If Luca and The Falcon And The Winter Soldier are gay to you, then they’re gay
If the subtext you picked up on gives you a greater appreciation of the text, shouldn’t that be welcomed?
Image: Image: Disney+ Film Features Luca
This post discusses the plot of Luca.
Anthony Mackie, cover your ears: Luca is gay. While it’s not made explicit, Pixar’s latest—the sun-soaked tale about the transformative friendship between two young sea monsters who disguise their true identity to explore life on land among humans—makes for a rich parable for the queer coming-of-age experience, and one that feels more genuine and more heartfelt than any of the Disney corporation’s meager attempts at “exclusively gay moments” in recent years.
Though the concern Mackie voiced last week, about “the exploitation of homosexuality,” was a direct response to fans ’shipping a romance between his Sam Wilson and Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes in the MCU, it’s hard not to read it as a critique of the broader culture: that LGBTQ+ audiences, in particular, misinterpret certain characters and stories to—in his words—“make themselves relevant and rational.” In that sense, it’s a funny coincidence Mackie’s statement was published the day prior to Luca’s release: Ever since its Call Me By Your Name-esque synopsis was first revealed, it was speculated (sometimes jokingly) that the movie would be gay, or at least a gay metaphor. And, now that it’s available to stream on Disney+, I’m not alone in picking up on a deeper connection within the blossoming friendship of Luca (Jacob Tremblay) and Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer). So, are we just desperately grasping at straws here, trying to “rationalize” ourselves, by thinking, in some way, that Luca might be reflective or representative of our lives? Is it “exploiting” a film, or a piece of art, to read between the lines of its stated intent, and find our own meaning and sense of connection in it?
As director Enrico Casarosa—who notably also receives a “story by” credit—told our colleagues at io9, Luca wasn’t designed to be a gay allegory. During the press rounds leading up to Luca’s release, journalists have asked the filmmaker about its seeming parallels to Luca Guadagnino’s adaptation of the André Aciman novel Call Me By Your Name. (Even the animated film’s title seems like a nod to the gay romance, a reference to its director.) Both films are set in Italy, using the woozy summer heat and salty air as a backdrop to a life-changing connection in an adolescent boy’s life. But Casarosa has chalked the similarities up to coincidence, claiming that Luca is inspired by his childhood growing on the northwestern coast of Italy. Luca’s protagonist is significantly younger than Call Me By Your Name’s—he’s more boy than budding young man—and the film’s story reflects that, never addressing romantic feelings at all, and certainly coming nowhere close to the teenaged yearning of Timothée Chalamet’s Elio.
As Polygon put it in a cheeky but blunt headline: “Sorry, folks, Pixar’s Luca isn’t gay.” During the site’s interview with Casarosa, the director appears to laugh off the assertion: “This was about [Luca and Alberto’s] friendship in that pre-puberty world.” So, sure, what develops between the two young sea monsters isn’t “gay,” but then that doesn’t necessarily mean the movie’s “straight,” either—its story simply exists in a time before those sorts of feelings, romantic or sexual, begin to surface. Casarosa continues, “I was really keen to talk about a friendship before girlfriends and boyfriends come in to complicate things.” It’s an exciting and emotionally complex time in any young person’s life—when kids start to make friends and define who they are, independent of their immediate families—which is why it’s been the crux of many films, animated or otherwise, aimed at family audiences.
What distinguishes Luca, however, is its central conceit: Luca and Alberto are both fantastical creatures of the ocean, fabled and feared by the land-dwellers in the nearby town of Portorosso, despite their clearly peaceful dispositions. When they leave the beautifully rendered depths of their natural habitat, they take on the appearances of humans, allowing them to exist among the townspeople, who are unaware of the boys’ true identities—as long as they don’t get wet. As the two grow closer, daydream about Vespas, befriend a local girl named Giulia, and train to compete in a triathlon, much of Luca’s tension comes from whether or not they’ll be found out, and if the denizens of Portorosso would be so welcoming to people who don’t look or act like them. Luca and Alberto are just trying to fit in and find some sense of belonging in one another; as Casarosa explained to Polygon, “There’s a loneliness at the heart of [Luca] that is filling a void in all these kids because they feel a little bit odd and lonely.”
So Casarosa set out to tell a story about feeling different and the rewarding experience of finding others like you, who understand you. That’s a pretty universal theme that most anyone can relate to at some point in their lives, but it rings especially true for anyone who’s ever been perceived as an other. The boys quite literally have to code switch to move freely throughout Portorosso; the story of Luca could be read as a metaphor for not just sexuality but also gender, race, religion, socioeconomic status, or the experience of any marginalized community, really. If you grew up feeling ostracized, or feeling like you had to hide a part of yourself—just as Luca and Alberto have to hide their scales and fins—it’s likely that Luca’s themes will have a deeper resonance for you.
When Pixar isn’t making us reconsider throwing out old toys, or question a rat’s palate, it’s digging deep into our psyches, anthropomorphizing souls and feelings—one can understand why Luca might be seen as less ambitious by comparison. But, in this writer’s estimation, the more intimate, ground-and-sea-level storytelling is what makes Luca Pixar’s most affecting tale in quite a few years. Though the movie doesn’t spend much time fleshing out Luca’s underwater life, his interior world is immediately clear, especially when human “gadgets and gizmos a-plenty” pique his interest for something more. (Shout out to Ariel.) His family cares for him deeply, but there’s something inside calling out for more, and that something becomes personified when he meets Alberto, a bold and adventurous sea monster whose way of thinking literally expands Luca’s world. The “sea monsters = gay” metaphor doesn’t hold up to scrutiny when you consider that Luca’s own parents, clearly gendered male and female, are also sea monsters. But that subtext is there regardless, and those who grew up closeted or questioning their own sexuality will almost certainly relate to aspects of Luca’s journey.
There are many moments when Luca’s gay allegory is crystal clear. Early on, when Luca shares interest in “the surface,” his parents panic and, after ushering him off to do his chores, his mother (Maya Rudolph) frets to his more oblivious father (Jim Gaffigan), “We’re a little worried about him right?” They want to protect him and fear that, in expressing his truths, Luca may be threatened by those who don’t understand him. Later, after realizing he’s been sneaking to the surface with a new friend, his parents introduce Luca to Uncle Ugo (Sacha Baron Cohen), who offers to take him to “The Deep,” far away from perceived danger because they “know what’s best for him.” It’s an exceptionally silly moment thanks to Ugo’s cartoonish grotesqueries, but it mirrors darker scenes in other queer narratives, the thought that simply removing someone from a situation can “cure” them of their “abnormal” impulses. Then there’s Alberto—a little bit taller, a little bit older, and confidently moving through the world in a way Luca’s only dreamed of. It’s easy to see why he’d be infatuated, even on a platonic level. As the two stargaze and bond over their love of “human stuff,” Luca has Fellini-esque daydreams, riding a Vespa across a colorful countryside, his arms wrapped around his new friend. Their connection is innocent and simple, but the gleeful giggle he lets out while lying in bed, reflecting on his day of fun with Alberto, feels like the familiar early sign of a developing crush.
But where Luca’s subtext really becomes text is in a pivotal scene before its final act, when Alberto “outs” himself as a sea monster. The friends have been thriving in Portorosso, but living a lie is starting to weigh on them. Luca is almost caught by his parents (also disguised as humans, worried about their boy), and the slightly older town hot-shot Ercole Visconti is starting to get suspicious. (Whether he’s the latest in a long line of queer-coded Disney villains, or just exceptionally European, is another essay for another time.) Even more distressing is that Luca and Alberto seem to be growing apart—or, at least, they both express hopes for a different future. Alberto wants to stick to their plan, to win a Vespa so they can ride off together and live life openly, away from the threat of being found out. Luca, on the other hand, is growing accustomed to life in disguise and would rather continue living the lie so he can go to school. Their shared secret has brought them close, but now their diverging dreams and fears have them at a crossroads. Out of frustration, Alberto reveals his true identity in front of Giulia, Ercole, and the bully’s lackeys, but, instead of standing by his companion, Luca points the finger at his friend, too: “Sea monster!” It’s a heartbreaking moment, and one that speaks to the hurtful places some young queer kids have gone to hide their own truths. Performed homophobia as a defense mechanism is not uncommon when we’re conditioned to feel shame for who we are, and to see it play out between Luca and Alberto—even as a murky metaphor—is achingly poignant.
It’s worth mentioning that we’re wading into some tricky waters, that it doesn’t feel particularly appropriate to pontificate on the sexuality of characters who are minors—fictional and animated, yes, but still adolescents. But that’s where we run into the larger issue with Disney’s “exclusively gay moments” thus far, and the way society often talks about sexuality. In most cases, these characters are only queer in so far that they’re seen with, or make mention of, a same-sex partner. There’s so much more to queerness, and any individual’s exploration of their own relationship to queerness, than sex, sexual experimentation, and romance. Luca can operate as a successful queer coming-of-age allegory without its protagonist falling in love with his new friend. To quote my colleague Katie Rife’s piece on Cruella’s glam-rocker character Artie: “Romantic love is but one of the many types of relationships that make up a full life, and a queer person doesn’t need to be partnered for their queerness to be valid.” On that front, Artie actually succeeds where previous LGBTQ+ Disney characters have not: Unlike LeFou, seen momentarily dancing with another man at the end of Beauty And The Beast, or Onward’s Cyclops cop, who refers to her unseen girlfriend back home, his queerness isn’t defined by his relationship to someone else.
That’s where Luca succeeds, too: The movie doesn’t end with Luca and Alberto as a couple, now comfortable living openly as their sea monster identities in Portorosso—again, these are pre-pubescent boys, a partnered relationship doesn’t even cross their minds, nor should it. Instead, the two head their separate ways, having made a lasting impact on each other’s lives, both more sure of who they are and what they want, all because their connection gave them the space to dream of a future where they’re not so alone. Does that then mean that Luca isn’t gay, as Polygon reports? It shouldn’t have to. Casarosa set out to tell a story about the transformative power of friendship, and, in doing so, Luca teaches the value of surrounding yourself with people who accept you for who you are—a chosen family, if you will. (To continue the metaphor, that makes Giulia a welcome ally.) Queer or not, hopefully young moviegoers can see something of themselves in Luca and feel less alone.
Which brings us back to Anthony Mackie’s thoughts on “SamBucky” ‘shippers, and his apparent concern that guys can’t just be friends anymore “because something as pure and beautiful as homosexuality has been exploited by people who are trying to rationalize themselves,” whatever that means. If you enjoyed The Falcon And The Winter Soldier and found hints of a spark between Bucky and Sam, or recognized the signs of a burgeoning queer friendship between Luca and Alberto, and viewing those works in such a way gives you a deeper understanding of them, then who can question that? If the subtext you picked up on gives you a greater appreciation of the text, shouldn’t that be welcomed?
This idea Mackie expresses, that the intent and purpose of something has been “twisted and convoluted,” seems to challenge the idea of what art is supposed to be—that the way a viewer, personally, feels drawn to something can be incorrect because it doesn’t align with the artist’s aims. All of this is not to attack Mackie, who appears to have tripped over his own words; his deeper point seems to be that there’s just as much value in representing “sensitive masculine figure[s]” in pop culture, and that young audiences could stand to see more healthy relationships between cis, straight men. A fair point. (And be fairer still, Mackie is probably tired of fans tweeting SamBucky hentai drawings at him.) But the sting of Mackie’s comments have lingered, largely because they come after a long line of “gay” Disney characters that barely scratch the surface of queerness, and seem to exist just so the company can pat itself on the back. Maybe LGBTQ+ audiences wouldn’t be so thirsty for some Sam Wilson-Bucky Barnes action if we were actually seeing gay superheroes elsewhere in our blockbusters, if there were a diversity of queer characters included in mainstream pop culture that didn’t feel like afterthoughts.
Despite what Mackie said, regardless of Casarosa’s intent, if you viewed Luca as a queer allegory—and, in doing so, it enriched your understanding of the Pixar film, and maybe even the way you look back on your own coming-of-age story—embrace that. You didn’t view the movie, or the series, or the piece of art wrong; you didn’t twist or convolute anything. What it means to you is what it means to you, and nobody can touch that. So, yeah, those sea monsters are gay.
311 Comments
As someone who isn’t sexual at all, I appreciate these friendships in an entirely different way, but that doesn’t mean you can’t view them through a gay prism and enjoy them that way if it makes you happy. That’s what’s great about this crazy, mixed-up world.
Amen!!
I imagine it’s different when you’re the actor playing that role and that’s the one thing people keep mentioning over and over again.
Yeah I’m sure it gets super annoying.
If he was a better actor and could keep the lust out of his eyes, Mr. Mackie probably wouldn’t have that problem.
And at the same time if th creators/actors say “well, that’s not what we intended” that doesn’t give you the right to scream ” well why not you homophobe?!”
Exactly. To some people, they can be friendships. To other people, they can be romances.
I know quite asexual people who very much appreciate the queer allegory in Luca, but it’s also a movie that’s well-written enough that it doesn’t lean on that or rely on it. It can be many things to many people.
As long as it does not become entitlement I am fine with any shipping. When people start getting mad because actors, writer and directors do not agree with their take on the characters and start making threats and boycotting shit is where I draw the line.For example, if you want Else to be gay, then Elsa can be gay to you but boycotting Frozen 2 because Disney didn’t make Elsa gay is silly. Boycott it because its a bad movie but not because something you wanted that you know was entirely never going to happen didn’t happen
I can’t take websites that over-criticize Disney seriously when John Cena apologized to a foreign government for calling Taiwan a country and it got like… a day’s worth of press at the *most*.
Taiwan considers itself to be a part of China. The dispute is over which government is the legitimate government of China (the one in Taiwan or the one in Beijing), not over whether Taiwan is independent. (There are some people in Taiwan calling for independence, but that’s an escalation that’s never been the island’s official position.) What John Cena said conceded nothing to anyone; it was legally correct and avoided any comment on the actual issue. It just got blown up by outlets that were either using it for clickbait or didn’t understand the situation.
Now that’s an adorable take on the Cena Taiwan debacle.One-China policy aside, his apology was not “whoops sorry for the ignorance”. It was pretty intense. Or should I say, very, very, very, very, very intense.The Taiwanese government and media didn’t care that he’d made the mistake, even though they officially buy in to the one China policy. Cena may have to make a similar apology if he were to say “Oklahoma is better than Texas”. But the why matters. He’d have to make that apology in the US because some people from Texas, where he has a lot of fans, would voluntarily choose to stop going to his movies. He had to make this apology to China because the PRC version of the Chinese government would happily take authoritarian action to prevent his movies from being shown in China. Not to mention that if he’d been in the PRC when he said that … yeah.
