Are They Gay? - Nick and Gatsby from The Great Gatsby 

Flashbacks to my sophomore English class when literally everyone was calling the book “The Great Gaytsby”.

My favorite part of sophomore English class was my teacher straight up telling us that Nick was gay, so that we didn't confuse this for a straight story.

My school was gonna do this for our play and I find it highly ironic that they cast me, a gay man, as nick, a bisexual man as gatsby, a bisexual woman as Jordan, and a straight woman as daisy. The guy who was cast as tom literally got so pissed off that he got cast as tom and rage quit. If that doesn’t scream tom energy-

I read Great Gatsby junior year, but my teacher was a fucking legend. He straight up said that what Nick wrote about Gatsby was like a teenage girl kicking her legs back and forth on the bed in a disney movie writing in her diary about her crush, and he not only didn't mince the elevator scene but put it on a quiz. Massive respect for that guy, one of the best teachers I ever had.

Nick was literally a cottage core lesbian for the entire movie.

Nick’s relationship with Jordon was wlw mlm solidarity. And Jordon’s ‘manlier’ side was the most intriguing part to Nick.

The most shocking part of this video is that it does not mention the "Goodbye" scene, where Nick is leaving Gatsby's house and they keep repeating "Goodbye" to each other. It's basically the 1920's version of "No, you hang up first."

16:33 "Queer people are mocked for supposedly 'reading too much into' a scene, and then they get erased from a narrative that they were already laughed out of." You are so right. People can make excuses all they want (cut for time, irrelevant, etc.), but they KNOW why that McKee scene isn't in any movies.

ok can we touch again on the whole "i dont have a woman like that so i just pick some random girl and decide thats gonna be my crush ig" like that is textbook comphet

I said that Nick gave off gay energy during an English class and I got yelled at by some girl and she said “NOT EVERYTHING HAS TO BE GAY” and I just started laughing at how pressed she was

You should totally make a parody episode called “Are they really good friends?”

Even I, a straight(?) woman that most subtext flies right over her head, couldn’t miss the INTENSE homoeroticism of Nick writing AN ENTIRE BOOK about the man he loves

“straight” and “nick” don’t go in the same sentence. unless the sentence also has the word “not”

“are they gay?” honestly, alex, they always are

One other thing that I think is worth mentioning Re: The Gay Gatsby is the connection (or rather, multiple connections) between the book and a man named J. C. Leyendecker. Leyendecker was a really famous commercial illustrator in the early 20th century. He was best known for creating a character known as the Arrow Collar Man for a series of shirt collar advertisements. The image of the Arrow Collar man was so ubiquitous in the 1910s-1920s that Daisy Buchanan tells Gatsby, "You resemble the advertisement of the man... You know the advertisement of the man." It's pretty much an established fact that Daisy is referencing Leyendecker's Arrow Collar Man. Incidentally, the Arrow Collar Man is shown in the Times Square scene of the 2013 film, on a billboard. The Arrow Collar Man is notable in that it is one of the first advertising campaigns to advertise a lifestyle rather than simply a specific product. The Arrow Collar Company was essentially saying, "If you buy our shirt collars, you'll be as cool and sexy as this guy." They were trying to sell an image of a refined, elegant, well-dressed metropolitan man - this happens to be almost identical to the image that Gatsby has created for himself. How is this gay, you ask? Leyendecker was gay (and a lot of his illustrations are veerrrry homoerotic). The model for almost every illustration of the Arrow Collar Man was Leyendecker's boyfriend, a guy named Charles Beach. Leyendecker and Beach lived together in a mansion in New Rochelle, and they were known for throwing big, lavish parties for all the wealthy, artsy types of New York. Sound familiar? F. Scott Fitzgerald attended these parties, and it is believed that Gatsby was inspired by Leyendecker and Beach. If you want to known more about Leyendecker/the Arrow Collar Man/the Fitzgerald connection, this article is a great place to start: www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/what-maketh-man tl;dr: 1. Gatsby is compared to queer-coded illustrations by a gay artist of his boyfriend; 2. The entire premise of the book is likely inspired by said artist and boyfriend.

my english teacher skipped over the entire "yeah nick slept with a guy" scene and brushed it off, presumably because it was a utah high school where "mormon church" is an elective you can take, but the moment nick carroway saw jay gatsby for the first time and spent an entire page describing his smile, i knew what was up

Honestly I didn’t read the book when I read it in school, I read fanfics of Nick and Gatsby and passed the test easily

I went to a catholic high school and my lit teacher straight up said, "you realize its all gay, right?"

