Aziraphale and the history of the effeminate gay man trope
recently, there was this rage bait post about Sheen's portrayal of Aziraphale and how it connects to very old, homophobic tropes of the effeminate gay man (I know you all saw it). I don't do ragebait, so I didn't engage, but I do think the topic's interesting, so let's get into it shall we?
what the OP completely failed to explain (because they were rage baiting, kept contradicting themself, and had seemingly no idea what they were talking about acutally, duh) was the historical context of that stereotype and how it influences how we as audiences read Sheen's portrayal of Aziraphale and why.
you remember that Disney villain you had a crush on when you were a child, only to later realize that said villain, and you, are both queer(coded) as fuck? that stems from the Hays Code. the Hays Code was a self-censorship protocol devised in the early 20th century to keep Hollywood in check ideologically. it stated, roughly paraphrased, that "deviant" characters (gays, communists, etc.) should not be portrayed in a positive light. so what did creators do? they queer-coded their villains, later on the funny side-characters meant to be the butt of the joke. ever heard of the "bury your gays" trope? where there's exactly one gay or queer-coded character, and they die halfway through the film? that's where that comes from. the Hays Code basically said that you can have a queer character, but they can't have a happy ending because that would give audiences the wrong idea about what was "good" and the "right" (aka straight) way of living.
the Hays Code, though long abolished, was very pervasive and influential asthetically, to the point that we still see traces of it in the media made and consumed today. there's a related subplot in the show Sense8: the Mexican actor Lito is outed as gay, and the only roles offered to him going forward are either "villain" or "drug-addicted, HIV-positive side-character who dies halfway through the story". that's also a result of many decades of Hays Code.
so, what happens when you take that kind of portrayal, the mannerisms, the aesthetic, and use it to portray not only not the villain, not only not the side-character meant to be the butt of every joke, but the PROTAGONIST that audiences are meant to identify with and root for, and who also happens to be a literal ANGEL? you subvert the trope. and that's exactly what Sheen's doing by playing Aziraphale the way he does.
by the way: for this to be true, it doesn't matter whether Sheen knows what he's doing or not. it only matters what the audience reads into it AND that there are visible similarities to the way effeminate gay man in older movies were portrayed, which there are.
thanks for coming to my literal TED talk. here's a cute angel and his bitchy eyebrow to make you smile <3
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