We Need to Stop Looking to the MCU for Queer Representation

If you were a Steve/Bucky shipper from 2014-2016, you may be entitled to financial compensation.

I know, it may be a hard pill to swallow, but you need to stop looking to the MCU for queer representation. While I’m not here to tell you representation in these films isn’t valuable to a very specific demographic (children and teens who these films have been marketed to since the franchise began), I am here to say that you, dear reader, shouldn’t be looking for this. Under the assumption that everyone who subscribes to this newsletter is an adult, I don’t have sympathy when your favorite caped crusader is “revealed,” to be straight. I mean, weren’t we all assuming this anyways? Were you truly expecting that a franchise which is so devoid of intimacy and sensuality would one day have queer people at the forefront of these films? Maybe you were, but I sure wasn’t.

I’ve been thinking about this topic for a while: queerbaiting and of course, the MCU’s hold on my generation. But, the words finally formed onto Google doc earlier this month when the trailer for the anticipated Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) was released. I was initially a mild fan of Taika Waititi’s previous MCU endeavor, Thor: Ragnarok (2017). Sure the film doesn’t offer up anything earth shattering - except  that gorgeous Valkyrie flashback sequence - but in 2018, it felt like a breath of fresh air. A Marvel film that doesn’t take itself too seriously? Oh, Joy! Despite my initial amusement, I later retracted this statement, just after Avengers: Endgame (2019) was released. Watching Endgame felt like staying up all night in the online queue for concert tickets, only for them to be sold out when your turn in line came up. I realized these films truly have no stakes or consequences in them, so what was the point in watching them?

Now, as the superhero fatigue grows within me more each year, films like Thor: Love and Thunder bring nothing to mind other than a “Really?” Despite this, I watched the trailer, because I am a natural born hater who loves to complain about the state of modern cinema. Like I anticipated, it delivered nothing, despite its pretty colors, and I initially closed Youtube thinking the worst thing about the trailer was definitely its use of Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine.” But boy was I wrong! Mere minutes after the trailer was uploaded, it sparked a discussion that I’ve been wanting to have for years regarding Gen Z’s media consumption habits and MCU apologist theory. So, here we go. 

In the middle of the Thor: Love and Thunder trailer, there’s a sequence between the titular character Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord. In this sequence, under the weight of the jarring Guns N Roses guitar, Star-Lord wistfully muses “You ever feel lost? Just look into the eyes of the people that you love.” He then looks over the Guardians of the Galaxy, and as the camera pans to them, Thor slowly comes into view. Star-Lord then scoffs, “What? Not me,” to which Thor replies “What? Just listening,” and looks away. Cue Axl Rose’s grating vocals. 

It’s played for laughs…obviously, but of course, that didn’t stop people on the internet from going haywire over this minuscule interaction. The first thing I saw, was this TikTok around an hour after the trailer aired. In it, user @sqwillliam says “Taika queer coding thor and starlord in Love and Thunder.'' If this is truly what my generation thinks queercoding is, I may have to start drinking again. First, I want to reiterate that this was a 1.5 minute trailer of a film that isn’t scheduled to come out until the summer. Secondly, a film infused with subtext is different than a sequence in a film that was most likely written in the script as a joke. Like, come on! The notion that whoever wrote this sequence was doing it to hint at any attraction between Thor and Star-Lord instead of playing it for laughs, is very unlikely. 

This isn’t a new thing though, and I know it first hand. You could say I was a MCU “stan” when I was a teenager, seeing each film multiple times in theaters, collecting Funko Pops, the whole shabang. I am also, surprise, very gay! So of course, I was a Steve/Bucky warrior (and a part of me, one that I have tried to bury deep within the axis of my brain, still is. I may be all of these things but I am not an idiot, so the idea that Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige, or the Russo Brothers were one day going to wake up and decide to make Steve and Bucky explicitly gay was never once a thought I entertained. 

If we want to get down to it, the issues of the Captain America trilogy, it’s queer fanbase, and queerbaiting, is one of the greatest corporate ploys in modern history. The people in charge, mainly the Russo Brothers, Chris Evans, and Sebastian Stan, knew just how desperate their fans were for some sort of legitimacy when it came to their feelings about the relationship between the trilogy’s central male characters, and they fed into this greatly during the Captain America: Civil War (2016) press tour. I can’t fault them really, because who is to say they didn’t feel the things they were saying. Sometimes, straight dudes are just very dumb and don’t realize gay people exist, or realize that gay kids who consume the media they’re starring in will latch onto these words. 

Obviously, Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes never got together, and this will also be true for Thor and Star-Lord. If anything, it’s so obvious this instance is being played for laughs, rather than character development or plot, it’s jarring to see tweets like these ones. To assume that for some reason, the corporate overlords decided they were going to make a character played by notorious evangelicalist Chris Pratt have a relationship with another man, is just silly. Especially when Disney has been under fire for weeks due to their support of the “Don’t Say Gay Bill.” Yes, Star-Lord is bisexual in the comics now, but Marvel comics has always been eons ahead of Marvel Studios in terms of representation. 

The fact of the matter is, if you’re looking for meaningful queer representation in the MCU, you’re not going to find it. Not now, and probably not ever. I’m not talking about a kiss between two men who barely get any screen time, I’m talking about real fleshed out queer characters. But, I guess that’s too much to ask for since we don’t even get fleshed out straight characters in the MCU. These movies get more boring and predictable as time goes on, and don’t even get me started on the nonsensical Disney+ originals they’ve been putting out. Characters in this franchise have been given more personality by fanfiction writers than the makers of these films, so why are we as queer people, wasting our time on these movies? I don’t think the rule of Marvel will end any time soon, but once people realize that Martin Scorsese was right, maybe queer fans can actually have a conversation about the long withstanding resistance Disney and Marvel had to showcase queer people in their films. 

Even if Thor and Star-Lord were to have hot, passionate gay sex on my screen, it wouldn’t fill the void that 15 year-old me felt when I grasped for straws every time Steve and Bucky looked at each other. Why? Because unlike Star-Lord and Thor, these two men had history, and they were the closest instance of queerbaiting Marvel ever came to. Senselessly begging the corporate overlords for queer representation doesn’t do anything other than make you look pathetic, especially when we’ve been given films like The Power of the Dog, Flee and Benedetta all within the last year. Representation is out there, you just have to take off those Disney-tinted sunglasses and seek it out. Almost everyone has access to these films, as they are available on a wide range of streaming platforms, so there’s no excuse! Support queer cinema and indie filmmakers, broaden your horizons and check up on your film history knowledge. Your favourite sex-less, spandex wearing superheroes may not be queer, but there are over a dozen smaller movies released every year where queer characters are allowed to exist.