Alexander "Alex" Avila
is a bisexual YouTuber. He specializes in examining queer media, the history of queer representation, and videos analyzing queer bait relationships in media. The majority of his videos are the series "Are They Gay?", where he examines the dynamic between two characters and tries to open a discussion on if they are gay by looking through them as characters, how they interact with each other, and the creator's intention. Though more recently he has gotten into making more analytical style video essays.
He also has his own SoundCloud with original music. His channel used to be called AreTheyGay. However, Alex announced via his Patreon on August 15, that along with considering changing the name of the channel, he is discontinuing the "Are They Gay?" series. Alex confirmed that he was going to change the name of the channel in his "The End of AreTheyGay..." video.
On June 1st, 2023, Alex came out as a transgender man in a video titled "I was a transgender child."
AreTheyGay provides examples of:
- Ambiguously Bi: Alex finds that a lot of the characters he examines are purposely hinted as being bisexual but left vague enough to make it ambiguous whether they actually are or not. The most notable is his video on Bucky Barnes in his video on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, where he brings up the fact that Bucky was seeing tiger photos while online dating was clearly there as a nod to the fact that a lot of fans interpret Bucky as bisexual but is not given any follow up on the show to confirm the theory one way or another.
- April Fools' Day: He's done a couple of April Fool's videos. He did a joke video on the famous gay film Brokeback Mountain with him joking how subtle the "subtext" is. He did a follow up video on Dean and Castiel from Supernatural which consisted of him reading a fanfic. His video on Perry the Platypus and Heinz Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb was a parody of ASMR videos rather than an actual video analyzing the ship between the two.
- Bait-and-Switch Lesbians: Discussed in his Our Flag Means Death video, "The End of Rainbow Capitalism". Alex finds that fictional works will often directly hint at the potential for a queer relationship between two male characters, only to not follow through on it. However, he points out that this happens less often with regard to women as he finds people are far more willing to actually follow through with lesbian relationships.
- Coming-Out Story: Alex often says that he finds the trope of a character having trouble coming out to be overdone and often feels disingenuous. Multiple videos have him bring up how he dislikes it and prefers stories where the characters are just gay and have other problems that come with being openly gay or just life in general.
- Depraved Homosexual: Discussed in his "How Comedies are Changing LGBTQ+ Representation'' video. Alex notes how a lot of 20th century films would imply a character is gay in order to play said character as predatory or creepy.
- Early Instalment Weirdness: His early videos have a lot of things that he clearly abandoned. They were often a lot shorter and far less analytical, being mostly just a bunch of jokes with very little evidence. He was also credited as "Alexander Charles" due to his crush on Charles Xavier from X-Men: First Class. His voice was also heavily filtered in his early videos.
- Fan-Preferred Couple: Discussed. A lot of his videos are about non canon ships which directly compete with a Official Couple. This often leads to him discussing how these non canon ships often overshadow the creator preferred ones due to either better chemistry, more fleshed out dynamics, or the canon love interests simply not leaving much of an impact.
- Foe Yay Shipping: Some of his videos explore the potential gay relationship between two characters who are either enemies or at the least on opposing sides at some point. He's done videos on Charles and Erik from the X-Men Film Series, Will and Hannibal from Hannibal, Adora and Catra from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, and Harry and Draco from Harry Potter.
- Hopeless Suitor: A running gag in his videos as far back as some of his early ones is his crush on James McAvoy and how he has absolutely no chance with him. It's even referenced in videos that have nothing to do with McAvoy.
- Last-Minute Hookup: Discussed in his "Last Minute Gays" videos. He discusses how a lot of canon queer relationships are only allowed to get together at the end of a series. Among the many examples are Korra and Asami from The Legend of Korra and Marceline and Princess Bubblegum from Adventure Time.
- Queer People Are Funny: Discussed in his "How Comidies are Changing LGBTQ+ Representation'' video. Alex brings up how in the 1920s a lot of queercoded characters, particularly males, were used mostly for Plucky Comic Relief, something he notes still happens to this day, but not to the same degree. He goes on to say that he feels like it's quite offensive due to it simply turning the act of being gay into a joke.
- Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Marvel Comics and Harry Potter ships make a good number of Alex's videos. Marvel has four and Harry Potter has three. Marvel has Charles/Erik from X-Men Film Series, Steve/Bucky from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man/Deadpool from the comics, and Sam/Bucky from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Harry Potter has Albus/Scorpius, Remus/Serius, and Draco/Harry. Notably they are both the only franchises with more than one video.
- Strangled by the Red String: Alex finds that canon relationships are often forced. He feels that Steve and Sharon from Captain America: Civil War to be this in particular due to how little they interact before they actually kiss.
- Word of Gay: Referenced a couple of times. In the videos for Marceline/Bubblegum from Adventure Time and Aziraphale/Crowley from Good Omens (2019) for example, it's brought up that their actors Olivia Olson (Marceline) and Michael Sheen (Aziraphale) have said that their characters were either LGBT or they interpreted the characters as such.
