As the Marvel Cinematic Universe enters its second decade of existence, studio heads and directors alike have been making an effort to represent more diverse characters, specifically in terms of their gender identity and sexual orientation. -- Ava Rukavina, 10th Grade
The first discussions of making a character explicitly queer in an MCU movie came in 2017 with Thor: Ragnarok and the character of Valkyrie, a member of the Asguardian’s all-female military team. If any character were to be confirmed as queer, Valkyrie would be a logical choice given that she has had relationships with both men and women in the Marvel comics. Tessa Thompson, who portrays Valkyrie in the film, pitched her character’s bisexuality to director Taika Waititi, citing the 2013 Fearless Defenders comics, in which Valkyrie is confirmed to be bisexual, and shares a kiss with Annabelle Riggs.
Waititi liked the idea, and they shot a few scenes in Ragnarok that alluded to her potential queerness –but ultimately they were all cut from the film. What remains is a brief flashback of Valkyrie and her Asguardian sisters being slain in battle, when another woman warrior sacrifices her life to save Valkyrie’s. The scene isn’t romantic, not unless you really read into it. Queer audiences, who are known to be quite perceptive, didn’t even make the connection that this woman might be her lover until information about the deleted scenes were revealed. Even if their relationship had been established in the movie, her story still falls into the common trope of killing off queer characters and robbing them of a happy ending.
In Thor: Love and Thunder, Taika Waititi’s second Thor project and the fifth installment overall, the director aimed to atone for the queer scenes he had cut in the previous film. They made this fact clear years before the movie hit theaters. In a 2019 Comic-Con panel, during the film’s production, when asked what Valkyrie’s first order would be as King of Asgard, Tessa Thompson said, “as new king, she needs to find her queen.” This statement led fans to believe that in Love and Thunder, Valkyrie would have a subplot in which she searches for a girlfriend. This rumor was confirmed by President of Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige, in an interview with the movie blog io9, stating very directly that, “Thor: Love and Thunder will feature Valkyrie searching for love as the new ruler of Asgard.” As if that wasn’t enough to raise audience expectations, just a few days before the release of Love and Thunder, at a preview screening of the film Natalie Portman said the movie was “so gay”.
The movie was not “so gay.”
It certainly had some queer aspects that did not go unappreciated including (and limited to): the fact that Korg’s species, the Kronans, are all male and mate with each other, a brief moment where Valkyrie flirts with a Greek goddess, a joke about polyamorous space dolphins, and most importantly, the confirmation that the woman in Valkyrie’s flashback was indeed her lover. It’s clear from this, that Marvel Studios is certainly improving when it comes to the amount of queer representation that they deliver on. This is unquestionably a step in the right direction. Still, the main, and only romantic relationship in the movie is between Thor and Jane, a man and a woman.
The Thor movies aren’t the only MCU projects that mishandle queer representation. In 2017, a few months before the release of Ragnarok, early clips of Black Panther were being screened to gauge audience reactions. Joanna Robinson and Kyle Buchanan, who attended this screening, both reported palpable romantic tension between Okoye and Ayo, members of the Dora Milaje, yet another one of Marvel’s all-female militaries. Robinson suggested that perhaps the creators had adapted the relationship between Ayo and Aneka in the 2016 World of Wakanda comics to the big screen, swapping Aneka for Okoye.
When the film was released though, queer audiences were disappointed to find that not only was any hint of a relationship between the two scrubbed from the final cut, but Okoye had been given a male love interest that many argued did very little for the plot beyond affirming that she was in fact, not queer.
Much like Love and Thunder, the 2022 sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, tried to make up for their failure in the first movie. The filmmakers added Aneka to the cast and confirmed she was dating Ayo… with a 5-second clip in which she gives her a kiss on the forehead. This is the only mention of their relationship in the film, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it peck on the forehead, which can be swiftly edited out for any countries looking to censor LGBTQ+ storylines– not that this moment could even be considered a storyline.
In defense of the movie, there was at least an attempt made to make up for the previous misrepresentation, and the film already had a lot on its hands with it having to respectfully handle the subject of Chadwick Boseman’s death while still moving forward with the series, not to mention how it celebrates black art and culture in a genre that has historically only praised white men in gaudy tights. Neither the movie nor its sequel had any responsibility to depict queer characters— the issue is that they decided to do so, and did it cowardly.
