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"Basically, Homer just had a lot of fun hanging out with gay men, and drinking in bars, and dancing at discos, and all that, and there was nothing — there was no commentary there. Every restaurant had a silly gay name. The gym had a silly gay name. They were all double entendres, obviously. And I said, 'Anybody could do this. You're the fucking Simpsons. Do something we have never seen before'."
Harvey Fierstein on declining to reprise his role in The Simpsons

There is a tendency for works, particularly older works and works aimed at young men, to treat same-sex relationships as being inherently funny. Obviously, gay people and gay relationships can be funny for lots of reasons connected to their actions. This trope only applies when the fact that it is gay is the whole punchline. Litmus test — if it were heterosexual, would it be funny? If not, it's this trope.

This is loaded with Unfortunate Implications in many cases, with the idea of homosexuality being Squicky and freakish — but there's no shortage of queer and queer-friendly creators who do it while being in on the joke. In many cases in history, making it into a punchline was the only way to sneak LGBT subtext past the Moral Guardians. For some creators, experimenting with homoerotic humour is a necessary way of coming to terms with their own sexuality.

Subtropes include Gay Bravado. Begets the humorous parts in Ambiguously Gay, Mistaken for Gay, Ho Yay and often Foe Romance Subtext. Rape as Comedy often overlaps, especially in cases of Prison Rape jokes. Contrast with Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?, which could be considered both an Inversion and Subversion.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • In Angel Beats!, there is a running joke about Hinata saying something questionable and Otonashi asking him if he's gay. And Naoi's... rather extreme admiration of Otonashi after his episode also gets played for laughs a lot.
  • In Mayo Chiki!, when Kinjiro refuses to be touched by a girl, because he has gynophobia with embarrassing physical symptoms, his male friend loudly questions him if he is gay, much to Kinjiro's embarrassment.
  • In Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Sakurazaki Setsuna is a bodyguard of sorts who is constantly teased for her overprotective attitude and attraction to her charge, Konoka. It has become a Running Gag for misinterpretations of situations the two get into... and even some correct interpretations.
    • That said, much of the humor surrounding Konoka and Setsuna's relationship comes less from the mere fact that they are implied to have feelings for each other, and more from their interactions. On Setsuna's side, the humor tends to come from how obvious (if not explicit) her attraction to Konoka is, in spite of her staunch denial. On Konoka's side, her openly affectionate attitude towards Setsuna is generally made funny by Setsuna's embarrassment in response to it, as well as the ambiguity over whether she is aware of Setsuna's feelings and enjoys teasing her, or is just staggeringly Oblivious to Love.
  • One-Punch Man has Puri-Puri Prisoner, who's something of a contradiction. On the one hand he's the source of a lot of gay jokes since he's a campy, muscular man who tends to fight in the buff and poses like Sailor Moon and spends all his time in prison because he can't stop himself from assaulting handsome men, but on the other he's a legitimate hero who cares about protecting the innocent, has no ulterior motives, and got disheartened when the media labeled him a joke after he was defeated by an incredibly powerful monster. Unfortunately as the story progresses the "look at the funny gay man" aspect tends to get more focus than the "honest hero who happens to be gay" aspect.
  • Sgt. Frog: Watching a TV show in S1E7. It is a parody of several anime. When the hero "explodes with the power of love" to save his girlfriend, Keroro remarks offside "Interesting how his love for his GIRLFRIEND causes him to explode in a flaming rainbow..."

