Wizards of Waverly Place showrunner says queer romance stayed as subtext after Disney blocked it
Peter Marietta says he "wished we could have played more with what was quite obvious to a lot of us" when it came to Alex and Stevie's relationship
Aux News Wizards of Waverly Place
It’s a good day to be a Disney gay. After years of speculation and stalwart shipping from fans, a romantic relationship between Wizards of Waverly Place’s Alex (Selena Gomez) and Stevie (Hayley Kiyoko) has been deemed canon. According to Wizards of Waverly Place showrunner Peter Marietta, the more rigidly ‘family values’ standards of late-aughts Disney Channel prevented the series from running with the romance.
“I wished we could have played more with what was quite obvious to a lot of us,” Marietta told former stars Jennifer Stone and David DeLuise on a recent episode of their rewatch podcast Wizards of Waverly Pod. “We weren’t able to in that time, but it was pretty clear to all of us what that relationship was.”
According to Marietta, it “would have been great” to get the chance to lean in on Alex and Stevie’s relationship, lovingly nicknamed Stalex. (Host Jennifer Stone has publicly agreed— she captioned a TikTok snippet from the moment in the interview where Marietta discusses the arc: “We know you wanted Stalex…we wanted it too.”)
“Disney Channel has had [LGBTQ] characters, and they did it. At that time it wasn’t a thing. But we got as close as we could… I mean, it was pretty close,” Marietta shared. (The A.V. Club has reached out to Disney Channel for comment.)
The relationship between Alex, WOWP’s witty heroine, and Stevie, a troublemaking wizard with whom Alex forms a swift and exciting bond, really resonated within the fandom. Kiyoko—who is a lesbian, but had not yet publicly identified as queer during her time on the show—told Them last year that she’s fully aware what that character, and her relationship with Alex, meant to fans.
“At this time, I wasn’t openly queer, and so when I was on Wizards, I think anytime I was doing a show I felt very insecure or exposing myself as a flaming lesbian,” she said. “But obviously [for] the fans who have watched the show, Stevie is a part of their gay awakening, and I wasn’t able to mask my lesbian energy very much in the character.”
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Took Disney long enough to realize gay don’t pay. It only took their stock prices plummeting to historic lows, prompting massive layoffs for them to figure it out.https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/disney-layoffs-tv-production-acquisitions-departments-1235361483/
“It’s a good day to be a Disney gay. After years of speculation and stalwart shipping from fans, a romantic relationship between Wizards of Waverly Place’s Alex (Selena Gomez) and Stevie (Hayley Kiyoko) has been deemed canon.”
If something doesn’t happen, it is not and by definition CANNOT be “canon”.
How cruel and cowardly it is for bigots to not only fear and hate LGBTQ+ people but to deny their very existence. Tolerating intolerance is not possible and only leads to misery and death.How about banning the bigots and imposter accounts lurking in the comments as a small strike in the struggle against fascism?
Unsurprising.Around the same time Warehouse 13 was forced to put the two leads together to end the show even though everyone wanted Myka to be with HG Wells who was a woman on the show.
Still salty about HG Wells and Myka not ending up together in the Warehouse 13 finale. Jamie Murray and Joanne Kelly did later make it up to fans somewhat
That was the worst. Pete and Myka had fantastic brother/sister energy, so on top of the HG disappointment, it just seemed creepy. In my head-canon, there was an artifact running amok that made everyone think those two should have been together, and once they sorted it out, Myka and HG ended up together as the universe intended.
Didn’t she end up with some werewolf
Yeah. He was pretty bland, too.
FYI:
The Dr Emilio Lizardo (account: paging-doctor-parody)
imposter account posting here in this thread is NOT the
long-established account user known in the Giz
family.
The
shriveled-soul imposter has several accounts being used to
harass Kinja users, by posting sexist, racist and other
vileness here , but primarily on The Root and on Jezebel,
trying to discredit the actual, long-established account
users.
I remember another time a fictional wizard was confirmed to be gay. That was held up as proof of the author’s bigotry so I can only assume the same will be done here.