When a Cigar is Just a Cigar: Quit Making Characters Gay Just Because You Want Them To Be.

This thread has its origins over in the Thor: Ragnarok thread where, (no spoilers don’t worry) I’ve read articles and those "here is what the internet thinks about blank type of stories about the character of Valkyrie.

The details of what caused my statement aren’t REALLY a spoiler, but I’ll box it just in case and go from there

In the movie, Valkyrie and her clan are shown fighting Hela. Part of the scene shows Valkyrie being saved from an arrow by one of her female warrior friends. It’s obvious that the girl died while Valkyrie lived. Because of this super short scene and even shorter segment of the scene I’ve read articles where people say “she’s gay and that was her lover who saved her!”

So, regardless of if you read the spoiler or not, the crux of the argument is this: Because of the scene in question, there are people out there in internet land who claim the character is gay, or at least bisexual. However, there is absolutely nothing implied in the scene to merit that. Taking the movie and scene as it is, saying “she’s gay!” is simply a person wanting that to be true.

This annoys me.

A non-spoiler version of this would be the relationship of Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes in the MCU. Steve and Bucky are clearly very good friends who have gone to hell and back together. Steve spends most of his second and third movie trying to get his friend back. And yet, I’ve read articles written by, and about, people who insist that the two are gay, or were gay, or did gay things. Why? Because they’re the same gender and are extremely close? Can’t they just be, you know, extremely good friends and love each other because of that?

I understand that there is a massive under representation of gay characters in pop culture, which needs to change, but claiming that a character is something that they aren’t just because you have an imagination isn’t the answer.

A counter example would be a character in How to Train Your Dragon 2 named Gobber. Gobber was just a dude in Dragons 1, but in Dragons 2 he had a throwaway line of (paraphrasing) “You see, that’s why I never got married. Well, that and one other thing”. That is an ambiguous phrase, but it clearly had intentions. My first thought on that was “They made Gobber gay? Cool”. Despite the fact they never said it, they at least implied it. Compare that to the Steve and Bucky relationship, or the Valkyrie scene: There’s nothing that overt. Just two people of the same gender being close, so, oooomg! They have to be gay!

This is getting a bit ranty, so I’ll let you all yell at me for being wrong and we’ll go from there :slight_smile:

Speaking as someone who is gay, this is kind of hilarious given the sheer amount of heterosexual framing that straight people do all the fucking time about everyone in movies, literature, and real life.

Your examples are modern, but the same could be said of older stories, like that of David and Jonathan in the Bible.

I misunderstood your original post. My apologies for that. I thought you were complaining because the filmmakers were making people gay, not that some audience members were reading that in. Obviously, I didn’t read your post closely, and that’s my fault.

About this issue, though, I don’t actually see a problem. Why shouldn’t audience members read gayness into a character? What is that hurting? Why should I be troubled by it?

Are you bothered if they read straightness in?

I am reminded…

The Internet is all about the Ho Yay.

As T.V. Tropes points out, this began in the very recent past, when homosexual relationships were not depicted on screen, so fans enjoyed finding them wherever they could. At the time, I found it strange and a bit sad.

Now that anyone interested can find plenty of media that does include homosexual characters, it’s just a part of the Internet subculture, and I find it amusing. I’m thrilled that you can see actual gay people on T.V., and don’t need to make them up any more, but if that’s how some people want to spend their time, it’s fine with me. Just don’t start reading fan fiction, because that’s where the Ho Yay really takes over.

You are arguing that of course they aren’t gay, they are only friends. You come to that conclusion based on your interpretation of their actions. They never actually say they aren’t gay or they are only friends.

You are also complaining about people who reach conclusions about these relationships based on their own interpretations. Do you see any irony?

Considering the overwhelming majority of the older characters in books, comics books and movies are not gay because of their time of origin, maybe you can just consider them coming out of the closet in this more enlightened time.

Sir T-Cups; In the specific case that inspired this thread to be started, why is it such a annoyance that a member of an all female warrior force might be bi or gay? Seems more likely if anything.

