Armoured Closet Gay/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: He hates gays...but he's gay himself.

  • Straight: Bob routinely goes on long diatribes about how he hates homosexuality. He turns out to be gay himself.
  • Exaggerated: Bob kills gay people for the fun of it. He's as gay as they come.
  • Downplayed: Bob has mentioned once or twice that he thinks homosexuality is morally wrong but doesn't really get in arguments about it, and is actually gay himself.
  • Justified: Bob grew up in a very conservative household, so bashing gays is his way to cope.
  • Inverted: Bob acts ridiculously flamboyant at all times, but turns out to be straight.
  • Subverted: Bob routinely goes on long diatribes about how he hates homosexuality. But he turns out to be straight.
  • Double Subverted: ...Or so it would seem. Just take a look at his internet history, and you'll see gay sites...
  • Parodied: Bob spontaneously burst into an elaborate and flamboyant musical number to describe his hatred for gays. When an unsuspecting audience member lampshades the inherent queerness of his act, Bob proceeds to bust his kneecaps, and then he goes back to his number.
  • Deconstructed: Bob's shame over his orientation leads him to be Driven to Suicide because he can't reconcile his hatred of gays with the fact that he himself is gay.
  • Reconstructed: Bob is Manly Gay, but believes being openly flamboyant is disgusting. So as long as you act like a man and keep your homosexuality in private, he's fine with it.
  • Zig Zagged: Bob spends his entire teenaged years harassing the gay kids in his school while crushing on the quarterback of the football team. When said quarterback comes out of the closet, Bob considers doing the same until the quarterback dies in a vicious gay-bashing incident. He grows up, gets married, and has affairs on the side with men he meets at seedy bars while beating his son for being gay, while at work he fires someone under him for harassing a lesbian co-worker...
  • Averted: He's not overly hateful; or he isn't gay.
  • Enforced: "It's time for the gay rights episode - but I can't think about who we should make gay!" "Let's have that macho guy who's always beating up gay people come out."
  • Lampshaded: "Seriously, Bob, for someone who hates gays so much you sure spend a lot of time touching them."
  • Invoked: Bob's boss, who knows he's gay, shouts a homophobic slur at another man at the office to egg Bob into doing so as well.
  • Exploited: Bob's coworker, who know's he's gay, provokes Bob into harassing a gay coworker so that Bob will be fired and he can take Bob's promotion.
  • Defied: A trusted family friend of Bob's, knowing his behavior, comes out of the closet, forcing Bob to take steps towards coming out himself.
  • Discussed: "How many after-school specials have you seen this in? There are two guys, a soft, sensitive one and one who beats the crap out of the other for being 'a fag.' Who's ALWAYS the gay one?"
  • Conversed: "Wow, for someone who claims to hate gays as much as he does, Bob sure spends a lot of time ogling guys..."

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