Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Rename
, started by DesertDragon on Oct 2nd 2010 at 8:05:15 PM
Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Ambiguous Name, started by Solle on Feb 9th 2015 at 3:23:44 PM
Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Not Tropeworthy, started by Zennistrad on Oct 13th 2015 at 6:41:04 AM
Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Ambiguous Name, started by oshojabbe on Aug 26th 2016 at 2:24:18 AM
Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Not Tropeworthy, started by MagBas on Oct 31st 2016 at 12:54:01 AM
Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Not Tropeworthy, started by ChromaticWasp on Mar 23rd 2017 at 3:56:40 PM
Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Not Tropeworthy, started by Pattermat on Jun 23rd 2017 at 9:17:36 PM
Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Unclear Description, started by Betoniarz on Oct 4th 2020 at 10:55:25 PM
So if this is Males only, what is the Female Counterpart? Ellie from The Last of Us was what I thought was a prime example only to now be forced to be lumpen into Butch Lesbian even though she isnt because she REALLY ISNT Lipstick Lesbian (growing up during the zombie apocalypse Will so that for you)
Does this trope even need to exist? It just boils down to "person who does not fit the stereotype of their demographic." Think about it, People Exist Who Aren't Stereotypes might as well be People Sit On Chairs.
Edited by MonaNaito Hide / Show Replies
Audiences expect a gay character to act like the kind of gay person who goes to Pride (i.e. Camp Gay). This trope notes examples that break from that expectation. It is thus a tropeworthy subject when it happens in media.
There are other tropes, such as Action Girl, that are also "people who aren't stereotypes," so you'd have to argue how those are PSOC also.
Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty
Nonsense. 'Breaking a stereotype' is not a trope in and of itself.
This trope isn't even being described well. Why does the page quote insist that all other gay men are 'nancies'? Why does the page description consist mostly of people making thinly-veiled claims that effeminate gay men are bitchy and predatory? WHY does this trope assume that a gay person who acts as described is more 'straight'?
Frankly I want this page deleted but regardless of what I want, it's a mess that needs a rehaul.
Jaded Techie Fox
I've noticed some lesbians/sapphic women listed in this page, which I find really confusing. I thought Straight Gay only applied to androsexual/romantic men, since it's supposed to be a counterpoint to Camp Gay, which also only applies to men. Or am I misunderstanding this trope?
Trust you? The only person I can trust is myself. Hide / Show Replies
This trope is a mess, it's just become a dumping ground for any gay character who doesn't fit an obvious stereotype. And since "being gay" isn't a trope, IMHO this page should be dragged into TRS and maybe cut altogether.
Edited by MonaNaito
This tropes is getting abused a lot. People want to convey that a character is gay in their character page, and are basically flipping a coin over whether they label them as camp or straight. I agree with the above commentator that "straight" is being used as a substitute for "normal", as in the character does average things that maybe play lightly with gender expectations or be a little stereotypical, but as long as they're not camp they get called "straight gay". Check a character page of a straight gay character, it'll list information about the character's love life but NOT give any explanation about how their personality/interests/appearance make this trope apply to them.
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I would be 100% in favour of renaming this trope to Gay And Not Camp. Because there's nothing "straight" about gay people who aren't camp. Right now the trope is open to a whole lotta abuse because of its awkward name.
I've always been under the impression that "straight" in straight gay just meant a gay guy that would seem heterosexual to people if he wasn't with his boyfriend. I'm kind of a living example of this trope where people won't know I have a thing for other guys unless if I say something. Until then I'm presumed straight. It is pretty confusing though and kind of tilted to making straight the "normal" standard. It should be renamed something else like Solle's Gay And Not Camp, or maybe The Gay Next Door, something that can drive in the point that this trope describes gay men that don't hit *any* stereotypes, Camp Gay or Manly Gay.
"something which many gay people apparently do not understand" Do I even have to say it? This whole paragraph is riddled with stereotypes and mean-spiritedness.