    Comic Strips 

    Fan Works 

    Films — Live-Action 
  • The entire premise of Boat Trip boils down to: "Two straight men get trapped on a boat full of Camp Gay men; isn't that hilarious?!"
  • The titular Deadpool in Deadpool (2016) and its sequel is pansexual, with his relationship to Vanessa being treated serious but showing him happily molesting other guys for comedy.
  • In Death at a Funeral, the main characters' discovery that their father had a dwarf gay lover sparks a plotline revolving around blackmail, but the apparent absurdity of it is also milked for laughter.
  • The 1960s comedy The Gay Deceivers seems to consist entirely of this kind of "comedy". It hasn't aged terribly well.
  • In Inception, Eames turning into a woman and flirting with a teammate for comedic effect.
  • I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, which tries the task of being pro gay rights and one big gay joke at the same time
  • There are several gags revolving around Hollywood, an openly gay character in both Mannequin and its sequel, most of them from his flamboyancy (because, of course, all gay men are very flamboyant in these sorts of movies).
  • Myra Breckinridge centers around a transgender woman, and has plenty of gay jokes. Openly lesbian reviewer Diamanda Hagan was enraged to discover through the director commentary that his approach was basically "A man in a dress is fucking hilarious!"
  • In Plan B, Bruno initially treats his plan to pretend to be into his ex-girlfriend's new bisexual boyfriend Pablo to sabotage their relationship as a humorous prank, with one scene showing him and his friend Victor laughing uproariously over the absurd idea of a macho man like him checking out another man's dick. The film as a whole is a subversion of this trope, however, as Bruno's gradual realization that his faked interest in Pablo has become something very real and that his "humorous" plan is inevitably going to result in heartbreak for both him and Pablo is treated completely seriously.
  • The Producers—a musical comedy—has a song entitled "keep it gay".
  • Lamar, one of the protagonists in Revenge of the Nerds, is treated as being inherently funny because he's gay; some gags used include his being seen doing aerobics in feminine spandex and leg warmers, and his general disinterest in watching the sorority girls after the group plants cameras in their house. His whole personality revolves solely around his sexual orientation and his race. When the Tri-Lamb commission arrives to the nerds' party and Lewis puts on a record of Old Man River, Lamar was quick to act.