To be correct, the native Taiwanese would prefer to be independent. It’s just that the last 60+ years of Chinese/KMT governing has everyone in the West thinking that Taiwan/the old ROC are the same. Not everyone in Taiwan thinks that way. Not to mention the fact that Japan used to have a bit of a claim on the island which the Taiwanese used to kind of prefer.
Taiwan considers itself to be a part of China.Whoever upvoted you is either inept or ChiComming….Taiwan absolutely does not consider itself an extension of the PRC, it considers itself the RoC, the proper government of China which is distinctly NOT the same concept. I would normally chalk it up to conflating the SE asian land-mass traditionally described as ‘China’ like us using ‘America’ to describe the US, which is a country on the land-mass of North America but you go on to clearly state you don’t agree to that. China’s claim to Taiwan is complicated and basically a geopolitical mine field that collectively treat Taiwan as a wholly independent country that we let China think they control. China exerts no actual military or governmental authority over Taiwan, any actual invasion or military action would cause the US and other countries to intercede on their behalf, so it’s really just a huge détente of nonsense. Cena didn’t have to back down, he chose to for capitalist reasons but to conflate it as ‘legally correct’ is not right either. Taiwan is a separate country from the PRC, the PRC makes a paper claim that is unenforceable and only maintained as a farce.
Disney is a multi-billion dollar megacorporation that owns 20% of the global entertainment industry. They have a massive impact on the popular culture which in turn impacts the way billions of people perceive the world around them. They own TV networks, music labels, news organizations, sports teams, and two of the six biggest movie studios on Earth.John Cena is…one guy who is rather famous for wrestling.These things are not the same.
Disney is a multi-billion dollar megacorporation that owns 20% of the global entertainment industry. I’d like a source for that.Disney has like 40% of the North American box office, but Indian, Chinese, and Japanese studios cut into the global percentage. And they have a half-dozen TV channels of note, but their competitors (TimeWarner, Viacom, Comcast) hold a solid majority of television. And that’s without considering Netflix and Amazon.
While the music industry has shrank dramatically of late to half the size of the box office. But that’s still a segment Disney has made few inroads into.And that’s before considering the video games, which are the size of box office and music industry combined… and doubled. And Disney has never been good with video games, licensing their properties at best while opening and closing their own studios.10-15% seems generous.
You mean the media is hypocritical and biased? Le gasp, who’d have thought. If only some group of people told us this sooner, without having the audacity of not supporting my political views which led me to ignore their message since they’re *obviously* racist and sexist for not agreeing with me.
I detected a TON of queer subtext in “Luca” — to the point that regardless of what the director says, it almost had to be purposeful. The biggest give-away for me was the (SPOILERS) reveal that the two old women in the town were also sea monsters in disguise. That’s a classic Boston Marriage reference, and something that happened quite a lot historically. “Oh, those two old ladies who have lived together for years and are inseparable and never got married to men are just close friends.” And Alberto’s whole speech about “seeing” and “being seen” was loaded with queer connotations. That’s just my two-cents, but it feels a little disingenuous to claim that a lot of the subject matter isn’t specifically queer in nature.
You can literally make it into anything you wanted to. And apparently you did.
Part of me applauds obvious queer subtext in mainstream entertainment and part of me thinks it’s a cynical business decision, a way for studios to have their cake and eat it too by telling LGBTQ-friendly stories that give the product some edge and bring critical acclaim while maintaining plausible deniability. I mean I’d rather have these subtexts than none at all but it still kind of suggests it’s something not to be spoken of in mixed company.
Yeah, it’s in that subtle phase now. Run up to just getting over the damned threshhold, throwing it out there, and letting it fly. Gonna happen, IMO.
This. As long as people embrace subtext, imo, it incentivizes them not trying much harder.
Pixar hasn’t shied away from queer subject matter in their Spark Shorts. Could it be it’s wide open in shorts but still too risky to fully embrace in feature films? I was of the mind that they wouldn’t need to shy away from at it at this point but I’m not 100%.
Of course it is. The shorts aren’t as widely seen or remembered. And they also are a shitload of a smaller financial investment/risk.
The shorts, (ESPECIALLY the SparkShorts cropping up on Disney+ now, which include the explicitly gay-themed ‘Out’, and the autism-themed ‘Loop’) are a much different bag. They’re part of an internal program at Disney as a whole that predates Disney+, and was designed to allow more ‘line’ workers (animators, lighters, etc) to have a crack at doing their own films and playing different roles on production. The fact that they’re being widely seen AT ALL on Disney+ is a bonus. The point being, they are explicitly personal projects and NOT ‘products’ that management expects to “sell.”I guarantee you that every bit of queer subtext in Luca is there with the full knowledge of everyone involved. Pixar is a SF Bay Area company, has a tremendous number of queer employees at all levels (including producers, directors, and execs) and has openly and enthusiastically supported queer causes for years. They also know they business they’re in, providing *family* entertainment for a *worldwide* audience. And that means that you play the publicity game. You say true things (“These are pre-pubescent kids. It’s not about romance.”) that let some people feel comfortable (“Taiwan is a wonderful… place.”) because that’s business. Saying true things is fine. Saying the *truth* (“There’s queer metaphors at work in *Luca*.” “Taiwan is a wonderful country.”), right now, buys them more trouble than reward, so here we are.
But make no mistake. They ABSOLUTELY know what they’re doing.
Pixar hasn’t shied away from queer subject matter in their Spark Shorts.Yeah, holy shit, “Out” was about as proudly queer as humanly possible. I mean, a magical pair of dogs fly out of the sky on a rainbow accompanied by house music to help a closeted dude come out to his parents. It was adorable.
I picked up on the potential gay subtext, but I didn’t connect that to the two old ladies in town until you mentioned it. That’s pretty brilliant.
The old lady moment was great just as the gag that there are more sea monsters hanging out peacefully, as well as that possible subtext connection.
I think the issue for people (and I preface by saying I haven’t watched the film) isn’t that there’s queer subtext, but specifically that the queer subtext applies to Luca and Alberto.
In your example, that’s quite clear subtext, but it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with Luca and Alberto. The fact the two old ladies are (or rather might be) coded as lesbian as a reference to Boston Marriages doesn’t imply that Luca and Alberto, also being sea monsters, are also gay or queer. Given that we’re roughly 5-10% of the population, wouldn’t it be more likely that the correlation is that they’re both sea monsters who took advantage of living near a coastal town (and not further out in the sea/ocean where the ability to live a different life was less likely), rather than both sets of sea monsters are queer?
Also, and not to get too unnecessarily gynecological (especially with not having seen the movie), but couldn’t it also be the case that the two old ladies were/are simply worried about being found at as being, you know, sea monsters rather than being lesbians? I get the allegory, and I get where you could see the subtext, but even as a gay man myself, I sometimes have to remind myself that, in most cases, a pipe is just a pipe. Not every outcast, especially if they transfer their physical shape to fit in or for fear of being ostracized and cast out, are allegories for the treatment of gay people and other minorities. Sometimes people just want to tell a story about monsters.
This of course is not to say I disagree with you (again, I haven’t watched the movie), just that it’s far too simplistic to apply specific subtext in one instance to the entire narrative and the characters in it as a general claim.
“città vuota” at the end of the film is a love song about two lovers kept apart…
Just watched Luca, and while I agree that there’s a lot of queer subtext, I’m not sure it’s actually not just text. Luca and Alberto have the most convincing romance in any Pixar film to date. It’s a pre-teen, age-appropriate romance, but it’s exactly the dynamic that you’d get in a G-rated kids movie with an opposite-sex pairing. The entire arc — sheltered young person has crush on more worldly slightly older young person, they dream of a life together, the sheltered young person realizes there’s a wider world out there beyond this budding relationship, that leads to tension, the couple are at odds, they’re reminded of how much they care about each other, and the ending, which I won’t spoil here—it’s beat-for-beat a coming of age romance, and I’m not sure how you can read it otherwise.
“it’s beat-for-beat a coming of age romance, and I’m not sure how you can read it otherwise.”Agreed. I just kept thinking about the 90s young kid classic film “My Girl”, when I started reading about some folks being upset about how others viewed this film and the relationship between Luca and Alberta. If Luca had been Lucia, I don’t think there would have been any issue with some viewers seeing her, Alberto, and their sweet friendship/crush on one another.
Yeah, the (quite explicit) gay subtext was very much seeping into the text, complete with a love triangle.
It’s 2021 though, why are we still doing “queer subtext”?
Because subtext still opens in China.
The old women were the only purposeful part to me.
But I’m also pretty tired of queer subtext. Give me queer text or GTFO.
Fucking amen. Grow some guts, nuts, and backbone.Right now, about 99% of “representation” in media is done not so much for representation, but merely to appease those in the norm.
The old lady thing was a huge hint to the subtext. As was how Alberto forms an immediate distrust to the girl character, and shows all the signs of someone jealous that his friend and possible crush isn’t exclusively his. I liked the ambiguity to it. It’s easily read as a lot of things. It kind of bothers me the director saying “No it’s NOT that” rather than saying a more vague “Well it’s about childhood so feel free to see it however you want”.
I don’t necessarily think the Boston Marriage is a gay thing tbh. Yes, it overlaps a lot sure.
Im sorry but saying you detect something that the creator says isn’t their is dumb. South Park did an episode about exactly this sort of thing. Idiots disguised as intellectuals telling people something is one way when literally the creator of that something is telling you there isn’t.
I detected a lot of racist subtext in your comment here. Despite you insisting otherwise, I’m reading the racist and fascist subtext so that must be what you’re signaling.Death of the author is a bullshit idea. If the author says that there’s no subtext, that certain characters aren’t gay, that so and so isn’t true, then that’s the reality. Anything else that anyone is reading into things is pure speculation and wishful thinking, and also wrong.
It could be, but it’s not necessarily. I don’t get the need to put a label on it. Those two old lades could be platonic life companions – that’s a thing too.
I actually thought it was weird that someone would compare it to Falcon and The Winter Soldier, since the shipping there is just standard shipping/fan fiction. The description of this kids movie makes it seem like a totally reasonable interpretation of the movie, though, no fan fiction extras necessary.
I found Mackie’s assertion was a lot of internalized homophobia that he tried to hide behind by saying homosexuality is beautiful. He considers it beautiful but only when it doesn’t apply to him at “the bar” and his character of Falcon. I also think the show leaned into a lot of old buddy tropes where the comedic joke in itself is “wouldn’t it be funny to treat these men like a couple”, which makes queer people the punchline. So I think reading into some queerness of the storyline is because the show depicted them with some internal queer fear. It isn’t because people are craving representation in Falcon and Bucky, it’s because the show is rooted in a history of old tropes that are associated with the tension of homophobia and homoeroticism. There are literally decades of platonic male friendships in movies and television, this just isn’t an example of one that doesn’t have some subtext attached to it.
“I found Mackie’s assertion was a lot of internalized homophobia”
That homophobia must’ve been why he’s played gay characters and kissed me on film.
Fuck you, there’s no need to project.
No. It’s a trope about friendship. Period.
Saying homosexuality is beautiful is just weird. It doesn’t come across as a compliment exactly. Saying so and so are a beautiful couple or love between any two people is beautiful sounds fine, but specifying homosexuality as beautiful just comes across wrong. Heterosexuality is just beautiful.
Sounds like he was trying to riff on ‘Black is beautiful.’
I understand where he’s coming from, but he could absolutely have handled it better than his weird, sort-of-homophobic comments that also called homosexuality “beautiful”. Yikes.Personally, as a gay guy, I’d love to see audiences be more comfortable with two people on screen – two guys, a guy and a girl, two girls — having an intimate friendship without the assumption that it has to be a *relationship* as well. We see tender platonic relationships so infrequently that audiences just automatically start shipping any couple on screen. If I was Anthony Mackie, I’d find it flattering and charming that people get so invested in his character that they want to see he and Bucky as gay. There’s enough awkward jokey gay panic moments to tease/defuse it; it shouldn’t be a surprise to him, really.
I think the threat to platonic relationships is so entrenched in homophobia too.If Marvel thought it was funny to have two men explore their emotions and treat them like a couple, then the only way to really reclaim that is to treat them like a couple. Nobody is really expecting Falcon and Bucky to get together, but if the gag is two grown men in couples counselling together, then it’s Disney who is forcing the toxic masculinity. Not people who are shipping them. And yes, the show is filled with gay panic moments, how else are you supposed to read it without also participating in homophobia.
“Despite what Mackie said”
Did I miss the part where he said his is the only legitimate opinion?
What if, instead of trying to shame him, you simply fucked off and didn’t make something that isn’t about him into something that IS about him?
You’re free to interpret anything you want but don’t keep challenging the actors, writers and directors to admit that your interpretation is canon.
Yeah, like J.R.R. Tolkien said when people kept claiming that LotR was an allegory for WWII (which he said it wasn’t), there’s a difference between allegory and applicability. Allegory is intentional and in the mind of the author, but lessons in a story can be applied to other situations whether or not the author thought of it.
Tolkien being the most apt reference because of Frodo and Sam being an excellent example of [this whole conversation]. Like, nobody should be upset if people enjoy perceiving Frodo and Sam as queer-coded, doing fanfic stuff to that end, etc. There’s certainly as much there, if not more, than there is between any other two characters in the history of fiction who get shipped without ever actually getting together in the text.On the other hand, F&S is a great example of what I think, if you peel away the rather confused layers of what Mackie said, he might have been talking about (certainly what I would talk about in this area): guys can be friends, guys can demonstrate their friendship, but the level of emotional and physical intimacy Frodo and Sam share during the book is basically impossible to imagine being portrayed in a modern Hollywood work set in our society; the much milder representation in Peter Jackson’s films was already the subject of so many gay jokes that a cable channel actually cut an ad leaning into it. (Reframing the relationship as romantic/sexual also risks missing some of the specificity I find interesting: Tolkien was explicitly drawing on the relationship between a WWI officer and his batman, and Tolkien’s personal embarrassment at being hierarchically “above” men he considered more capable than himself is reflected in that Sam begins the story as Frodo’s friend but also, wholeheartedly and unashamedly, his servant, and while he never loses that solicitousness towards Frodo by the end nobody thinks of him as Frodo’s gardener.) It seems obvious to me that, today, straight women have much more overtly intimate friendships with each other than straight men do, and also both the fiction and personal letters of the past suggest that this used to be not the case. The problem, of course, isn’t gay people, it’s homophobia.
