Thor: Love and Thunder reminds queer fans what Disney thinks they’re worth

This film is more than any other Marvel Cinematic Universe movie. Thor: Love and ThunderIt arrived with some queer expectations. Many fans expected the second film to be from. Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi would bring considerably more of what the previous film did well — not just in terms of wit and color, but also an expansion of Ragnarok’s rich subtext, a surprising amount of which can be read as queer. Blockbuster success in Hollywood is often rewarded by creative freedom. Queer people could see that. RagnarokWaititi was awarded a stack chips by his associates that could be used to cash in on Waititi’s queerer story.

Waititi and the film’s cast leaned into that reading on the Love and Thunder press tour, eagerly replying to fans who ask “How gay is it?” with quotes like “So gay.” But in the finished movie, it’s hard to see this queerness taken seriously. Fictitious rock aliens, which are all men and reproduce in a lava hole, is the most explicit gay relationship. While that isn’t nothing — especially in the current political environment, where the very suggestion of something other than heteronormativity sends a reactionary media apparatus into a tizzy — it’s also cowardice. It’s a way to queer up a story without including actual queer people. (Valkyrie, an established bisexual character, does some flirting, but doesn’t really get a story of her own.)

Isolated, this latest broken promise about Disney film screen representation is disappointing. This is what happens when art wastes its potential. But as the latest instance in Disney’s long history of queerbaiting, it’s absurd. As a company, Disney is playing a ridiculous game of inches with LGBTQ inclusion, wanting vast credit for the smallest nods, but only articulating serious support when forced to, the way the company didn’t voice any opposition to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill until it faced tremendous backlash.

Photo: Jasin Boland/Marvel Studios

The company has effectively made queerness a marketing line item, using endless teases about groundbreaking gay characters to promote its films, the same way an award-winning actor’s casting gives a product some added heft. At the same time, it’s never once showed interest in telling an explicitly queer story. Disney profits from fans who elevate what queerness can be found in the text, and the company arguably gets good press when its meager offerings — a brief peck on the cheek here, a quick mention of a girlfriend there — still gets its movies banned by autocratic regimes that are hostile to all queer content.

This is a disservice to queer people on both sides of Disney’s pop culture empire — its audience and its creators alike. The former group is left adrift when the company line rejects entirely understandable queer readings of its films, like Pixar’s Luca. These people can feel like they are trapped in Sisyphean battles. This is what you should do. Owl House creator Dana Terrace said last spring, creators working to widen the inclusivity of Disney’s offerings are naturally frustrated, knowing their efforts are effectively burnishing Disney’s reputation but that the company can still burn them at any time.

On some level, Disney’s approach to queerness is shrewd and utilitarian, not unlike its approach to other kinds of representation. The company has learned it can add newfound longevity to the standard stories that built its modern brand — superheroes, fairy tales, and animated stories of belonging and discovery — by exporting them to other marginalized groups. The Turning of the Red, Raya and The Last Dragon, Ms. Marvel — the thrill of works like these is that they stand in opposition to a reactionary, polarized culture, reminding audiences that stories about characters from marginalized groups can be and These are universal. But that cuts both ways, because as far as Disney’s concerned, everyone’s money is just as good for its bottom line.

Photo: Daniel McFadden/Marvel Studios

With that in mind, courting identity politics in mainstream pop culture is a bit of a devil’s bargain. People from marginalized communities want to get involved in pop culture. The corporate gatekeepers will gladly facilitate this conversation, as long it increases their profit margins. Everybody will think differently about whether this compromise is worth it, creators or consumers. But one thing is clear: Disney’s track record implies that it believes its queer audience can be bought more cheaply than others.

It won’t last. Coyness about queerness has a rapidly diminishing economic benefit. The sporadic gestures that Disney made over the last five years have been morphing into angry punditry and right-wing blowback. So it’s worth wondering: If Disney’s shallow queerbaiting is enough to rile up reactionaries, shouldn’t it also be enough to earn the ire of an audience that has every right to demand more than empty lip service?