Depraved Homosexual - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Decadent Gay

The Spear Counterpart of the Psycho Lesbian, and the monosexual counterpart to the Depraved Bisexual. Usually a villainous take on the Camp Gay. His motive is usually either his "depraved" sexuality, or an unrequited love, like his Psycho Lesbian sister.

Presumably, his characterization is to make you feel better about when he's inevitably killed off.

Examples:

Anime and Manga

Peacemaker Kurogane has Suzu become this after being raped at the hands of an old man.
Subverted, played around with, and possibly averted in Yu Yu Hakusho. Sensui is gay, and crazy, but he is not disturbed due to his sexuality like other Depraved Homosexual characters- he lost his mind while on a mission to the Black Black Club's villa, seeing human cruelty towards demons. His relationship with his partner Itsuki, knowing about their respective character traits as a Nietzsche Wannabe and a Psycho Supporter, is surprisingly complex and realistic.
- As a matter of fact, one can make the case that Sensui's sexuality is a result of his insanity/seeing that Humans Are Bastards (in order to avoid Moral Dissonance), instead of the cause, making this also an Inverted Trope.
- Karasu practically embodies this trope. He wants to own Kurama, and considers killing him slowly and painfully to be the very best and most intimate way to do so. His depravity and overall creepiness is given more focus than the fact that he's homosexual, though.
Tomo in Fushigi Yuugi.
Inuyasha is pretty much the poster show for this, as literally every openly homosexual character who has appeared has been a depraved sociopath. The only exception is Jakotsu, who started out as a Depraved Homosexual, but became quite more sympathetic as the show went on and we saw his fierce loyalty to his best friend and leader Bankotsu... only to have him dying. To be fair, though, both he and his friend were in a Psycho For Hire group that was wiped away, so Jakotsu's death is NOT linked to his sexuality.
A (sadly) popular fan theory speculates that Rolo Haliburton/Lamperouge, Lelouch's "fake brother" in Code Geass, is a Depraved Homosexual who killed Lelouch's prospect girlfriend, Shirley Fenette solely out of pure jealousy. Mostly used in Die For Our Ship fields, So Yeah.
- A similar and perhaps stronger case could be made concerning V.V., who very canonically and unambigiously killed Marianne entirely out of jealousy and resentment concerning all the attention she was getting from his brother Charles.
Creed from Black Cat, though not stated explicitly, exhibits many overt signs of being an example of this trope. With the way he dresses, the way he obviously has perverted fantasies about Train, and his unreasonable jealousy towards anyone remotely close to Train makes him a very likely example of a Depraved Homosexual.
One of the teachers in the Revolutionary Girl Utena anime is strongly hinted to be a Depraved Homosexual, one who's aiming to have his way with Miki. When his sister Kozue takes note of this things go very badly for the teacher very quickly.
MW looks like it's setting up for this early on with the relationship and backstory between the two lead characters. But it's later subverted when the better part of a chapter is used to deliver an aesop about how the world is becoming more accepting of homosexuality and there's nothing wrong with it, and the villain protagonist's gay relationship comes off as one of his few humanizing characteristics by the end. This is particularly notable as the series was written in 1976.

Comic Books

The Corinthian likes guys. Also, he likes guys' eyes. Whether these two are connected, I am unsure. Either way. He's not particularly camp (more rampantly terrifying) and the only suggestion (outside of the continuation of stories in The Dreaming) that he's homosexual usually center around his choice of victims. (It helps that he takes a distinct relish in despoiling innocence that implies eye-taking is at least as good as sex for him.)