The Frodo and Sam being gay for each other (acknowledged or not by the characters) is fun but no less pertinent to the text than a class based reading of Sam being a dutiful working class salt of the earth hobbit serving his master. Both fun intellectual exercises to apply to the text but that’s all they are.
All of this.
Don’t have a strong substantive opinion here (haven’t seen FatWS or Luca yet), but I really like your distinction here. It clears up something that I’ve been guilty of doing. I’ve written articles in the past, for example, of how both Bird Box and Rise of Skywalker could be seen allegorically as then-President Trump’s views on immigration and his Ukraine scandal, respectively. But when it matters,* I should be careful to differentiate “this story could be reasonably or interestingly read to be about this other thing” (applicability) from “the authors/filmmakers seem to have made this story really about this other thing.” (allegory)
*I doubt anyone thinks that the Bird Box or Star Wars people intended these readings of their stories, and at least in the Star Wars case I don’t think there was much if any time between the scandal breaking and the movie filming.
In all the interviews I’ve read with the actors/directors/writers, literally nobody has tried to “force” them to accept it as canon. They are asked if it was deliberate, but that’s it.You are complaining about a problem that doesn’t exist.
go read the transcript of the interview he got in trouble for because that is what literally what happened.
That was my issue with the Bert/Ernie thing a few years ago. It’s one thing to make that your interpretation of the characters (which is fine), it’s another to make a petition for Sesame to officially make them gay.
I think there is plenty of queer subtext in the whole “pretending you’re different in order to fit into an environment that is hostile to you” plotline. But, since it’s also prepubescent, there are some specifically kid things that are more universal – the relationship between Luca and Alberto is a more universal young friendship, where you are close but slowly realizing that your paths are diverging. So if you said “gay, but not for each other” about the central pairing, that could also be a reading. But maybe I got that reading because I also had a friend as a kid who I steadily drifted away from in kind of the same way.
My issue (and I’m gay myself, but also black) is that the idea of assimilating into a culture that is hostile to who you are innately isn’t exclusively the purview of being gay or lesbian. The only reason why it seems to be coming up is that Luca and Alberto are both boys, and post-transformation, they look physically similar to the rest of the denizens of the city. If it was Luca and Stacy, I doubt that people would be talking about gay subtext, even though the gender pairing of the friends is irrelevant to whether or not one or both of them are gay.
If gay subtext is only extant because of the genders of the characters in which the subtext supposedly applies, then all you’re doing is reading characterization into the characters under a myriad of false assumptions (in this case, that two male characters can’t have a close emotional bond without being gay).
I definitely should have picked up on the cultural aspects of the “trying to assimilate into a culture that despises you” subtext since it isn’t exclusively the purview of the queer experience. People are constantly dealing with a general hostility to outsiders, or wading into the middle of a culture war where they are considered an enemy.Especially since I lived through an experience like that. And it’s a long story but it’s super weird when a woman you know crosses the street to avoid talking to you
This is an interesting and thoughtful piece, but where I think it misses the mark is that it seems to confuse the themes of a story with the plot of a story. Mackie’s issue was with people who insist that the characters actually are gay when they are not; he rightfully didn’t comment at all on identifying queer themes within a story. The focus here is on the themes in Luca – as you note, there’s no romance of any form in the film as a matter of plot, but the themes are familiar to the queer community (or, as you note, any marginalized community).
I mean there is a queer subtext to the relationship between Bucky and Falcon, so it is upsetting when he gets upset for people reading into his character being queer. It doesn’t even mean that Bucky and Falcon should be a couple, but it’s fine people are reading into some obvious subtext.
Well there’s a set of people who think there is a subtext that says that. And there’s nothing wrong with that but the idea of an objective subtext when the “author is dead” is never gonna fly.
yes, but the idea that Mackie is upset about it is what’s toxic. He’s perpetuating the fear of being perceived as gay, not the other way around.
Mackie’s just as ok to not want the relationship to be gay or subtextually gay as everyone who wants it to be gay or subtextually gay as there’s no author (that matters) to rule on it either way.
I mean his comments about being annoyed that he can’t just be in a bar with other dudes is playing into some internalized shit. And his annoyance at people reading into Bucky and Falcon is also playing into that.
Well in your opinion yes. But that’s you reading subtext that’s not obejctive. Again that’s fine but disagreement with your view is equally valid.
Nah he’s right
In your equally as valid/invalid opinion about subtext from a text that doesn’t have any intent yes.
Your mom is valid/invalid
Yes she’s a work of art.
Your reply starts by assuming the ultimate question – is there a queer subtext in the plot, or does it reflect themes that may be familiar to the queer community? I haven’t seen the show (nor read the comics) so I don’t know what it looks like as a matter of plot, but the point Mackie made is that his view is there is not a queer subtext to the relationship.
Mackie’s not in charge though
Mackie has played Sam in 6 movies and a TV series. He absolutely has good authority over who Sam is. Implying that his perspective is low value because he’s not the writer/director/Kevin Feige is an illogical argument.
Who said anything about the writer or director
I do not know who else you would have been implicating
The idiot is not implicating anyone. Don’t mind him.
I did not read much into Bucky or Sam being gay/ having a relationship when I watched the show. This might just be me being out of the loop, but I didn’t really recall seeing that as much of a discussion either on social media(other than Sam/ Bucky having a great bromance).Also, this is Marvel we’re talking about here, and they tend to be pretty de-sexed post- Iron Man 1 (remember the Valkyrie controversy?). Hell, the VAST majority of Wanda and Vision’s relationship developed outside of the movies.
I think it’s weird how people aren’t seeing the toxic nature of his comments, he’s got a gripe with it whether or not he sees it. That’s how insidious homophobia is, he think he’s being accepting when in reality he’s pushing back with some queer fear rhetoric.
They’re just as homophobic basically
What subtext? What subtext in Falcon? Why do people keep saying this like it’s some obvious thing? This is why Mackie is annoyed. They made a show featuring to men growing in their own ways and supporting each other and people are saying it’s queer subtext when none was intended. Anthony loved the exploration of this male friendship. Why can’t it just be that? That’s the issue.
Great article. There’s absolutely nothing in here that I disagree with, and if people want to view either Luca or TFATWS as gay that’s completely fine. I think that a lot of these problems come down to people presenting their own interpretation as the One True Exegesis. I’m not sure which side started this debate over Luca, but it always tends to rile people up when we get these debates over what’s ‘true’ or what isn’t in a text. You need a certain amount of live-and-let-live when it comes to this kind of stuff.
It’s like with the Sopranos [SPOILER ALERT]: if you believe that Tony died, you are all sorts of justified in interpreting it that way. But at the same time there is NOTHING more annoying than an arrogant Tony-is-dead-er insisting that this is the only correct way to view what happened at the end.
Yeah as a gay guy, that’s the only time I really bristle at people who read queer subtext into things where it’s not, well, text. When they INSIST it’s there, and anyone who doesn’t see it is being willfully ignorant and blind.
No, no, no, no, Eric: according to the People Who Are The Gatekeepers Of Your Sexuality, any time a man interacts with another man, anywhere, they’re actually gayer than a bag of cats.Guy stands next to another guy on the bus? They’re gay for each other.Buy a coffee off a male barista? They’re gay for each other. Cut each other off in traffic? They’re gay.Bob from Sales asks Steve from Accounts if he’s got the Henderson Account file? Gay. Oh, and don’t get us started on male friendships. No man can ever actually be platonic friends with another. They totally have to want to bang.
What a lot of adults seem to forget is that there was a time when many of us had intense, close friendships with same-sex friends. We spent as much daily/weekly time with our prepubescent “best friend” (if not more) than we would with future sexual mates. On the phone, hanging out, going on vacations with each other’s families, etc.
These frienships could be strong, intense, long-lived (on the kid’s time scale of things, anyway) and without any sexual under- or over-tones. And they often faded away as puberty hit and other interests became more important. I remember it from my childhood, and I saw it in my daughter’s.
It’s a little bit wishful thinking, and a little bit creepy, to claim this kind of childhood relationship as gay. It speaks more to the desire of an adult to identify themselves in a story than to the truth of the story itself. While that’s an understandable compulsion, it’s also a little arrogant to hijack the story and deny the creator’s intent.
why are queer kids creepy? we exist before puberty. I knew I was queer since as long as I can remember.there are countless depictions of shows with romantic tones to kids and their story, now that it’s two boys it’s suddenly creepy?
Nope, not what I said. Queer kids are not creepy. Adults who impose their own wishes on someone else’s story are creepy, especially if the author of the story says, “hey, that’s not what I’m writing about” and the person leans on their own intepretation of “the subtext” to continue to hijack the story or the relationship, and doubly especially if they try to sexualize (in any direction, gay, straight or queer) a prebuscent friendship.
You wouldn’t want someone telling you that your queer story is actually straight, that they can “read between the lines” or whatever. That would feel a bit odd, maybe even insulting or creepy.
Of course there are times when writers code stories, but with this movie, this is not the case.
this movie is so overly coded though, you can’t be upset that the subtext is so loud. they aren’t sexualizing the kids just because they might be gay and reading kids as gay is not creepy. I’m sorry you want them sea creature boys to only be read as straight, but a story about having to hide your true self and only finding solace in other people like you? hmmm.
Who do you think being gay is creepy?
That’s a pretty false equivalence seeing as gay stories are routinely whitewashed as straight while the reverse very rarely happens
The whitewashing usually happens when you’re jumping between different mediums, and even then, it’s not all that common that an explicitly gay character or relationship is switched to being straight. What is certainly common is that a character or relationship that’s rather vaguely alluded to being gay or lesbian is often switched to straight, but those changes are often do to streamline the overall narrative or simply as an alternative interpretation of the character (especially if the adaptation isn’t being writen/handled by the original creator).
If anything, I think the hesitance to show younger kids as being explicitly gay or lesbian or queer is the realization that many straight adults don’t realize that we often grasp our own sexuality at very young ages, but rarely act on it (in a non-sexual manner) because of the sheer dearth of opportunity and the very real likelihood that we’ll be condemned for doing so. There’s an element of realism to it. Fact is, even in this day and age, it would be rather odd to see young kids who are gay or lesbian acting in a manner that clearly shows they’re gay or lesbian, especially when their prepubescent or just reaching puberty. So, if you were to transfer that to a film or a TV show, it would come across as discordant, especially if it was done incredibly openly without adequate narrative context as to why it’s being done so openly.
People have been interpreting stories in different ways since the concept of stories existed. Every single person will get something at least slightly different from the same story because that’s how art works. If that’s creepy then the entire field of literary analysis is creepy.“But what about the author’s intent?” As an author, I just want to say that it’s very kind of you to assume that we’re fully aware of what we’re doing at any given moment. I have written subtext into my stories without even realizing it was there until a reader pointed it out long after the fact, at which point it became bleedingly obvious that I had snuck this or that idea into my own story without even realizing it.
I’m not alone either. Ray Bradbury, a greater writer than I’ll ever be, talks about this phenomenon in his Afterward to Fahrenheit 451, where he points out that several characters’ names have double meanings which reinforce the stories’ themes. And he himself didn’t realize it until years after the book had been published! As he puts it, “What a sly thing my subconscious was, to name then thus. And not tell me!”
Somehow, I don’t think you’d particularly care about this topic if Alberto and Luca were an opposite sex friendship.
exactly, I don’t think people see how deep their homophobia goes. they think because they aren’t openly bigoted towards queer people that they don’t have a deep fear of queerness.
It’s like this whole, ridiculous idea that a little boy/girl having a “girl/boyfriend” or a crush or talking adults about kids that haven’t started school as being “heart breakers” for the opposite sex is perfectly normally until it’s same-sex, then it’s sexualising children, and crossing a line. And that’s fucked up, gross thinking.
That’s creepy as fuck too— you shouldn’t force sexuality upon prepubescent children regardless of what their future orientation may be. People shouldn’t treat that as normal either.
it’s nothing about sexuality you creep. we know we’re queer before sexuality comes into the picture. stop trying to make it perverse to assume queer kids are queer.
Sexual orientation is explicitly sexual in nature. It literally has the word “sexual” in it.
you’re really going to debate what queer means to a queer person. it entails more than just sexuality. I knew I was queer since I was 5 years old. Stop trying to perverse queerdom.
Where in the fuck are you getting any of this from? I’m saying sexualizing children is inappropriate, I’m not fucking perversing queerdom by saying it’s creepy to call a toddler a “heartbreaker.”
but this movie has nothing about sexuality to it. it’s just two possibly queer boys reflecting relationships they see like all kids do, and feeling alienated because of their similarities. I just don’t believe the “think of the children” rhetoric squares use so much, it’s always a lot of covert homophobia when this discussion wouldn’t have even happened if it wasn’t a movie about two boys.
You keep responding to things that people are not saying, but getting upset with them as if they had said it.
It’s either that English is not his first language, or that he’s really, really, dumb and obtuse. More likely the latter.
I’m queer too, and you need to learn some reading comprehension before going off on people and calling them “homophobic” People like you are the reason the word has lost it’s meaning and why queer people are often mocked for their lack of reasonability. I’m getting second-hand embarrassment reading most of your commends on here.The dude said that, straight or gay (or anything in between), throwing sexual terms like “heartbreaker” or “a ladies man” or anything like that around to describe a child is disgusting. How hard is it to comprehend that this has nothing to do with homophobia and everything to do with children? Or are you so obsessed with being persecuted that everyone has to be the enemy, plain English be damned?How are you supposed to have a conversation with ANYONE outside of an echo chamber if you can’t comprehend simple language and intent? I’ve seen you completely take comments incorrect on this article alone at LEAST a dozen times. Whatever persecution complex you have, that’s a personal issue you need to sort out yourself.
I think subtext can exist with or without the author’s intention.