This is my (straight) sister’s favourite book. When I told her there was a lot of textual queer evidence, she laughed me off. And then she sat there and thought about it. And she thought about it some more... and went ‘holy shit!’ I literally saw her whole emotional journey on her face lmao. It just goes over straight people’s heads, even if they’re allies.

25:36 "And they were neighbors!" "Oh my god, they were neighbors..."

My teacher made a point to explicitly state the characters were gay before we read. She said, and I quote, "I don't want you to get confused, though the subtext is obvious."

Am I about to watch a one hour long video essay about whether nick and gatsby were gay or not? The answer is yes, yes I am and yes, yes they were.

Are we also gonna forget the random Owl Man that Gatsby just... let live with him and read in his library and drink all of his liquor for no reason other than because "he was lonely"? He easily could have let random women stay with him as a make-shift harem, but he chose a very drunk and questionable man? Very Questionable lol

The Great Gatsby is the greatest gay fanfiction ever written.

as someone who wrote a solid five paragraph essay about how nick lies to himself last year for gatsby and my best point was about his sexuality, i'm excited

Me: *flashbacks to freshman year of high school as my gay self practically exploded reading this book from the sheer amount of overt gayness*

my teacher had to watch my whole class of 12 chant "Nick is gay!" until he agreed. On this day the blessman(nickname for our teacher) was dressed as nick.

I'm British and studied this in sixth form. My favourite moment being when I said Nick is an unreliable narrator because he has feelings for Gatsby and my teacher said "Yes! Finally!"

I also read this book in High School and wrote an essay about Nick's gayness. The teacher was not pleased.

i was rereading it recently and literally barely one page in, nick had called gatsby "gorgeous"

Even my extremely straight low-key transphobic mother who taught English 3 honors knows that Nick was absolutely head over heels in love with Gatsby and whenever a student would ask if Nick was gay, they would become her favorite student

To me, Gatsby reads as a person who's bisexual (more attracted towards men) and aware of it. Gatsby holds on to that idealised image of Daisy (his first love), but he at least subtly knows that he wasn't as "in love" with Daisy anymore, even if he did once - especially after he first makes contact with her. He does use Nick as a tool to get to Daisy - in fact, that was probably his initial intention, but he also genuinely comes to like Nick as a person, as a friend and likely more over the course of the story. We ultimately see painfully little of Gatsby's true thoughts and feelings - Fitzgerald made many deliberate decisions that reduced how much we truly hear Gatsby, thus allowing him to be shrouded by the obfuscations Nick throws up. Nevertheless, I feel like Gatsby is almost painfully aware of his reality (as someone who falls short of the American Dream, as someone whose very existence goes outside the normative standards of his time); he knows that, despite his dramatic attempts to cover up all the darkness of his past and his efforts as a noveau riche, despite his deliberate painting-over to create an idealised fantastical world, he cannot replace or destroy reality. He merely covers all that up with his trained, practiced charisma, and for the most part the others in his life seem not to care to look beyond this facade - until he meets Nick, who does so pretty much instinctively. And, as the story progresses, he almost seems to invite Nick to call him out on his artificiality and seems to want Nick to "look behind the curtain" so to speak - Nick, however, chooses not to do so for deliberate reasons. As for Nick, I instead feel like he's not unaware, but in DEEP denial of his feelings for Gatsby, at least within the text of the book. He, in the context of writing this book, brushes most of "himself" aside - he never tells us much about himself explicitly, and participates in self-censorship more than any other. Although he is the narrator (or, more precisely, BECAUSE), we know very little of him, his life and his uncensored feelings. Nevertheless, we see, here and there, Nick's less-romanticised image of both himself and Gatsby show through seemingly despite Nick's intentions. Nick is aware that he's not attracted to women, although he still participates in "hetero" relationships here and there - he behaves, as Jordan notes, carelessly towards women and their feelings. He paints his "relationship" with Jordan as "the default"; what "love" should be like to him. And, conversely, things like the elevator scene feel instead as evidence (to me) that Nick is very much aware about his homosexuality, beyond just "friendship" levels, although it's possible it normally was largely sexual, short flings. It might explain why his treatment of Gatsby was so incredibly exceptional; it was a romantic love he hadn't expected, Nick's very own "green light" he was afraid of reaching out to - of making contact with, for fear that it would end precisely the way Gatsby's did. Accustomed to "love" as he has with women like Jordan and seeing the destructive consequences of "love" the way Tom and Daisy (or other heterosexual couples) had, he was unwilling to acknowledge the reality he was now faced with. And now he suppresses it, painting his own memories and feelings over with a blanket of "we're just friends" because the source of his green light is now well and truly gone... even as he writes this book, immortalising Gatsby's memory. Overall, my personal reading is that (to some extent) Nick dropped the ball, and it cost them both their happiness. Nick, in his many monologues over the course of the story, makes clear what he dislikes about the noveau riche (and thus the things he dislikes in the facetious Gatsby), his nigh-instinctual awareness of the "real" Gatsby behind that facade, and what he claims Gatsby is thinking. Gatsby, according to Nick, asked DIRECTLY what the latter thought of him; Nick's response was as non-committal as could possibly be, despite the wealth of evidence to show he had lots of opinions. Gatsby also gives Nick quite a bit of insight into his unglamorous history first-hand, which Nick includes in his written account - but Nick still chooses to see and now paint Gatsby as a person with an incredible sense of hope; he deliberately refuses to acknowledge the image behind the curtain, even though he knows it well. Nick only asks Gatsby to run away once, and drops it when Gatsby refuses - not wanting to shake him free of that hope. Unwilling to really make an attempt to reach out to the source of that light, and unable to suppress and destroy the light completely, Nick refuses to respond to Gatsby's invitation to "peek behind the curtain" and refuses to tear down the curtain himself. It's only now, in writing this book - a memoir to his close friend and lost love, the great Gatsby - that Nick pretty much does the same thing as Gatsby did before him. He deliberately leaves gaps in the curtain and invites the reader to call them both out, for Nick's hypocrisy and Gatsby's artificiality, looking behind the many veils that shape what we expect of each character in the story to find the tragic reality embedded within. And in doing so, the two are united, recognised as the flawed beings that they really are, rather than the facades they each put up.