The first “MCU canon” queer character came in 2019, after Black Panther and Ragnorak, but before their sequels, it was a cameo by director Joe Russo in Avengers: Endgame. Russo played a gay man sharing the loss of his partner in a support group –not a superhero, not anyone relevant to the story, a nameless background character who mentions being on a date with a man. Perhaps the strangest part of this piece of pop culture history is that Russo is married to a woman and he himself is in no way queer, or at least has not identified himself as such in his over 25 years as a Hollywood director.
There’s been a lot of discussion in the past few years about how ethical it is to allow cisgendered straight actors to play queer roles, when they could very easily be playing into stereotypes, not to mention they’re taking opportunities away from aspiring queer actors. What’s worse in this case though, is that this was the first time a queer person was depicted in the entirety of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Joe Russo, being the director, had the power to control who would portray that, and decided to cast himself, making him the center of attention. It’s just strange that he would insert himself into the movie in this way, making himself the face of a group that he is not a part of.
The reason this representation feels so lackluster, specifically the sequels which at least make an attempt to include queer characters, is the fact that their queerness is always inconsequential. None of the queer parts of these movies matter. It’s representation for representation’s sake– if you cut every single one of these moments out of these movies they would be, at their core, the same movie.
That’s what we want right? For queer people to exist in storylines without anything being made of it? That would be great if that's what Marvel was doing, but it’s clear that the studio is intentionally pushing these characters to the sidelines so they can remain as appealing to all audiences as possible.
By far the worst offender when it comes to queer representation is the Loki series (2021), not for lack of trying, but because of audience expectations going into the project.
Upon the release of the first teaser trailer fans immediately picked up on the chemistry between Tom Hiddleston’s Loki and Owen Wilson’s Mobius, and in turn started speculating that there might be some kind of romantic tension between them in the series. Though the theory started because of a few longing glances, including one particular shot of Loki adjusting Mobius’s tie, it was backed by the fact that in several iterations of the comics, Loki is bisexual.
So the #Lokius shippers waited it out, growing more in love with the pairing with each passing episode. Finally, halfway through the series, in “Lamentis,” fans got some good news. In a conversation between our Loki and a female variant of Loki, he reveals that he has dated both men and women in the past. Finally! Loki’s bisexuality was MCU canon! Oh how the shippers were excited to see where they would take this. Was Lokius finally on the table? Were we going to see any of these past romances? Would he get a different male love interest in the series? Love interests? There were so many possibilities.
It turns out the answer was, no, no, no, and no. His bisexuality was not explored or even referenced again for the rest of the series –not only that but he is put into a relationship with a woman; a female version of himself, but a woman nonetheless. This aspect of the show actually exemplifies how they have greatly mishandled both Loki’s sexual orientation and his gender identity.
In the comics, Loki is genderfluid, which means exactly what it sounds like, his relationship to his gender is not fixed. Genderfluid people will often experiment with their expression, dressing in different masc, femme, and androgynous styles– though gender is an aspect of identity very specific to individuals, most genderfluid people like to be addressed using all pronouns, sometimes depending on if their appearance happens to be more masculine or feminine in that moment. Because Loki is a shapeshifter, he has the ability to quickly slip in and out of his male and female persona, this fluidity can be seen in one of his most popular comic series, Agent of Asgard.
However, in every MCU project Loki has appeared in so far, including the Loki series, he is referred to with only male pronouns, despite the fact that in another teaser for his show, it was revealed that the gender on his TVA (Time Variance Authority) file, is listed as fluid. Still, Loki does not appear in his female form at any point in the series. The female version of himself who he falls in love with in the series, is not himself, not exactly, in the sense that she is a separate being, her own person, from a parallel timeline. She calls herself Sylvie, and she does identify as female, as confirmed by a leaked photo of her TVA file for Loki season two.