I think the creepy part refers to the fact that while many of us had a realization of our sexuality at young ages, prior to puberty (such as myself realizing I was gay when I was 7), many people feel that to be gay or lesbian also requires an active desire to have sex with a person of the same sex, and to apply that standard to kids who are pre-pubescent or just now reaching puberty can be off-putting, especially when its adults who are specifically reading that into the characters, and not the characters and/or the narrative showing us that explicitly.As you said yourself, plenty of shows have romantic tones and/or explicitly show their characters, even as children, acting in a manner to where it’s obvious that they’re straight or gay. You’re not required to examine subtext, or claim subtext is there, because often times the subtext isn’t there, and it’s wishful thinking on the part of the audience. Thus, it’s often better to make it clear to avoid utterly wild interpretations and claims of “subtext”, when in actually it’s either clear as day, or isn’t shown/told because it’s not particularly important or relevant to either the narrative of the characterization of the characters themselves.
And as a writer myself, I’ve tended to be of the opinion that unless certain character traits or elements of characterization are absolutely necessary to the characters and the narrative, leave them out of whatever you’re writing, because adding extraneous details can easily lead to claims of non-existent or erroneous subtext.
The part where Alberto gets jealous because Luca is hanging out with Giulia more is definitely a pre-adolescent thing to me, since even (over 30, Jesus) years later I do still remember how kids start to get mad that their friends are growing up faster than they are, and realizing that, on some level, they’re both changing but don’t really want to.
It’s a little bit wishful thinking, and a little bit creepy, to claim this kind of childhood relationship as gay
I wouldn’t call it creepy as I think it’s applying person experiences to something that is pretty universal (both gay and straight), but I agree with Mackie’s (very jumbled) point that it’s also of a mindset that narrowly defines male platonic relationships.
This, right the fuck here.Through this author’s lense I would have been gay when i was 12. I definitely am not.
Except the queer reading isn’t literally observing that Luca and Alberto are in some sort of gay romantic relationship, it’s that the story is an allegory for the queer experience. Of course they’re not gay, they’re sea monsters, it just so happens that the difference is irrelevant.
Very well said. Luca is about brotherly love not some dark undertone of sexuality. God let kids be kids. Let them have a best friend or friends. Thats how friendship are born and sustained through life. Let kids be kids, they will learn about the world soon enough.
Having friends is so gay.
The benefit of having friends one could say.
Anthony Mackie, cover your ears: Luca is gay. You missed his point entirely and now you are actually part of the problem.Great job….
The idiocy of post-modernism is on full display in this article. If I show you a green door, and you headcanon it as orange, it is not orange. It doesn’t matter if you draw a thousand pictures of an orange door or 500,000 word fanfiction works about it, it’s still a green door. What you’re “thirsty” for is immaterial, at least from the artist’s side of things. It isn’t the artist’s responsibility to cater to your wants and you don’t have any standing when it turns out that they continue with the reality of what they’ve created over the fantasy that you’ve obsessed over. Fanfiction is fun if it lets you play with alternate realities, but when you cross the line into getting angry that the thing you pretend isn’t the thing that is, you’re the problem, not the original creator.
It’s not every day you see someone railing against post-modernism on the internet. I thought that was a few culture wars ago.
It’s always good to remember how terrible a philosophy post-modernism is, and especially how awful its application are (even if applied post-modernism should have been an oxymoron from the start).
This is for the younger crowd who might not realize that buying into this article’s mode of thinking is neither valid nor healthy to themselves or to the arts community.
Interestingly enough, colors are considered qualia, which are, as Wikipedia puts it “individual instances of subjective, conscious experience”. You can never really be sure that what you call green is the same colour as what someone else is seeing.Oh, they’ll probably call it green as well, because that’s what they’ve been taught, but for all anyone knows, they might be seeing the colour you call orange. Likewise, you will never be able to explain to someone who was born blind what green actually looks like. The simply miss the necessary tools to understand why you would perceive green as ‘fresh’ or ‘lively’. I’d argue that the same is true for certain layers of subtext in a story. Thousands of people might perceive queer subtext in TFATWS, but you might not have the tools to see the same thing. To say, a painter can paint an entirely green door and say it’s green, but it’s possible that there’s someone out there who won’t see the same thing and he would not be more or less right about his perception than the painter
Oh cool you finally killed the author (again even though the author was still dead). Now we can finally (again) separate the art from the artist.
Recommended reading, for those who haven’t encountered it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_the_AuthorThe author puts the work out into the world, we take it and run with it. Tradition as old as oral storytelling. If it resonates on that level inside of you, the reader, that’s a win-win for both the work and the reader. Shipping? Harmless, if not taken to an extreme (death threats and rampant shittiness, etc.). Fan-fic? Same again.Same for folks who saw FWS and were touched by the bond Sam and Bucky formed as friends and colleagues.
Can’t do death of the author if you can’t separate them from the work.
Correct.
The one big hitch in “death of the author” is that with a lot of modern works, the author isn’t dead yet, because the work in question is an ongoing TV series or a franchise of some other sort, and the “author” is still in the process of writing the story and may eventually write something that badly contradicts whatever interpretation a viewer arrived at prior to that point.For instance, my read on the character of Will in Stranger Things is that he’s pretty clearly gay, and his storyline in season 3 is about him reckoning with the fact that he has a crush on his best friend Mike. But if at some point the producers decided to give Will a girlfriend or whatever, that whole interpretation goes right out the window.It’s probably not a danger with something like Luca, which is unlikely to get a No, they’re definitely straight follow-up, but I could see the Falcon and the Winter Soldier creators getting a bee in their bonnet about slashy interpretations and going out of their way to shoot them down in a subsequent season.
It’s not meant to be considered a literal death. It’s that once is work public it’s the publics. Which yes of course. But the corollary is any follow ups are the author’s until its public.
I hope I didn’t give the impression that I think “death of the author” is about whether the author is literally dead. I’m speaking figuratively—about the fact that authorship in modern works is frequently an ongoing concern.
Sorry. I was being facetious to a certain someone and the attitude carried over. My bad had a few beers.Agree about an author’s choice to respond in their work to ongoing criticism either by adjusting their story a little to makes things clearer e.g Breaking Bad or ignoring it altogether is if didn’t gel with what fans wanted Sopranos or Deadwood for example.
This kind of thing reminds me of how brilliantly funny and absurd it was when The Babadook movie was half-ironically adopted as a gay icon, and the director just laughed it off and supported that reading despite not being intended.
It’s easy to be amused when those half-serious interpretations agree with our worldview. But now think about all the ridiculous conservative turds who have coopted the Matrix red/blue pill. Or how an offhand remark by the ostensible villain of Fight Club got turned into a conservative buzzword (“snowflake”).
I think the point Mackie was trying (and admittedly failing) to make is that the insistence that male characters must want to fuck each other if they are vulnerable, emotional, or caring towards one another is just a well-meaning but still pernicious form of homophobia that contributes to and reinforces toxic masculinity.
Labeling platonic male love as definitely gay is a time-honored tradition of homophobes, and it has definite negative consequences on men.
As to these two properties, Luca as gay metaphor is on solid ground for all the reasons the author states, but it’s just not really there in Falcon. Wanting to see yourself represented in popular media is noble, but trying to draft representation where none exists just seems to me to be self-defeating.
or being scared of being perceived of as queer because you are emotional and sentimental is homophobic. why is everyone terrified they will be perceived as gay? that’s how deeply rooted homophobia is in this push back against Falcon and Bucky being seen as gay is. Straight dudes are getting upset that they might not be seen as straight? like come on.
I’m bisexual and really don’t like it when people perceive me as gay or straight. People just want to be seen as who they are.
You’re describing two sides of a homophobic coin. Yes, dudes shouldn’t care if someone thinks they’re gay because that’s ridiculous, but it’s equally problematic to suggest that men who are sensitive and close platonically with other men MUST be gay. It’s saying that being in touch with your emotions is the province of gay people, not, y’know, healthy people regardless of sexual orientation.
that’s not where the subtext is though, the subtext was in the early episodes with Disney leaning in on treating Falcon and Bucky like a couple in a few scenes for laughs. They introduced a lot of queer panic, and so you could choose that there was more under the surface or they truly are repulsed by queerdom. It’s homophobic regardless, they are using queer people as the joke, but choosing the latter instead of actually shipping them seems worse.They used the counselling, physical comedy for laughs, they thought having two men in touch with their feelings is comical. It’s not people forcing subtext, it’s people kind of battling the inherent homophobia by saying fuck it, let’s ship them ourselves.
It does become a bit wrong when the subtextual narrative exists only in your head and you militantly try to cram it down the throat of every other consumer, including getting furious when the creators don’t pander to you (i.e., Frozen).
What if I thought Luca and THatWS were BORING though
That is a perfectly valid interpretation!
Sure, imagine all you want, that’s perfectly healthy.
Don’t flame people on the internet when your headcanon doesn’t play out on screen, though, that’s crazy.
Yep. Pretty reasonable.
yes, this would be my take on matters as well.
You are complaining about a problem that doesn’t exist.
There are plenty of people that get mad when their personal cannon is debunked. Not just about queer subtext. Both Marvel shows so far has been a stunning example of that. People seem to really enjoying building up what they want or want to see in a property and get mad when it doesn’t happen.
If you’d said it’s just a small-but-vocal group doing it, you’d be right. But to claim it doesn’t happen at all is ignorant at best, but most likely dishonest.
About every tenth article written by Charles Pulliam-Moore at io9 is precisely this kind of “problem” — condemning a TV show or film for purported “queerbaiting” based on his own wishful reading of the work.
Yes it does, Elsa being an example
The word “complaining” doesn’t mean “saying something I wouldn’t say.”
I don’t think I would say it’s healthy, per se. It still seems like a rather immature approach to movie/show watching to me.
people have been shipping people since ever, this wouldn’t even have a discussion if it wasn’t peoples queerness in conversation.
My assessment is the same on that. The sex of the characters isn’t the point. It’s the fantasy projection of one’s own desires onto something.
Yeah it’s definitely immature to imagine while we watch a movie about talking, walking sea creatures who turn into people when they step foot on dry land.
Not you, but I’m not responding to the shit downthread directly. Don’t flame people on the internet when your headcanon doesn’t play out on screen, though, that’s crazy. Apparently this “doesn’t exist,” despite any one of us being able to go to literally any fan forum and find examples of that very thing happening. Ditto Twitter. Ditto Facebook.Nope. Doesn’t exist. Apparently. Despite the fact that it does, in fact, exist. And has been covered by this same family of sites. FFS, Kotaku has a piece up at least monthly featuring some segment of fans not getting their way narratively, or content-wise, and sending actual death threats (plural) to developers and writers.But nope. Doesn’t exist. Sure.Boy, it’d be great if people looking to take the starch out of an overblown problem would use a washboard and water instead of an eraser and earplugs.
Does this argument mean that the opposite situation is acceptable, where characters intended to be gay, but not directly stated as such by the creators, are then perceived by the viewer as straight? Because I have a feeling it wouldn’t be.
Probably because that’s completely different
If the viewer is interpreting and contextualizing a film in a way that is meaningful to them and reflects their worldview and experience, regardless of creator intent, that’s perfectly fine, is what this article seems to be saying. So how would it be different?
You may want to read up on the history of depicting homosexuality in media
There’s no question of a need for more and better representation of homosexuality in media. But the central thesis of this article is, “What it means to you is what it means to you, and nobody can touch that.” It’s a nice sentiment, but it begs the question of does that apply to all interpretations of a work, regardless of creator intent? Or only in situations where representation was lacking and viewers were seeking to find it? Author/viewer intent is a fascinating discussion – As someone else pointed out, if a viewer think Tony Soprano lived or died, is that more real and accurate to them than if David Chase announced the answer?
I mean who cares what some random fan thinks about Tony Soprano? That’s a completely irrelevant issue to whether people are actively trying to discourage LGBT interpretations of fictional works.
where and when would that occur? that’s like claiming an “all lives matter” argument
The onion provided a conclusive response years ago: https://www.theonion.com/why-do-all-these-homosexuals-keep-sucking-my-cock-1819583529
There was a huge fight over this at the end of the series Supernatural.I didn’t see it the way others saw it but hey if that’s how they viewed the show fine. I will say the backlash to Misha saying he didn’t think the way the fans saw it was the way it was written was something. As someone who loves his best friends and when he is drunk kisses them and they even say “I got my kiss today” I understand shows have friends who love each other do death in a non sexual way.
I think you’re right that Luca’s “smallness” is its strength and that its relatively modest ambitions made it much more effective than recent Pixar films like Onward and Soul. Perhaps that’s also why it also rang true to me as an unmistakably queer narrative. Sure, the metaphor of queerness-to-sea monster is imperfect but a metaphor doesn’t have to be perfect to be affecting. Even the issue with Luca’s parents works if you consider their jaunt on land, which ends with them accepting their son’s identity and worldview, could be seen as a metaphor for the way some parents come to terms with their child’s queerness. Looking at scenes like the one where Alberto reveals his true nature and Luca aligns with the humans in rejecting him, or later when Luca reconciles with Alberto by pulling him onto the bike and away from the angry mob, it’s hard for me to see them as anything other than queer. I understand the hesitance in labelling such young characters as queer but for me it’s validating of my experiencing growing up “different” without the language to understand what that meant for me. Straight people can read the sea monster metaphor as simple, generic “difference” but that’s unsatisfyingly vague to me. Queerness gives the metaphor necessary specificity and seeing the emotional dimensions to Luca and Alberto’s relationship develop, complicate, and deepen keep from reading it in a more anodyne fashion.In contrast to Luca, I feel that the situation with Sam and Bucky is a lot more cut and dry. They are not queer characters and I don’t think a close reading of any of their film or TV appearances support that assertion. Certainly there’s more material to suggest this of Sam and Cap or Bucky and Cap, but the two men come across more as straight guys forming a bromance founded on mutual respect for each other’s struggles and abilities. I think some of us queer Marvel fans are just so starved for representation in the MCU we’re using relationships like the Sam/Bucky one to sublimate our hopes. Sam and Bucky open up to each other a bit but there’s no yearning, nothing about their identities that suggests an otherness related to queerness, though I don’t begrudge anyone shipping the characters because they are among the most emotionally vulnerable men we have in the MCU and the terseness of their interactions does echo relationship dynamics we’re all too familiar with (the optimist and the cynic, the “old married couple.”)My final thoughts are that Luca and Falcon/Winter Soldier are different animals with then former supporting a pretty clear queer reading while reading the latter the same way is much more of a stretch. That said, the writer is correct that whatever meaning the audience makes from the art is just as valid, and maybe more valuable, than the artist’s stated intentions (because who can ever be sure of what was unstated). Queer people need to see more queer stories in the world and Luca, for me at least, is a big step in the right direction.