    Live-Action TV 
  • The 1980s Britcom 'Allo 'Allo! has far too many jokes about Lieutenant Gruber's homosexuality even to be justified by the inherent irony of a gay Wehrmacht soldier. There are several moments where him simply hitting on René immediately prompts the Laugh Track, while flirting between straight characters usually only triggers the laughter when something funny happens.
  • Arrested Development, especially with the character Tobias, who says things that suggest he may be Ambiguously Gay, though he doesn't realize it.
  • Mr Humphries from Are You Being Served? was a Camp Gay Played for Laughs.
  • Boy Meets World does this a lot. Homosexuality is shown as being weird and hilarious so often, it's hard to wonder if the show would work fifteen years after it aired.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
    • Mostly Andrew. The humour there may have revolved more around the Transparent Closet he was stuck in than anything else, but only if you're reaching for an excuse.
    • The Season 7 episode "Potential" supplied a particularly wonderful example with the introduction of openly gay potential slayer Kennedy, during a conversation with fellow potential, Rona, about using a wooden stake to fight Vampires.
      Rona: I like the feel of wood in my hand.
      Kennedy: Lost me there.
  • These make up the majority of the jokes between Raj and Howard on The Big Bang Theory, more specifically the jokes around them acting like a couple. Also notable in that these jokes are also made about two women, Amy and Penny. There's also the occasional joke at the expense of Leonard and Sheldon’s neighbour before Penny, a large, black, cross-dressing man.
    • During a video call to his parents, Raj watches as they begin to fight about his future and his mother says "The closest thing we have to a daughter-in-law is that little Jewish boy!"
  • Brazilian group Casseta e Planeta loved to mock gays, which they justified with "it's a man who's not a man" and that one of their own was homosexual.
  • The Colbert Report, although the humour mostly comes from the contrast between "Stephen's" Transparent Closet and his ultra-conservatism.
  • Parodied on Community. Pierce is something of a Troubled Sympathetic Bigot, and he thinks gay jokes are hilarious. Not so much the rest of the group, who call him out on it constantly. Pierce especially likes making gay jokes about Jeff, who's very much a ladies' man.
  • One of The Daily Show's most popular examples of Corpsing happened due to a long run of gay jokes in response to allegations that Prince Charles had had a gay affair.
  • Brits old enough to remember The Dick Emery Show will recall that one of Dick's many faces was a Camp Gay and that he never really got any punchlines; it was just meant to be funny because he was a "poof".
  • Friends has a lot of gay jokes, especially around Ross' ex-wife, Chandler's father and Chandler himself. It's so egregious that a YouTube compilation of the show's gay jokes is almost an hour long.
  • Game of Thrones: Most of Westeros frown upon Dorne's openly tolerant attitude towards non-heterosexual relations, as demonstrated in "Two Swords" by Bronn's and the two Lannister soldiers' offensive joke about Dornishmen fucking goats, and Tyrion mentions Oberyn's notorious reputation for having sex with half of the continent.
  • The George Lopez Show has at least three examples. One is an episode where Ernie lies about being Max's father in order to appeal to women as a single dad and George says some Ho Yay things when he catches him in the act. Another is an episode where George is putting out a newspaper advertisement asking for information about his dad and when Ernie gets done with helping him shorten it, it sounds like an ad asking for a Latino male dating partner. There's also an episode where Carmen is pretending to be dating a guy named Noah who turns out to be gay. When George finds out, he says to Carmen, "Your boyfriend's in the closet" and this is meant to be funny because her actual boyfriend is also literally in the closet in her bedroom as he's telling her this.
  • Occasionally in House, especially with House and Wilson, and with references to Chase.
  • How I Met Your Mother, particularly the episode where Marshall and Barney are prank texting Ted.
    • Barney and Ted also spend an episode wishing they were gay, and then 'adopt' a child together. While played for laughs, it's also pretty heartwarming.
    • Mostly averted with Barney's Straight Gay brother. His sexuality itself isn't really played for laughs, but rather the fact he's black when Barney's white, and the fact he was originally just like Barney if he was attracted to men (and uses the same over-the-top tricks to lure men into bed that Barney uses on women).
    • There's also the incident during the road trip from hell, where Ted and Marshall had to "cuddle" to conserve warmth in their car during a blizzard. Ruthlessly joked upon by the other 3 members.
    • Lily being Ambiguously Bi is also usually played for laughs, particularly when it comes to her implied attraction to Robin.
  • The The IT Crowd episode "Work Outing" goes all out on this, when the team go to see a musical literally called "GAY!" which is full of outrageous camp stereotypes, such as a song about loving willies. Roy even ends up trapped on a bus full of leather-wearing, handlebar-moustached men, one of whom starts hitting on him.
  • The original Monty Python's Flying Circus series did this on a regular basis. Examples include the "Brigadier and Bishop" sketch and Mr. Freight (a.k.a. Great Poof) in "the Visitors" sketch.
  • Many of the gags involving Kenny James on My Name Is Earl fall into this category.
  • Usually averted in The Orville, where Bortus and Klyden's relationship is almost always treated seriously. On the other hand, much of the humor in the episode "Cupid's Dagger" stems from Ed being turned bisexual by pheromones.
  • Porridge occasionally does this with Lukewarm. For example, when Fletcher composed letters to a number of prisoners' wives, he handed them back to the men, "To Mary, my Dear Sharon, (handing letter to Lukewarm) My darling Trevor..."-> Huge audience laugh. Later in the same episode, the wives are seen on the bus comparing their suspiciously identical letters and there is another huge laugh when the camera shows a man reading another such letter.
  • QI is fond of this trope to the point where you'll be hard pressed to find any episode where there isn't a gay joke made at the expense of (or by) Stephen Fry.
  • In the short lived scifi comedy Quark, Chief Engineer Gene/Jean is a "transmute", with both male and female chromosomes. Pretty much all the gags involving his character are queer/transgender jokes.
  • Turk and JD in the last seasons of Scrubs. Even in season one this trope was fully in effect: among other things, JD pictures the Fat Albert gang doing a "Hi-oh!" after he and Turk exchange Accidental Innuendo about an appendectomy ("I want you inside me"/"Well, I want to be the one inside you") and engage in an extended West Side Story reference in which they take on the roles of Tony and Maria and parody "Tonight".
  • Seinfeld had an episode where Jerry and Costanza are Mistaken for Gay by a female reporter and Jerry says, "We're not gay! Not That There's Anything Wrong with That!" This situation was reused and played for laughs each time.
  • In the Pilot Episode of Smallville, the following exchange occurs:
    Lana: Mom wants to know if you're upset about a girl.
    Clark: No...
    Lana: Dad wants to know if you're upset about a guy.
    Clark: No! No.
    Lana: He has a twisted sense of humor.
  • Spin City, where Carter's boyfriend hits on Mike. Had he been a girl, it would have been Played for Drama. As is, it's a comedy piece.
  • Lampshaded in That '70s Show. When Red has a problem with his new neighbors being a gay couple, Kitty points out that he didn't have a problem with The Three Stooges doing it. Red justifies it by saying that it's okay because it was funny.
  • A more classical example would be the gay jokes on Torchwood: Miracle Day, especially in the second episode where a flight attendant is badgered about his sexuality until he cracks.
    • A disproportionate amount of Rex's funny lines involve him making gay jokes about (and generally being rather uncomfortable around) Captain Jack.
  • Two and a Half Men has two cases:
    • Charlie's fiancée Chelsie's father, a virulently homophobic man’s man, comes out of the closet, divorces his racist wife, and marries the black man he’s been in love with since he was a young man in the army; subsequent appearances have them behaving like a normal married couple with some amusing banter, and the occasional Right Through the Wall.
    • Then Evelyn hooked up with the mother of Alan's girlfriend. Cue gay jokes and the children lying about their relationship to their own children, all played for laughs.
    • Partially averting the Unfortunate Implications, the humour in the first situation derived from the irony of the epitome of Real Men Love Jesus who, according to his wife, is ‘always on the watch for the gay agenda’, come out of the closet, and the aforementioned banter; the awkwardness of having one’s own mother and one’s girlfriend’s dating, causing an off-putting (or, in Alan’s case, possibly arousing) case of Not Blood Siblings; and the general awkwardness of Parental Sexuality Squick in general.
    • Aside from these cases, the series also features two transgender Girl of the Week characters: an ex of Charlie’s who becomes a new boyfriend of Evelyn’s in season 1, and a trans woman Alan dates briefly in season 11. Both of them are the subject of some jokes that fit this trope in a fairly non-offensive way, but their treatment is very positive in general.
  • In Ugly Betty, the Camp Gay Marc St. James is almost always the funniest character around, though not all the humor comes from him being gay (the creator of the show, Silvio Horta, was also openly gay).
  • Xena: Warrior Princess generally avoids this trope, but one notable example of it comes from the season four episode "The Play's the Thing" where the following conversation was played for, and received, big laughs:
    Minya: Gabrielle, I wanted to thank you! I never would have met Pollina if it wasn't for you! In fact, the two of you made me realize something deep down about myself that I guess I always knew, but just didn't dare admit. Yes. I'm a thespian!
    Xena: Oh. Hah. Congratulations. You managed to touch someone.
    Gabrielle: That's not exactly what I had in mind. I wanted to change violent people into people of peace, not actors. That is what she said, right? Deep down, she's a thespian? Yeah, um, that's what she said. Yeah.
    Xena: Why? What'd you think?
    Gabrielle: Thespian.
    • Xena being kissed by Miss Artephis (who was actually a transvestite/man in drag) after the latter's victory in the Miss Known World beauty pageant counts as this, but only if you're operating under Trans Equals Gay.
    • Joxer's triplet brother Jace is the definition of ancient Greek Camp Gay, and only appeared in the second (you guessed it) Musical Episode. Jace's terrible (even by in universe standards) Spanish accent, and incredible Camp stylings would make a young Elton John cringe, and gave a few cheap (and oddly glittery) laughs to the audience of "Lyre, Lyre Hearts on Fire".

