In the world of indie-animation, there aren’t many that stand out enough to be picked up, or be worked on past a single episode, but Hazbin Hotel is different because the spider, is obviously gay. Now, this would not be a point that stands out so much had the other characters been given the same treatment. In the new world of animators and storytellers, it is not uncommon for characters to have deep lore. I have multiple characters written with a considerable amount of depth, but their genders are handled differently.

Hazbin Hotel is an indie animation made by Vivienne Medrano that first appeared as a pilot episode on Youtube. The video has gained a massive following as well as a spin-off series known as Helluva Boss, which is basically The Office if it was set in Hell. The Hazbin Hotel Pilot Episode now has almost 69 million views.

Of course, the representation of the queer minorities is usually blatant in indie animation, many of the characters are presented normally with no obvious investigations of their gender. The characters of Charlie and Vaggie are seemingly friends in the Pilot, but they are a couple. The official Hazbin Hotel Wiki at one point stated that they were just friends, which caused some confusion, prompting Hazbin Hotel creator, Vivienne Medrano, to explicitly state that they are more than just friends.

Another character whose gender is not hinted at once in the entire pilot is Alastor the Radio Demon, which apart from being based on a Wendigo, is Asexual. That information is not from the Pilot, that comes from a stream held during the creation of the show, where the creator reviled his gender. Once again, it is Viv that comes out to tell it as it is. If it wasn’t for her, the fanbase would have been misgendering everyone.

This isn’t to say that the character of Angel Dust couldn’t have been misgendered as well. Although he is gay, there are moments where he could be seen as female. There’s the breast fluff in the design of the character, when Nifty refers to him as a woman, as well as Alastor calling him “effeminate fellow”, and yet, he decides not to correct either of them. If even Alastor is confused, then it’s surprising to see more of the fanbase get his gender right the first time. However, this could also be a writing issue, Dave Capdevielle has been the tail end to jokes among the Hazbin Crew in the past. Even the voice actor of Angel Dust, Michael Kovach, knows that.

Looking into more of the lore and occupations of Angel Dust, he has been seen working as a prostitute, stripper, and porn star, seemingly all at once. In the official Hazbin Hotel Prequel Comic, Dirty Healings, Angel is working on a street corner when our main protagonists Charlie and Vaggie show up to make a deal with him. Angel also specifically states that he charges extra for females as soon as he sees them, again, just showing how obviously gay he is. He also shows some signs of gender disconformity as he sometimes refers to himself as pig mama to his pet pig, Fat Nuggets. This could also explain why he didn’t correct Nifty or Alastor in the Pilot Episode.