When I watched the 2013 movie with my mom, the scene where Gatsby and Nick met for the first time came and my mom literally said "Oh so Nick's gay?"

I'm 1 bad choice away from sending this to my English teacher who told us Nick absolutely wasn't gay when LITERALLY everyone saw it UPDATE: II have found out my teacher has changed her mind since I was in her class. she is now a gay nick truther and I feel retroactively vindicated after being so thoroughly dismissed before. I don't know what changed her mind but I chose to believe she stumbled upon this video :-)

My favourite way of interpreting the story is: that Gatsby is bi and sort of likes Daisy, in the Expectations vs Reality way of the book. Like Daisy represents something he feels his heart must _ache_ for, all the while Nick is something his heart is fond of, the sunshine of his days. Gatsby knows he's bi and thus his interactions with Nick are of the likes of "you are my truest friend and thus you make me feel more alive than the woman I love. God, please, never leave my side. I'd be lost without you..." And that Nick is so far in the closet he doesn't know it at all. Like, Nick lives in Narnia. And thus everything Gatsby releated is akin to a teenage girl going "OMG, MOM, NATHANIEL DREAMLAKE, MY FAVOURITE MEMBER OF BOYS BE DREAMIN', HAS ASKED ME TO GO TO THE PROM WITH HIM. I TOTEZ BELIEVE HE WANTS TO BE FRIENDS, OMG, AAAAAAAH". Gatsby exudes chill bi-bes and Nick is a moronic gay who thinks anal is a sign of friendship.

Even that horrifically hetero & basic retelling starring Leonardo & Toby felt GAY AF.

i haven't watched the video but yes, yes they are

"Have you been acting a little straight lately?" Only you could make that your opening line AND have it work.

This just makes me want to write a scipt for a movier modern adaptation that is loyal to the book and all the subtext and HAS THE MR. MCKEE SCENE

Mom: are you texting your friends? Me: yes *actually watching an hour long analysis of nickxgatsby like a boss*

I think Nick and Gatsby being mlm strengthens the 'American dream' theme. We're told all our lives that we're free to live a happy life, but that happy life is assumed to include a partner of the opposite gender. Nick and Gatsby can't have their happy ending with their true love *because* their true loves happen to be the same gender. if that's not the American dream failing to come true, i don't know what is

Every time I think of this book I think about the time I referred to Gatsby and Daisy as "good friends" in front of my teacher and 20+ classmates... I really "gal pal-ed" them they way straight people do to any gay people...

Ohhhh so *THAT’S* why I was inexplicably obsessed with this book in high school, and when given an assignment in art class to depict important people to us, I painted my ✨totally straight best gal pal that I definitely wasn’t deeply in love with✨ and I holding hands in a garden while my boyfriend at the time was standing off to the side in a Gatsby-inspired Art Deco style. (Yes this is a real thing that happened, no it was not intentional. I was so in the closet in high school I hadn’t even realized I’d done that until I found it in a box of old high school stuff a few weeks ago ahsjakakdk help.)