    Music 
  • Big Bad Bosses has a song called "Capture You", sung (in-universe) by Ganondorf. It's a Played for Laughs song about him wanting to bang Link.
  • "This Guy's In Love With You, Pare (Buddy)" is a song by the Filipino band Parokya ni Edgar (Edgar's Parish). The song is a about a guy discovering his best friend is gay (and is hitting on him); mostly played for laughs. You can listen to the song with English subtitles (and used as a Naruto parody) here.
  • Lampshaded by Sammy J and Randy in their song "Swiss Lovers in a Past Life". The song is about both Sammy J and Randy having memories of falling in love in a rural Swedish town and realizing that they were, uh, Swiss lovers in a past life. Then one mentions climbing a window and making love, and the other says that wasn't his window — and he realizes that's why he thought he recognized a man in the crowd earlier. But then they start wondering whether they're exploiting homophobia for cheap laughs:
    Randy: Is this homophobic?
    Sammy: 'Cause it's making fun of gay men?
    Randy: D'you think so?
    Sammy: I have no idea.
    Randy: There's a certain implication homosexual fornication is more worthy of laughs.
    Sammy: They were laughing!
    Randy: That's no excuse, it's 2015!
  • A not infrequent joke in Eminem's music, at least early on. In particular, he has a gay character, Ken Kaniff, who originated as a Prank Call character, and has one Crosses the Line Twice Fan Disservice sequence in which he has sex with Insane Clown Posse, but (starting from The Eminem Show) just sings Depraved Homosexual-themed song parodies of Eminem's comedy singles.
    Guess who's back. Back again. Keniff's back. Tell some men.
  • Tyler, the Creator used this copiously on his early shock-rap material. After a few years of this, he came out as bisexual.

