James Gunn Says ‘Guardians 2’ Might Have an LGBT Character, but Is This Another Vague ‘Exclusively Gay Moment’?
Large studios are slooooowly introducing more diverse characters into their movies, and this year have been dipping a toe into the LGBT spectrum. Disney’s Beauty and the Beast featured that “exclusively gay moment,” and Power Rangers boasted history’s first gay movie superhero, but we have yet to have anything concrete. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 director James Gunn was asked about whether he’d consider putting a gay character in one of his Marvel movies, and his response kinda sounded like he already had.
Gunn talked with the Press Association about the new film (via Yahoo Movies), and seemed to hint that maybe there was a non-straight character in it.
Absolutely. I would love to be able to. We might have already done that. I say watch the movie. Check it out. See what you think.
I’ve heard no talk of this from anyone I know who has seen the movie, which either means it’s not there, or it’s so vague as to be negligible. Gunn later clarified his statement to Digital Spy:
What I meant to say is this: There are a lot of gay people in the world. There are a lot of bisexual people in the world. There are a lot of characters in the MCU. We’ve barely gotten to know the sexuality of any of those characters. We know Gamora and Quill are interested in each other. That’s about the only sexual relationship that exists within the Guardians. We know Drax has a past with a wife so he’s got some sort of interest in women. But we don’t really know who’s gay and who’s not. It could be any of them.
O...kay. So there probably isn’t a gay “moment” in Guardians 2. Honestly, this is getting more than a little frustrating, not least because we should be over this tiptoeing by now. The world of comics has tons of gay characters, none of whose sexualities have been represented as such onscreen. That’s all about to change with the inclusion of two canonically lesbian characters in Black Panther, but we still have to wait another year for that movie. Wonder Woman is not going to address Diana Prince’s sexuality, and so far it doesn’t look like any of the Avengers are going to stop heterosexually pairing off anytime soon.
It’s great that Gunn wants to have a gay character in a Guardians movie, but if you’re going to do it, then do it! Don’t say “maybe” and then give a character a line or two about how they might have been interested in the same sex in the past. Until studios like Disney and Marvel stop being wishy-washy about it, they ought to stop patting themselves on the back for being so daringly inclusive.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 hits theaters May 5.