Our Flag Means Death packs a punch in queerbaiting

“Our Flag Means Death” packs a punch in queerbaiting

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Taika Waititi as Blackbeard shares tea with Rhys Darby as Stede Bonnet

For the month of its run in March 2022, the cast and creatives behind HBO’s brilliant pirate comedy Our Flag Means Death have said they’re telling a love story. Fans – queer and otherwise – jumped on board with increasing excitement as the series progressed and representation deepened. The superbly inclusive crew served up LGBTQIA+ relationships as well as a nuanced non-binary pirate, alongside jabs at racism, sexism, colonialism and general Georgian-English buffoonery. And so, armed with the hope of this promising build-up, we waited with bated breath to see if we were swept up in the show’s primary queer pairing or if Our Flag Means Death was, in fact, a love story.

At the heart of Our Flag Means Death lay the developing bond between “Co-Captains” Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby) and Edward “Blackbeard” Teach (Taika Waititi). You have been portrayed in a classic style of opposites to lovers, a slow-burning affection and attraction that springs from enjoying a partner who is your flip side. But queer fans have been let down by paltry performance so often that it was hard to believe Our Flag Means Death would actually achieve what it seemed to achieve. All too often we’ve been made to feed on subtextual scraps, “first gay characters” in key properties presented out of focus in the background, much ado about “bromance,” or creatives declaring after the fact that they told a who An odd love story all along – we just haven’t seen it confirmed or outspoken. At worst, some traits still resort to queerbaiting: slight lewd references to popular fandom “ships” or sexuality, as if acknowledgment is the same as updating, or the centering of promotions and press around a charged pairing that the show or the film never intends to make canon.

So imagine our deep relief when the final two episodes of Our Flag Means Death blew those shaky old standards out of the water. Turns out they actually made up a love story. It’s also proudly queer. “I’m very proud of this romantic comedy that we’ve made,” said star and producer Taika Waititi wrote on Twitter Post-finale featuring fan-made video of Stede and Ed’s relationship. “Very proud. It’s not ‘bromantic’, it’s ROMANTIC.”

***Spoilers for Our Flag Means Death Season 1***

In Episode 9, “Act of Grace”, Blackbeard desperately tries to save Stede from execution by the British Navy. He ends up volunteering to serve as a privateer for King George for ten years if it means sparing Stede’s life. The two go to sort of a pirate retraining camp, where Blackbeard is happy to become “Ed,” giving up his trademark beard and considering a future with Stede that’s very different from the violent and reckless life he’s led before Has. “It’s kind of nice to just take a load off. Just to… just be Edward,” Ed says to Stede as they sit alone on the beach. “I don’t know if I want to go back to the old days.”

“Suppose I say that I… Right now I just want to do what makes Ed happy,” Ed continues, to which Stede gently asks, “And what makes Ed happy?”

Then came a moment that made me actually audibly clap in the middle of my living room. Ed runs through his thoughts:

These last few weeks… have been… the funniest I’ve had in ages, years. Maybe ever. So… So, uh, I think what makes Ed happy… is… Well, that, uh, that’s… you.

Ed kisses Stede, an act that is both impulsive and tender. Stede doesn’t seem to have expected the kiss, but he greets it and happily returns it. As they pull away, Stede says, “You make Stede happy,” and just like that, the love story we’ve been promised comes to fruition. All of the shy winks, longing looks, substitute love scenes sword fights, and outside characters watching Stede and Ed’s budding romance were no joke — they were the preparation to deserve this perfect moment. (“It’s happening,” Stede’s right-hand man explained to Lucius as he watched Stede and Ed flirt in Episode 7, an episode titled “This Is Happening.” We should have believed firmly at the time that Our Flag Means Death. )

The entire scene was one of the most serious romantic exchanges I’ve seen on screen. All credit goes to showrunner, creator and writer David Jenkins, who said he rewrote the scene “about a dozen times.” It’s played with care and sweetness by longtime friends Darby and Waititi, who balance the humor throughout by making sure none of their characters’ heartfelt declarations or kiss come across as a joke. Stede and Ed in love is not a punch line. It’s the show’s payoff.

The enthusiastic and ebullient reactions to the conclusion of Our Flag Means Death on social media — which have taken the form of capital letters and exclamations of disbelief, as well as an explosion of loving fan art and fiction — are a testament to how much realizing representation means to so many. The sheer astonishment also shows how many times we’ve been cremated, settled for crumbs, or suffered with buried gays, or a claim, as some historians used to make, that people who seem very much in love are just extremely good Friends.

Perhaps the best thing about the presentation of queer love here is how natural and easily accepted it is. By its very existence, the show may make a political statement in our world, but within the quasi-historical universe of Our Flag Means Death, being queer is exactly what you are. No one struggles with their sexuality or is treated differently because of it. The characters’ sense of inner conflict comes from not knowing what path they want to take in life, not who they want to take it with.

It is true that LGBTQIA+ representation on television has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years. This is hardly the first show to feature queer characters kissing, nor the first to show queer 18th-century sailors kissing (I see you, Black Sails). But the difference here is that Our Flag Means Death openly tossed its cocked hat to the hate behavior we’ve seen before, only to flip the script and actually be queer. It’s subversive at first glance, a wondrous new invention. On the surface, it first appeared to be a crazy slapstick pirate comedy starring some well-known comedians, and it ended up being a much-needed love story for our times.

Of course, it’s not all sunshine and coconuts in the end, because being human is hard, and this “comedy” series is also capable of intense and crushing melodrama. The season finale takes us in new and sometimes heartbreaking directions; As one Twitter user said above, the experience of watching was both healing and causing “violent psychological death.” That’s the genius of a show that can make disastrously profound observations on the nature of lost love in the same episode that features a laugh-out-loud, funny and absurd caper involving a big cat attack and a body falling from a falling piano is crushed. The many tones of Our Flag Means Death are masterfully played, but they may not be for everyone. That’s fine. Those for whom it is intended have found it, and those who need it will discover it in the future. In the meantime, every other property and studio that has lured audiences in the past is officially known. We’re only here for love stories now.

(Images: HBO Max)

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