Nick's "tender curiosity" towards Jordan kinda reads like the "let's be pals in a mlm/wlw solidarity way" feeling we've all had

When we had to do a project on The Great Gatsby, the straight girl in our class that every guy in our school had dated at least once, made her project about why Nick and Gatsby were in love. They gay.

My 60 year old grade 12 English teacher was surprisingly gay aware and had a whole day of our Gatsby 3 weeks devoted to debating nicks sexuality. Even during our big final exam worth 25% of our final mark one of the essay questions you could write on was write about the following relationships, and Nick and Gatsby was one of them. He also did a piece on Hamlets sexuality. Man I loved him, out of 35 teachers in my 4 years of high school, including 4 health teachers, he was the only one that talked about queer matters without being asked first.

15:02 Nick and Mckee- Literally on a bed in their underwear. Old Literary Critics and English Teachers- ✨They were such good friends ✨

I'm genuinely surprised that you guys haven't done an are they gay episode for Phoenix and Edgeworth. Those two idiots are legendary!

The most clear thing I remember from reading the great gatsby is Nick’s throwaway page about him going home with a photographer and ending up in his bed and me being like OH NICK FUCKS

please we need a are they gay subject in school, we need to identify the gayness sooner. Won't somebody please think of the children?!

I remember in my English class my teacher argued that Gatsby only wanted Daisy because she was like a material item to him. A status symbol. I totally agree with that. He only wants her bc she would be a great beard lol

Are they gay: Achilles and Patroclus

I sent a screencap of this video to my old high school English teacher and he said "Why do you need to watch an hour-long video for something that takes 5 minutes to confirm"

When I was doing the great gatsby in high school my teacher started the book off with "I don't think nick is gay so don't start" so I of course highlighted all the gay parts in my copy of the book. I hope she enjoyed my annotations :)

My English teacher literally said. “So if you couldn’t tell some people think nick might be bisexual and have a thing for gatsby” We got to the first chapter and I don’t remember what it was but something in my brain went “wow this nick dude sounds in love with gatsby” Also just a note about my English teacher and how great he is, when myrtle died the last note on her character he had us write was “beep beep” so take that as you will I find it hilarious

Nick was the only one to show up at his funeral and weep for him. 💅💅💅💅

My teacher, without saying anything, posted an essay about the homoerotic subtext of the gay gatsbi in the class notebook. I was like... 👀

No one: Literally no one: Nick: "HiS uNdReStAnDiNg SMILE"

14:56 the brokeback mountain theme song killed me 💀

the fact that I'm bi, yet I can't tell whose gay and who isn't my friend's right, my gaydar is broken

HELLO LGBTQ COMMUNITY

all those social media but we just want to know your AO3 name Alex

My English teacher went into a whole rant about the symbolism of Nick being gay and broke down that whole scene when he is on the elevator with this guy and then wakes up on his bed like oop- It was great

“lunch! the second gayest meal” we all know it’s brunch

nick and jordan literally commiserate about being "bad drivers" at life. BAD DRIVERS? GAY

the fact alex has been making these videos faithfully since tenth grade. king

The real question is: How would Fitzgerald know how to write all these gay feelings if he didn't actually have them himself?

Nothing like being a Jew and sitting in an English room whilst reading the chapter with Meyer Wolfsheim and everyone spins around to look at you, good times.

THE ONLY CLASS IM WILLING TO PAY ATTENTION IN- YESSIRRRR

I remember reading this book in high school and going into the class discussion fully expecting that everyone had noticed how gay this book was. Needless to say, I was shocked when the whole rest of the class said I was crazy. One kid tried to use Jordan as evidence that Nick was straight and I LOST IT. Like, telling me that woman is not a lesbian is like telling me that the sky isn't blue or that bisexuals don't cuff their jeans.

My favorite moment in discussing this book in high school was the teacher getting to that scene that nick goes off with Mr. Mckee and basically did the "we don't have time to unpack ALL of that" John Mulaney bit

I hated the Great Gatsby when I read it in school bc I thought it was one of the worst, most boring, books ever. When I discovered that Nick was gay 2 1/2 years after reading it for school, I could finally appreciate the Great Gatsby as the great american classic it's known to be. Nick being Gay makes the entire story worthwhile and relatable and tragically beautiful. Shame on the teachers who shy away from allowing their students an opportunity to really learn.

this just made my day 1 HOUR OF ARE THEY GAY ABOUT THE GREAT GATSBY??!

