On Harry Styles, Cultural Appropriation, and Queerbaiting, Ryan Field Books

On Harry Styles, Cultural Appropriation, and Queerbaiting

It’s hard to tell with Harry Styles because he claims he “doesn’t want labels.” I assume he’s talking about those labels that the rest of us wear with Pride. Labels like gay and lesbian. Yes, indeed, I’m proud of being gay and I don’t care what anyone thinks, especially Harry Styles. So that old comment about not wanting labels just doesn’t work anymore. Saying you don’t want labels carries a certain amount of shame with it. And that shame is what gay men and all LGBTQIA people have been fighting against all these years. Just look at the word queer and how it’s evolved.

With that said, Harry Styles, whom I would imagine is straight…at least until he comes out as something different…is now playing gayface in a new movie, and he’s doing a certain amount of queerbaiting. You may enjoy that, and you may say “it’s only acting,” but it’s still wrong. It’s called cultural appropriation and Styles seems to be taking full advantage of it. If he is gay and he’s not coming out, I don’t even want to get into what I think about that.

So I’m linking to an article about Harry Styles and queerbaiting. It’s really not a very strong article but I think it gives examples of queerbaiting.

But that very same sexual and romantic ambiguity has thrown Don’t Worry, Darling — Styles’ new movie — into the center of a social media controversy in which he has been accused of “queerbaiting,” or capitalizing on pieces of the queer identity without actually identifying as queer.

Here’s more. Styles also states that he’s not even going to address any of the accusations about queerbaiting. Well, that’s just what they all do. They ignore us as though we don’t even have voices, in all their straight privilege. And we let them get away with it.

Fortunately, there is now a handle on Twitter that’s fighting against gayface. It’s actually @stopgayface and it goes after actors like Timothee Chalamet who play gay for pay without giving it a second thought.

This is how their bio reads on Twitter and here’s a link in case you want to follow them.

Gayface media is a hate crime against queer people everywhere. It’s time to stop letting straight people “play gay” & further hateful stereotypes #stopgayface

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