    Pro Wrestling 
  • John Cena would regularly make jokes at the expense of Michael Cole. The punchline to all of them are basically, "ur gay. Hur-hur-hur."
  • Ten years earlier, Triple H making fun of Kurt Angle the same way, and the entire schtick of Billy and Chuck.

    Radio 
  • The old radio comedy show Round the Horne, broadcast in a time before homosexuality was fully legalized in Britain, introduced two outrageously out gay characters called Julian and Sandy, played by Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams. It could be argued that Julian and Sandy, who were loved for their sheer camp outrageousness, helped pave the way in the middle 1960's for fuller acceptance of homosexuality that led to legal reform later in the decade. They were seen, ultimately, as two sweet inoffensive guys rather than slavering perverted monsters.

    It's widely claimed that, in the 1960s, only the more cosmopolitan set would realize exactly what was being implied about Jules and Sandy — to the less sophisticated, it just sounded like a lot of silly voices and nonsense words. (Mind you this is mostly claimed by the "baby boom" generation, who were children at the time and wouldn't have realized, and their parents may have gone to their graves not admitting that they got those jokes either.) Broadcasting codes at the time were such that you could say what you wanted to if nobody who didn't understand all about it already would realise (the logic would be 'if you understood enough to be offended, you're already as corrupted as us!') Some of it was "nonsense words", as Julian and Sandy often spoke in Polari, the contemporary gay slang. [1]

    Stand-Up Comedy 
  • Louis C.K. mentioned this in one of his stand-up specials; specifically, he grew up around a gay man who acted like a complete stereotype of gay people, and Louis would laugh at him. But, Louis defended himself saying he wasn't laughing because the guy was gay, but because of how "weird and silly" he was acting.

    Video Games 
  • Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis has the gag character space prince Muppy whose ending involves him proposing to make Vanye his "queen", which is supposed to be inherently funny and not a serious ship tease. (Though the other half of the joke is that its Interspecies Romance.)
  • This trope meets Double Standard in Persona 5. The game's first villain, Kamoshida, is an abusive gym teacher who sexually harasses his female students, which is 100% Played for Drama. The game also has a minor Running Gag of a gay couple sexually harassing Ryuji, 100% Played for Laughs. The English translation of Royal tones their behavior down to "merely" dragging Ryuji into drag.
  • The Trails Series has several non-straight characters, mostly women attracted to other women like Shirley Orlando, Mariabell Crois and Angelica Rogner, but their attraction to the same sex is mostly shown in the form of gags, such as Shirley groping well-endowed women or Angelica hitting on every girl she sees. Among the main and side character cast, there are no official same-sex couples.

    Visual Novels 
  • In CLANNAD, at one route, you can end up falling in love with Sunohara which is Played for Laughs.
    • At another point, Tomoya declares as a joke to his class that Kyou is bi and, when she becomes very angry and threatens him to take it back, that she's a lesbian, only for him to freak out when the situation backfires and everyone starts thinking he's gay or bi, too. Weirdly, while in the original Ryou was comically (and thankfully) totally okay with each idea, the anime tries to increase the tension by making her become teary at the thought of her sister being gay, making the scene potentially rather uncomfortable to anyone who's had to deal with homophobia in loved ones in real life.
  • In Little Busters!, the series sometimes jokes about Riki and Kyousuke's relationship, but unlike in Clannad, the Ho Yay is more often treated completely seriously.
  • Rewrite has this all over the place. In one early scene, Kotarou speculates jokingly that Yoshino is gay, but then freaks out when he realises that he'd be the only possible love interest. A little later, in an optional mappie scene, a nameless character informs Kotarou that insulting his friend, Yoshino, only makes him more unpopular with the underclassmen, but when Kotarou starts declaring that he loves Yoshino, the guy comments that he'll only get 'weird fans' that way. And then, there's another scene where Kotarou jokes that Yoshino is gay (or beginning 'an interest in Boys' Love', anyway), causing Yoshino to punch him and tell him he'll kill him if he says that again. And this is just a few examples...