Film

The movie Cruising, starring Al Pacino, is about a cop chasing a gay serial killer through the New York City Leatherman community, circa 1980. It's implied that being around S&M turns Pacino gay, and possibly murderous as well.
Almost all male child molesters in any media are shown to be homosexuals who molest boys. This even though most child molesters in Real Life are heterosexuals in adult relationships with women, and the fact that the majority of child molestation victims (possibly as high as 35 to 1, according to some police statistics) are girls.
All of the rapists in Prison Rape sequences. Unless they are portrayed as straight but seeking dominance through rape, like the guys in The Shawshank Redemption. As Morgan Freeman says, they're not homosexuals because they aren't even really human. And Morgan Freeman knows everything.
Andy Warhol was portrayed in this manner (by Guy Pierce!) in the 2006 movie Factory Girl. So much so that one reviewer referred to the character as "Andy Warhol, or, as this film wants you to know him, Darth Warhol."
The 1961 short film Boys Beware, produced by Sid Davis. It was intended to be shown in high schools to warn teenage boys about the dangers of gay men. This film has become famous on the internet for lines such as "What Jimmy didn't know was that Ralph was sick. A sickness that was not visible like smallpox, but no less dangerous and contagious — a sickness of the mind. You see, Ralph was a homosexual." Another fun element: the violent contrast between the hysterical condemnation of homosexuality and the unconditional endorsement it gives the practice of hitchhiking.
- Even more dissonant is that the way Ralph acts (very touchy) is not the problem even though today someone who gave young boys a ride and pats on the back would certainly be assumed gay or at least creepy instantly.
The X-Files: I Want to Believe is guilty of this, with Callum Keith Rennie's serial killer kidnapping young women to build his boyfriend a girl-body.
- One has to hope that said boyfriend is actually a Transsexual and that said serial killer is actually bisexual because otherwise, well. Slight ''problems'' might arise in the relationship.
  - Add that to the plot of the evil psychic gay pedophile priest in the movie and The X-Files movie probably should have been called "X-Files: I Want To Believe Gay People Are Evil".
  - At least the pedophile priest seems to be genuinely repentant of his crimes.
Parodied and subverted in Cecil B. Demented, where sadistic hairdresser Rodney takes his frustration over being heterosexual out on other people by abusing them physically.
Todd from Wedding Crashers.
Just about any film of the Easter story portrays King Herod thus.
- As a matter of fact, all records that mention his sexuality present Herod as a raging heterosexual hedonist with several wives and concubines, with the idea of him being gay a slander started by his enemies.
Irreversible has a whole club full of these, one of which is a nasty piece of work called le Tenia, 'the Tapeworm'. Despite his orientation, he's the one who rapes and beats Monica Bellucci's character, Alex.

Literature

Deconstructed in Armistead Maupin's novel Maybe the Moon (set in 1990), in which a Straight Gay actor plays a cop chasing a Stereotype Gay killer in a movie. His boyfriend is pissed.
The killer in the Ellery Queen novel The Last Woman in His Life.
Dyan Ardais in the Darkover series, although he eventually redeems himself somewhat.
Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in Dune. It's very clear that his nephew Feyd-Rautha, the Kwisatz-Haderach-that-might-have-been, is redeemable — he may rape slaves, but he only rapes girl slaves. Uncle Vladimir is utterly depraved — we can tell, because he fucks boys.
- And, to make sure it's doubly obvious he's evil, he specifically likes to rape boys that look like the main character. And he's enormously fat. And he's Russian. Well, Russian first name and (cod-?)Finnish last name, but close enough.
  - Baron Harkonnen's last name is supposed to be Finnish? This Finnish troper wouldn't have guessed in million years. Now, if it was Härkönen...
  - And in 1965, when the first book was published, being a homosexual Russian pedophile was a big deal (all other considerations aside, this was during the height of the Cold War; being a Russian—or at least having a Russian name—was a no-no). And David Lynch goes even further with his 1984 film adaptation, portraying the Baron as diseased—covered with grotesque boils, presumably suffering from some manner of pox (although most of the inhabitants of Geidi Prime in Lynch's adaptation appear to be either diseased or malformed, or both)—and quite mad...even though the book itself implies neither.
Djuna Barnes' Rule Abiding Rebel book Nightwood portrays all gay men as being like this. The woman are Psycho Lesbians.
Male example: a monk named Ambrose, in Candace Robb's medieval mystery The Apothecary Rose. (The next book, however, contains a totally sympathetic character (Martin Werther) who is gay. Secretly, of course.)
James Ellroy's The Big Nowhere is chock-full of these. One uses the gay escort service he runs to out and blackmail his clients; another, a closeted actor, sexually abuses his own son; and the son himself goes on to become a serial killer. The only sympathetic gay men in the entire book, Danny Upshaw, kills himself to avoid being outed.
Lord Fujiwara from Tales Of The Otori. His homosexuality is portrayed as being coincidental to his depravity, however.
Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead received some criticism for this as several of the main villains are gay.

Live Action TV

24 has a quite baffling scene late in season seven with Leland Orser playing his usual slimy villain role, who is briefly seen in bed with a man for literally no reason at all.
Averted in Allo Allo, where the gay and bisexual German officers tend to be the most genial and harmless of the lot.

