i think benedict is genuinely bad queer rep.
not because he's a bad character or does unsavory things. not because he ends up with a woman. not because the story focuses on things outside of being queer. i think there is fantastic queer rep that has all those aspects because good queer rep is just depicting queer people as PEOPLE
but benedict's queerness has no impact on his characterization
queerness is not just about who you sleep with or don't sleep with or want to kiss or don't want to kiss or what have you. on the surface level, yeah, that absolutely is a big part of it. my attraction to women as a woman is important to me and that is what makes me queer
but being queer impacts me as a person outside of my attraction. and benedict's does not
benedict's queerness never makes him examine the power structures he's part of. it never makes him empathize with the oppressed. it never makes him Other from his community. it never influences who he is or what he does
benedict being queer feels more like a box production used to check off for the sake of diversity and making him 'different' when he is, in reality, no different from most of the men of his society. and i think the best way to highlight this is actually with Eloise and with Colin
Eloise is a character often headcanoned as being queer, and that's largely because she is Other from her society. She does not kowtow to gender expectations of her time. She points out injustices that take place around her and feels ostracized from the community around her as a result. This is why she empathizes with Theo and the working class. This is why she ends up hanging out with outcasts of her world, like Penelope, who is ignored and largely uncared for in their community, and Cressida, a woman who is conventionally attractive but with a personality that has pushed others away and made her unlikable in her society. Eloise herself is an outcast, despite belonging to a popular family.
It is not that Eloise is a feminist and feminists are queer. It is that Eloise is made blatantly different from those around her, and THAT is a huge part of queer culture. We are not a monolith, of course, but there is a reason so many queer people are openly alt, dye our hair, have body modifications, attend protests, etc. we go against the grain of our world because heteronormativity is the law of the land and we do not subscribe to it. Queerness is an identity, and in being an identity, we have a culture. A large part of that culture is being COUNTERCULTURE- embracing our Otherness and wearing it proudly. Eloise speaks to that culture because she does not want to buck to the status quo. She is rebellious, she rejects the expectations placed on her actively, and that is relatable to queer people like me. She does not fulfill the gender norms foisted upon her, and she does not want to.
Even if Eloise never blatantly shows that she experiences attraction to women, she feels like queer rep regardless.
Colin is, interestingly, the character who has best read as queer to me. Not only because it is openly stated that his attraction is different from what we've seen of other men (the distance he feels during sex, craving closeness and connection over the motions and sensations to the point where it feels all but meaningless to engage, the fact that he CANNOT engage after he does experience the intimacy he actually wanted), but also because his character has been depicted as Other in several aspects. If Eloise is the rejection of female gender norms, Colin is the rejection of male gender norms.
Colin is laughed at by his male peers for expressing his emotions. Colin pushes back against the figurehead of his family. Colin is friends with women. Colin prioritizes empathy and compassion over anger. Colin comes to his sister for her blessing. Colin asks his mother for advice. Even in S4, when Colin is at the club with Benedict, John, and Will, Colin is the first one to say 'that life does not interest me', and whilst it doesn't interest Will, either, he understands it. Colin doesn't. Colin is different. He is made to be different in every season we see him. Colin saying he would have married Marina anyway if she was just honest with him, Colin bringing Daphne to the duel despite being told by his brothers not to, Colin writing letters to Penelope, Colin trusting and believing the women around him, Colin bringing Eloise feminist texts, Colin being a man who hungers for commitment and understanding, Colin being made fun of by Anthony for being green, Colin being made fun of and ostracized by the Bro Squad when he doesn't want to play machismo with them anymore, Colin finding more kinship with women rather than men, Colin talking to Cressida and leading with empathy: these mark him as being different from the men of his world.
Even his connection to Albion and Harry- they read as a found family, of sorts. Men who understand him when he has always been surrounded by those who don't. Colin is Other. He is a rich man who experiences attraction to women, but his character itself is not like the men around him. Queerness is not just differing sex attraction to start with, aromantic and asexual people are also queer, but even beyond that, it is because Colin is a man who experiences differing attraction than his peers AND he embodies this beyond just his sexuality. He is Other in many different ways. He goes against the grain of male expectation, and that is what makes him read as queer to me, because his Otherness is central to his characterization.
But Benedict's, even though we watch him actively engage sexually wth men, just. . .isn't. That's why it's so disappointing. Benedict is every bit like the men of his world. His queerness is used almost as an excuse in S3 for why he cannot commit, but he always had commitment issues, and more than that, so do all the men of his world. Fife is portrayed as a straight man, but he would have given the exact same excuse to Tilly that Benedict did.
Benedict is fine with mistresses like the men of his world, he drinks, he burns through his partners, he is accepted in every club, he never analyzes the structures he benefits from BECAUSE they benefit him. He centralizes himself and his feelings. When he stands up for Fran, he is also doing it on his behalf, though he never experiences the demands of society the way the women around him do. And he would know and understand that if he actually listened to and digested what the women around him SAY. He even berates his mother without thinking for a moment how her experience as a woman widowed for a decade and being sexually active with a man she's dated for a year is different from him openly chasing after a woman who has no power or privilege in their society.
His queerness does not make him examine misogyny or classism. His queerness is never, in any way, influential to his view of the world. He belongs to a group who experience oppression, and yet Benedict himself has never experienced any hardship. His identity as a wealthy man insulates him entirely from this. When I was with different sex partners, the oppression is different but oppression nonetheless- the invisibility of not belonging to my identity as a queer woman due to others assuming you're straight because your relationship on the surface looks to be straight, even if it will always be a queer relationship because you are queer.
But his queerness does not impact his relationship, either. It has no impact on his life as a whole. They wrote him entirely like his queerness only meant he would sleep with men and have a coming out scene, instead of actually thinking through how his identity as a queer man would impact his relationship to Sophie, especially if their love is 'forbidden' (as much of queer love tends to be). But it didn't.
Benedict feels like a straight person's interpretation of queerness. And with a queer showrunner, that's especially disappointing.