    Web Animation 

    Webcomics 
  • In Homestuck, Tavros attempts to troll Dave by rapping at him, but his raps keep becoming unintentionally homoerotic, which starts to confuse him and opens him up to some spectacular counter-trolling from Dave, who hits on Tavros insultingly until he gets upset and blocks him.
    • Generally this is averted, though. Queer characters and relationships are involved which are never milked for cheap laughs, and even in the above case it's later revealed that Tavros belongs to a species where Everyone Is Bi, so his discomfort was entirely based around the unwanted sexual descriptions rather than the gay implications. Notably, Karkat's crush on John, while hilarious, is mostly funny because of how badly Karkat goes about expressing it, and how totally incompatible they are in the way that Karkat wants them to be (specifically, Karkat wants them to have a romance based on mutual hatred, when neither of them hate each other).
    • Gamzee hitting on Tavros comes partially under this (it's impossible to imagine a heterosexual solicitation resulting in out-of-context Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff references and a Homage Shot to the scene from Problem Sleuth where PS is unable to bring himself to tap a Magic: The Gathering-like card of a man's ass), and partially because it was supposed to amuse the fanbase by canonising a popular but noncanon ship that inspired major backlash. Notably, in the next scene dealing with Gamzee's crush on Tavros, it's treated seriously (if disturbingly), and made clear that Gamzee was especially sad about losing Tavros more than anyone else.
  • In Ménage à 3, Dillon was initially a sort-of-flamboyant Camp Gay, but as time went on, some readers felt that he was flanderized into a walking gay stereotype (although others felt that the seeds of that characterisation were always there). This was lampshaded in his own Spin-Off comic, Sticky Dilly Buns, where he says he went "from gay, to super ultra mega gay".
  • Jerkcity uses this as its modus operandi, though a creator behind the comic has said that the comic is actually a satire of this kind of humour.
  • Inverted horrifically in Something*Positive with theatre-director-from-hell Avogadro Pompey, who kept a little person (Pepito) as a sex slave and routinely abused his nephew Ollie. note  Pompey had no discernible sense of humor and was unrelentingly abusive (even non-sexually) to his casts and crews.

