But Not Too Gay/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: Gay characters exist in the work, but never kiss or act intimately towards one another, even when the straight couples do.

  • Straight: Alice and Bob are shown making out in quite a few episodes, but Charlie and Dave are together for the entire series without more than a hug.
  • Exaggerated: There's a sex scene with Alice and Bob Once an Episode, but Charlie and Dave are never even seen holding hands.
  • Downplayed: Charlie and Dave are shown kissing, as are Alice and Bob, but the latter couple does it a bit more frequently.
  • Justified: Charlie wants to take things slowly in his relationship with Dave, while Alice and Bob have no problem jumping right into things, and so are seen kissing and the like more frequently.
  • Inverted: Charlie and Dave are frequently seen making out, while Alice and Bob only get an occasional on-screen hug.
  • Subverted: ???
  • Double Subverted: ???
  • Parodied: Charlie and Dave keep trying to kiss each other or even hug, but find themselves interrupted by increasingly improbable and frustrating circumstances while Alice and Bob make out next to them without issue.
  • Zig Zagged: ???
  • Averted: Charlie and Dave kiss and hug on-screen just as often as any of the show's straight couples.
  • Enforced: Failing ratings and lack of interest from heterosexual audiences causes the show's writers to downplay Charlie and Dave's relationship in favor of Alice and Bob's, although they still keep the characters in the show.
  • Lampshaded: The single gay character on the show laments that all of the straight characters are getting so much sex while he hasn't so much as kissed anyone since the events of the first episode.
  • Invoked: Alice is homophobic and although she's accepted that she can't stop Charlie and Dave from being gay, she makes sure that they don't kiss while she's around.
  • Exploited: Charlie, the show's Fourth Wall Observer, is aware that he and Dave can never kiss on-screen like the straight couples, so he makes sure the two of them are away from the main characters before they even try to get close.
  • Defied: Charlie and Dave are as visibly romantic as Alice and Bob are.
  • Discussed: "All of our friends are straight, Dave. I think this makes us the token gay couple. Man, I hope that doesn't mean that we never get to make out."
  • Conversed: "Hey, at least we've got some progress, with more gay characters in fiction these days. Shame that they don't get shown acting romantically nearly as much as the straight characters, though."

Back to But Not Too Gay