"What is This Feeling?": Queerbaiting, Queer-Coding, and the Cruel Optimism of Wicked.

This article considers Wicked: Part I (Jon M. Chu, 2024) and Wicked: For Good (Jon M. Chu, 2025) as a case study on the contemporary state of queerbaiting and queer-coding, arguing that the films reflect larger cultural conflicts between capital and narrative. Rather than simply asking whether the filmic relationship between the two female protagonists is queerbaiting or queer-coding, this article builds from existing scholarship to read the narrative itself, meta components of its promotion and news coverage, and audiences' affective responses to and investments in it as all reflective of a uniquely contemporary form of cruel optimism.