The relationship between him and Sylvie, could have very easily been a queer one. Technically it is, a relationship between a woman and a genderfluid person is a relationship that exists outside of the cishet binary, but the showrunners take all these extra steps to separate the two Lokis, to create the perception of heteronormativity. For one, she calls herself Sylvie, despite the fact that she is a Loki variant, every other variant goes by Loki or some variation of the title, Boastful Loki, Alligator Loki, President Loki, Classic Loki, Kid Loki, the list goes on and on, but she has been given a name that’s more feminine. She also has blonde hair which is styled in a more feminine way, and is considerably shorter than Loki. These are all very minute details but they play a big role in the perception of their relationship as a heterosexual one.
It’s important to note that, obviously, it is not wrong for a bisexual person to date someone of the opposite gender. What’s problematic is when one of the first openly queer characters in a series of movies like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which has for years completely excluded queer people from their canon, is pushed into a hetero-adjacent relationship.
Though the creators of Loki have stated that the series isn’t based on any specific comic, it’s clear that the show takes at least some inspiration from Loki: Agent of Asgard, with the multiple different versions of Loki interacting with each other, as well as the themes of truth, time, and self love explored in both. The Loki show could actually learn a lesson or two from Agent of Asgard, a comic series which masterfully weaves Loki’s queerness into his character, doesn’t stop to explain it, and in the end, is about Loki learning to love and accept himself rather than pining after a female version of himself who doesn’t care much for him.
This is all very nitpicky, yes, but if you make the creative decision to represent a group that you are not a part of, you have to accept the fact that you might not be capable of doing it well. There is one instance of queer representation that proved Marvel studios is, in fact, capable of accomplishing this.
Just a few months after the disappointing season finale of Loki aired, fans received perhaps the most positive example of an LGBTQ+ character in a Marvel movie so far, with Phastos in Eternals. The movie wasn’t especially captivating, but the representation felt so perfect, partly due to Brian Tyree Henry’s innate charm, but likely more to do with the fact that they found a happy medium, representation that exists between nothing and making a big deal of it. Phastos was gay and he was given the space to be gay, and the creators weren’t pointing to it and screaming, “Look at this! Look at this favor we’re doing for you gays! Are you happy now?!”
Therein lies the problem with queer characters in the MCU –the audience is given the bare minimum, by creatives who aren’t a part of the community and treat themselves like saviors, as if they have done this groundbreaking thing and queer people are indebted to them forever. In reality, the representation that they have been providing is incredibly unambitious, often queerbait-adjacent, and so glossed-over that at times it would have been better if they left queer people out of their canon entirely.
Waititi liked the idea, and they shot a few scenes in Ragnarok that alluded to her potential queerness –but ultimately they were all cut from the film. What remains is a brief flashback of Valkyrie and her Asguardian sisters being slain in battle, when another woman warrior sacrifices her life to save Valkyrie’s. The scene isn’t romantic, not unless you really read into it. Queer audiences, who are known to be quite perceptive, didn’t even make the connection that this woman might be her lover until information about the deleted scenes were revealed. Even if their relationship had been established in the movie, her story still falls into the common trope of killing off queer characters and robbing them of a happy ending.
In Thor: Love and Thunder, Taika Waititi’s second Thor project and the fifth installment overall, the director aimed to atone for the queer scenes he had cut in the previous film. They made this fact clear years before the movie hit theaters. In a 2019 Comic-Con panel, during the film’s production, when asked what Valkyrie’s first order would be as King of Asgard, Tessa Thompson said, “as new king, she needs to find her queen.” This statement led fans to believe that in Love and Thunder, Valkyrie would have a subplot in which she searches for a girlfriend. This rumor was confirmed by President of Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige, in an interview with the movie blog io9, stating very directly that, “Thor: Love and Thunder will feature Valkyrie searching for love as the new ruler of Asgard.” As if that wasn’t enough to raise audience expectations, just a few days before the release of Love and Thunder, at a preview screening of the film Natalie Portman said the movie was “so gay”.
The movie was not “so gay.”
