Tom Hiddleston on Loki being bisexual: “It was an honor to bring that up”
Hiddleston talked about the single-line reveal of Loki's bisexuality as part of an interview with fellow performer Lily James
Aux News Tom Hiddleston
Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe has had a long and storied tradition of LGBTQ+ characters, from Brian Tyree Henry’s Phastos in Eternals, to that one guy who says “husband” in the grief support group in Avengers: Endgame, and then whoops, the list kind of just runs out there!
Except, of course, for Loki, in which its titular Asgardian prince acknowledges that he’s bisexual in a line of dialogue in the third episode of the show’s first season, noting that both “princes and princesses” have featured in his romantic past. Which, as actor Tom Hiddleston noted in a recent “Actors On Actors” interview with Lily James for Variety, is actually pretty major, for a Disney Marvel project.
Responding to James’ statement that Loki was the first explicitly queer MCU character, Hiddleston noted, “Back from my early days of researching the character in the ancient myths, the identity of Loki was fluid in every aspect and in gender, in sexuality. It’s a very ancient part of the character and I think I thought about it. … It hadn’t emerged in the stories we’ve told. And I was really pleased and privileged, actually, that it’s came up in the series.”
To be clear, Hiddleston also acknowledged that the single line of dialogue (in a show that centers itself at least in part on an implied romantic relationship between Loki and a woman) is “a small step,” adding, “There’s so much more to do. But the Marvel Cinematic Universe has to reflect the world we live in. So it was an honor to bring that up. It was really important to me. It was really important to [director] Kate Herron and [showrunner] Michael Waldron, and I’m pleased that we could bring it into our story.”
The Loki show previously came under criticism for its attempts at LGBTQ+ representation from Queer As Folk creator and once-and-future Doctor Who showrunner Russell T. Davies, who called it “pathetic” and a “ridiculous, craven, feeble gesture.” Herron later responded to Davies’ comments, saying, “ I’m very proud of what we did in the show. Russell is a hero of mine, but like I’ve said, I hope that we did at least open the door and that more stories will come.”
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in a show that centers itself at least in part on an implied romantic relationship between Loki and a woman
True but that part is also muddied by the fact that said woman is just a female version of… himself.And of course if we’re going with mythical Loki well, gender fluid yes but also there was time he f*cked a horse.Anyway, as someone who is bi/pan I still appreciat the effort. Progress kind of has to be incremental, if you go too hard too fast well, the pendulum swings back and next thing you know America is on the verge of fascism, as we’re seeing….
It really does suck that bigotry is so hard to root out by any method other than literally dying of old age. Some people can be brought around in their lifetimes (e.g. all those people who were anti-gay until they found out they had a gay child), but most can’t (e.g. the vastly larger number of people who, instead of revisiting their beliefs upon learning one of their children is gay, instead punish, disown, or kill them).
Probably best to just target the middle. The hard core bigots / racists / homophobes are a minority. It’s that mushy center of people who go along with the prevailing societal attitudes that are more likely to change. I am a child of the 80’s, and saying ‘fag’ or calling things ‘gay’ were our go to insults at the time, and no boy wanted to be thought of as such. That didn’t come from any deep seated hatred as much as just peer pressure and cowardice. As I grew up I came to see how wrong that was, mainly due to having gay friends in college and living in a different culture, but also from changing societal values. As those mainstream values shift, the extreme fringe will get even more extreme, as we’re seeing now.
Yes, fellow queer, and when queer people criticize shows like this for such incremental steps, they are actually just pointing out that it’s not amazing representation and have valid ideas moving forward for improvement (then everyone jumps on us for being critical of something that needed to be addressed). They literally made a singular female Loki variant obviously because they were too afraid for Loki to actually explore his bi side.
That’s fair. And I find myself feeling that way often. Like that pathetic background kiss in a recent Star War. Or how Valkyrie is tooootally bi, guys. We just had to cut the scene where it’s said. But trust us.
And then of course there’s the classic Disney villains who are basically ALL heavily Queer coded. Scar. Jafar. Ursuala. Hook. That crab dude from Moana. All fabulous villains, but not great that they’re… always villains.I dunno, I guess lately I’m just feeling so beat down and a little scared that I’m willing to take crumbs.
There was a background kiss in a recent Star Wars? I didn’t even notice that. So far in the MCU Phastos is the only queer character where it’s not an afterthought/throwaway line. In the new Dr. Strange it’s shown that America had two mothers in a 20 second scene but that’s not explored at all.
Yeah it’s near the end when everyone is celebrating a victory, it pans over a bunch of random rebels. Two characters we don’t know and something suuuuper easy to cut for international release.
I didn’t even notice that. I was also probably checked out by that point because I found the movie to be awful. Marvel has been better recently about not cutting queer content for foreign releases but it’s tough to tell how much of that is due to international pandemic box office changes. China hasn’t been showing American movies since the pandemic so that market wasn’t a consideration. So the only thing they are losing are the countries with strict Muslim laws against homosexuality. Dr. Strange was banned in these countries for that one tiny scene invoking America’s parents, which unlike the Phastos stuff in Eternals, could’ve been easily cut. It’s not a small market by any means, but it, like China isn’t nearly as profitable as US, South American and European releases where Disney gets 80-90% of the ticket revenue in the opening weeks. In contrast, when a foreign movie does huge in China the actually BO that makes it back to the studio is in the 20% range for a major studio release and there’s a ton of accounting that has to be done. Disney seems to heading in the direction of very profitable domestic openings being enough.
