Posted in: Movies | Tagged: diversity, film, james gunn, marvel

James Gunn Says There Are Probably Gay Characters In The Marvel Universe But "We Just Don't Know Who They Are Yet."

Published Mon, 01 May 2017 17:15:03 -0500

As the blockbuster scene continues to strive to gather a wider audience, the rallying cry for more inclusivity is becoming a discussion that studios cannot avoid. While the cry for more racial and gender diversity is a much more obvious one to get behind, the Marvel universe is very male, and very white so far, and we cannot ignore that it is just a fact and not political correctness. The cry for diversity of sexuality is a little harder to show, unless you're going for stereotypes in which case that doesn't help anyone. It's the sexuality variation of the M'Naghten rules in criminal cases regarding the insanity plea.

"That every man is to be presumed to be sane, and… that to establish a defense on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong," source

The way this relates to sexuality is that we are hardwired, as an audience, to believe a character is straight unless we are told otherwise. At the moment we don't look at a character and think "I don't know what they are like or who they want to sleep with" we just assume they are straight because that is what is often the case. It's not as much bigotry as it is the world still adjusting to the idea of people of various sexualities not only being "out" but "out and accepted" as new things.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 director James Gunn brought up the question of whether or not we will see a gay person in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in an interview with The Guardian and said the following.

"Somebody asked me, "will there be any gay characters in Marvel movies?" And, you know, what I meant is there's a lot of characters in the MCU and very few of them have we delved into what their sexuality is whether it's gay or straight or bisexual. We don't really know so I imagine there are probably, you know, gay characters in the Marvel universe and we just don't know who they are yet," director James Gunn to The Guardian.

While this is an interesting way to look at the current state of the Marvel universe it also is a bit of a cop out because of the previous M'Naghten rule. The idea that there could be what is essentially a secret gay hiding in the Marvel universe and we just don't know it yet doesn't benefit the gay community or give young gay fans someone to look up to. Perhaps Marvel and Disney will give this supposed character a chance to shine, but saying that they might exist and we just don't know it yet is all lip service.

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