VoyD

I'm endlessly fascinated by how the official DC social media accounts have recently been so blatantly queerbaiting (and otherwise catering to fans of queer ships), and with DC's flagship characters, no less!!! As someone who loves comic book history, this is insane to me. The Comics Code Authority forbade positive depictions of explicitly queer characters for decades, and it was really only in the 1990s and 2000s that a few explicitly queer characters began popping up. Some characters have long been associated with queerness (the classic example being Fredric Wertham's claims about Batman and Robin living a "homosexual wish dream"), but DC officially downplayed that if not outright condemned it. For soooo many years, DC (and Marvel) have viewed their primary fanbase as straight, often white men, which has historically left women, POC, and queer folks feeling unwelcome and unrepresented (or represented poorly) in cape comics; ultra-violent, hypersexualized 1990s comics created for the direct market (to be purchased by these assumed customers) are the perfect example. Given this historical homophobia and prioritization of dudebro interests, every time I see one of these posts about their biggest and most successful characters whom they’ve long been so protective of, I can only stare in wonder. Remember when Batman couldn't go down on Catwoman in the R-rated Harley Quinn show because DC execs thought their middle-aged male fans wouldn't like it? And now we're HERE?! Crazy times.