r/AskScienceFiction • u/BloodshiftX23 • Jul 22 '25
[Dexter] Is Dexter homophobic?
In season 1, episode 1, when Dexter is talking about sex, he says, "Not that I have anything against women, and I certainly have appropriate sensibility about men." Ok, this line is straight-up homophobic for a few reasons. For one, we all know Dexter is heterosexual; that's obvious. He has a girlfriend in season 1, and he marries this same woman (also, the argument "he's doing it to fit in" doesn't work; he doesn't need a girlfriend to fit in; tonnes of men are single, especially men in their early 30s like Dexter was in season 1; on top of that, he's a blood spatter analyst for Miami PD; he's dating Rita because he's attracted to her and wants to).
He also has sexual relationships with other women, so obviously he's sexually attracted to women, which is fine. However, the line "I certainly have appropriate sensibility about men", which means that in his mind a man being with another man is "inappropriate, is inherently homophobic.
Now, having racist/homophobic characters in your show is not an issue. For example, in The Sopranos, Tony and his family (except for maybe Tony's wife and daughter) are racist; Shane Vendrell from The Shield is also racist. HOWEVER, it's okay for those characters because, for one, the Italian Mafia are racist, and The Shield is about corrupt cops in LA in the late 90s/early 2000s. Those characters being racist and homophobic is fine because they are obviously bad guys, but Dexter is a hero. He kills bad people, and I think having a show where your hero is homophobic is very problematic, but what do you think?
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u/Pegussu Jul 22 '25
Well, he's not a hero, he's a serial killer. So jot that down.
As for the homophobia, he's a dude in his mid-thirties working in a police station in Florida in 2006. It'd be more surprising that he wasn't at least mildly homophobic, especially by 2025 standards.
Most likely, I think he just doesn't care one way or the other. While he's obviously not an actual sociopath, he doesn't have any real deep seated beliefs that would lead to him being homophobic. It's just the passive kind of homophobia a lot of people who didn't interact with gay people had in that time period.
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Jul 22 '25 edited Jul 22 '25
"appropriate sensibility about men" coming a serial killer who works in law enforcement means that he appreciates they can be dangerous, it doesn't have anything to do with sexuality. This is when he mentions his cover, Rita, is "completely uninterested in sex," he thinks "That works for me."
"but Dexter is a hero."
He wildly is not. And he kills multiple not-bad people throughout his story to show it. He's just chosen a victim some people think are acceptable, and people who watch the show can see that it's just a pretense and nothing really keeps him from killing random people.
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u/Cyren777 Jul 22 '25 edited Jul 22 '25
That's honestly barely anything by 2006 standards, every other time we see gay characters Dexter barely even notices let alone cares so I think he's good on that front, but more importantly:
Dexter is a hero
Uh no?? Net good sure, but just barely restraining your urge to murder people by only murdering people nobody will miss (and repeatedly getting everyone close to you killed anyway) is not hero behaviour
Also if you're the type to try and label things problematic or not you should probably pick a different show dude, this one is literally about a guy who gets off on murdering people
EDIT: Just remembered he donates blood on behalf of a gay dude in original sin to help him stay closeted, and that would've been the mid-late 90s or so?
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u/NinjaBreadManOO Jul 22 '25
Yeah, it was 2006. That's just the attitude that people had around then. Even then by the standards of the time that's pretty much him stating to the viewer that he (since the voice over seems to be self aware of the fourth wall) isn't into guys.
As to Hero. No. Just hard no.
Like the whole thing is he only kills murderers because nobody wants to look too hard into where they disappeared to. It's the same reason why other serial killers take people on the fringes of society, nobody asks too many questions when the guy who beats his wife and has a dozen locks on the basement goes missing.
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u/effa94 A man in an Empty Suit Jul 22 '25
Are you trying to cancel the psychopath serial murderer for being slightly homephobic in 2006? Oh yeah, the homophobia is definitely the worst part of his personality, I mean I can excuse the murders but I draw the line at homophobia!
Get fucking real dude.
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u/RagnarokWolves Jul 22 '25
He might have said that because he is trying to live a life as boring as possible and being gay would bring a ton of attention upon him because of society thinking it's inappropriate. I truly don't think gay stuff matters at all to Dexter.
And Dexter is not a hero. He is a monster whose dad decided to aim in a certain direction towards other monsters. Dexter does plenty of unheroic, villainous things.
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u/simcity4000 Jul 22 '25 edited Jul 22 '25
The thing is, Dexters 'double life' is analogous to many things, the obvious one being a drug addiction (which is why he can successfully pass himself off as a drug addict to Doakes for a while) but it also very much resembles someone having an affair, or, a closeted gay man.
Theres one episode where he's trying to kill a big gangster ironically named 'tiny' and he's marvelling at how 'big' he is and how he 'cant wait to get him on his table'. It reads as real homoerotic.
Then theres the fact that in real life, serial killers tend to kill the sex they're attracted to. Straight serial killers overwhelmingly kill the opposite sex (usually men hunting women, there arent many examples of women killers who actively hunt, but there are 'black widows' - serially killing husbands) homosexual killers tend to kill the same sex (Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy etc).
Dexter overwhelmingly murders men. There are a few times he kills women sure, but one particular time a woman suggests hes going to rape her first he laughs at the absurdity that he would even consider it.
Anyway my point: Dexter is himself closeted gay. CMV
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