I'm new here, so please don't bite my head off if this has been bought up before, but I find the title quite insulting. The opposite of camp isn't 'straight' (I actually object to that being the antonym of 'gay' as well, but that's a different matter)- the opposite of camp is more along the lines of 'ineffeminate', which I admit doesn't roll off the tongue, but is less likely to cause offense.
You and I have such a cool time, sod the world and laugh for hours, problem pages have the answers, reasons to and reasons not to Hide / Show Replies
Well, from what I can tell "Straight Gay" is in reference to the unstereotypical majority of gay men who are "straight-acting" — that their behavior is indistinguishable from everyone else. I can see how it could potentially be insensitive to term it that way, since I couldn't straight-act for the life of me. I see how "straight" in such a case have be interpreted to mean "heteronormative", and thus have Unfortunate Implications. But it seems that "straight" can also simply mean "common; ordinary". Since the word is broad enough to run either extreme, it's possible that a rename could someday be truly necessary, but I don't know for now. If I had to think of an appropriate new name for this trope, it would be Inconspicuously Gay.
Anyway, non-straight-acting doesn't automatically mean effeminate either — Camp Gay tends to be effeminate, but Hard Gay tends to be very masculine, even macho (but still lights up Gaydar like a Christmas tree). But none of these are supposed to be 100% realistic — Straight Gay, Camp Gay and Hard Gay are more like stereotypical extremes. For instance, I'm somewhere inbetween this triangle of extremes, though I'm probably closest overall to Hard Gay.
Edited by Gilgameshkun
Personally, I would've made an argument for the term "Stealth Gay," rather than "Straight Gay," to describe people whose homosexuality would seldom or never be suspected unless you actually witnessed them French-kissing a member of the same sex, or if they choose to mention "I'm gay".
Of course, there might be the problem that "stealth" would imply closetedness to some people, but some "Stealth Gays" are totally out of the closet. Hmmm, what about "Gaydar-Proof Gay" or "Gaydar-Invisible Gay"?
Edited by ThrobertMcGee
Well, stealth also implies being covert. Not all straight-acting gay people are actually acting, and in fact pretty much none of them are — they're just being themselves, and just happen to be superficially indistinguishable from average straight people.
I heard some complaints about the name of this trope today — people pointing out the Unfortunate Implications of using "straight" to mean "doesn't act like a gay stereotype" — and I was going to add it to the Trope Repair Shop but found myself unable to do that because of the cap, so for now I'll just put my thoughts here.
In addition to the Unfortunate Implications (it's basically saying "straight = normal"), the name Straight Gay is an oxymoron when taken at face value (unless you interpret "straight" as meaning something like "plain" or "vanilla" rather than "heterosexual" — it's a valid alternate meaning but that seems like an unlikely interpretation when the next word is "gay"). This could confuse newcomers.
I'd vote for Inconspicuously Gay in a name change, because it gets rid of the problems with the name Straight Gay while still straightforwardly illustrating that the character's homosexuality is inconspicuous. Stealth Gay sounds like the character's closeted rather than just being unobtrusively yet openly gay, because it sounds similar to the transgender use of "stealth": trans people who live as their chosen gender while hiding the fact that they're trans. Gaydar Invisible Gay just sounds sort of clunky and redundant.
Edited by 69.172.221.2
aayero
Can you really illustrate "not stereotypical" in a static image? I still had to read the article to get the trope, so it clearly does not fully illustrate the trope.
canadamerican
Maybe already discussed, but why is there no Real Life folder for Straight Gay? Lots of examples that don't really fit under Manly Gay.
If work was a good thing, the rich would have it all and not let you do it. - Elmore Leonard Hide / Show Replies
Nevermind!
If work was a good thing, the rich would have it all and not let you do it. - Elmore Leonard
Boxing champion Emile Griffith may count here; he's come out as at least bi. It does bear mentioning that welterweight challenger Benny Paret called Griffith a maricon (faggot) during a weigh-in. Griffith beat him to death in the ring.