The NYT review of Luca is titled “Calamari By Your Name.”
I don’t think any children get groomed in this one tbf.
Despite what Mackie said, regardless of Casarosa’s intent, if you viewed Luca as a queer allegory—and, in doing so, it enriched your understanding of the Pixar film, and maybe even the way you look back on your own coming-of-age story—embrace that. You didn’t view the movie, or the series, or the piece of art wrong; you didn’t twist or convolute anything. What it means to you is what it means to you, and nobody can touch that. So, yeah, those sea monsters are gay.After paragraphs and paragraphs teasing out the subtext, it is hard to imagine why the article retreats to the standard of “it means whatever it means to you.” No one can touch the personal, idiosyncratic meanings that movies stir in us, but relatively few of those meanings have much interest outside of a conversation between friends. Who else cares? But these queer readings of Luca and Sidekick Dudes tap into shared experience and cultural codes that have resonance beyond the “dear diary” variety of criticism. And part of what is interesting here is that the reading is surprisingly coherent – who knows how many viewers discovered it independently, more or less at once, before they read an article like this one? I suspect that what makes this interpretation personal for many viewers is that they experience it (rightly) as shared. Someone else in the theater, or in another theater, has been struck with the same thought. And that’s a different register of meaning, more urgent and more fundamentally interpersonal, than someone-or-other’s nifty little headcanon. So it irks me to see an interesting reading sold short in this way. There’s more here than “nah, nah, you can’t make me,” even if that can be pretty fun too.
I agree very much, if so many people are experiencing a similar understanding of the film and show, then I don’t think it’s just singular head canon. There’s obvious cues whether or not another viewer picked up on. Especially in a show like Falcon and Bucky, the gay panic in the show is noticeable but maybe the creators and actors don’t even know they are participating in it.
I’m a huge believer in death of the author and I think it’s totally fine for audiences to react however they react to a work without being judged for it. If you see queer subtext in a work, there’s queer subtext in it, and the opinion of the work’s creator is not especially relevant. What I think is weird, and mostly a reflection of niche tumblr fandoms having a much louder voice in the broader cultural conversation than they did 10-15 years ago, is the insistence that creators respond to whatever subtext fandoms see and, often, acknowledge it as canon. Like, if you see gay subtext in Falcon and the Winter Soldier’s relationship and that subtext adds to your enjoyment of the TV show, more power to you, but understand that none of the people involved in the show put that subtext there consciously, creators (in any medium, this is not just about Disney’s inherent conservatism) very, very rarely decide to alter their writing of straight-identified characters to make them queer-identified on the basis of fans seeing queer subtext and wanting it made text, and it’s probably super fucking annoying for these guys to get asked “have you seen the fan theories that the characters are gay?” for the 50th time during a press tour. I guess I’m just saying that it’s totally okay both for fans to write Falcon/Bucky slashfic and for Anthony Mackie to say “stop asking me if Falcon is gay.”
I’m not asking to be facetious or anything, I’m genuinely curious on your standpoint. Would you feel the same way if a person interpreted Bucky and The Hawk as homosexually charged or themed and didn’t like the show because of it?
Reminds me of something Mark Hamill said about Luke Skywalker a few years agoLike, you can quibble all day long about if this subtext was intended one way or if this character was coded in another way or how the people who made the work actually wrote it or what the actors were thinking when they performed it, but at the end of the day these are our stories made for us to enjoy and we can (and should) interpret them in the way that makes us happiest.Anthony Mackie is well within his rights to say “of course Sam and Bucky aren’t gay, where are you getting that from”, but people who want them to be gay for whatever reason should be allowed that interpretation as well.(of course this isn’t me saying “they have to give in to every fan’s whim and make every character officially and canonically gay” or whatever so don’t start that)
“(of course this isn’t me saying “they have to give in to every fan’s
whim and make every character officially and canonically gay” or
whatever so don’t start that)”See, that’s where the problem is. Once a segment of the fandom identifies a character as gay, they will absolutely blast anyone who says otherwise, including the people involved in making the show. Those are the people that Mackie ends up interacting with moreso than the people who keep it to fanfics or their imaginations.
Sure, and in that case we need to criticize that “segment of the fandom”. Obviously that’s not a simple problem to solve, but it’s a simple problem to state – the bad guy isn’t the one who reads (possibly unintended) subtext into a character, there’s nothing wrong with making a character gay just because you want them to be gay; the bad guy is the one who bullies actors and writers and directors because of any reason (unfortuantely you get it for a lot of reasons). “Not matching up to my headcanon” isn’t any different than “I’m racist”.So, it’s just a thing that Mackie needs to understand – it’s not people who are imagining Sam and Bucky as gay that are annoying you, it’s assholes. Sometimes there’s some crossover there, but it’s certainly not the entire community or indeed the entire concept.
There is a huge difference of context between Hamill and Mackie. Hamill had the chance of playing his character – or at least, its main trilogy – well before the Internet and the invention of “shipping”. Lucas is retired. So is Luke, give or take a CGI appearance here and there. So yes, at that point, what’s the harm in imagining what you want?The situation Mackie is in is that some passengers are trying to steer the ship. Hoping Mulder and Scully will end up together isn’t the same as wondering if Marvel and Disney will disappoint again by not giving them what they want.
Sure, I mean maybe if you asked him in 1977 Mark Hamill would have answered the question differently, due to a lot of factors, but I think the core of his answer is timeless – “the characters are there for you and if you enjoy the characters more by interpreting something that isn’t explicitly there or even intended, that’s fine.” I get Mackie’s frustration in that he feels like these fans are trying to “steer the ship” but I feel like he’s taking out the actions of a small minority on a larger group that hasn’t done anything wrong. Most of the people “shipping” Sam and Bucky aren’t hurting anyone.
This is an exceptional take on the situation, well done. It’s the sheer level of entitlement a good chunk of nerds feel they have towards shit they didn’t create. Like they feel entitled to authorship when they’re merely consumers, not creators. Somehow, because they bought the movie tickets and tie-in lunchbox and promotional Happy Meal at McDonalds, they’re now allowed to control how it goes.And, no, that’s not specific to the Falcon/Winter soldier shenanigans, that’s most nerd/geek fandoms in general.
I hadn’t seen this before, but Mark Hamill really is a treasure on every level.
Hey kids! It’s MARK HAMILL!![APPLAUSE]
This is a cool response from a nice man but it’s pretty explicit in the films that Luke is not gay. He’s in love with his sister!Which is totally fine, I’m not here to bash incest or anything! Each to their own.
What if I told you he could fall in love with his sister, and then also fall in love with a man… or a non-binary Twi’lek?
This is the sensible take. These are stories. They’re fantasy, not reality. Everyone can have their own relationship with those stories, as they experience them. It’s weird that so many people in the comments are finger wagging about how wrong it is to have your own interpretations.
Right – (some) people are conflating the toxic idea of “the fans own the work and the creators need to only do the things that make the fans happy and if the fans demand that something be changed then the creators should make it happen” with the idea of “everyone owns their own interpretation and while no one else has to respect it, that doesn’t make it bad or wrong”. Like, yeah, obviously the people screaming at Marvel to make Sam and Bucky actually gay are wrong (though I haven’t actually seen this happen at all), but I don’t know why we’re treating that differently than the people pissed that Captain America is Black now or that Captain Marvel exists as a woman.
The problem with this idea is that it 100% engenders a sense of entitlement among fans, like what’s happening now. You say that Mackie is free to say that they’re not gay, but clearly it isn’t because a lot of people are upset that he dare insinuate they aren’t when they want them to be. This all stems from the very flawed concept of the death of the author. That is a wrong idea, and it causes all kinds of problems in reality because it means that the intention of something doesn’t matter, only the recipient. This is why people are choosing to get offended at things that people say, and then trying to punish them for something that was never intended. It’s literally twisting someone’s words around, or just straight up fabricating new ones. Not to mention that all of this obsession also stems from the flawed idea that your sexuality or skin color has anything to do with who you are. A gay person wouldn’t identify with a blatantly gay villain anymore than I identify with a Mexican villain like Bane. These things have nothing whatsoever to do with who you are, but this narrative that we push about representation is what leads to people being reduced to labels and caricatures.I’ve literally seen black people, Latinos, Asians, and gays be insulted or told that they aren’t really what they are just because they don’t happen to agree with a prescribed political narrative. Uncle Tom, and race traitor, are literally insults hurled at minorities that choose to not buy into this narrative and instead decide that they actually are individuals and capable of their own decisions. This is all part of this flawed ideology, and we’re never going to get better characters and real individuals so long as we keep buying into it.
Except “our” stories for “us” have somehow over the years come to exclude the creators of those stories.
My point is that we’re all free to interpret the characters how we like, though we aren’t all free to (legally) make comics and movies with those characters using our interpretations that others will see. The creators still have say in what is actually produced and their interpretations matter a lot more in that sense.Like, take Finn and Poe from the Star Wars sequels – a lot of people interpret romantic feelings between them and it’s totally alright for them to do so. The people who actually make Star Wars said “no, this isn’t what’s actually going on” and shoehorned female romances in for both of them in the last movie, as was their right. The movie was bad, but it’s not like the creators of the stories were suddenly excluded in how it was being told.
Not excluded BUT made to feel like they had to address it. JJ’s fanwank bullshit is 100% this nonsense taken to a depressing extreme. I don’t really want to go into this shit, I’m absolutely done on a personal level with anything owned by the Great Mouse-Eared Satan, BUT this is why I would take Rian Johnson any day. He at least tried to make his own film, tell his own story. (Within the reasonable confines of existent IP)And how was he treated after? By Disney and fandom both?Creators have say only because it’s less financially risky than crowdsourcing every aspect of a film. If Disney could get away with a script based entirely on fan Tweets, filming YouTubers with Kenner action figures, and having it all cut together by people on TikTok, they would. That’s no kind of argument in favor of artistic autonomy imho.
You can interpret it however you want, and you’re well within your right to do so. Doesn’t mean that the people involved with making the product – the ones with the insight on what the intention actually is – have to necessarily agree.
Right, I think the best approach, if creators decide to spell everything out, is, “We intended it to be this way, but you if get something else out of it, that’s fine, too.” We just have to be able to see where our emotional connections end and the literal facts of the work begin. Granted, I admit it can be a little confusing when a subtext seems obvious and then a writer denies it. But it’s a subjective area.
No.I got nothing against people being gay. And if you want to have a headcanon where characters are gay, that’s cool.But at some point we gotta have a shared understanding of the difference between canon and headcanon.
So is Tony Soprano dead or alive?
He exists in an in-between state, like Schrodinger’s Mobster.
Yes.The point the author is making (if you’d read the article, rather than the headline and last line) isn’t that the characters are literally gay, but that the film is full of barely-hidden, extremely obvious gay subtext. If you want the movie to be about sea monsters, great! But if it resonates with you as an allegory for kids struggling with their gay identity, that’s totally valid as well.
And my point is that subtext isn’t text.It’s fine to rework an existing story into an allegory. But there needs to be understanding that it is a rework.It’s like how Barney in How I Met Your Mother reframed Karate Kid with Daniel-san as the villain. It’s an interesting interpretation, but, until Cobrai Kai came out, it was not the canonical interpretation. And that’s fine.This sort of thing is especially important with works that have a great deal of fandom. Because everyone has their own interpretation. But without a common base level understanding, it becomes impossible to have any sort of discussion or community. We all need to be able to be on the same page and discuss the same things, while also being able to riff on them in our own interpretations. And fhe way to do that is to seperate between the text and the subtext by labelling the stuff that is set in stone by authorial intent as canon, and the vague interpretations of personal beliefs as headcanon.
It’s funny. Y’know, ship who you want, and if you find specific meaning in works of art, that’s great. Nobody should take that from you. Mackie stumbled over his words, absolutely.With Steve/Bucky and Bucky/Sam, I’ve, uh, never sensed an ounce of romantic or sexual chemistry. Like, it’s just not there (to me). I don’t see it. Bucky had more sexual chemistry with Sam’s sister and that old guy he was hanging out with out of guilt than Sam himself. Steve has never had chemistry with anyone other than Peggy, not even Sharon who he straight up made out with. (Maybe Ashley Johnson’s waitress character, a little bit?) So with Falcon and WS, I wonder if it’s reading subtext, or is it wanting to see them kiss because they’re hot? THAT BEING SAID: Sam and Joaquin Torres? You’re telling me those two weren’t flirting in literally every single scene that they shared? You’re telling me those two weren’t making bedroom eyes at each other?
I’ve said before that I’ve seen stronger hints that a character in a movie from the Hays code era is not straight than anything with Bucky or Sam. And I just don’t think Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan have the type of chemistry that would work for a romantic relationship. It reads as very platonic to me. People can ship who they want but I personally don’t see anything that indicates any intentional subtext.
From the description, it could also be read as a trans allegory. Someone moving to a new town after transitioning and only being seen as themselves and not their mislabeled gender.There’s no “wrong” meaning to take out of art. And if something resonates with you, that’s your truth. And just because that wasn’t the artistic intent doesn’t make its importance to you any less valuable and the feelings any less real.
I agree, as long as we don’t attack creators unfairly for not subscribing to our preferred interpretation.
I hate that the notifications don’t take you directly to the comment anymore. Sucks having to wade through all these inferior comments just to find mine.
Big media companies: Happy pride! Buy our products! We slapped rainbow colors on our logo! By the way, all our significant characters are straight, now and forever.Queer people: *reinterpret those characters as queer since they have no other options*Big media companies:
As real as our interpretations might be to us, doesn’t it let the air out a bit from the tires when creators come along and say it wasn’t their intent? I mean, you can choose to live in your own reality, but I’ve felt in those situations like I’m kind of living in denial when I choose to believe one thing after the author intent has been codified. Granted, these are fictional works, so does it really matter? (And I still continue to insist that Connor MacLeod won The Prize in Highlander despite the later movies and TV shows that said otherwise!)
I think people get way too bogged down on the artist intention theory. Yes, the artist (usually) knows what they intended by a piece of art, but their intent doesn’t invalidate other interpretations. The director here is probably being sincere that it wasn’t his intent, but it’s definitely a valid interpretation. If that helps someone enjoy the work more, or feel more understood/seen in their life, then that can only be a good thing.