I would be bothered if they read straightness in characters who, within the context of the medium, are depicted or heavily inferred to as gay, like Gobber.

I don’t see any irony because I’m not making any conclusion to the relationship that isn’t already presented to me.

If that scene was about a group of men and women, and it was a man who sacrificed himself, and she had that same reaction, would you be annoyed at people hypothesizing that they were in a relationship?

You are assuming they aren’t in a relationship or have an attraction because your default assumption is straight unless you see evidence to the contrary.

Why is it not equally valid to assume the default is gay unless you see evidence to the contrary? Is there anything in Captain America or Thor that definitively says these characters are not gay?

The actress and the director have both come out saying that the character is absolutely bisexual, and that there was even a scene cut from the film that confirmed it. That being the case, I’m really having a difficult time wrapping my head around a person being “annoyed” by people thinking that she is, in fact, bisexual. Could you walk me through it again?

You would be bothered if they read straightness in a character who is depicted as gay.

And you are bothered if they read gayness in a character who is depicted as… what? How was she depicted?

Valkyrie is bi in the comics.

I actually understand, narratively, why fitting her sexuality into the movie was irrelevant to the plot, but she’s bi in the comics, so nobody is ‘‘assuming’’ anything. The question is whether or not the Thor movie acknowledged her pre-existing bisexuality.

In fact, that whole flashback scene

Where another woman takes the killing blow for her? That was her lover.

Her relationship with another woman, and that woman sacrificing her life for her, is comic book canon.

So it sounds like you’re complaining about the accurate depiction of a character you have no grounding in whatsoever. I’m not familiar with her lady lover storyline, but I figured it out by Googling.

Plus, you’re apparently taking issue with the fact that, given almost no gay romances in modern media, that some people like to imagine that there are. I don’t know why you want to piss all over other people’s desires to have their sexual identity confirmed, but it makes me sad.

I don’t care what other people want to think. As a consumer if it’s not on the page or on the screen it doesn’t matter. I’m fine with a characters sexuality being undefined if it has nothing to do with the plot.

If you are a consumer and you want to fantasize about a character’s sexuality knock yourself out, just know that’s all it is.

If you are a writer and as part of your process you defined a character’s sexuality in your head but never put it on paper the character’s sexuality is still undefined. Thanks for the insight into your process but the product is what counts.

If you are a filmmaker and you originally had a scene which depicted your character’s sexuality but it had to be cut for time it is not part of the film and just an interesting piece of trivia. Maybe you’ll get to define the character’s sexuality in the sequel.

You can replace sexuality with any undefined characteristic. If it’s not in the finished product it didn’t happen.

Drunk

Of course, it’s also possible that some of these characters actually are gay or bi, and that the apparently-Platonic relationships we see them in on screen really are actually Platonic. Maybe we never see their actual love interest on screen at all, because they just happen to not be very interesting. After all, it’s not exactly rare for a character’s partner to just not be in a story, and about 10% of the time, that partner that we don’t see is going to be of the same sex.

Did you see how Korg was looking at Thor?

Correction, upon further investigation, the warrior thing was the actress’ own invention. Valkyrie’s lady lover in the comics was anthropologist Annabelle Riggs, and apparently in the comic Valkyrie says she’s kissed plenty of men and woman, thus establishing her bisexuality. And later they share a body. Because comics.

While I understand why the scene was cut, it is completely reasonable to be annoyed it was not included. There are only so many LGBT Marvel characters as it is, and one finally makes it into a Marvel film, of course people are going to be upset.

As I writer myself, I disagree. Just because a character’s sexuality may not be relevant to the main plot and may be cut for narrative reasons, it doesn’t magically mean they aren’t really gay, or even that their sexuality doesn’t influence their behavior in ways you can’t see. I created that person, I should know.

cot’d… Did TPTB decide to shorten the edit window? It seems shorter these days.

A character’s sexuality is every bit as relevant as every other piece of backstory you never saw. The story itself is just the tip of the iceberg in regards to the sheer volume of imagination it takes to conceive a story at all.