I think it says something that you listed all Disney media. Other entertainment studios are doing a better job of queer representation, basically showing that you don’t have to settle for the crumbs Disney tosses.
Yeah I know, but we were talking Loki which is Disney so, kinda went with that theme. Yes other places are doing a good if not great job. But they aren’t a fraction the size and power of Disney. Smaller producers seem far more keen to take such risks. It’s kind of like being relegated to… huuh what’s a good analogy…. I don’t know sports well…. Off-Broadway? Maybe Off-Off…
I mean… I get that you were talking about Loki and that none of Disney’s media rivals are as big as Disney (although that opens up a different can of worms since I hate how big and anti-competitive Disney is, but I digress), and yes – the most queer-friendly content comes from the smallest, most niche producers, but all the giant media corporations – i.e. Warner Bros., Sony, Paramount, Universal – are, IMO, doing a better job at portraying queer people to varying degrees than Disney. Granted, they’re admittedly all fairly conservative when it comes to their international tentpole films, but it’s when you look at their media subsidiaries they own (say, Disney+ vs HBO Max) that the discrepancy widens.I just feel that Disney and their IPs get a very, very weird “pass” for showing that they’re trying. And their size and power shouldn’t be an excuse. If anything, they should be held to a higher standard because they’re so big and powerful. I dunno’. I’m not saying people should hate, or boycott Disney because they’re only throwing crumbs. But I do get frustrated when I see blogs and think pieces praising, for example, Loki’s throwaway line because that little crumb of representation looks bigger when compared to other Marvel content instead of the wider media landscape that I think it should actually be weighed against.
Sylvie is from the comics, a being that created through magic by Loki, and is the current Enchantress. Like a lot of MCU stuff, they started with which comic characters are associated with the main character and then brought them into the MCU in some manner. They didn’t choose Sylvie because they were afraid to explore Loki’s bisexuality. That was never their intention to begin with. Which is why that one line comes across as such an afterthought.
Loki in the Eddas is more omni-sexual than anything. No limits!
… and then gave birth to another horse!With eight legs!Family reunions were already awkward enough as they were.
… and then gave birth to another horse!With eight legs!
“it was an honor”? OH COME ON. I fucking hate actors.
Loki always struck me as more pansexual than bisexual. Maybe that was a step too far for “those people” that shall remain nameless, and so the producers decided not to push their luck.
Those are the same thing, so it doesn’t really matter. Some pan folks that need an outgroup to be superior to will try to occasionally argue that pan people are attracted to more expressions of gender than bi people are, but they only ever do so by arbitrarily stating what bi people aren’t into, usually without consulting any bi people. They’re synonyms separated by about 30 years of culture, is all.
Source: I’m old and bi, and will happily date trans and NB people. Why aren’t I pan? Because I’m older than the common usage of the term and I don’t want to change all my dating profiles.
Last month Tom Hiddleston did an interview where he said they needed to do way more and that this was a very small step. Now it’s Pride month and he’s celebrating it… c’mon.
Oh buzz off.
And Ms. Marvel had a 1 second shot of that T-shirt that said “Asgard pride” on it! That’s cool, isn’t it folks? Probably evens out spending millions donating to anti-gay politicians and carefully editing out any references to queer things for the international markets! Those two are basically the same thing really.PS They also edit black people out of movie posters for international markets!
RTD is right:
“Loki makes one reference to being bisexual once, and we’re meant to go, ‘Thank you, Disney! Aren’t you marvelous?’ It’s pathetic. It’s a ridiculous, craven, feeble gesture towards the vital politics and the stories that should be told.”
I don’t recall Disney asking me to say that. Did you like get a letter or something?
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RTD likes to kill all his gays and bisexuals. He is not the source of wisdom in this conversation.
80% of the characters RTD writes are LGBT, he can kill a gay or two as a treat.
Oh, is it time to discuss Loki’s bisexuality again? That’s great, because I don’t feel like people have discussed Loki’s bisexuality enough.
I don’t mind this stuff for adult content but if it’s aimed at kids, no.
I canceled my D+ sub after 2 years and Disney will no longer get my money. The more overt they get, the more people will pay attention and tank them.
It would have been so tragic to humanities existence, if Hollywood and Disney didnt regale us with these facts. Now earth can continue to spin.
OH THANK GOD WE’VE SAVED THE WORLD AGAIN!
They missed such an opportunity to both establish Loki being genderfluid and for a funny line in the moment where Loki’s describing Sylvie to the other variants and he uses “female” as a descriptive adjective.The response should have been “we’re all female when we want to be and you know that, give us something useful to go on”. (Or have one or two of them just turn female because hey, you wanted a female Loki, right?)