Black sails flint gay
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But on Black Sails, the 18th century was full of queer characters, and their stories mattered. And yet they don’t believe themselves to be monsters—and most of them aren’t—and so they either adapt to their role for their own advantage or rage against it.
And all of that happens within the greater setting of the Golden Age of Piracy, with all these theses about storytelling and narration mixing with the exploration of the brutal violence that only a colonial empire can create—and the racism and elimination of everything “other” that comes with it.
Black Sails is an explicit prequel to Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1883 book Treasure Island where Captain Flint is a fearsome, legendary pirate who buried a great treasure in the ground, sparking a hunt for it many years later. So who are all the gay characters?
Spoiler alert: Minor spoilers ahead.
Max (Jessica Parker Kennedy)
Portrayed by Jessica Parker Kennedy, Max is introduced to viewers early on.
Not only are several characters queer and shown to be having queer relationships on screen, but queerness as a whole is the major driving force behind the plot—everything started and everything continues because of it. In one of the show’s final scenes, when Long John Silver is working hard to convince Captain Flint to give up his war against England, Flint replies with, “This is how they win, you realize.”
Long John Silver has tasted resistance to the empire and would rather rather bury his sword and live happily with his wife.
In one way, Black Sails is referencing Treasure Island and the role of pirates as morally repugnant villains. She was born into slavery which led her into a life of sex work.
And I have personally rarely seen a take that so badly misinterprets the show it wants to comment on.
Because sure, the queerness of Black Sails—which isn’t really “coded,” since this isn’t subtext but it’s very much text—isn’t a happy one. Throughout the series, Max’s relationships with other women take center stage.
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Eleanor Guthrie (Hannah New)
Hannah New plays Max’s first lover seen on Black Sails, Eleanor Guthrie, who is left by her father to oversee his dealings with the pirates of Nassau.
In reality, Anne, played by Clara Paget, may have been queer since it was recorded that she disguised herself as a man as part of Calico Jack’s crew. This show really was and still is everything to me and it remains one of the best pieces of media I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching. In fact, the writers had this planned since the series’ inception.
After all, what’s queerer than a group of social outcasts who work their hardest to stand against an empire that would like nothing more than to eradicate them?
(featured image: Starz)
Have a tip we should know? She’s brought on as a welcoming gift for John Silver when she makes herself irreplaceable using blackmail and her connections in Nassau.
Queer people rarely get to see themselves represented in historical narratives, let alone represented positively. Most of the characters on Black Sails spend the series wrestling with that question. We told us that he knew that Flint was gay since the very first episode of Black Sails.
And sure, it’s not “nice,” polished queerness. After Eleanor, Max becomes part of a triage with historic pirates Anne Bonny and Jack Rackham (who in reality were likely in a similar arrangement with a woman named Mary Read). If anything should be the legacy Black Sails, it should be us demanding better from the rest of television.
Follow Marina Berlin on Twitter.
'Black Sails' Isn't Queerbaiting — It's Proudly Queersailing Instead!
With shows like ‘Our Flag Means Death’ and ‘Black Sails,’ gay pirates are the latest cultural phenomenon.
Now that Black Sails is finally on Netflix, millions of viewers worldwide who had never heard of the Starz series will get to experience one of the best and most underrated prestige television series of all time.
The Black Sails fandom has had its time to run through all the controversies and the meta posts and the debates, sure, but new people watching the show means a new influx of opinions—which are always welcome, even though some of them have really bristled the entire fanbase of people that have been gallivanting on the Walrus ever since 2014.
That’s because there’s another major theme that courses throughout Black Sails, and that’s queerness.
If marginalized people often don’t see themselves reflected in modern media, the problem only intensifies when it comes to stories set in the past.
Starz’s Black Sails was different.
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Then Max witnesses the destruction of all that she worked, just as Eleanor did.