    Web Original 
  • Alexander Avila: 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.
  • B. Dylan Hollis throws a lot of jokes into his baking videos, especially saucy quips lampshading his being gay and his love life.
    • In the tuna salad jello video, he holds up a large cucumbernote  by one end and says "Really, Mitchell?"
    • From the vinegar pie video:
      *pulls out a pie pan* You're gonna want the deep 9-inch. Don't we all.
    • The "Valentine's Cream Pie" video is loaded with one-liners, such as "Mmm-hmm. Now, I can't think of anything better for Valentine's Day than a good old-fashioned cream pie.", "For the pie pan, we're going to want a 9-inch. I know I do too." and "[The baked crust] finished a bit early. Happens to the best of us."
    • He cracks up in the "candle salad" video when it calls to cut a ring of pineapple and stand a peeled banana in the hole. It then Smash Cuts to one where only the tip of the banana is peeled, and he quips "This is European".
  • Staple for some writers of Cracked. Though they fully admit the majority of their humor is based on dick jokes (freelance writers are given the title "Purveyor of Dick Jokes"), so it's kind of inevitable that gay insinuations would be included. Gay, lesbian, and bi jokes get full and equal appreciation (they have some choice things to say about Andy Dick, for one thing). But when it comes to actual LGBT people they admire, like Freddy Mercury, they don't joke about it.
  • One of the most positive possible examples of this trope is Gilmore from Critical Role. The entire group always starts Corpsing at his grandiose mannerisms and his obvious crush on Vax... and yet the portrayal never comes across as offensive, mostly because Matt plays him like a three-dimensional person under all that flair and flirtation. He also sparks other kinds of jokes, he's a very competent businessman, and Vox Machina and the Critters adore him.
  • Das Mervin and Mrs. Hyde tend to make jokes in their Twilight recaps about how characters like Edward, Aro, or Carlisle are obviously gay, mainly as a Take That! to how rampant the Ho Yay is even as the books hammer in that their most loving relationships are with their wives (despite how underdeveloped and flat said wives and relationships are).
  • The majority of the humor in Dirty Potter, despite a universe where Everyone Is Bi, because, quote "gay stuff is funnier". Despite that, it still has gay and trans fans, two (possibly three) of whom are actually friends with the main creator. Note that the creators are straight allies and exaggerate the characters' depravity for the sake of absurdism. It is a parody, after all.
  • Epic Rap Battles of History had an episode with Gandalf and Dumbledore. Of course there were plenty of references to the latter's sexuality, including a Lockhard expy as a boy toy.
  • Jim Sterling is pansexual in real life, so plays this up from time to time as part of their disgusting, narcissistic comic persona. A good example of this is in their video Top Ten Game Characters I'd Wank Off in a Public Toilet, a Fan Disservice-riddled parody of awful "Top Ten Hottest Videogame Babes" videos, which relies on Steph's not-so-great looks and their exploitation of the sordid stereotypes of gay male sexuality to make the video as nauseating and pathetic as the "hot babe" things look to anyone with any sense of perspective.
  • The Key of Awesome's parody of Eminem and Dr. Dre's "I Need a Doctor" is based around mocking the unintentionally homoerotic tone of the video by portraying Eminem as being secretly in love with Dre, who he attempts to make out with while Dre is comatose. This backfires when Dre comes to and freaks out. Things get awkward until Elton John appears to them in a vision and suggests they just make out, join the pride parade and have fun, so they skip off together arm-in-arm.
  • The contributors of Channel Awesome, overlapping with fanservice of both kinds and Everyone Is Bi.
    • This lessened with the addition of Diamanda Hagan, but they still do gay jokes (like Gay Benzaie). The Nostalgia Critic even used Diamanda's lesbianism seriously for a joke in their review of the Heavy Metal movie, asking Diamanda to find out whether a girl would be more willing to sleep with Diamanda if she killed said girl's parents in real life (results: no, she wouldn't).
    • The Nostalgia Critic reboot is much worse with than ever before (outright disgusted faces at Frodo/Sam as just one example), and the reason why his LGBT fans complain and point this out is that Doug's previous project, Demo Reel, was full of casual gay with no jokes whatsoever and most people are just confused by the backslide.
  • Happens in Zero Punctuation, particularly in his reviews of Army of Two (where he berates himself for calling Salem and Rios gay) and Guitar Hero 3 (which is one long Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?).

