audio from the fear& podcast ft. hasan piker and austin show

video from emmerdale (uk soap opera)

characters are robert sugden and aaron dingle

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to think about this, because I've been so hung up on the implications of the OnlyFans comment all day, honestly I haven't really thought about the allegedly homophobic jokes.

Truthfully, the jokes didn't leave a very strong impression on me at all. I didn't find them to be particularly funny. The humor in those scenes is really giving Disney Channel or Nick sitcom vibes - Ross teaching Sam how to dance, Ross noticing they're being watched and dropping Sam as a result, this joke happened beat for beat in the House of Anubis Season 1 finale back in 2011. And I love House of Anubis to this day, I'm currently doing a rewatch with my friend who also grew up watching the show, but it is a television series designed and written for children and teens, and meant to be enjoyed by children and teens. So I definitely think the jokes are juvenile. My main takeaway from those scenes are that Rob and Aaron are acting unnecessarily childish by mocking Ross and Sam for dancing.

I just rewatched the scene and I see where people are coming from when they say the scene is homophobic, but I don't really find it particularly offensive except for perhaps this part:

Until this point, you could argue that Rob and Aaron are mocking Ross and Sam for being bad dancers, for being two of the most ungraceful people in the entire village and therefore two people who definitely shouldn't be dancing. Which is rude and childish, but not necessarily homophobic. However, the "who gets to wear the dress?" comment is homophobic. When you remove the scene from all relevant context, this scene features two men mocking other men for dancing together, and asking them which one is going to wear the dress, which one of them is going to play the woman in the dynamic. Implying that pair dancing is a typically m/f activity, or should be a m/f activity. Rob and Aaron are certainly emasculating Ross and Sam here. Without any context, the only saving grace here is that Rob phrases it as "who gets to wear the dress" instead of "who has to wear the dress" - implying that the dress is a privilege and honor.

However! Let's add some context back in, because I think context is important in this case. Because while I don't think Robron being queer makes this comment 100% completely unproblematic, I do think it mitigates the harm a bit and takes the sting out of it. Rob and Aaron are both queer men, Ross and Sam are both straight men, and Ross is a known homophobe (despite having gay brothers that he cares about very much...his fascinating contradictions). Ross has made homophobic comments towards Rob and Aaron before. While this context doesn't completely exonerate Robron's homophobia here, it serves as mitigating circumstances that lessen the severity of the offense. Honestly, the joke kinda reminds me of those jokes that some gay people make about homophobes being secretly gay, which are problematic for a whole host of reasons, but not as problematic as the actions and words of genuine homophobes.

The offensive line is also immediately followed by this:

Which, given the context of Robron being queer men, could be interpreted as two queer men vaguely teasing or flirting with a straight man to make him feel uncomfortable - they both wanna see Ross in a dress! (This connects back to Rob's phrasing earlier, implying the dress is an honor! Ross should be happy that he gets to wear the dress and please Robron! This also connects to the Todd/Charity stuff in this episode re: flirting to make someone uncomfy) And I do think Robron's mocking was largely disingenuous, mostly played up to make Ross and Sam feel uncomfy and awkward, as opposed to reflecting Robron's true personal beliefs. Emasculating a homophobe for fun. Gay people do this all the time, and while I don't think it's the worst thing in the world, I understand why it makes some people uneasy or troubled. Emasculating and feminizing cishet men without their consent, even when done by gay people in retaliation for homophobia, can unwittingly perpetuate harmful stereotypes and bigotry against trans people, women (especially trans women), and also other queer men, by pushing the idea that femininity is wrong, bad, shameful.

This response ended up being wayyy longer than anticipated, lol. I hope this all makes sense, or at least seems somewhat coherent. I think I've said everything I wanna say on this topic.

First of all, I wanna address my gaps in knowledge. I am not an expert in UK soap operas. I'm USAmerican (as you mentioned in your anon ask), I'm not involved with the entertainment industry at all, I've never been involved with a television production. I'm not an actor, television writer, or director. I don't really know anything about how UK soap productions are run.

Second of all, I wanna address your misrepresentation of my argument. I never said that the script should "literally spoonfeed their every move" or that the writers/directors/producers should "spell it out to the actors when, where and exactly what type of casual intimacy touches to add". Maybe you didn't see my later clarification but I literally said that things like small touches and hand-holding should be the choice of the actors. I literally said that Danny and Ryan have agency and responsibility to speak up and do more re: adding casual intimacy into scenes, even if it might be very difficult for them for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to a lack of scripted casual intimacy.

Finally, I wanna address the other person's response to you because I think they're wrong about TV scripts. Not UK soap scripts, because those might look different or extremely minimal due to the nature of production and I don't wanna comment on something I don't really know about. But I'm talking about TV scripts in general here, both US and UK productions. TV scripts have scripted intimacy, just like a play or film script would include scripted intimacy. I know this because Google is free and many TV scripts end up online and freely available for anyone who wants to take a look. Here are some examples of scripted intimacy in UK productions (source):

( ^ Scripted kiss "with real warmth" from Black Mirror 1x02)

( ^ One of the scripted kisses between Shaun and Donna from Doctor Who 4x17)

( ^ Scripted embrace and forehead kiss in Peaky Blinders 1x01)

These are just a few examples, and I encourage you to actually find more examples of scripts from British TV shows that have been posted online so you can confirm for yourself instead of blindly trusting someone on tumblr, but bottom line is that TV scripts often include casual intimacy between characters who are romantically involved. Every TV or film script that I've ever read featured descriptive action like the examples above.

I'm not gonna sit here and pretend like I have all the answers or know exactly why Robron's intimacy has been lacking lately, I was really just trying to add my two cents into the conversation. Personally, not a huge fan of seeing my own words twisted to suit someone else's narrative, especially when that person doesn't know what's happening on the Emmerdale set either. For all we know, Danny and Ryan had some sort of falling out or argument that's affecting their performances and ability to take direction. It just doesn't make sense that two actors who have been perfectly fine with casual intimacy in the past are suddenly out of nowhere struggling with on-screen chemistry and I think we're all just trying to find explanations that make sense to us.