This Animated Spider is Blatantly Homosexual
In the world of indie-animation, there aren’t many that stand out enough to be picked up, or be worked on past a single episode, but Hazbin Hotel is different because the spider, is obviously gay. Now, this would not be a point that stands out so much had the other characters been given the same treatment. In the new world of animators and storytellers, it is not uncommon for characters to have deep lore. I have multiple characters written with a considerable amount of depth, but their genders are handled differently.
Hazbin Hotel is an indie animation made by Vivienne Medrano that first appeared as a pilot episode on Youtube. The video has gained a massive following as well as a spin-off series known as Helluva Boss, which is basically The Office if it was set in Hell. The Hazbin Hotel Pilot Episode now has almost 69 million views.
Of course, the representation of the queer minorities is usually blatant in indie animation, many of the characters are presented normally with no obvious investigations of their gender. The characters of Charlie and Vaggie are seemingly friends in the Pilot, but they are a couple. The official Hazbin Hotel Wiki at one point stated that they were just friends, which caused some confusion, prompting Hazbin Hotel creator, Vivienne Medrano, to explicitly state that they are more than just friends.
Another character whose gender is not hinted at once in the entire pilot is Alastor the Radio Demon, which apart from being based on a Wendigo, is Asexual. That information is not from the Pilot, that comes from a stream held during the creation of the show, where the creator reviled his gender. Once again, it is Viv that comes out to tell it as it is. If it wasn’t for her, the fanbase would have been misgendering everyone.
This isn’t to say that the character of Angel Dust couldn’t have been misgendered as well. Although he is gay, there are moments where he could be seen as female. There’s the breast fluff in the design of the character, when Nifty refers to him as a woman, as well as Alastor calling him “effeminate fellow”, and yet, he decides not to correct either of them. If even Alastor is confused, then it’s surprising to see more of the fanbase get his gender right the first time. However, this could also be a writing issue, Dave Capdevielle has been the tail end to jokes among the Hazbin Crew in the past. Even the voice actor of Angel Dust, Michael Kovach, knows that.
Looking into more of the lore and occupations of Angel Dust, he has been seen working as a prostitute, stripper, and porn star, seemingly all at once. In the official Hazbin Hotel Prequel Comic, Dirty Healings, Angel is working on a street corner when our main protagonists Charlie and Vaggie show up to make a deal with him. Angel also specifically states that he charges extra for females as soon as he sees them, again, just showing how obviously gay he is. He also shows some signs of gender disconformity as he sometimes refers to himself as pig mama to his pet pig, Fat Nuggets. This could also explain why he didn’t correct Nifty or Alastor in the Pilot Episode.
I decided it was time to find out how other people felt about this obvious difference. I went online to the Helluva/Hazbin community in VRChat, of which I am known in some areas. I’ve borough cosplayers and voice actors alike here in the past, but this time, I was looking to find new people, people who don’t stand out as much, to get an accurate view from the general area of the fanbase.
On my way, I decided to join my friend Matty, a voice actor in the community. He led me to find Ducky and VibeChillVA. Ducky was the typical Helluva/Hazbin fan and a fan of all things indie animation, a perfect representative for the general fanbase. Vibe was a practicing voice actor coming from the Undertale AU fandom. They were more or less opposites of each other, Ducky being analytical and insightful on his views, and Vibe accepting the show as it was. Even the characters they decided to appear as, Moxxie and Husk respectively, reflect their views and personality.
I started by asking about their initial exposure to Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss in general. Ducky was coming from a YouTube recommendation from when the Pilot episode first showed up. “I was really into shows and YouTube animations at the time, so I got Hazbin Hotel in my recommended feed, right around the time it was released. I really enjoyed it and that led to this.” Vibe was part of a voice acting group that experienced an initial influx of other Hazbin Hotel fans coming in to influence their work. “I was in a group of voice actors who did voices for Undertale AUs and stuff when there was a couple of Hazbin fans that showed up. They told me that I sound like I could do a good Husk voice, so I tried, and apparently, they liked it, and then I moved on further and ended up here.” They both had similar introductions to the show in a form of recommendations.
Next, I asked about their reaction to Angel Dust and how they felt about the difference in the way his character was handled compared to the other characters in terms of gender. Ducky was first to answer, “It’s nice to see that they’re not using the whole LGBTQ thing as like the main reason to watch the show as there’s more to the show than just that, but I think it was just the overall character design of Angel Dust that let me know about his gender, which was very abrupt.” Vibe did not seem to care for the canonical genders of the characters, just for the way they’re designed to look. “I don’t really think too much about the gender of the characters too much, I just accept it as I see it. I saw Angel and thought, looks like a guy, I saw Charlie and Vaggie, looks like girls. That’s pretty much just my whole thinking, I don’t have that insightful view.” It was clear to me that although they both knew what minority each character was meant to represent, they both saw Angel Dust as male, which he was, proving my point. The fact that he is gay, stands out.
I asked if there was anything about the show or universe that they would change. Ducky wanted an earlier release date, as do we all. “Well for one I really would hope that the rest of the series comes out sooner, but other than those hopes, I guess I would also say that I would reduce the number of sex jokes in the Pilot, which I know a lot of people don’t mind, but there’s also the overuse of sound effects, but I’m pretty sure Viv picked up on that part.” Vibe brought up the point of Viv tweeting about news for the show coming soon. “I know Viv tweeted about that, and to expand on what Ducky said, yeah we all want more news on Hazbin, but we can’t have it because of the nondisclosure agreement, but I would like to see my favorite two boys (Husk and Moxxie) in the same universe together. I know technically they are, but legally they can’t be on screen together, I feel like that’s a crossover we all need to see. Of course, that won’t happen because one is being adapted for tv and the other is for YouTube.” He’s right about them being in the same universe, but the nondisclosure agreement prevents us from getting any information about the show outside of what’s already been released.
Going back to the Pilot, there will be a lot of people who will defend the ship between Angel Dust and Alastor, ignoring the fact that Alastor is Asexual. This all stemmed from one line in the episode that I believe is everyone’s favorite line. In Alastor’s introduction to Angel Dust, he asks him what he does, which Angel replies, “I can suck ya dick.” Alastor refuses, but some of the fanbases ship them anyway because they can. Either way, this is still a form of Viv trying way too hard to show that Angel is gay. This line here was just that, trying too hard, and yet, they very subtly show that Angel likes Husk when he shows up. Apart from that one interaction of Angel trying to make sexual advances on Husk, the rest of the episode was just subtle hints, not that it makes the stereotype any better.
With the fan base of Hazbin Hotel being so large it makes sense for some people to actually agree with the gay stereotype of Angel Dust, but for others it might not work as well. Although, in writing it makes sense to portray him as the overjealous stereotype it might come off as insulting to people who are actually gay. Even in that minority there may be people who completely agree with the weighing feel dust is portrayed. Either way it doesn't hide the fact that this gay stereotype is one of the most obvious way to represent a minority group. The character itself is a somewhat accurate depiction of the minority group, but at the end of the day, it's a spider, in hell that has boobs, and also he’s gay.
References:
Medrano, V. Hazbin Hotel: Dirty Healings https://www.hazbinhotel.com/comic/page-01
Medrano, V. Hazbin Hotel Pilot Episode https://youtu.be/Zlmswo0S0e0
Medrano, V. Why Angel is a Spider https://youtu.be/09-ribPwlAQ?t=7656
Kovach, M. Twitter https://twitter.com/kovox/status/1382935739407634433?s=20
Medrano, V. ADDICT (Music Video) - HAZBIN HOTEL https://youtu.be/ulfeM8JGq7s
