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Despite a ton of queer subtext, the actual canonical text of Ace Attorney is deeply homophobic and heteronormative.
Homosexuality and queerness are never directly referenced or mentioned at all in the series. There is never a moment in the series where it is directly discussed that non-straight is a thing you can be.
However, there are a few characters who are implied to be non-straight and these cases are handled in the same way every time.
- Male homosexual stereotypes: men who wear cosmetics, are flashy and limp wristed. These queer stereotype men are treated with derision by the characters and the text. At one point Phoenix Wright directly calls another man (Redd White) a “fruitcake” which is a slur against homosexual men.
- Implied lesbians: Specifically Lana Skye and Aura Blackquill. In both cases these characters are hinted to have romantic feelings for another woman. In both these cases, the characters around them do not reference this directly and instead act embarrassed on the woman’s behalf. Ema hurries to explain that Lana’s attraction to Mia is “an intellectual attraction”, and in court, everyone is nervous to explain to the judge that Aura was in romantic love with Metis and it’s never said directly, only hinted around with embarrassment.
In both cases, male and female, the characters of Ace Attorney act in a way that suggests that homosexuality in the Ace Attorney universe is something embarrassing and shameful.
At no point in the series is there ever a moment where homosexual behavior and presentation isn’t treated as something embarrassing and shameful.
This, all of this
The fanbase (myself included) loves emphasizing the queer subtext but there’s still quite a bit of (negative) queercoding and ambiguous queer characters at best and it definitely shows a lot of outdated or poor-taste ‘comedy bits’ throughout the series
The “fruitcake” comment can be interpreted two ways (the other being “nuts” / “crazy” ), but regardless of how it’s meant you can’t ignore the fact that it’s a slur that more often than not targets gay men
The characterization of Jean Armstrong especially, strongly irked me. It felt derogatory and very caricature-like of both trans women and gay men and the entire character is just a bit played for laughs
Exactly! Obviously I love the queer subtext in the series too, and I love seeing it come to the forefront in fanworks.
But I think its important to remember that the source material actually has a very outwardly hostile and stereotypical presentation of implied homosexual characters, and often uses queercoding on villains.
Personally I love to use this as fodder for my own fanfiction with the dystopian society presented in Ace Attorney, and lay the angst on extra thick with the characters grappling with being queer in a deeply homophobic and repressive society.
Nobody else has to do that, but it’s still important to remember that the Ace Attorney canon is not progressive.
I don’t have a lot to add but ^^^^ yea this
even now, like 20+ years later from the first 3 games’ original release actual positive representation in media of queer people is STILL rare. I don’t expect media from the early 00’s to have explicit queer rep, but it’s still important to remember that it’s not a queer utopia franchise and we shouldn’t brand it as such
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