Possibly the most unlikely of them all, however, is the Babadook – he transformed from horror movie monster to Pride parade mascot thanks to a Netflix categorization error.
Sesame Street's Bert and Ernie have bedroom arrangements that turned them into unexpected gay icons when the internet woke up. Plus, as Batman comic book writer Grant Morrison points out, he enjoys dressing in 'fetish clothes' every night. Batman, for instance - one of the earliest accidental queer comic book figures - achieved this status through a combination of the homoerotic subtext between him and his young ward Robin and the campiness of his live-action TV show in the '60s. Some of these choices may seem surprising on the surface.
For lack of an alternative, the community has a long tradition of adopting certain fictional characters as its own, whether they're canonically members or not. LGBTQ+ people are hugely underrepresented in pop culture.