Tabletop Games

Slaanesh worshipers in the Warhammer40000 / Warhammer universes are often depicted this way. Of course, they have moved beyond homosexuality and will hump Anything That Moves once just to see what it is like. However, in what may or may not be an example of Unfortunate Implications, Slaanesh worshipers are the only characters in the Warhammer continuities who ever even hint at being gay. Creating an impression that ALL homosexuals end up as drug-addled false-idol-fondling heathen devil-pagans having wild drug-fueled orgies with men, women, beasts, aliens, mutants, demons and whatever else has a conveniently sized hole in it.
- You obviously haven't read enough Slash Fic... wait, nevermind.
- That's why we have Ciaphas Cain, who has a number of gay characters none are evil
  - However, Ciaphas Cain is a work of parody so it is questionable if the books can be considered hard Canon.

Theater

Some critics believe that Iago is one of these in the Shakespeare play Othello, driven to destroy Othello because of his unrequited homosexual love for the Moorish general...so yeah.

Video Games

A minor but highly-determined villain, the jailer Mohosa casts lecherous glances and none-too-vague innuendo at the boy-faced heroes of Vandal Hearts 2. This is only after he shows his true colors, some time after you find out he has the catatonic prince-apparent locked in his private quarters.
Lieutenant Yaha, the guardian of the District of Precious Light in Drakengard 2. He made a pact with the gnomes, giving him the ability to beguile and charm anyone who looked him in the eyes, but the price he paid was that he lost the ability to feel pleasure. He makes very "interesting" comments during his boss battle, and it's heavily implied that he had a romantic relationship with one of your allies, Urick.
Quite possibly Sander Cohen in Bioshock, if the sneering remarks in some of the audio diaries are to be believed.
Done tragically with Abul Nuquod in Assassins Creed. His sexuality does drive him to mass-murder and joining conspiracy to take over the Holy Land, but specifically because the culture he lives in and Islam in general calls him an "abomination" and causes him to be the object of shame and scorn despite his generosity and lavish parties.
What little we learn about Major Raikov in Metal Gear Solid 3 is that he's gay and beats up his men for fun. He gets a little more characterisation in Portable Ops, but not much. (Oddly, he's become a kind of Ensemble Darkhorse, and his relationship with Colonel Volgin is kind of sweet.)

Webcomics

The waiter who harasses Hunter in Suicide For Hire. Hunter does make it clear that he understands most gay people are not like this ("I don't hate you for what you are, I hate you for who you are"), and the Unfortunate Implications are probably reduced by the fact that a lot of the straight characters, including Hunter himself, are either equally depraved or utterly stupid, so gay people couldn't really expect to be portrayed any differently.
- This gay Troper agrees—and it's even pointed out that a girl acting the same way would have grosses/freaked out Hunter the same way. And knowing him, this was likely totally true.
  - Very likely, though going by his behaviour elsewhere he wouldn't have beaten the shit out of a woman who talked to him that way.
The main character's evil gay twin Naitsirhc from Sonichu, he seems to be evil precisely because he is gay and the hero is repulsed and unnerved by his very presence. To say that the creator has issues is a massive understatement.

Western Animation

Mirage from Transformers Energon, who is madly in love with Big Bad Galvatron. As tfwiki.net so subtly puts it: "He transforms from a boat into a ferry.''
- This is possible a subversion, as while Mirage is technically on the bad guy side he's part of the Quirky Miniboss Squad and isn't all that depraved or intimidating.
Mr Garrison from South Park. His teaching methods include inserting a gerbil into his lover's rectum in front of a class of 4th graders (with some vaguely physics-related pretext, that people who have taken physics will point out is wrong), and showing a kindergarten class how to apply a condom using his mouth. Not villainous, but certainly depraved.
- Possibly subverted, as there are many more non-depraved homosexuals. As Chef tells the boys after the Lemmiwinks incident, " There's gay people, then there's Mr. Garrison."

Web Animation

It is strongly implied that Benjamin Palmer of Broken Saints has a thing for little boys. Word Of God practically confirms it.

Real Life

Quite a few infamous serial killers, such as Jeffery Dahmer, were found to be either gay or having an extremely warped view of sexuality.
- Thanks for ruining it for everybody else, Dahmer et al.

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