That’s why I was really confused by Anthony Mackie’s take on the Bucky/Cap thing. Totally accept it wasn’t what they were thinking when they acted it out, but it’s definitely there if you’re looking for it, and if it helps someone get extra enjoyment, I don’t really see why it makes him (or anyone else) so mad.
Well he played a straight guy and he’s probably getting a lot weird questions from gay shippers. It probably gets off putting after a while.
In general, actors create a whole inner life for their characters and use that inner life to inform the performance (it’s not the only way to act, but it’s common in the 21st century). Depending on the actor, they can get really defensive about their interpretation of the character.
Im sorry but you’re wrong. You can’t interpret 2+2=5 just cause it makes you happy. If the creator specifically says this isn’t my intention than your interpretation is wrong plain and simple.
Guess this might be the time to introduce you to Death of the Author literary theory.
This is a good article for an issue that could be solved with a wikipedia link to Death of the Author
As much as I can imagine how NOT versed US citizen might be on italian geography, I have to tell you that Crema – the part of Italy where “Call me by your name” is set – is so so so so so far from the sea that is funny to read it defined as “seaside Italian village”.Please, at least GOOGLE something when you write about something.
Forgive me for being mistaken. In my memory, I had conflated the scenes where Elio and Oliver accompany Elio’s father on his archaeological trip to the sea with the setting of the rest of the film.
The novel original setting is Liguria / Bordighera, Guadagnino chose to relocate the story to Crema for “his” version of Call me by your name.
CremaI’m Australian, and I know where that’s located: on top of a shot of espresso.
All these articles on various sites debating this topic genuinely surprise me.I don’t understand how anyone can watch Luca and not consider it a coming-out allegory. Even my 11-year-old commented on it. It’s also a terrific, wonderful film – go see it. If your interpretation is different, awesome. Yay art. It just seems very, very obvious to me.
Therefore, I believe the director is being disingenuous with his comments, and I’m not sure why. Which is fine! It’s his art, he can talk about it any way he wishes, for whatever reason.
With all of the people involved in making Luca over multiple years, the idea that nobody ever brought up the very obvious subtext is kind of hilarious to me. My genuine suspicion is that the Higher Ups don’t want to pigeonhole the film early on but to let people see what they want; heck, they released it during Pride Month.
Bucky and Sam are more than friends. They are brothers in arms and they share the loss of their best friend, which uprooted their places in the world. Bucky is alone in his guilt and trauma for being the Winter Soldier and Sam suddenly has the shield thrust upon him. They need each other for various reasons but reducing it to a romantic thing is simplistic and not in the spirit of the story.
I think at this point if you believe that any of this is important you need to admit to yourself that you’re a baby
I’m a gay man myself and would LOVE to see a lot more inclusiveness of LGBTQ characters in the MCU. But that said, I can see the point of not wanting Sam and Bucky to be hot for each other. Two of the major themes of “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” was soldiers trying to overcome the sense of guilt, shame and horror over what they experienced in wartime, and about the inability, sometimes refusal, of vets (straight AND gay) to open up and be emotional, even to each other, which is crucial to truly overcoming that PTSD. Hell, even many non-military straight men often have a difficult time being emotional and vulnerable because it’s not “manly.” It’s just one of the reasons we have the modern-day incel “movement.”This is a story of soldiers learning how to shut off the “warrior” mentality that they’ve been accustomed to live by, but doesn’t really work for them in non-combatant life. The underlying message of the story is that soldiers, even straight men, should be able to support and nurture each other. But if Sam and Bucky are just hot to jump each other’s bone, then it takes away from the story of Sam helping Bucky overcome his trauma over having been the Winter Soldier. It’s not a story that speaks to ALL vets, just the gay ones. And that’s not what it was about.
Man, great take, problem with creating your own subtext it sometimes throws away other subtext and txt which is just as relevant. Making everything about “me” is a pretty narrow view on stories and has the chance of narrowing perspective, not widening it.
Bucky has been used as a slave for decades and is finally free and wrestles with making amends for all the horrible things he’s done. He fears that “Steve was wrong about me”, meaning he feels he really is an evil person.Sam tries to get a bank loan after “five years away” and is declined, despite the very obvious reason for the gap, and despite his “very public record of service.” Sam also feels a bit of empathy for Karli, his enemy, who he feels does have a point after all.Isaiah Bradley was administered the super-soldier serum without his knowledge and dispatched in Korea to perform heinous acts he did not want to commit. After he did what he was commissioned to do by the U.S. gov’t, that same U.S. gov’t threw him under the bus and sent him to jail for 30 years for “war crimes” and washed their hands of him.Sharon Carter is a SHIELD agent who defies orders to do what she believes is the morally right thing to do. As a consequence of following her conscience, she is disgraced and exiled and then bitterly accepts the role of a villain.The finale of the series is Sam, having accepted the role of Captain America, schooling a politician who wants to weasel his way out of any responsibility for a political situation he helped create. Nope. I did not ADD a subtext to the story. It was there. And I do not claim to be any particular shrewd critic either, and it was not all that subtle. If you couldn’t see the theme of wounded warriors unable to adjust to civilian life again… well, I don’t know what show you were watching.
I’m not sure I was being rebutalled here or not:D. I agreed with you at least:)To summarize, author’s intent def. matters, and if peope create their own subtext (the gay relationship), you lose other subtext quit easely. Being “war (torn) buddies” is not the same thing as “relationship”, and seeing the theme’s of the show, you lose a lot of “war (torn) buddies” context which seems to be super relevant for the premise of the show.
Man, this hits the nail on the head of a huge problem I have with Death of the Author. It was created in large part to break critical analysis away from a narrow view of art through the lens of the artist and their intent. It was meant to drag those discussions out of the realm of old white guy academia and into a more egalitarian space. But the pendulum has swung too far and we’re back to narrow again. Except this narrow is borderline solipsistic.
Which made me wish that the series hadn’t ended with Bucky bailing on therapy. It should have ended with him finally ready to seriously and honestly engage with his therapist.
Nobody ever seems to consider that maybe Bucky and Sam are gay, but just not hot for each other. Like, Sam really connected hard with Steve Rogers, and so did Bucky. What if they were gay, both in love with Steve, and just decided to be pals because of that shared trait?That story is way more interesting to me than them just being warm for each other’s forms.
I would say especially straight men. For years there has been this stigma that any men expressing their feelings to each other must be gay. So you have these two characters helping each other overcome the traumas they’ve endured, and making them gay all of a sudden further entrenches this idea. That’s what Mackie was talking about, albeit very clumsily.
I personally am tired of the injection of romance into superhero movies. What blows my mind is the term “pandering” which means to write in or change a character to appeal to a demographic(like the token black actor of old days) use to be seen as offensive and bigoted, but now everyone is begging for pandering. How about we make a movie based on the stories instead of being like DC who was pandering to the women demographic when writing in that Batman had a childhood girlfriend/love interest. This didn’t enhance the story or make it better for Harvey Dents origins..it was just a move to help sell more tickets to appeal to girls because “girls dig love stories”
Not everyone’s a faggot.
People can find meaning wherever they like in art, and that’s great, but of course nothing compares to filmmakers actually telling a story featuring gay characters, instead of just characters who “could be gay in someone’s head canon.”
there is a reason i’ll defend it chapter 2 despite the film’s flaws, and it’s the fact they looked at the years of queer interpretations of some characters and were like, yeah let’s do this for real. give me good gay characters and i will die for your film.
The thing though is what if I want to see myself, a gay person, reflected in the MCU proper.
Yes I have turned to media similar to and outside of Marvel for representation, some of which has been great. But I always hoped for something from that universe itself, especially given the source material has well-known and adored LGBTQ+ characters. And after a decade of films, the rep amounts to a director’s cameo. Hence why some people ship.
Exactly. It’s sad that we have to twist ourselves into knots imagining that characters could secretly be gay outside of the canon of a film because filmmakers rarely deliver on openly, clearly queer characters.
Within the next year on the movie side, we’re supposedly getting Phastos in Eternals, Valkyrie in Love & Thunder, and America Chavez in Multiverse of Madness (they might let her get a little older before showing her in a relationship, but her backstory involves her 2 mothers).
And on the TV side, we already have :
* Agents of SHIELD – Joey Gutierrez, Marcus Benson, Agent Piper
* Runaways – Nico Minoru, Karolina Dean, Xavin
* Luke Cage – Shades Alvarez, Comanche Jones
* Jessica Jones – Jeri Hogarth, Wendy Ross-Hogarth, Pam, Steven Benowitz, Kith Lyonne, Inez Green, Gillian, Eddy Costa
…plus the possibility of Wiccan & Speed returning.
Thank you. I was thinking that the MCU TV series, (pre-Disney+), did provide gay representation. However I only watched the Netflix series and rep on that area involves some shady people, particularly Jeri’s ill-fated marriage and tryst. And Shades was into men too? I don’t recall that.
How were the depictions of male-male and female-female relationships in Runaways and Agents of SHIELD? Given that it’s Marvel, part of the audience is kids and teens, and especially that there are underage characters, I’m not wanting for anything sexual. Just, like, at least one PDA and the couple being actually shown together, talking and bonding.
JJ: Jeri herself was the problem in (almost) all of those relationships; Wendy, Pam, & Kith were all decent-to-good people (but Inez was conning her). Benowitz came out between seasons. Costa was Jessica’s police liaison; he talked with her a few times about his rocky marriage. Gillian was Jessica’s assistant after Malcolm; she’s trans.LC: Shades & Comanche had been lovers in prison; Shades tried to pretend he was only “gay for the stay”, but the clear subtext is that he’s actually bi, & Comanche is definitely still in love with him. They have a pretty deep conversation about it while on a stakeout together.AoS: Joey is seen with a date, whom he kisses. Benson is a widower (possibly from the Snap?). Piper is implied to be a lesbian & attracted to May, but explicitly not to Daisy, which we find out hilariously: Runaways: Nico & Karolina have much onscreen PDA, including hand-holding & kissing, & they share a bed in the Hostel (with offscreen implied sex at least once). They chat a lot. Xavin is genderfluid, but usually takes female forms to try to appeal to Karolina.Oh, I also forgot The Punisher: Senator David Schulz is closeted gay, & the season 2 plot kicks off when somebody gets photos of him with a lover & his power-broker fundie parents try to have everyone connected to the photos killed. David himself is actually an upstanding person & doesn’t know what his parents have been up to until Frank tells him.
I totally get WHY people ship. Queer people crave representation and to see themselves reflected in the stories they love.
I just am at a point, personally, where I’m tired of movies relying on “well they could be gay in your head if you want” instead of having the guts to have them be gay on screen. Marvel should have had significant gay characters YEARS ago, it’s so disappointing that it has taken this long. I’m ignoring the Endgame cameo because what a joke!!!!
Here’s the thing, Anthony Mackie arguably knows his character better than we do due to Marvel’s secrecy.What if in Captain America 4, Sam has a female love interest already planned? Then people who projected Sam’s homosexuality will end up disappointed and crucify Disney for a wasted opportunity. Why? I agree there should be diversity, but it should be organic and not brought upon what the audience wants.
if we have to sit and wait for organic diversity, we won’t get a gay named character until phase 26
There will be gay characters in The Eternals, and it seems like they are going to be introduced organically into the meta-narrative, so we don’t have to wait that long…. from now. We did have to wait too long before that, but they’re at least doing something.
It’s kind of inexcusable that we didn’t get even a gay background character until 22 films in, and he got 3 lines and had no superpowers.
That post was fascinating. There’s the sense that the MCU needs to be “organic” while also acknowledging that it’s intensely preplanned. There’s also the implication that Marvel shouldn’t be giving the audience what it wants. It’s like asking to be negged.
Or you can just wait until the fall when Eternals comes out.
So stop waiting for that to happen and identify with actual characters instead of people that fulfill a quota. I’m Mexican. Who do I have to “identify” with in the MCU according to your school of thought? The most prominent Hispanic character is Michael Pena’s character in the Antman movies. But the beauty of being an individual instead of a political puppet means I can identify with the patriotism of Captain America, the strength of Thor, the ingenuity of Iron man, and the restraint of Bruce Banner. Despite each of these being white characters, I can identify with each of them because I know that the color of my skin or who I want to have sex with has absolutely nothing to do with who I am as a person.Maybe try identifying with people instead of caricatures, and marvel will make people that happen to be gay just like people happen to be gay in real life. Then we can all move past the caricatures we’re getting now
I mean, Luca is about a boy who feels like his family no longer understands him then finds another boy with whom he feels he can be his true self and together they want to run off and see the world together.At the end, everyone figures out who they are and tells them they still support them.There’s a love triangle.It’s definitely a pretty fair read. Much more than I expected. My wife, who read none of this beforehand, kept pointing out how lines could be taken.Truthfully, it gives the movie a depth it otherwise missed. Still a sweet movie. But would have been so much better had it been about Alberto seeking family rather than about Luca being the more boring one. Luca had no true journey without the queer subtext.And the end was so incredibly unearned.
Luca’s journey was one of gaining confidence. He starts off a nervous wreck who dreams of things he doesn’t do and ends the movie brave enough to be who he is and live the life he wants. That was his journey. The family thing with Alberto was there as well, because that was his unexpectedly beautiful friendship with the Fisher father. Alberta’s journey was more about fear of abandonment. He was brash and outgoing but masking his utter loneliness. So he practically adopts Luca as a brother and a best friend and in his subtle, maybe not even conscious way, he clings onto Luca and becomes actively jealous when Luca connects with other people, because Alberto was scared of being left alone again. Alberto’s journey was letting Luca go. That was him buying the train ticket at the end. Alberto had zero desire to go to school, but he gave up their dream to give Luca what he wanted, because Alberto knows now he has people and he knows Luca will always care about him even when they aren’t joined at the hip all the time.
For such a simple plot film, I felt there was a lot of well drawn character stuff and that’s why I enjoyed it.
Ok, sure. Let’s run with that. On the topic of the article, Luca wasn’t really a nervous wreck dreaming beyond his current life until he met Alberto. Meeting Alberto set his entire plot off. Which, again, kind of leans into the queer subtext. And, I didn’t mention this above, but when they won and hugged, it was out of every romantic cartoon ever.