It certainly had some queer aspects that did not go unappreciated including (and limited to): the fact that Korg’s species, the Kronans, are all male and mate with each other, a brief moment where Valkyrie flirts with a Greek goddess, a joke about polyamorous space dolphins, and most importantly, the confirmation that the woman in Valkyrie’s flashback was indeed her lover. It’s clear from this, that Marvel Studios is certainly improving when it comes to the amount of queer representation that they deliver on. This is unquestionably a step in the right direction. Still, the main, and only romantic relationship in the movie is between Thor and Jane, a man and a woman.
The Thor movies aren’t the only MCU projects that mishandle queer representation. In 2017, a few months before the release of Ragnarok, early clips of Black Panther were being screened to gauge audience reactions. Joanna Robinson and Kyle Buchanan, who attended this screening, both reported palpable romantic tension between Okoye and Ayo, members of the Dora Milaje, yet another one of Marvel’s all-female militaries. Robinson suggested that perhaps the creators had adapted the relationship between Ayo and Aneka in the 2016 World of Wakanda comics to the big screen, swapping Aneka for Okoye.
When the film was released though, queer audiences were disappointed to find that not only was any hint of a relationship between the two scrubbed from the final cut, but Okoye had been given a male love interest that many argued did very little for the plot beyond affirming that she was in fact, not queer.
Much like Love and Thunder, the 2022 sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, tried to make up for their failure in the first movie. The filmmakers added Aneka to the cast and confirmed she was dating Ayo… with a 5-second clip in which she gives her a kiss on the forehead. This is the only mention of their relationship in the film, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it peck on the forehead, which can be swiftly edited out for any countries looking to censor LGBTQ+ storylines– not that this moment could even be considered a storyline.
In defense of the movie, there was at least an attempt made to make up for the previous misrepresentation, and the film already had a lot on its hands with it having to respectfully handle the subject of Chadwick Boseman’s death while still moving forward with the series, not to mention how it celebrates black art and culture in a genre that has historically only praised white men in gaudy tights. Neither the movie nor its sequel had any responsibility to depict queer characters— the issue is that they decided to do so, and did it cowardly.
The first “MCU canon” queer character came in 2019, after Black Panther and Ragnorak, but before their sequels, it was a cameo by director Joe Russo in Avengers: Endgame. Russo played a gay man sharing the loss of his partner in a support group –not a superhero, not anyone relevant to the story, a nameless background character who mentions being on a date with a man. Perhaps the strangest part of this piece of pop culture history is that Russo is married to a woman and he himself is in no way queer, or at least has not identified himself as such in his over 25 years as a Hollywood director.
There’s been a lot of discussion in the past few years about how ethical it is to allow cisgendered straight actors to play queer roles, when they could very easily be playing into stereotypes, not to mention they’re taking opportunities away from aspiring queer actors. What’s worse in this case though, is that this was the first time a queer person was depicted in the entirety of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Joe Russo, being the director, had the power to control who would portray that, and decided to cast himself, making him the center of attention. It’s just strange that he would insert himself into the movie in this way, making himself the face of a group that he is not a part of.
The reason this representation feels so lackluster, specifically the sequels which at least make an attempt to include queer characters, is the fact that their queerness is always inconsequential. None of the queer parts of these movies matter. It’s representation for representation’s sake– if you cut every single one of these moments out of these movies they would be, at their core, the same movie.
That’s what we want right? For queer people to exist in storylines without anything being made of it? That would be great if that's what Marvel was doing, but it’s clear that the studio is intentionally pushing these characters to the sidelines so they can remain as appealing to all audiences as possible.
By far the worst offender when it comes to queer representation is the Loki series (2021), not for lack of trying, but because of audience expectations going into the project.
Upon the release of the first teaser trailer fans immediately picked up on the chemistry between Tom Hiddleston’s Loki and Owen Wilson’s Mobius, and in turn started speculating that there might be some kind of romantic tension between them in the series. Though the theory started because of a few longing glances, including one particular shot of Loki adjusting Mobius’s tie, it was backed by the fact that in several iterations of the comics, Loki is bisexual.
So the #Lokius shippers waited it out, growing more in love with the pairing with each passing episode. Finally, halfway through the series, in “Lamentis,” fans got some good news. In a conversation between our Loki and a female variant of Loki, he reveals that he has dated both men and women in the past. Finally! Loki’s bisexuality was MCU canon! Oh how the shippers were excited to see where they would take this. Was Lokius finally on the table? Were we going to see any of these past romances? Would he get a different male love interest in the series? Love interests? There were so many possibilities.