    Western Animation 
  • The Ho Yay in Adventure Time sometimes comes across as this:
    Finn: We were just trying to beat the heat, 'cause we've got a lava man in front of our house, and he is hot!
    Jake: *nugs him* Woooooo!
    Finn: Wait, that's not what I meant. I mean 'hot hot', not 'sexy hot'.
    Jake: You did mean 'sexy hot'!
  • In American Dad!, their neighbors Greg and Terry encompass this. They are gay; that's the joke. Some various topics are brought up because of this in episodes, such as the two wanting to adopt a child, one telling his father that he is gay, one being a Log Cabin Republican, etc.
  • Invoked in an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force where Master Shake moves into a new apartment (at the bottom of a well, in a bizarre plot to attract women) with a Bigfoot parody named Dirtfoot. Not only is the media inexplicably more preoccupied with whether Dirtfoot is gay than whether he exists in the first place, but once Shake finds out he just finds it uproariously funny (it doesn’t hurt that Dirtfoot’s a huge asshole and this finally gives Shake some ammunition to annoy him) - at least until he puts two and two together and realizes that he might be Mistaken for Gay once people find out they’re rooming together (they do and he is).
    Shake: Woooooaahhh looks like someone’s a little light in the loafazzzz! Hey, don't look at me, I don't have the same problem with you people that Jesus does!
  • Ray Gillette in Archer is mostly fodder for gay jokes. However, he's also a highly competent agent, going toe to toe with an entire police force to protect his Drug Dealer (FARMER!) brother, with only said brother, and an incredibly drunk Archer for backup.
  • Codename: Kids Next Door did this once in an episode, where James Nixon McGarfield revealed his plan to make a girl his queen via a mind control helmet called the Boyfriend Helmet. She expresses surprise, thinking he wants a boyfriend, which he angrily refutes.
    • Also, Henrietta von Marzipan. She was put under a curse that turned her into a boy (It Makes Sense in Context), but ends up turning back to her real gender in her last episode. Numbuh 5 is supportive, but the rest of the team expresses disgust when they realize her identity.
  • Family Guy is fond of this, most commonly between Stewie and Brian. It's notable that gay jokes revolving around Stewie are near constant in later episodes, and yet any time they want to include a serious romance he's paired with a girl. And yet the word 'bisexual' is never even hinted at...
    • Defied at one point when Brian pointed out these jokes, when targeted at Ryan Seacrest, stopped being funny when he embraced it and started displaying a Gay Bravado.
    • The series actually got mocked for this in an episode of Clerks: The Animated Series, which suggests Seth MacFarlane's idea of comedy gold is stranding the characters on Gilligan's Island and making gay jokes about them. Five years later, Family Guy did an episode where Peter and his friends get stranded on a desert island and get called "fanny bandits" by a passing cruise ship because they engaged in a gay orgy out of sheer boredom.
    • In "Trump Guy", Peter broke the fourth wall to say the show was beginning to cut back on the gay jokes. However, in "Disney's The Reboot", Peter says that quote was taken out of context, which doesn't make sense.
  • Played for Laughs in Sealab 2021: all that gets the crew laughing is a gay guy saying "gay" over and over.
    Sparks: He's gay.
  • Played with and lampshaded with Angel Dust in Hazbin Hotel. He's a gay, spider demon and famous drag queen porn star turned prostitute/mob boss. He's sarcastic, sassy, and crass. About half of his lines in his first turf war scene are him making innuendoes, but it's really just him taunting Sir Pentious - who clearly doesn't understand it - and having a good time. At one point, he gets chained up and slammed into a building. His taunt about it... doesn't go well.
    Angel Dust: Oh, harder, daddy!
    Sir Pentious: [gasp] Son?!
    [Angel's face just drops quietly]
    Sir Pentious: You whores have no class! In war, the side remembered is the side with the most style!
    Cherri Bomb: Or the side that ain't dead. [casually tears one of Sir Pentious's Egg Boi minions in half]
    Angel Dust: Speaking of style, is your hat, like, alive or somethin'?
    Sir Pentious: Oh! Well, that's none of your goddamn business, now is it?!
    Angel Dust: Would that make your hat the top, and you the bottom?
    Egg Boi: Ooooooh! [Air horns playing the background]
    Angel Dust: Mmm, kinky.
    Sir Pentious: Oh, not like that, pervert! [Captures Angel Dust with a tentacle gun] Not so cocky now, are we?
    Angel Dust: You know, you really gotta watch what comes out of your mouth, I've been making sex jokes the whole- [Sir Pentious pulls out a huge drill startling Angel Dust] TIME!! And it's obvious you ain't catching on. I mean, it's just SAD! [blasts Sir Pentious with a tommy gun]
  • The Simpsons does this a lot, especially whenever Smithers is around, but one moment that particularly stands out is the scene in "Homer's Phobia" when Homer takes Bart to visit a steel mill which turns out to be staffed entirely by gay people.
    • That said, for some viewers the joke with Smithers is less "Haha, he's gay!" and more "Haha, he's genuinely in love with someone like Mr. Burns!" And compared to later examples of this trope from the late ‘90s and beyond, the gay jokes surrounding Smithers are so tame that many younger viewers interpret these jokes as bona-fide Ship Tease.

 
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"Keep it Gay"

The Producers - a musical-comedy - has a song entitled "keep it gay".

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