But to the point, Luca’s journey wasn’t a particularly great one. He had a loving family. He didn’t really have many challenges. The opening didn’t set him up longing to be more than a farmer, or even if there was a such thing as more for merpeople. He didn’t even know you could go to the surface until about 3 minutes before he did it. There was no setup for “Luca wants more.” There wasn’t even conflict of him wanting to go to the surface, because he was unaware. There wasn’t conflict of him wanting a Vespa, because he was unaware. He basically just did things as he learned about them.
Alberto, though, was abandoned. His father told him no one would want him. Then he meets a man that literally hates his kind. Who lives in a town dedicated to fearing and killing his kind. That has signs up about how evil his kind is, and whose entire portfolio of art is dedicated to depicting his slaughter. In that man he finds acceptance and a father figure. That’s a journey.“I want a Vespa from this place I really just found out about and now am dying to go” isn’t much of one. Again, a sweet movie, but a very trivial one for a Pixar film.
I definitely feel like Alberto had the better story of the two. The father fisherman thing was an unexpectedly emotional element. His design is meant to look so hostile, with his giant frame and his often non-existent eyes. But they show that cares for his daughter deeply and the way he gradually connects to Alberto was really beautiful and underplayed wonderfully. He never expressed a deep affection for Alberto, but it was clear how he trusted Alberto with the fishing work and went out of his way to seek Alberto’s help whenever he could. One of my favourite moments was after Alberto is outed, the father makes dinner for Alberto and after being told Alberto isn’t coming to dinner, he just has this silent moment of tragic loss. The possible queer angle makes Alberto’s story even stronger. If you dive into the allegory of it, you could imagine Alberto’s father dumped him because Alberto would never go into the closet (or “the deep”), where as the Fisher father sees who Alberto is and cares for him regardless. As for Luca. I see what you mean. As a character he’s a real text book example of how much an actor can bring to a role, because Jacob Tremblay really humanized him a lot for me. I’m kind of happy the plot and stakes were fairly simple. It’s fine to have pixar movies like that now and then. As animation companies go, they’re a rarity in western animators for actually making a major movie as simple as this kind of thing.
My daughter and I just watched the movie together on Disney+. She came out to us not long ago, and we spent the entire movie with this shared puzzled expression and continuing to ask each other, is it meant to be this gay, because this is very gay. It was wonderful.
It’s sad to see Anthony Mackie getting dumped on by clickbait articles, when he took the time to explain his position and make a good point. Imagine being a great classic theatre actor, but every time there’s two men on the stage the audience screams “KISS! KISS!KISS!”. I can totally see how an actor would get tired of shipping after putting so much work through writing and acting to build a compelling male friendship.
My question becomes is it okay to say that gay couples on the big screen can be interpreted as straight friendships if some people wanted to? For example, Katie Mitchell from the Mitchell’s vs the Machines on Netflix is gay. By the end of the movie she has a girlfriend. It’s canon. Can I say that no she’s not dating the other lady and they’re just friends? If yes, then you’re not respecting her sexuality and you’re wrong. If no, then there’s double standards where straight people could be seen as gay even if they’re not, where you’re not respecting THEIR sexuality and therefore wrong again. Anthony Mackie, who’s played Falcon for a few years now, should be able to say the Falcon’s sexuality. (who I’m pretty sure is straight in the comics) anyone please tell me where I’m wrong in this logic.
The lack of positive gay representation on-screen over the years creates a desire for it, and many do feel Luca is an allegory to which they can relate. But I also did wonder, for the sake of argument, is the conclusion of this article – your interpretation is real and valid – also welcome when a viewer comes away with a reading that isn’t born out of inclusion? Not about character sexuality necessarily, but about any plot or subtext that the author didn’t intend. Yes, representation is important, but is this the kind of logic than can apply in a general sense? Poetry can be interpreted many ways; TV and film are often more literal. Perhaps creators should stay mum and allow others to enjoy media as they wish, but it’s also understandable that they make their own vision known (although diplomacy wouldn’t hurt). Anyway, maybe I’m thinking too hard about what this article’s author just intended as a nice sentiment.
Ok these fanfiction/head cannon articles are getting absolutely ridiculous. No one cares if you have some personal interpretation (as a gay man I’ve had a few ships I’ve liked over the years) the problem is when unstable obsessive people who don’t go outside make a concerted effort to complain and harass because their subjective interpretation didn’t become cannon. God i miss when I took this site seriously.
Tbh, it’s crossing into “they stole the election” territory for me (of course less malificent). Make up your own reality and make them facts. Fuck facts and actual intent.Like so many others here, make text, subtext is in your heads a bit much
As someone who really enjoyed Luca for the gentle and fun little movie it was, it was upsetting that so many reviews, including this site, have written it off as being a lightweight movie. It’s certainly not a big movie, but possible queer reading or not, there was a lot of brilliantly emotional text there for such a seemingly simple story, so I’m happy this article has illustrated that.
This movie was delicate and perfect… similiar to Ghibli movies. American’s are always looking for some HUGE BIG BANG BOOM emotional breakdown / over joyious moment… this movie ends like a Ghibli movie where life goes on and is so delicate and sweet at the same time. I enjoyed every minute of Luca, and so did my kids (they have watched it 3x times already!) but they also enjoy the pace of Ghibli movies.
It does feel like a Ghibli film in a lot of ways. The supernatural elements of the story are rather mundane and low key. And the town is lovingly rendered.
There was an article somewhere that basically sums up the issue with Pixar movies. They were such an incredible hit machine that was redefining what children’s animation could be for several years that its nearly impossible for them to top what they have already made. I personally likes Onward, Soul and Luca a lot. My kids did too. They were all enjoyable movies with emotional stakes more “real” then most kids movies. None were perfect and none were as amazing as peak Pixar but they were all great family movies.
It felt pretty light to me for most of the movie, but that goodbye at the end brought on the waterworks for my wife and myself. I thought it was great overall.
Perpetrating such trash is both sick AND evil!Keep it to yourself!
Projection is fine I suppose, but I steer well the fuck clear of making them facts, way too much wishful thinking in worlds today with everything, reeks of hints of narcism and ego centrical behaviour.I think it is so that’s the fucking truth, nah it ain’t
Great, I guess my best friends and I are homosexuals now because we grew up together and still a tight group.You’re trying too hard, keep reaching for the stars.
Were you and your friend both secretly sea monsters as well? Did one of you get extremely jealous when a girl befriended one of you?
Sam and Bucky are very clearly explicitly straight. If you think their gay you’re very unperceptive.I will never understand shipping culture. Y’all are weirdos.
i want gay-text, not gay sub-text!
Luca isn’t gay. It’s trans.
It’s a narrative about “passing” or failing to pass.
About finding out that there are other people who are in hiding who pass better than you, who are older than you.
It’s a story about presentation, and that presentation being the dangerous thing.
At least, that’s my take.
Oh god. Thank you. It was getting exhausting watching every reviewer I respected on this just blithely ignore the.. quite literal text of this movie. It was such Sapho And Her Friend material that it was bordering on parody.
Disney had gay characters in the 30s. The Angel Food Cakes in the short The Cookie Carnaval were definitely gay. Also Goofy unlike his other pals never had a girlfriend.
U need to stop subjecting youth to queer values let them be kids.. I for one am not letting my kids watch or be part of this fade that subjects them to homo and trans life… Look at the 90’s where it made fun of black culture.. Its sick…..
I don’t think anyone begrudges people finding a comfortable subtext in entertainment properties like Luca or The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, even if one wasn’t intentionally added by the properties’ creators. It’s human nature to look for things with which to identify, familiar elements, and other things that resonate specifically with you.I, for example, as someone who had a messy and very final divorce from the Mormon Church years ago, cannot watch The Truman Show without seeing the whole movie as a 100% representation of someone discovering that God isn’t real and that religion is a scam, rather than the ubiquitous assumption that it’s about the hazards and dangers of reality TV and the logical dystopic endpoint of consumer voyeurism. For me, every single element resonates with me – the gradual, creeping awareness that his life isn’t what everyone’s told him his whole life; the way they use his family against him to keep him believing the lie; the Christof monologue at the end. Beat by beat, it matches my own story.So if someone watches Luca, TFATWS, or, hell, even the volleyball scene in Top Gun, and has a resonating moment about their sexuality, more power to them.Where things get stupid is when people start screaming about it and saying that if someone doesn’t see that perceived subtext, they’re either blind (best case) or bigoted (worst case). It’s a really annoying type of gatekeeping, a sort of “Karen culture” that just cuts the legs out from under any sort of argument in favor of the theory. I think people are better served by embracing the subtext they see as something personal and treasured, because that’s when entertainment is at its best.
You nailed it TeoFabulous. If you interpret it as gay, it’s gay. If it’s something else, it’s something else.re: The Truman Show – I never considered that angle, but it makes perfect sense.
So if I say your article is a recipe for cookies, because that was how I reacted, it is magically a recipe for cookies? NO. It is not how YOU view any work of art. It is what can be found there PLUS your reaction. Morons who argue that “Huck Finn” promotes inter-racial transgenerism, or that “1984″ advocates for communism, or that “Go Ask Alice” is pro-drug are simply wrong.Claiming to find gay (or straight or asexual or anything-else) themes based solely on the response of the reader/viewer/etc. is akin to saying that the listener is perfectly valid in any interpretation of words, no matter how little this is based in reality.
I’d say you must be fun at parties, but somehow I can’t see you ever being invited to any.
I dont understand how anyone can feel ostercized for being gay in this day in age, frankly like most people online these days I think they are faking their feeling for attention. This isnt 40 years ago.
We just had a NFL player come out as gay and the general reaction to it is “who cares” as it should be. You aren’t brave or special for being gay you’re just gay.
Mackie is right this is just another case of groups drawing attention to themselves for their own agendas. Being gay in 2021 is basically like being left handed you are slightly different than everyone else but nobody cares, you aren’t special.
Let me guess, you’re straight?
No guess needed. This is 100% privileged cis-male thinking
Despite what Mackie said, regardless of Casarosa’s intent, if you viewed Luca as a queer allegory—and, in doing so, it enriched your understanding of the Pixar film, and maybe even the way you look back on your own coming-of-age story—embrace that.Art is a means of communication. The artist uses the conventions of his chosen medium to communicate with the audience. If the audience does not understand the intent of the artist’s message, then that art fails in its purpose. It is your job as the audience to interpret the artist’s intent, just as it is your job as a listener to interpret what another is saying. If you, the audience, deliberately misinterpret the intent of what is being communicated, you are failing at your job.So no, as the audience, you cannot simply discard the artist’s intent. The artist’s intent matters more than the audience’s interpretation for the artist’s intent is what determines whether the audience’s interpretation is valid.
Movie: “To thine own self be true.”Audience: “This movie is Gay.”Movie: “It’s who you are on the inside that counts.”Audience: “This movie is Gay.”Me: This movie is totally window on purpose. 🤣
I have to admit that I’ve never heard the term “totally window” before….
All of this is not to attack Mackie, who appears to have tripped over his own words; his deeper point seems to be that there’s just as much value in representing “sensitive masculine figure[s]” in pop culture, and that young audiences could stand to see more healthy relationships between cis, straight men. Thank you. Too much of the internet has a tendency towards taking every possible thing in the least charitable possible way.
It was pretty clear to me that Mackie was saying that interpreting every close male friendship as automatically gay isn’t particularly productive. Even the “validating themselves” bit seemed to me like he was referring less to the “shippers” and more to the no hugging, no sensitivity, tough guy closed-off version of cis-male heterosexuality that’s really not good for anyone (the classic, “the only acceptable display of emotion is anger, everything else is for sissies and the gays.”)
He certainly wasn’t taking into account that finding “gay stories” has been an exercise in examining subtext for decades since explicitly gay stories just didn’t exist in the mainstream. But I certainly get his point that classifying any caring, sensitive male friendship as “a gay thing” isn’t great.
That said, give it another generation and it won’t matter because “masculinity” won’t be defined by sexuality and even the notion of specifically “gay” stories will become a weird, reductive artifact of the past. (Hopefully).
I can understand where Mackie comes from (even though he went about it in just about the worst possible way, just short of hashtagging nohomo). I think that close male friendships where they’re emotionally supporting each other and physically close do need to be celebrated and normalized.But, look – First of all, people get to read subtext into whatever they want – that’s the point of art. Second of all, so long as two men exist on a movie or tv show, there will be slash written about them. It’s a rule of the internet. And third of all, and perhaps more importantly, if creators didn’t want people to read queer subtext in their work, maybe they should set about making actually queer text instead of throwing in a neighbor or teacher or best friend with a sexless relationship to give sage advice to the teen protagonist on his quest to bang the hot girl in class.
Classic outsider tales tend to be viewed through the lens of current outsiders. For me, I view these stories more along the lines of light-skinned people of mixed heritage passing as the dominant group. But again, that’s my go-to response because that’s what I study and think about. The Bucky/Sam thing is more straight up a lack of queerness on screen and shippers desperate for relationships to happen that aren’t going to happen. If you want to ship them, by all means, write that fanfic to your absolute heart’s content, DO NOT LET ANYBODY STOP YOU! But, with that being said, don’t get upset when the writers and controllers of the story opt to keep them straight for any number of reasons up to and including that’s just their preference. Seeing something as subtext or being ‘seen’ is wholly different then getting upset when your subtext isn’t made text which I think is what Mackie was referencing even though the clickbait types insisted it was some sort of gay-bashing attack. Also, it’s 2021, the LGBTQ+ community makes up around 10-30% of society depending on how far we stretch the community’s inherent boundaries, bring on some gay love interests and stop making it unforced subtext.
Please stop the racist circulation of Variety’s twisted version of Anthony Mackie’s words. Anthony Mackie DID NOT say anything about people in fandom romantically pairing Sam and Bucky. He made the exact same comments before in other interviews specifically about the toxic way men are policed from showing affection, which is why he enjoys showing sensitive male friendships on screen. He was asked about playing a male friendship NOT about queer fans pairing Sam and Bucky together. Obviously Cameron Scheetz did not listen to the interview and relied on a racist white interviewer’s clickbait title.When other news sites circulate this false version of events, they contribute to racist coverage of Black actors – notice how it comes immediately as Anthony Mackie is chosen to be Captain America – the most prolific Black superhero on screen next to T’Challa. It’s no coincidence they’re trying to slander rising Black actor who has in the past supported LGBTQ people and played queer characters in screen.Please edit the racism out of your article.