Edited by stuthehistoryguy
I think it's quite debatable whether Stephen Fry and Peter Mandelson should be on this list. While neither are overly effeminate they still fall into the more subtle end of the camp spectrum. When Mandelson was outed I don't think anyone was too surprised.
MagBas
- Most of the characters in Bara are Straight Gay, in a Manly Gay sort of way, per Rule of Sexy.
The Bara Genre is a japanese genre. And the Manly Gay is a famous gay stereotype in Japan.
InformationWantsToBeFree
Was Ernst Röhm this or Camp Gay? I'm not really sure.
Edited by Tambov333 Please join these multinational petitions against ACTA. Sign up now. Every voice counts.
Sen
Und das ist auch gut so doesn't actually mean "And that's also good"?
Probably should get working on that essay now... Hide / Show Replies
It means "and that's okay".
Please join these multinational petitions against ACTA. Sign up now. Every voice counts.
"Most of his reputation probably stems from the time in the 80s where a male prostitution ring was operating out of his own house by Frank's then-lover, a male hooker named Steve Gobi. In Frank's defense, he said that he knew nothing of Gobi's activities. "
Obligatory Snark: Yeah, just like how he "knew nothing" of the disgusting financial activities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac...despite one of his lovers being appointed to a pretty high position(An assistant CFO, IIRC) in Freddie Mac while he had direct oversight of both firms...
/end snark
Sorry. Had to get that out of my system.
William Lee in the Naked Lunch movie is neither an Author Avatar (the movie was written by David Cronenberg, though based on the novel by William Burroughs in which "William Lee" is probably closer to a vague Self-Insert) nor a Straight Gay. While his sexuality is actually somewhat ambiguous (he has sex with two women and one man in the movie) his reason for having sex with a man (and the context in which he delivers the quote cited in the entry) is that he is ostensibly using homosexuality as a "cover" for his "secret agent mission". It seems to me that he is, at most, bisexual (the novel, and indeed the real life man, are a different story).
I'm new here so I'm not sure if it's my place to delete the entry or not but it definitely doesn't fit.
Edited by nkerklaan
I'm confused. Why does the trope have female examples? Isn't Lipstick Lesbian for that?
What's the difference between a Straight Gay lesbian and a Lipstick Lesbian?
There seems to be a bit of a dispute over the page image. I don't have a particular problem with the current one, but I see the point that it's really ambiguous. I don't intend to just take it down without question, but to solve the issue of wanting a page image but not one that is potentially Just A Face And A Caption, like a Straight Gay couple? The difficulty in getting across that they're Straight Gay is going to be present, but maybe a picture of Omar and one of his boyfriends from The Wire (like a screencap from this scene - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiW7foqBJLI), or Apollo and Midnighter from The Authority or something? What does everyone else think? (I know those aren't the best examples, but this is just me brainstorming.)
I think the main issue of Just A Face And A Caption is that it assumes that everyone is familiar with the face being shown and won't need any explanation, while there is nothing about the picture to demonstrate the trope. In the case of this page, I think the lack of obvious stereotypically gay aspects of the guy in the current picture, as well as the fact that he is wearing a football uniform, makes the picture sufficient, especially considering that this trope is mostly visual in nature.
No, the current picture IS Just A Face And A Caption. Yes, he looks very non-stereotypically gay, but there's also no hint that he is Straight Gay. For all most people know, he's just some straight guy.
I agree with this. I think Smithers should be put back there, because everyone knows who Smithers is and how gay he is.
Smithers is way better known than whoever this guy is (some guy from Degrassi is the best I can do), but I'm still not convinced that it's the ideal page image. (Mind you, I can't think of much better, either.) Anyone else got any ideas?
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My posts make considerably more sense read in the voice of John Ratzenberger.
Deleted:
- Although technically Ho Yay and not actually gay, Salem and Rios from Army Of Two are either this trope played straight or completely averted, depending on one's point of view.
You are fucking joking right?
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I'd like to see Bobby (AKA Ice Man) in the "Comic Books" section. Definitely a good fit. I know that we can't add EVERY example to any given trope, but Bobby is one of the highest profile characters who fit this trope.