On Kit Connor, Queerbaiting, And Coming Out – BuzzFeed News
Connor, the actor who plays Nick, was not so lucky.
On Monday night, the 18-year-old actor came out as bisexual in a terse and angry tweet. “Back for a minute,” Connor wrote in his first post on the platform in seven weeks. “I’m bi. Congrats for forcing an 18-year-old to out himself. I think some of you missed the point of the show. Bye.”
Connor had abandoned the social media platform in September after he was spotted in Paris holding hands with Maia Reficco, his costar in the upcoming adaptation of YA novel A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow. After starring in a show about two boys falling in love, and then attending Pride events with his costars, some Twitter users accused Connor of queerbaiting or “projecting himself in a queer way.” Some even demanded he leave Heartstopper altogether.
Since Heartstopper dropped on Netflix in April, Connor has complained that he and costar Locke had been under pressure to publicly discuss their sexuality. “We’re still all so young,” Connor told the Reign With Josh Smith podcast in May, adding that he felt uncomfortable with people “speculating about our sexualities and maybe pressuring us to come out when maybe we’re not ready.”
In that same interview, Connor revealed he’d been troubled by fans trying to guess his sexuality based on things like his voice or appearance. He said he also struggled to ignore the few mean comments he was seeing online.
“For me, I just feel perfectly confident and comfortable with my sexuality,” Connor said. “But I don’t feel the need to really, you know — I’m not too big on labels and things like that. I’m not massive about that. I don’t feel like I need to label myself, especially not publicly.”
Connor’s forced coming-out has sparked yet another conversation about queerbaiting and actors’ authenticity.
First, it apparently needs to be said that actors are actors and characters are characters.
Yes, some people in the LGBTQ community have said that gay characters should be played exclusively by gay actors, but this has stemmed from a desire to level the playing field for LGBTQ performers. (And to reduce the number of roles being played by James Corden…OK, I’m kidding, but maybe not.) Even Russell T. Davies, the creator of gay dramas Queer as Folk and It’s a Sin, who has declared “war” on straight actors in queer roles, has said the issue is one of equity, not authenticity. “It is not a fair playing field,” Davies told the New York Times last year. “The equality notion is based on 50 percent this way, 50 percent that way. But 90 percent of actors are straight and 10 percent of parts are gay.”
Entertainment creators should find more equitable opportunities for LGBTQ performers given that, according to LGBTQ media monitoring group GLAAD, 88.1% of TV roles are heterosexual characters. Entertainment consumers also need to do better in accepting these performers in straight roles.
But an audience pressuring a young actor to out himself in order to remain on an LGBTQ show is not progress, nor is it equity. These stars deserve a private life as much as anyone else, especially if they are young. They can come out at 15 or 50. They can never come out at all. It is, quite literally, none of our business — all the more so if they have already indicated in interviews that they have no desire to do so publicly.