Tom Hiddleston says Loki coming out as bi was only a “small step” for LGBTQ+ representation
The Loki actor acknowledges that "there's further to go" for queer characters in the MCU
Aux News Tom Hiddleston
With the premiere of Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness this past week, we were introduced to many new MCU things: pizza balls, a superhero group with the silly name of the Illuminati, and a comic-favorite queer character: America Chavez. Played by The Baby-Sitter’s Club actor Xochitl Gomez, the multiverse-traveling hero isn’t the first LGBTQ+ character to join the MCU. Last year’s Eternals introduced Brian Tyree Henry’s Phastos, while the Disney+ series Loki confirmed the titular character as bisexual.
In regards to Loki’s bisexuality being brought from the comic book pages into MCU canon, Tom Hiddleston spoke in a recent interview with The Guardian about preserving his long-time character while also adding new elements for the series.
“We all wanted to retain the integrity of the character—I wanted to make sure we didn’t lose the bits that people loved, while doing something new,” says Hiddleston. “I also hope Loki coming out as bisexual was meaningful to people who spotted it.”
Hiddleston adds, “It was a small step, and there’s further to go. But it was definitely important to all of us.”
That “small step” is definitely a good description of Loki’s LGBTQ+ representation. Loki’s one line in which he declares “a bit of both” in response to Sylvie asking if he’s been with a princesses or a princes left many LGBTQ+ viewers underwhelmed. It’s A Sin and Queer As Folk creator Russell T. Davies criticized the series’ handling of the situation, calling it “pathetic” and “a ridiculous, craven feeble gesture towards the vital politics and the stories that should be told.”
With a second season of Loki on the way, we’ll see if they’ll go more in-depth on the character’s bisexuality, or if Disney will find that one line as suitable LGBTQ+ representation. Until then, we’ll have to hope another bisexual superhero gets their queer love story in Thor: Love And Thunder as Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie is predicted to be looking for her queen.
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Does making Loki gender-fluid not also count as LGBTQ+ representation?
Being gender fluid because multiverse isn’t really the same as we mean the term though. Loki-616 isn’t gender fluid, the TVA considers “Lokis”, the plural, to be gender fluid.
The MCU Loki isn’t genderfluid yet. Loki is genderfluid in the comics, but in the MCU he hasn’t even taken an illusory female form ever, or mentioned genderfluidity or anything. As much as the representation would be nice, I’m not willing to credit him as genderfluid until they do any aspect of it at all.
Sylvie is a Loki variant. The main Loki’s also listed as “fluid” in his TVA file.
The file is a gotcha, can’t fault you there. Sylvie is a Loki variant, not Loki. Loki isn’t also speciesfluid no matter how many helmeted alligators he meets.
The universes we see in the show are timelines that split off the movie universe, a la What If. We explicitly see them branching, and the TVA “pruning” them where they split off.The Loki’s we see are paths not taken, Alligator Loki included. Notably Sylvie’s universe was attacked during her childhood, rather than before she was born.
Loki is canonically gender and species fluid in Norse mythology
This isn’t Norse mythology Loki, or else he’d be chained up in a cave with chains made of his dead son, while a snake dripped poison on his face until the end of the world came. Basically before anyone says I’m being bigoted or whatever by saying this Loki isn’t acting genderfluid, it’s because I would prefer it if he visibly did. I’m not going to give Disney the benefit of the doubt for their queer visibility. Either have Loki do some queer stuff or no representation points for the mouse, I don’t care how fluid Loki was mythologically.
rogueIndy is talking about this shot that was seen directly in the MCU, in the show Loki. Sex: Fluid. But I don’t think it’s clear that a TVA document saying that means the same thing we mean by genderfluid
They didn’t though.
Try watching the show.
I watched the show as well as the badly-worded promo image they flashed on screen that doesn’t in any way mean anything in actual human words.
Is he gender fluid though? “Prime” Loki presents as male, unless he’s being duplicitous.
The MCU doesn’t contain very much romance anyways. In the roughly 80 hours of content that is all the films and D+ shows, there’s like 3 romances. A crush here, a single kiss there, and one or two married characters. If their LGBT+ representation going forward was a brief mention here, a crush there, a single kiss, and maybe a B level character who was a same sex spouse, it would already rival the heterosexual representation.
