I was at a convention panel in May about queerbaiting and I asked "how do you tell the difference between slow-burn and queerbaiting?". The answer we agreed on? You don't.
Ain't that the truth. I think in order for genuine slow burn not to read as queerbaiting, you'd have to have had decades of normalization of queer relationships onscreen. The only reason I trust She-Ra and the Princesses of Power to not be queerbait is because I've read Noelle Stevenson's other work – specifically Nimona, where the supervillain and the golden hero are exes who get back together in the end of the comic. But it's a very shaky sort of trust, now that she's working with a big studio instead of on her own personal webcomic, no matter how queer-friendly the show seems otherwise!
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 11:01 pm (UTC)Ain't that the truth. I think in order for genuine slow burn not to read as queerbaiting, you'd have to have had decades of normalization of queer relationships onscreen. The only reason I trust She-Ra and the Princesses of Power to not be queerbait is because I've read Noelle Stevenson's other work – specifically Nimona, where the supervillain and the golden hero are exes who get back together in the end of the comic. But it's a very shaky sort of trust, now that she's working with a big studio instead of on her own personal webcomic, no matter how queer-friendly the show seems otherwise!