diff --git a/awx/api/views.py b/awx/api/views.py
index 5ac258eaef..7015523b2b 100644
--- a/awx/api/views.py
+++ b/awx/api/views.py
@@ -2668,6 +2668,12 @@ class InventoryUpdateList(ListAPIView):
     model = InventoryUpdate
     serializer_class = InventoryUpdateListSerializer
 
+    def get_queryset(self):
+        qs = super(InventoryUpdateList, self).get_queryset()
+        # TODO: remove this defer in 3.3 when we implement https://github.com/ansible/ansible-tower/issues/5436
+        qs = qs.defer('result_stdout_text')
+        return qs
+
 
 class InventoryUpdateDetail(UnifiedJobDeletionMixin, RetrieveDestroyAPIView):
 
diff --git a/awx/main/access.py b/awx/main/access.py
index 8297d2ba70..c2dae1397c 100644
--- a/awx/main/access.py
+++ b/awx/main/access.py
@@ -2084,6 +2084,7 @@ class UnifiedJobAccess(BaseAccess):
         #    'job_template__project',
         #    'job_template__credential',
         #)
+        # TODO: remove this defer in 3.3 when we implement https://github.com/ansible/ansible-tower/issues/5436
         qs = qs.defer('result_stdout_text')
         return qs.all()
 
diff --git a/awx/main/models/__init__.py b/awx/main/models/__init__.py
index 01bd68cc66..2443e16f45 100644
--- a/awx/main/models/__init__.py
+++ b/awx/main/models/__init__.py
@@ -145,3 +145,16 @@ activity_stream_registrar.connect(WorkflowJob)
 
 # prevent API filtering on certain Django-supplied sensitive fields
 prevent_search(User._meta.get_field('password'))
+
+# Always, always, always defer result_stdout_text for polymorphic UnifiedJob rows
+# TODO: remove this defer in 3.3 when we implement https://github.com/ansible/ansible-tower/issues/5436
+def defer_stdout(f):
+    def _wrapped(*args, **kwargs):
+        objs = f(*args, **kwargs)
+        objs.query.deferred_loading[0].add('result_stdout_text')
+        return objs
+    return _wrapped
+
+
+for cls in UnifiedJob.__subclasses__():
+    cls.base_objects.filter = defer_stdout(cls.base_objects.filter)