Guardian Writer Thinks Deadpool & Wolverine Isn’t Gay Enough

Movies

When you saw Deadpool & Wolverine this weekend (if you did, but based on the money this film made, it’s a fair assumption that you did), did you wish it had more gay stuff in it? Yeah, I didn’t think so, but a writer for the British newspaper The Guardian did. This fellow has a whole article about why the titular heroes should have been decidedly homosexual, or pansexual, or whichever flavor they’re supposed to fit into. He’s specifically mad about Deadpool, who is pansexual in the comics according to co-creator Fabien Nicieza, constantly being portrayed as too straight, with the gay elements acting as jokes instead of serious introspective drama. It’s about as ridiculous as you think it is, replete with accusations of kids on the playground being homophobic and the assertion that gay viewers will not be able to see themselves in anyone on the screen because the characters aren’t homosexual. (It also claims that Madonna’s “Like a Prayer,” which was featured heavily in the trailers, is a gay song. Is that right? I’m always behind on these things.)

And, whatever; there are always articles like this bemoaning the lack of representation in anything popular, so it’s not like Deadpool & Wolverine is being specifically targeted. But the article raises some points that are worth discussing in terms of cinema, business, society, and what people actually want to see. In broader terms, the idea of “seeing yourself on the screen” is once again trotted out to infer that unless someone who is exactly like you in some way is in the movie – preferably as the lead, wearing a spandex costume as he saves the world from a slightly grumpier character in a spandex costume – that you cannot identify with them. This is nonsense that boils people down to nothing but their physical attributes or sexuality, and it’s been refuted many times over. Our shared humanity transcends things like this, which is why white audience members can identify with T’Challa’s reckoning with his troubled father in Black Panther, for example, or why male viewers felt the pain Buffy Summers experienced when she had to forgo any chance at personal happiness because someone needed her to save them. It’s also telling that the author doesn’t seem all that concerned with heterosexual moviegoers identifying with a gay Deadpool and Wolverine, as if this is something most of us don’t have to worry about.

And that leads to the next point. The vast, vast majority of the population is heterosexual, meaning that if Marvel and Disney need anyone to identify with Deadpool and Wolverine, it’s us. This film has a budget of at least $200 million, so it can’t take a chance alienating straight people to cater to a small audience share. Remember Bros? That was a comedy written by and starring Billy Eichner about a gay activist falling in love. It cost $22 million to make, about 10% of Deadpool & Wolverine’s budget, with distributor Universal expecting around $10 million in its opening weekend. It made $4.8 million over its debut weekend and grossed a total of $14.8 million, bombing hard, much to Eichner’s chagrin. Do you think the popularity of Deadpool and Wolverine would have made a difference if audiences knew they were in for a gay sex romp instead of a crowd-pleasing superhero adventure, as that Guardian article wanted? Of course not, and even woke-drunk Marvel and Disney weren’t crazy enough to try. Or, perhaps I should say “try again,” as the article mentions Eternals, which featured the first gay character in a Marvel movie, Phastos. And that movie did so well that Kevin Feige recently confirmed it will not be getting a sequel. Gay movies have a niche audience; you can shake your fist at that all you want, but it’s just the way it is, and risking a blockbuster like this on challenging that notion is insanity, which Marvel found out the hard way once.

Moreover, some of the elements from all of the Deadpool movies that the article mentions are silly. Deadpool grabbing Colussus’ ass in Deadpool 2 or his faux flirting with Dopinder in the first film are not meant to be confirmation of Wade’s pansexuality; they’re jokes in and of themselves, the kind guys often make to each other. As with the size of the audience for gay films, I’m sorry if this offends anyone, but yeah, straight guys do joke around like that – what the author calls “gay panic.” It doesn’t mean we hate gay people; it’s just a funny thing to do with your friends. If you really want to get to the psychological roots of it (this guy sounds like a barrel of laughs, doesn’t he?), perhaps our sexuality is as important to us as it is to those who desperately need Deadpool and Wolverine to be a couple, and we express that in a humorous way from time to time. Not to imply that I’m more knowledgeable than anyone else, but I imagine gay people do the same type of thing, though perhaps not in the same way, to have fun with a part of who they are. And if we must see Deadpool as pansexual in the films, maybe he – a guy who, if I’ve understood the comics and movies correctly, likes to joke around from time to time – is using humor in the same way. Or it could be the usual jocular needling guys do. Imagine a movie being open to interpretation rather than jamming a message down your throat; it’s almost like it’s art or something.

He also accuses the marketing for Deadpool & Wolverine of “queerbaiting,” which, to my understanding, is the suggestion of homosexuality without the actual depiction of it. And… yeah, I guess it did that. One of the running gags was treating Deadpool and Wolverine’s long-awaited team-up as a romance, the gag being that everyone knew it wasn’t. This was a joke the audience was in on, again in keeping with the way straight guys (and maybe gay guys too, but I don’t want to assume) goof around with each other. And, in case you haven’t noticed, it worked like gangbusters because a lot of people, specifically the audience for this kind of movie, find that funny. If you don’t, that’s perfectly fair; perhaps Deadpool & Wolverine isn’t for you. But let’s not be facetious; nobody thought this movie was about Wade and Logan falling in love and running away together to start a bed and breakfast in Vermont. (Sorry, I meant to say, “Spoiler Warning.”) Everyone knew what the marketing was doing, which was part of its genius, no matter what you think of the film. In that sense, I don’t know if the term “queerbaiting” is accurate. This wasn’t a ploy to make you think you were about to see a gay movie but an indication of the type of humor you were in for with Deadpool & Wolverine.

And that’s the worst part about articles like that. They make gay people look like a bunch of humorless sticks in the mud instead of just people like everyone else: good, bad, and everything in between, folks who like to have fun as much as anyone else. John Nolte made the point that the Bros box office suggests most gay people didn’t bother seeing it; conversely, I’ll bet plenty of gay people saw Deadpool & Wolverine, and not because they were hoodwinked.