgomery, all of them. they knew exactly what they were doing it and they knew they were doing it in the most profitable way.
it’s not about the ships. its not about the fandom. its not about the show. it’s about homophobia in the media industry. it’s about yet another massive queerbait. it’s about sending toxic masculinity messages to growing kids. it’s about promising diversity and representation only to shove character death, trauma, lies, and disappointment down our throats. this is damaging to us. all of us. to the adults.. to the teens and college students… and to the kids. so many people love and look up to these defenders of the universe. and yes, the characters have been wronged, the plot has been wronged, the fandom has been wronged. but we, as an lgbt+ community have been wronged the most, by people we trusted and looked up to just as much as the characters they created. and that is not, nor will it ever be ok, no matter what excuse they come up with.
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