It turns out the answer was, no, no, no, and no. His bisexuality was not explored or even referenced again for the rest of the series –not only that but he is put into a relationship with a woman; a female version of himself, but a woman nonetheless. This aspect of the show actually exemplifies how they have greatly mishandled both Loki’s sexual orientation and his gender identity.
In the comics, Loki is genderfluid, which means exactly what it sounds like, his relationship to his gender is not fixed. Genderfluid people will often experiment with their expression, dressing in different masc, femme, and androgynous styles– though gender is an aspect of identity very specific to individuals, most genderfluid people like to be addressed using all pronouns, sometimes depending on if their appearance happens to be more masculine or feminine in that moment. Because Loki is a shapeshifter, he has the ability to quickly slip in and out of his male and female persona, this fluidity can be seen in one of his most popular comic series, Agent of Asgard.
However, in every MCU project Loki has appeared in so far, including the Loki series, he is referred to with only male pronouns, despite the fact that in another teaser for his show, it was revealed that the gender on his TVA (Time Variance Authority) file, is listed as fluid. Still, Loki does not appear in his female form at any point in the series. The female version of himself who he falls in love with in the series, is not himself, not exactly, in the sense that she is a separate being, her own person, from a parallel timeline. She calls herself Sylvie, and she does identify as female, as confirmed by a leaked photo of her TVA file for Loki season two.
The relationship between him and Sylvie, could have very easily been a queer one. Technically it is, a relationship between a woman and a genderfluid person is a relationship that exists outside of the cishet binary, but the showrunners take all these extra steps to separate the two Lokis, to create the perception of heteronormativity. For one, she calls herself Sylvie, despite the fact that she is a Loki variant, every other variant goes by Loki or some variation of the title, Boastful Loki, Alligator Loki, President Loki, Classic Loki, Kid Loki, the list goes on and on, but she has been given a name that’s more feminine. She also has blonde hair which is styled in a more feminine way, and is considerably shorter than Loki. These are all very minute details but they play a big role in the perception of their relationship as a heterosexual one.
It’s important to note that, obviously, it is not wrong for a bisexual person to date someone of the opposite gender. What’s problematic is when one of the first openly queer characters in a series of movies like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which has for years completely excluded queer people from their canon, is pushed into a hetero-adjacent relationship.
Though the creators of Loki have stated that the series isn’t based on any specific comic, it’s clear that the show takes at least some inspiration from Loki: Agent of Asgard, with the multiple different versions of Loki interacting with each other, as well as the themes of truth, time, and self love explored in both. The Loki show could actually learn a lesson or two from Agent of Asgard, a comic series which masterfully weaves Loki’s queerness into his character, doesn’t stop to explain it, and in the end, is about Loki learning to love and accept himself rather than pining after a female version of himself who doesn’t care much for him.
This is all very nitpicky, yes, but if you make the creative decision to represent a group that you are not a part of, you have to accept the fact that you might not be capable of doing it well. There is one instance of queer representation that proved Marvel studios is, in fact, capable of accomplishing this.
Just a few months after the disappointing season finale of Loki aired, fans received perhaps the most positive example of an LGBTQ+ character in a Marvel movie so far, with Phastos in Eternals. The movie wasn’t especially captivating, but the representation felt so perfect, partly due to Brian Tyree Henry’s innate charm, but likely more to do with the fact that they found a happy medium, representation that exists between nothing and making a big deal of it. Phastos was gay and he was given the space to be gay, and the creators weren’t pointing to it and screaming, “Look at this! Look at this favor we’re doing for you gays! Are you happy now?!”
Therein lies the problem with queer characters in the MCU –the audience is given the bare minimum, by creatives who aren’t a part of the community and treat themselves like saviors, as if they have done this groundbreaking thing and queer people are indebted to them forever. In reality, the representation that they have been providing is incredibly unambitious, often queerbait-adjacent, and so glossed-over that at times it would have been better if they left queer people out of their canon entirely.
