Drag icon Trixie Mattel is horrified that Australian streamer Binge edited all the gay references out of her show 'Trixie Motel' - but apparently it wasn't them
Now that would be some heterosexual nonsense - butI got some answers. the i in lgbtiqa+ stands for "investigation"
When you live in Australia, you get used to being disappointed by your own country. Something super racist happened? That checks out. We’re bringing back some real traditional homophobia? Doesn’t surprise me. Another crocodile death? Every three months in Northern Queensland.
So when I saw this video of beloved drag icon Trixie Mattel, claiming that an Australian network “edited out every reference of David and I being together” and “edited out all the parts where I’m gay”, I at first simply nodded my head in vague embarrassment.
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But then I thought about all the very gay shows that I have watched on Binge (many gay shows…), none of which were noticeably edited, and I thought it sounded like a very odd decision. Checking online, I found that most people who had watched the show on Binge were extremely confused by this claim, and said that the show’s gayness was extremely clear.
My working theory was that Trixie has misunderstood the show’s brief appearance on Gogglebox, which broadcasts snippets of shows and focuses on the reactions to the clips. But even then, people sent me some pretty gay scenes from that episode of Gogglebox too.
The reason I find this interesting is because I’m invested in Trixie’s happiness, and also constantly pushing the gay agenda on television. I know that there are edited versions of films and TV shows sent to many countries - I grew up in the Middle East, so I didn’t see an on-screen kiss (of any variety) until I was a teenager, and their editing practices back then were pretty harsh, as instead of trying to delicately slice out the offending kiss, they would just end the episode and replace it with static pictures of flowers for 15 minutes… I know that Marvel films are deeply edited for many overseas markets, to the extent that there was an issue with Disney “blurring” Pride imagery in the film for the Kuwait release.
But I had to wonder if this practice is even more widespread than people realise, because it would be very hard to actually check - if the version of a show or film you get in your country is edited, it’s difficult to find an unedited version to contrast and compare to. You’d most likely just watch without realising.
I approached Binge for some clarity around the allegation. Turns out there WAS an edited version, but Binge did not ask for it, and once realised, got the gay stuff back.
Anecdotally, I had a few people on Twitter talk about other times this has happened on Binge, with apparently a song from Steven Universe with gay references being cut, and then quietly added later. It’s also not a new problem - Australia gets a lot of our content from overseas (some might say too much), so we are treated as just another overseas market. In 2018, I remember Stan got edited (and much shorter) episodes of Younger, which when I chased down that story, was also blamed on distribution. There was also suspicion that this was because the cut storyline was queer, and cut for conservative countries.
This is something worth keeping an eye on - right now, the US is swinging into some deeply anti-LGBTIQ fascism, with “Don’t Say Gay” style rhetoric popping up, and already allegedly affecting Pixar films.
In a statement attributed to “the LGBTQIA+ employees of Pixar, and their allies” obtained by Variety, employees of the animation studio allege that Disney corporate executives have demanded cuts from “nearly every moment of overtly gay affection… regardless of when there is protest from both the creative teams and executive leadership at Pixar.”
The stunning claim is part of a wider reaction to the company-wide memo sent to Disney employees by CEO Bob Chapek on Monday regarding its response to the recently passed legislation in Florida known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
Right now, streaming services and studios are riding the big queer wave - but it’s also easy to see that lots of people are desperately trying to walk that back.
Anyway - Trixie’s outrage in this case is mildly misplaced, but still worthy of interrogation, because out there, right now, is a version of Trixie Motel where someone is watching that show thinking a lovely lady with weird makeup is renovating a normal motel for straight people. Deeply sick stuff.