How sweet it is
Calling in favor of cut and salvage yard.
she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report
she/her
I'm not really sure where the idea that we have eight examples comes from, as between this post
and this post, TheMountainKing seems to have counted a phantom fourth example. But anyway, here's the seven examples I could find that people were confident in.
- Miss New York in Miss Congeniality makes no mention of her romantic life until she gets eliminated, at which point she addresses the audience and says that she wants to tell any lesbians that may be watching that if she can make it this far, so can they. She then blows a kiss and yells "I love you!" to her girlfriend, who's revealed to be in the audience. Justified, as the film was made in 2000 — people were steadily growing more open-minded, but homophobia was still pretty rampant. Being upfront about it from the start likely would've damaged Miss New York's chances of even getting into the pageant.
- Invoked in-universe in Bedazzled (2000) when the Devil sabotages Elliot's wish to be a rich, intelligent, and suave man who Alison is head-over-heels in love with by making him gay. Prior to the reveal of this, Elliot appears to be very much into Alison and easily seduces her, only to find himself suddenly unable to kiss her after they discover a man waiting for Elliot in his bed. When Elliot tries to deny that he's gay, the man gives him a quick quiz ending with "What was the original Broadway cast of The Pajama Game?" He names off 3-4 characters in quick succession before catching himself and going, "Oh my God, I AM gay!"
- In Super Star (1999), one of Mary's friends, Owen, who seemingly was crushing on her best friend, suddenly kisses one of her guy friends on the cheek after winning the competition in the end. His stunned response "you're gay?!" just leads to the former kissing him on the cheeks 5 more times.
Live-Action TV
- On 30 Rock, womanizing Frank meets a cute guy named Jamie and announces that he's now gay. Later, he decides that he's just "gay for Jamie." Several (straight and gay) characters point out to him "that's not a thing", though Liz qualifies it with "unless you're a lady and you meet Ellen DeGeneres".
Webcomics
- Near the very end of Homestuck, after John's retcon, Dave, who despite a fair amount of Gay Bravado had only expressed interest in women is revealed to be bisexual and in a relationship with Karkat. John even wonders if his timeline-altering powers had somehow caused Dave to become gay, but Dave tells him he's thinking about it the wrong way, and that's how he was all along.
- In Rain, when the titular character is hanging out with Emily and Kylie, the trio are discussing prom and how difficult it would be to bring their friends together to their extremely homophobic school. Ky suggests that they instead have their own prom, which Emily considers a good concept, even if she'd rather go to the big school prom, and admits that she'd consider taking a girl. This comes as quite a shock to Rain and Ky, especially since Emily is pregnant with her ex-boyfriend's child, but she explains that she's actually Pansexual. Cue the two imagining her cuddling with a frying pan.
Western Animation
- Parodied in an episode of American Dad! where Stan's friend's wife announces she's leaving him because she's a lesbian. When he protests, she says "You don't just become a lesbian! It's not like someone shot an experimental ray into my head and suddenly I'm gay!" Of course, Stan did just that; he's trying to get his friend, who's an atheist, to convert to Christianity by putting him through a Job-like situation.
Should I put this in a sandbox somewhere so a hypothetical future sponsor can copy the markup into their TLP draft?
Edited by Serac on Sep 14th 2020 at 9:04:46 AM
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
No need, just link to your post from the Salvage Yard.
The issue with redefining to fit the misuse was not necessarily purely about complaining. It was agreed that because "not enough foreshadowing" was a subjective criterion, the trope would have to be made YMMV. That was an option on the first crowner, but it was voted down.
Perhaps it would have helped if it was "No foreshadowing" rather than "not enough foreshadowing".
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Angry babby
That's what I was assuming under the new definition (a character's sexuality is casually revealed and is surprising to other characters and in the context of the narrative due to a lack of foreshadowing), but I think the definition was made way too exclusive in practice. I originally wrote up the new definition but the "sudden" part seems to be what trips us up, as it's very hard to determine from most of the examples whether it was considered surprising in the narrative as they weren't written with that context in mind.
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
Iirc the issie we had was that a subjective version would be complaint-bait so we wanted to go objective and the only way to do that was to go in-universe.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Angry babby
"Zero foreshadowing" can be objective, and it's not necessarily bad to not have foreshadowing for a character's sexuality, despite what some may think. This is a very difficult trope to clearly define without being unintentionally reductive, I guess.
Edited by mightymewtron on Sep 14th 2020 at 1:51:17 PM
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
An issue with "no foreshadowing" is that it assumes that a characters sexuality is always a twist that must be foreshadowed, as opposed to just a fact about a character that we learn. The new definition was written the way it was to make sure that it only included examples in which the work itself treated it as a twist.
Edited by TheMountainKing on Sep 14th 2020 at 2:08:03 PM
I'm helping!
Another problem with "no foreshadowing" is — how the heck do you confirm that there was zero foreshadowing in the entire work? I spot something I missed every time I reread something, whether it's the first time or the fiftieth.
Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
Right.
And even then, even if we can 100% objectively say that something had zero foreshadowing, it'd still become a complaint magnet.
In-Universe was the only way to ensure it wasn't only always objective, but also not bashing-fuel.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
How sweet it is
Okay, once we're ready to dewick, we have 495 wicks to deal with.
Edit: Make that 494. Got a case of Linking to an Article Within the Article.
Edited by Berrenta on Sep 14th 2020 at 5:21:04 AM
she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report
Angry babby
I think we could find examples with the new definition if we take it to TLP. The problem wasn't so much that we didn't have examples on the page, we just couldn't find enough examples with context, since they didn't note whether the work treated the coming out as a surprise or not.
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
she/her
And while the dewicking is going on, we can post any fitting examples we find that weren't crosswicked to this thread.
How do I word this paragraph in Gay Panic?
The result is that Suddenly Sexuality turns into Bait-and-Switch Lesbians, Hide Your Lesbians, Alternate Character Interpretation, Bury Your Gays, Character Derailment into easily-removed Depraved Homosexual or Psycho Lesbian archetypes, or just being Put on a Bus or Dropped a Bridge on Him for the non-straight characters, their love interests or both.
Rock'n'roll never dies!
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
I saw that you already changed Suddenly Sexuality to The Reveal, and I agree with that change.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Sep 14th 2020 at 7:27:50 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Are we ready to start dewicking?
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
Crowner seems conclusive.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Maintenance?
Cutlisted and sent to the Salvage Yard. No listing of the examples is necessary there since the list is already in this thread.
I'm back!
How sweet it is
Hold your horses. What about the 288 wicks that need removing? Declined the cut request for now.
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
I posted a notice on the discussion page. I currently haven't done any dewicking, but maybe I can at some point.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Sep 24th 2020 at 9:02:39 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
I'm currently deliberately not deleting entries I think work under the new definition. Give me some time to make a sandbox for those.
Edit: several of the ones I thought would fit have now been deleted.
Edited by TheMountainKing on Sep 25th 2020 at 11:50:44 AM
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
I haven't done any wick cleaning for this (still need to work on Designated Love Interest if someone else didn't beat me to it), so I'll wait before doing anything with this.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Sep 25th 2020 at 2:11:23 PM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Crown Description:
How should the misuse be handled?
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]")
I’m inclined to agree. Redefine to fit the misuse was a popular option early on in the thread, but was shot down due to concerns it would lead to complaining. Was this ever substantiated with existing wicks though? Is there evidence of complaining in the ones that use this definition now?
"It's just a show; I should really just relax"