This. An offhand mention of his sexuality is probably all the deeper we’re going to get into Loki’s personal life because he’s an antihero in a comic book superhero movie franchise. Marvel tends to let relationships flit around the edges of things, like how Black Widow is at various times hinted to be a possible romantic partner for Tony Stark (Iron Man 2), Steve Rogers (Winter Soldier), and Bruce Banner (I think it was that horrible Ultron movie). I won’t get started on the messed up way Natasha is treated like an object more than a person, but suffice it to say that relationships in general are not the focus of Marvel movies, so I don’t know why we would expect a deeper exploration of gender and sexuality for Loki or any other character that may be LGBTQ. It’s just not in the formula that Marvel works with for straight or queer characters.
There seems to be more room for it in the new TV series, though. WandaVision was very much about Wanda’s romantic relationship with Vision, for example.
Good point, I kind of forgot all about WV being a whole romance story of sorts. An exception in the grander MCU, but yes.
Naw, black widow has always been primarily interested in hulk, in multiple movies, not just ultron
Heterosexuality has been represented by the hundreds of straight characters in the MCU so far. LGBT people don’t only exist when they are in a romantic relationship or have a crush on someone.
You don’t KNOW anyone is straight or gay unless a romance moment is seen or commented. Do you think there is a gay uniform or something?
Sure, but how many heterosexual characters are all either assumed or evidenced only by the brief glimpses we get of their crushes and relationships? We don’t know for sure that Clint isn’t Bi, nor can we necessarily say that Bruce isn’t Ace. We just assume they’re straight because of what little we see of their love life.
I mean, representation is definitely lacking in the MCU, but the only way to fix that is to show those things happening, or else to have it come up in the dialogue, and in practice that can’t easily straddle the line between mealy-mouthed and overbearing. Or you could do what they did with Valkyrie and just outright state she’s bisexual in the real world and cut the scene from the movie showing it.
You can say bruce isn’t ace because he has repeatdly been shown to be attracted to natasha
The Ace label encompasses a lot more than just zero attraction to anybody. Bruce clearly loves Natasha, but we don’t actually know that he wants to have sex with her. In fact, he says he can’t (he says have children, but there’s no reason to assume his problem is fertility as opposed to the more likely problem of containing Hulk during sex). He could easily be an asexual romantic, and in fact if you wanted to read his body language and dialogue that way, you could easily do so. Ace characters can mask perfectly, and it’s one reason representation is so hard; without outright stating something, people will assume everyone is “normal” and for most people that just defaults to cishet.
Clint has a wife and children…
Which as we all know, doesn’t actually mean he can’t be bisexual. In fact, it wouldn’t even prove he’s attracted to women, although we can conclude that seeing as how he obviously does love his wife. This is exactly why representation matters so much, and why it’s not so easy to do.
oh sure like THAT means anything anymore lol
So what you are saying is when characters introduce themselves to each other they should inform them of their entire sexual preference just so we know which ones are the LGTBQ+ ones are? Seems rather silly. Does Captain Marvel shoot lasers differently if she likes girls? Does Hulk smash differently if he experimented in college? Does Spider-man swing differently if he was assigned a different gender at birth. It actually says more about your inate bias that you assume hundred of MCU characters are heterosexual
Ahem, Spider-Man ‘swings’ both ways.
Phastos has a husband and a kid!
Both Iron Man and Incredible Hulk, the inaugural MCU movies, have the main character getting into bed with a lady but seems more like an outlier at this point tonally. and Bruce can’t get “too excited”. Once they get Daredevil up and running again as a full series that should probably fix it. Matt gets laid a lot. And confesses about it.
Tony-PepperThor- JaneCap- Peggy, SharonHawkeye – LauraNatasha – HulkHulk- Betty, NatashaAntman- WaspDr Strange – ChristineScarlet Witch – VisionSpiderman – MJStar Lord – GamoraBlack Panther – NakiaHappy – Aunt MaeOdin – FriggaMoon Knight – LaylaThere may not be a lot of kissing and fooling around, but there’s a huge amount of heterosexual relationships portrayed onscreen and no queer relationships until Eternals.
