Maybe one of those alternate universes from The Cloverfield Paradox has some LGBTQ+ people in it. This will apparently remain the case even after the sexy, young(ish) version played by Jude Law debuts in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. Despite JK Rowling outing him herself, there has never been anything in either the books or films to indicate his sexuality.
No – we're afraid that Albus Dumbledore does not count.
In a series where cars parachute out of planes, people come back from the dead and weird anachronistic future Tokyos are apparently a thing, one man kissing another is just a 'plot twist' too far. Still, none of these are ever officially outed, and if queerness is just used to make a bunch of murderous psychopaths seem 'even creepier', we'd just as soon they didn't bother. The classic spy franchise is a bit of an oddity, as it has featured a handful of characters over the decades who are clearly coded as gay, such as Mr Wint and Mr Kidd in Diamonds are Forever and Raoul Silva in Skyfall (while straightwashing other LGBTQ+ characters from the books, such as Goldfinger's Pussy Galore). While Johnny Depp may have joked that 'all his characters are gay' to upset some Disney execs, the powers that be could breathe a sigh of relief knowing that the multi-billion dollar franchise itself remains utterly straight. Although Age of Extinction was called out by GLAAD for including "at least one scene in which an effeminate man is made into an object of ridicule". Michael Bay's testosterone-drenched explosion-fests do not feature an LGBTQ+ character. (All eyes are currently on Deadpool 2 to make the character Shatterstar gay or bisexual.) 5. In terms of gender balance, the 18-year-old franchise has always been ahead of its rivals, but even having openly bisexual director Bryan Singer at the reins for much of its existence hasn't translated into out characters.Īnd while Ryan Reynolds may claim that Deadpool is 'pansexual', until he finally introduces us to that boyfriend, it doesn't count. The X-Men series would be an obvious place to feature an LGBTQ+ character, what with the frequent parallels drawn between coming out as a mutant/gay – including that very on-the-nose joke in X2. The best and most obvious opportunity so far was Wonder Woman, but it chose a shoehorned romance with Steve Trevor over exploring the sexuality of Diana or any of her Amazon sisters who live in a world without any men at all beyond one veiled allusion.
DCEUĭC's TV output has been increasingly inclusive thanks to shows like Black Lightning and Supergirl – including a web series starring gay superhero The Ray.īut there wasn't any room for diversity in Zack Snyder's hyper-grim Man of Steel or Batman v Superman, and Joss Whedon's involvement on the slightly more upbeat Justice League didn't change that. The book Leia: Princess of Alderaan also hinted obliquely that Laura Dern's Amilyn Holdo was interested in more than just "humanoid males", but that never played out on screen. Of course, there are Finn and Poe, but The Last Jedi resolutely refused to make their romance canon. Under Disney, Star Wars has actually introduced LGBTQ+ characters, but only in its novels. Since then, moments that might have portrayed Tessa Thompson's Valkyrie in Thor: Ragnarok and Danai Gurira's Okoye in Black Panther as bisexual were cut from their films.
Thanks for that James, but LGBTQ+ people have had to imagine themselves into mainstream movies for decades without Guardians' 'help'. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 director James Gunn hinted that his 2017 film would feature a gay character, only to later reveal that "we don't really know who's gay and who's not" because their backstories haven't been explored yet. Marvel Studios has continued to tease us with the unfulfilled promise of queer characters. The Alien and Star Trek reboot franchises get bonus points for showing how easy it is to acknowledge that gay people even exist at all, but they are about the only examples in a crowded field of multi-billion dollar fails.
It's 2018, and although the world seems to be (very) slowly coming around to the idea that not everyone is heterosexual and cisgender, some of the biggest movie tentpoles in Hollywood are woefully behind the times in terms of LGBTQ+ representation.