This article seems to ignore the fact that the third in the relationship of the boys in Luca is a girl. Luca doesn’t part Alberto to be on his own. He follow Giulia. Not saying you can’t read the story as “gay” but there is just as much evidence to justify saying Luca is “straight” based on how he reacts with her. The fact is they are young kids and thinking about their sexual preference in a sexless movie seems kinda silly.
Well that was cringe. Shit post articles like this is why nobody takes the lgbt+ community seriously. Can we also stop projecting sexual archetypes onto children and just enjoy a movie, holy fuck. Its so creepy how grown adults obsess over fictional child characters sexual preferences. I guess its not just the straights being weirdos.
Did you eat a bowl of stupid for breakfast?
Yes.
How utterly tedious. I love how the whole concept of personal development, being unsure in the world, finding one’s place amongst those who differ from you etc now seemingly only happens to gay people. Because, you know, sexuality is the defining feature of all humans ever. Any time two men appear together, even siblings (in the case of Supernatural), the nauseating portmanteaus appear (inherently nauseating, irrespective of gender or sexuality) with the even more insipid term of ‘shipping’ occuring.My sexuality, in terms of its importance in defining me, lies somewhere been biscuit preferences and my favourite colour of slippers. Whichever letter one is, good for you. Genuinely. Best wishes and God’s speed. We’re all people after all. But the constant bleating about it is beyond boring.
Just to be clear here…You’re saying that viewing these characters from Luca and also from Falcon and Winter Soldier as gay, makes them gay…So you’re putting labels on them? Making them to be something they aren’t? Forcing them in a dialog to meet what you want to see?That seems very wrong to me. So are you telling me that the cast from Queer Eye For The Straight Guy are all straight, if I want them to be straight, even if they tell me they’re gay?How about a person going through a serial transition? Are you going to tell a man, who is transitioning into a woman, is a man, just because people say they are?What you’re doing with your long winded argument, is showing support for forcing sexual orientation on people.Congrats.
Absolutely not. You’re talking about people in the real world. I’m talking about characters in a piece of art/media. The point of this piece is to say “if art speaks to you in a certain way, listen to that.” I stated my personal read of the film—just one person’s perspective—to illustrate a point that art is up for interpretation. I said nothing of forcing ideals on people. And i don’t believe you think I said that either, you’re just being disingenuous for the sake of a snide comment.
So if I watch “Will and Grace” and I decide Will and Jack are straight, that’s okay and they’re straight? Or is it only okay if I want straight characters to be LGBTIA+?
yeah, I don’t care, you can do that. I’m not trying to tell anyone how they, personally, should interpret art/media. In fact, I’m saying the opposite: Art and media can be fulfilling to all of us in different ways, and we’re all allowed to see ourselves represented in characters if we so choose, to feel comforted and empowered by them.
LGBTIA+? Never heard of that computer language…
I see what your saying but he’s just using the argument in the article. I would say that in this day that LGBTQ+ is more accepted that movies like The Mitchells vs. the Machines will be more the norm then bowing and scrapping for queer bait like this film is. I’m Hispanic and there were no hero’s that looked like me when I was younger, so I gravitated towards heros that felt more Latino to me. Now I can watch mainstream TV (the flash mostly because marvel will doesn’t do Latinos superheroes in movies or shows that are popular) and see at least 2 or 3 characters that look like me. I still like those characters that made me feel like I was apart of the world as a kid but not i don’t have to rely on them to represent me. The same will hopefully be the same for LGBTQ+ in the next few years. If you find my comment disingenuous then I’m sorry but the main poster had a good point and we do need spaces for healthy platonic male friendships and not just coding them all as romantic just for the sake of our preprogrammed view of how to interpret these relationships.
No, you’re not being disingenuous at all, and I appreciate the comment. While it wasn’t the focus of my article, I hope I made it clear that I do agree w/ Mackie’s assertion that we need space for healthy platonic male friendships, absolutely. A big part of writing this was to say: Art and media can be fulfilling to all of us in different ways, and we’re all allowed to see ourselves represented in characters if we so choose, to feel comforted and empowered by them. That’s between you, as the consumer/observer and the art/media, so no one can take that away from you. In my opinion, the original poster was facetiously taking that point out of any provided context and assuming I’m trying to force an agenda on people or tell them the right/wrong way to consume things, when in fact that’s the exact opposite of my point. Thank you again for the thoughtful response.
The amount of ignorance it took to write this comment is commendable. The number of hoops you had to jump through to arrive at this leap on logic is astounding. You are remarkable in the worst way possible.
lol whaat? You realize these are fictional characters right.
I just googled “disingenuous”, pressed I’m Feeling Lucky and ended up at this comment.
Like you said, it’s nice to ship and have our personal story influence how we interpret characters in shows. Sometimes it’s nice when something’s not explicitly mentioned so that you do have that flexibility. However like it’s been mentioned, as a society we tend to ship every close same gender friendship as gay, which is just as dangerous because as a culture we have issues portraying healthy plutonic relationships. (Both male/male and female/ female) to the point that most media lacks quality, indepth sales sex friendships. To the point that there are scales made to rate shows on it (for female anyway). I want to see more representative shows. I also want our society to see that men can have close heathy friendships, where they can be vulnerable, and emotionally expressive without sexual connotation (even two gay men can be plutonic, just because you’re both gay doesn’t mean you are attracted to each other). Media is saturated with the message that emotional intimacy is only sexual, a message which is currently poisoning the mental health of our nation. We need more representation, but we also need healthy plutonic friendships to not be rare, but mainstream. Children and adults are more influenced by media than we realize.Im an Ace and in the medical field, so maybe it adds to my bias of how deteremental it is having every close friendship to be shipped heavy (as in, they are in love, vs I like to picture them as in love), for m/m, f/f, and m/f. Then again, I do make my own ships, as well as characters I chose to see as being Ace (esp the ones that always avoid relationships). I just think, if it is not a romance show, most relationships should have the room to be healthy and plutonic with out it being romantic (f/f, m/m, or F/m).
Well said! I can certainly agree with all of that. Thank you for taking the time to read and share such a thoughtful response.
lmao I definitely misread that to think that you were bragging about your prowess in medicine.
You are wrong in saying “I think its gay when its just a friendship”. Two guys who are friends don’t mean they are gay. Stop being stupid. You can think what you want but dude you have to know the truth after all bc the truth trumps what you believe. Stop saying stuff that it really isnt.
If Luca and The Falcon And The Winter Soldier are gay to you, then you’re gay
It’s a weird day when an adult has to watch a child’s movie, write an article speculating on the cartoon children’s sexuality. They’re children, in a Disney movie. More so, they’re friends who have two different backgrounds but one similarity to do something else in life. But this is the ever growing problem with the world. Attempting to sexualize children through the lens of an adult. It’s sick and an article like this shouldn’t be promoted at all. Luca was a great movie, don’t ruin it by creating this weird pedo like vibe of an article.
Is the story good? If yes then I don’t care if they are gay characters.People worry about this movie making kids gay but they don’t worry about this movie making kids fish, both are as about as likely to happen from watching this movie.
This may be overly blunt, but it comes from a place of real love: The current fad of self-inflicted queerbaiting has got to stop because it is only stagnating what had been incremental march towards true representation.
I do not fully understand your reasoning here, and in so apologize if I misconstrue it. However you mention that art can be interpreted in different ways, yet you conflate the difference between artistic themes and character background. Luca and it’s queer subtext is a valid interpretation however, the sexuality of the characters of a show cannot necessarily be up for interpretation. Who are we to define the admittedly complex role sexuality plays for an individual. It is not right to paint a queer character as straight anymore than it is to take a straight character and force them into our view of what is good for them. Should marvel come out and claim the falcon and winter soldier as queer, good on them but until then it seems disingenuous and juvenile to force same-sex ships between two straight-apparent characters for nothing more than our own gratification and head-cannon erotica. Imagine if a lesbian character was claimed to have a secret love for their straight male partner in a show? The backlash would be tremendous and deserved as it undermines the point of the characters perspective
You make some smart, salient points, and I can admit that Luca and The Falcon And Winter Soldier are not a perfect comparison, in so far as I relate them in this piece, especially because the simpler fairytale narrative of Luca basically invites diverse allegorical readings, while TFATWS has different aims (not to mention a complex background of character lore and themes from the source comics and elsewhere). And I should mention that that series does not specifically speak to me as a queer metaphor—I only felt compelled to discuss it in relation to Luca because of the way the online discussion around the film dovetailed with Mackie’s comments and the discourse around them, part of which struck me as overly prescriptive and seemed to say, “you’re watching/experiencing this wrong.”In my view, there’s no such thing as watching or experiencing art/media wrong—different art/media is going to mean different things to different people. I don’t mean to stump for willful ignorance, but folks are welcome to interpret art however they want, and I only mean to champion that in the sense that it helps them feel seen, and enriches their understanding of the art and themselves. As a gay man who was pretty closeted into my adulthood, a lot of my thinking and work re-examines the pop culture I grew up with to figure out why and how it spoke to me (and possibly others) without me really knowing it at the time. If others are on that journey—at any age—I encourage them to listen to how art speaks to them, engage with that on a personal level, and learn/grow from it. This goes especially for anyone from a marginalized community who has, historically, not seen themselves represented in American pop culture as much as cis, straight white men.I think what some comments are incorrectly assuming is that because of my opinion, I’m arguing that you should then demand others (the artists/creators themselves, audiences, etc…) fall in line with your view. That is not at all what I’m saying—in fact, it’s the opposite. Where I’m sympathetic to Mackie is the fact that it seems certain TFATWS fans are very vocal about their queer reading of the series’ characters (their head-canon, as you put it) and seem to be demanding that he and others acknowledge that to the point they want it canonized, to become part of the series. You can respect an artist’s intent while still finding a different interpretation of their work for yourself. We’re all entitled to our thoughts, opinions, freedom of speech, etc, etc… and we’re free to share them on the internet, but we should not expect others to agree or accept that. The internet is a great forum of discussion, but I think a lot of people see it (and specifically their social media channels) as an avenue to assert their opinions as fact. I realize the irony of saying this on a pop culture website that is larger based around critical reviews and opinion pieces, but I think all of my colleagues would agree that, just because they wrote a piece about something, that’s not THE final word on it.So, no, I’m not trying to force a “same-sex” reading of Luca, TFATWS, or anything on anybody, and I hope that I made that clear in the piece. My personal view of Luca as a queer allegory is an example of how that deepened my love of the film, and I wanted to use that to illustrate my larger point. Anyway, thanks for reading and for the thoughtful critique; it’s very much appreciated.
I think Disney is especially a lightning rod for these kinds of readings, though: their content is unusually sexless. That’s unsurprising for a Pixar film aimed at children, but even their more “adult-skewing” MCU or Star Wars content presents sexuality or romance in the most anodyne ways possible. Ascribing a sexuality to characters that’s “not canon” is a pretty easy lift, because their sex lives are basically blank slates to begin with.Of course, romance exists in these stories – Cap and Peggy, Starlord and Gamora, Rey and Kylo – but what does it look like? Finn and Rose are supposed to have a romantic tension throughout TLJ (when she kisses him near the end, the hangar door explodes apart), but does that canon romance actually feel more visceral or realized than the fanon one between Finn and Poe? Does the film harness the kind of “oh, they’re gonna fuck” energy that Han and Leia had in 1980? Not really!Steve unravels time to consummate his decades-long love for Peggy Carter, and the way the film presents their reunion is…a chaste slow dance. Is it sweet and subtle? Sure. Does it feel sexually-charged, like a sailor getting off a boat? No, obviously. It’s hardly surprising that people read sexuality into Bucky and Steve, because even the cases where you’re SUPPOSED to read sexuality into the relationship feel…not all that sexual. Bucky is as queer as he is straight, which is to say almost not at all in-universe.
Basically any time characters have a close relationship, they want to fuck each other because there’s no other relationship possible and everyone needs representation. close male friends? gay, fucking. close female friends? gay, fucking. gay guy and girl bestie? actually straight, fucking. single father and daughter? incest, fucking. mother and newborn baby? pedo, fucking. cop and their K9? obviosly fucking.that’s how it works?
Added for clarity: ships are fine, and identifying characters with yourself as queer is fine.But I agree with other bloggers (even on the gizmodo-verse) take on Mackie’s comments: the exploitation he was referring to was on the producers of the show who queerbait and dangle fans on strings being coy about the gay stuff, and underrepresenting in general. If Disney would just give us real queer couples and characters, there wouldn’t be this grasping at straws at the closest same-sex emotional relationships that Disney trickles out.It’s the same calling-out people have been doing to companies who have been paying lip-service to BLM and Pride while not actually doing anything to help (and oftentimes are making things worse).
The other side of that is the craze it drives in fans, who feel so not-properly-exploited that they need to impress their ships upon the creators themselves. I would venture to say most artists are totally fine with people interpreting things their own way (many artists relish it, pretentiously), as long as you’re consuming their art. But I think it becomes a dysfunctional relationship when the fandom gets so attached to ships that they start insisting it’s true and explicit.Demand more queer characters from Disney. Demand more queer creators. Ship their characters to your hearts’ content. Take Disney to task for queerbaiting. But don’t give creators shit when they don’t start acknowledging your ships as canon.
Wow I am conflicted on this. On the one hand, I strive to be an ally and a force for good. On the other, there’s such a thing as over correcting. Sexuality is understandably a very sensitive subject, but I am going to try to convey my thoughts on this (as a cis straight black man).
I don’t think it’s ok to say “regardless of what the creator has stated if you think this person is gay then they’re gay.” Fictitious or otherwise. Why do i think that? Well mostly because that line between fictitious and real is thin at best. I mean, a lot of the most poignant pieces of art feel very real to those that identify/relate etc. Fans tend to take that art and kinda make it real. In the real world it’s not ok for a gay man to respond to “thanks but I am straight” with anything along the lines of; “i won’t tell anyone”, “whats the difference/a hole’s a hole”, etc. It absolutely happens. I accept any and every ones indicated orientation immediately. Mine should be also. Full stop.I can’t endorse any viewpoint that says stated sexual orientation is irrelevant. I think it’s a dangerous and damaging viewpoint to have. I will acknowledge that Luca isn’t stated to be about straight individuals. Instead it’s stated to be completely non sexual. So my point has more to do with your title than the specific subject matter.
Can Kinja be fixed already?! Because two people have replied to comments I made and I cannot find them in this article.