That is NOT true. Iron Man all 3 movies involved romantic elements with Pepper, Thor 1 & 2’s romance was an integral part of the plot, it’s also threaded throughout Spiderman all three movies, and a major character beat for Captain America’s staying behind in End Game, in addition to of course being a major plot point in the original Captain America. Speaking of End Game, wasn’t part of the reason why Tony sacrificed himself so momentous because he was leaving behind a wife and child? And since we’re talking about the shows too, Loki’s romance with Sylvie was a driving character arc, and WandaVision was literally entirely about Wanda’s relationship to The Vision. Maybe you just didn’t notice all the romance elements because heterosexuality is the default.
Okay, sure, there’s more that could/should be done, and Disney shouldn’t really be overselling the small things like this that they are doing, but this:
It’s A Sin and Queer As Folk creator Russell T. Davies criticized the series’ handling of the situation, calling it “pathetic” and “a ridiculous, craven feeble gesture towards the vital politics and the stories that should be told.”is unnecessarily hyperbolic too.
Yeah I was struck by the wording of that comment. Small step? Sure. More to be done? Absolutely. But words like “pathetic”, “craven”, “feeble” etc….what exactly did they expect?
I think this goes back to a fundamental question that not everyone agrees on: What is representation?Often when a non-romance movie portrays straightness, it’s very mundane. That character has a wife. She just exists, and is a wife. Nothing too special. A guy kisses a girl briefly. No fireworks went off afterward, a crowd didn’t clap.So if we equalize LGBT+ characters, we should expect plain mundane moments. A man referencing a boyfriend (Endgame), a guy with a husband (Eternals), a woman who briefly mentions being into women (Ragnarok).
Davies sounds like he doesn’t count it as representation unless the queerness is centered above and beyond what they do for straightness. A male character can’t just have a husband with nothing special about it. The husband needed to ride on screen on a purple unicorn with an LGBT banner flowing in the wind?
I’m sure most people expected to see Loki with his tongue down a male waiter’s throat later in the episode, and maybe also just a short 1-2 minute focus on the Loki orgy happening during the Loki fight in the Lokiplex a few episodes later. Nothing too raunchy, just a bit of tasteful sucking and fucking in the corner.
Or turning into a mare so he can have sex with horses and give birth to an eight legged stallion?
To be fair, “unnecessarily hyperbolic” is entirely RTD’s oeuvre
I value RTD opinion on these things though
His one line referencing bisexuality was def low-key.
What about his extensive collection of Judy Garland albums, including rare imports and bootlegs?
Still, it’s there, it’s very clear. If someone asks you if youve been with men or women, and you say “both”, i dont think there’s any ambiguity there.
His revelation was severely undercut by him then hooking up with the ONE female version of himself.
Hooking up with a woman undercuts his bisexuality? Do you have any idea what bisexual means? I am a bi man in a relationship with a woman and that doesn’t make me any less bi. What you’ve implied is deeply offensive. Be better.
No it wasn’t. It doesn’t erase bi when you’re in a opposite-sex pairing. This is a real life pet peeve of bi people.
Yeah, much as I enjoyed Loki, I harbor a sneaking suspicion that they made Sylvie the only female variant solely so she could have a nice, safe heterosexual romance with Loki. (He should be hooking up with Croki, obs)
Visuals are important in a visual medium. People talk about stuff but don’t DO stuff. And honestly? I thought it had creepy incest vibes (as any Loki/Loki pairing would have) and didn’t like it for that. But it was Marvel doing the bare minimum – they were both genderfluid, so there should have been no “male Lokis” and “female Lokis” in the first place, but we never saw any Loki change their visual gender presentation even though they were fully capable of doing that. In fact, most of the other Lokis despised the notion of a female Loki. It was all very mixed messaging that wanted credit for just the smallest of crumbs. Queer Marvel? Does everyone forget that Jessica Jones season 2 had a lesbian orgy scene? But a show on Disney+ gets credits for making the lights in a scene purple?