As a Literature Major, I have mad respect for this dissection of an inherently gay classic novel. Even if Nick may not be 100% gay, and may identify as something else on the spectrum, it is impossible not to pick up on his attraction toward Gatsby. And it is damn near impossible not to read his attraction as anything other than romantic pining. Take my Like, you have earned it.

This is so funny because my English teacher (love her) was practically screaming and begging the class to realize that these two are so ungodly god. And I, as a gay, was so ready. I lead every class discussion lmao.

1:05:00 it's so true though. They will make you analyse the smallest things, but they will not address a clear possibility within the text. The only other person in my class who acknowledged this was a straight, cis girl in my class, and they all laughed at her. Which is why I never said anything, as a clearly LGBT+ guy. Because even the english teachers can't bare to think that Fitzgerald could have planted a small piece of queerness in his work. We literally never talked about that scene with Mr. McKee, and it was so obviously because the teacher couldn't think of a straight explanation for it.

Could you do Alexa and Liana from Barbie Diamond castle?They literally escaped from to guys using a rainbow bridge.

The first couple of seconds accusing me of ACTING STRAIGHT.... SIR THAT WAS OUT OF POCKET but damn I sat through the whole merch promo

I always thought that yes; Nick is gay... But also that Jordan is non-binary or a demi-girl that had a crush on Daisy *This makes me happy, thanks for the video*

Hi thank you for the video. I found this about a month after writing a paper on why Nick was gay and it was awesome to see someone else talking about the same points as me

I went to school in England, and the Merchant of Venice was only interesting to read because I read Antonio as a barely closeted gay man with a crush on his friend who uses him for money.

i’m only on minute 16 and i haven’t laughed so hard in months curing my depression AND furthering the homosexual agenda ? i know i’m in love

My high school English experience was just teachers learning every year not to call on me unless they wanted an overly detailed deconstruction of how literally everything is gay.

These videos are the only reason I watch anything besides child cartoon shows over and over again.

I'm just reminded of how I wrote my 11th grade English final basically on how Nick was gay for Gatsby(noticing most of the evidence on my first read, like "really? we're reading this in a highschool class? No one is noticing how this is super gay, with extreme romantic overtones between these two? How does Nick know she's wearing freaking CHIFFON?!) Anyway, I tied in a whole theme of unrequited love, and how the obvi love gatbsy has for daisy (the ideal) parallels nicks love for him, and proved in my essay how said themes were Improved by this parallel, after of course proving the Nick is a raging homosexual liar to my teacher who didn't even acknowledge the gay hookup (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.) I got an A on that. I still consider that my best work of writing I ever wrote in highschool

My literature teacher at the university said that ''The Great Gatsby'' is one of his favourite american books and this book covers queer, feminist themes and it is Polish university and saying something about lgbt+ people here in good or neutral way lately is pretty hmmm... brave I would say. Ps. I love how big your research is. You made, great job!

As a straight man on this channel I'm offended that you haven't asked the real question.... Are Goku and Vegeta? It haunts my dreams knowing that with your expertise you haven't answered the question 😭😭😭😭

My sophomore year teacher was a closeted lesbian and was currently going through her divorce. She was dead straight on not allowing us to say that nick was gay :)

Why does every single piece of classic literature that they force us to read in school literally always have gay subtext? Like istg they all do-

Ok but while this was a classic of gay subtext in english class, no one seems to remember the ORIGINAL gay book we (or at least my school) read in 8th grade: the outsiders. you cannot TELL me Ponyboy and Johnny weren't gay as hell

I’m reading this in school rn and the first page when nick is describing gatsby I was just like “are you a homosexual” and was pleased to find others thought the same

my English teacher headcannoned Nick as gay

I have the popcorn, I got the blanket, ready to spend an hour watching this

when i was in high school, i wrote a paper abt how nick is gay and presented it to my english class while basically screaming at anyone who tried to argue that nick was straight

Pretty sure nicks love for Gatsby mirror Gatsby unrequited love for daisy. Pretty clever writing

Once again I am back here obsessed with Great Gatsby

“and as we all know there’s nothing gayer than getting lost.” I choked on air ;-; this is so true-

As a straight person, I have to say that even we pick up on the overt gayness of this story, and anyone who says they don't is in denial

i own the “authorized edition” of the book (according to the cover) and the introduction straight up confirms that nick was in love with gatsby

My teacher actually brought up Nick’s gayness in class so the class would have that context reading the rest of the book. I sent this video to him. He liked it and thought you made good points :)