10 cringeworthy LGBTQ+ characters in film & TV that had us squirming

The cringe is real.

Netflix; Warner Bros. Pictures; HBO Entertainment

While we love celebrating and advocating for more (and better!) queer representation, we have to be honest about some characters who absolutely made us cringe.

Over the years, LGBTQ+ representation has grown and changed in amazing ways, but that doesn't mean that we've gotten past the point of cringeworthy queer characters.

Unfortunately, there will always be queer characters who fall into old tropes, go way over the top (in a very un-camp-like way), and just end up being no fun at all.

Scroll through to see which LGBTQ+ characters from the last few decades have made us cringe — and cringe hard!

10. Max ('The L Word')

Showtime

While Generation Q definitely redeemed Max, his run on the original L Word series was one of the most cringeworthy things we've ever seen.

At the time, Max was one of *very few* trans men on TV… and oh boy, was he mishandled! Max was misgendered, became aggressive and violent on testosterone, and his parenthood storyline was a major flop.

9. Charlotte DiLaurentis ('Pretty Little Liars')

Freeform

One of the worst uses of a "trans villain" trope in TV history comes from Pretty Little Liars.

The series brought us Charlotte DiLaurentis, a troubled trans girl who was locked in an insane asylum by her parents. After growing up, she snuck out to a local high school where she met her brother, flirted with him, and even dated him under the pretense of being a girl he had never met before. She also turned out to be a schemer, a murderer, and a crazy villain who just had us cringing the whole time.

8. Frank Underwood ('House of Cards')

Netflix

Where do we even begin with House of Cards lead Frank Underwood (F.U.)?

Over the years, Kevin Spacey has been accused of sexual assault and abuse by several men, including actor Anthony Rapp, as well as four men who worked with Spacey at the Old Vic Theatre in London. Spacey has not been found guilty on any of those charges, but it's still very creepy to watch him portraying a queer man who murders, lies, manipulates, and abuses people around him.

And even if we take personal lives and accusations out of the equation, Frank Underwood is a bisexual man who's very rarely attracted to men. He's also a liar and a thug, and just not fun to watch.

7. Brüno ('Brüno')

Universal Pictures

Sasha Baron Cohen is known for his provocative comedy, but his gay Austrian fashion character Brüno was a total dud. While the point of the character was apparently to reveal the homophobia of the people he was interacting with, it ended up just seeming like Cohen was the one with the homophobic ideas, making Brüno a depraved predator, racist, and overall unfunny troll.

6. Barry Glickman ('The Prom')

Netflix

Netflix's cinematic adaptation of The Prom definitely had its high moments. Most of the cast, including Meryl Streep, Andrew Rannells, Jo Ellen Pellman, Nicole Kidman, Kerry Washington, and Ariana DeBose are all great. But a particularly interesting performance that stands out comes from James Corden.

The former talk show host plays the narcissistic actor Barry Glickman with a full-on gay lisp straight out of the 1990s. His character has what's supposed to be a touching moment of reconciliation with his mother, whom he hadn't talked to in decades, but because of Corden's over-the-top performance, it just rings hollow.

5. Rayon ('Dallas Buyers Club')

Focus Features

One of the most cringeworthy Oscar wins of all time has to be Jared Leto getting a Best Supporting Actor trophy for playing Rayon, a trans woman living with HIV, in the film Dallas Buyers Club.

This role and performance perfectly encapsulates the poor representation that trans women used to get in TV and film: she's sassy and sexual, but not desirable. She has a tragic and pitiable life. She's played by a cis man. And, of course, she dies in order to further the story of cis people in the movie.

4. Dumbledore ('Harry Potter')

Warner Bros. Pictures

After the Harry Potter books were finished, author and TERF J.K. Rowling declared that she "always thought of Dumbledore as gay." Now, as to why she didn't mention that in any of the seven books, she never fully explained.

Besides the fact that Dumbledore is a "Gay in Name Only," when we eventually found out about his queerness, it was revealed that the great love of his life was Gellert Grindelwald… a criminal, monstrous, fascist character in the so-called "Wizarding World."

3. Coach Beiste ('Glee')

FOX Broadcasting

Wow, Glee sure messed up its trans characters, didn't it? First there was Unique, a character that the show was afraid to acknowledge as transgender and who later catfished the boy she liked. And then there was Coach Beiste.

When Coach Beiste first showed up on Glee, the character was all about how it's okay, and even good for a woman to be masculine, but then in season 6, Beiste suddenly started acting aggressive, secretive, violent, and erratic. Of course, the reason was that he was trans and had started taking testosterone — a tired and inaccurate transphobic trope.

2. Adam ('Glee')

FOX Broadcasting

From the moment that Kurt (and Glee fans) saw Adam for the first time, it was a mess. Kurt was warned that his NYADA glee club, the Adam's Apples, were "social suicide" to join, but he still went and checked them out. That's where we were treated to the whitest performance of Sir Mix-a-Lot's "Baby Got Back" in the history of white performances of rap songs. We wish Kurt had listened to the warning to stay away.

1. Che Diaz & Miranda Hobbes ('And Just Like That...')

HBO Entertainment

While we love, love, love Sara Ramirez, their nonbinary podcaster and comedian character Che Diaz on And Just Like That… just didn't work for us.

First of all, Miranda Hobbes lost many of the things that made her, well, her, in the sequel series, and in her relationship with Che — and the chaotic decisions they both made in it — we couldn't find the character we had known and loved. Unfortunately, this seems like a case of the writers trying too hard to make a queer storyline check every single box while not telling an actually compelling story.