Loki’s one line in which he declares “a bit of both” in response to Sylvie asking if he’s been with a princesses or a princes left many LGBTQ+ viewers underwhelmed. It’s A Sin and Queer As Folk creator Russell T. Davies… call[ed] it “pathetic” and “a ridiculous, craven feeble gesture towards the vital politics and the stories that should be told.”I agree in principle with the critique that Disney—and close to all media companies, really—need to grow a spine with regards to true LGBTQ+ representation. Having said that, I’d agree more with the critique of Loki, specifically, if Loki’s sexuality had ever been front and center at any point in the MCU to begin with. It’s not like he’s been chasing after Black Widow or Enchantress and the “a bit of both” comment was Disney trying to have its cake and eat it, too. His burgeoning romance (or whatever it is) with Sylvie (which, if it is a romance, is pretty damned queer itself if you think about it) is the first time Loki’s been coded as sexual at all.
I agree in principle with the critique that Disney—and close to all media companies, really—need to grow a spine with regards to true LGBTQ+ representation.Netflix, for all its issues is pretty unafraid of queer content.
So how many gay superheroes is enough?
uh, more than two, maybe?
https://memes.yarn.co/yarn-clip/ed2f3b9d-1e94-4654-885b-387dc8217f76
Since superheroes used to be all heterosexual, it’s only fair that there’s a period where they are all homosexual.
No it isn’t! Lmao. This is getting ridiculous. MARVEL WASNT EVER ABOUT SEXUALITY!
Well, some of those outfits…
Well, there was the pesky cultural climate during the initial era of super-hero creation. The characters were drawn as straight because LGBTQ content would never make it to consumers; maybe Wonder Woman (DCU) had some clear queer overtones, but overall, publishing companies had no incentive, even if they had interest, in putting out comics with queer heroes. I do not care if characters are rewritten as queer. However, given that sex and romance, though somewhat present, isn’t really the focus of MCU movies, it would really be a sop to have characters lead with their sexuality, just so we could all know. That, to me, would be craven and pathetic. Now, if (hypothetically) Clint went home to his husband and family, or Loki took a female form, that wouldn’t be overt pandering.
More then zero.
Some would be nice? Why did you have a number in mind?
I don’t. That’s why I asked.
I am encouraged by the recent efforts at inclusion. Loki’s comment, like the gay character in therapy and so many other supposedly queer moments, were made to be expendable. Cut 3-10 seconds of a movie and there is nothing to offend international censors. But Eternals and now Dr Strange have made it impossible to excise the gay characters. In these two films, it isn’t a moment that you can trim, it is part of the personality and relationships that are too ingrained in the film to just snip away.
And yet they did just that to secure international money
America Chavez is not a “comic-favorite”, not at all. She’s barely been around a decade and is not well known or popular among any known demographic.
I know people want more representation and I totally get it but on the other hand I do not care about who Loki wants to bone and I don’t think it matters. Any sort of carnal desires have never been a part of his character the way they have for Captain America pining over his lost love or Tony Stark’s on-and-off thing with Pepper Potts. Loki has a lust for power but it’s not like he’s jealous that Ladies Love Cool Thor, he’s jealous that others (gods and Hulks alike) get more respect than him
The original source material from many millennia ago had Loki giving birth to an 8-legged horse (Sleipnir) after being banged by a male horse while Loki was in the form of a female horse. The MCU has a lot of catching up to do.
The original source material from possibly many millennia ago had Loki giving birth to an 8-legged horse (Sleipnir) after being banged by a male horse while Loki was in the form of a female horse. The MCU has a lot of catching up to do.
Not sure if it counts as LGBTQ representation but in Guardians of the Galaxy, Groot was able to reproduce without needing a partner.
Am I the only one who remembers the strong implication that Loki had been sleeping with the Grandmaster in “Thor: Ragnarok” or … ?Tom Hiddleston even made a joke about it in some of the interviews he did at the time and compared Loki to Vivian in “Pretty Woman.”
“I also hope Loki coming out as bisexual was meaningful to people who spotted it.” This just highlights the problem of Disney’s approach.Are they really worried people aren’t going to come see one of their billion dollar earning, 3 hour sky laser movies if one of the characters is queer?
“I also hope Loki coming out as bisexual was meaningful to people who spotted it.” This just highlights the problem of Disney’s approach.Are they really worried people aren’t going to come see one of their billion dollar earning, 3 hour sky laser movies if one of the characters is queer?
Mythical Loki is the MOTHER of a HORSE.I think “bisexual” is still quite limiting for them. 😉