Johnny Oleksinski: ‘Why we don’t need a gay Marvel superhero’

OPINION: The announcement that there will be a gay superhero in the not too distant future seems more like pandering rather than progress.

OPINION

We the gay people have finally reached the Everest of equality.

No, I’m not talking about the legalisation of gay marriage in 2015 … The big news is that Avengers: Endgame directors Anthony and Joe Russo revealed that a Marvel superhero or two will soon come out of the closet.

Pop the cork! Set off the fireworks! Call up RuPaul for comment! Now the world will learn that a gay hero can lift a car, make a quip and be as emotionally vague as any straight superhero can. That’s real progress!

Is it, though? Seems to me like more empty pandering for my money.

Directors Joe Russo and Anthony Russo.

For some reason, the Disney-owned, multibillion-dollar-earning Marvel Cinematic Universe has become the scrappy banner-carrier of equality and representation. Black Panther and Captain Marvel were ballyhooed as if they were human rights victories as much as films, because who needs, I dunno, actual legal and societal achievements when you’ve got pretty lip service from Hollywood?

According to Gallup, we gays make up just 4.5 per cent of the American population and 3.4 per cent of the Australian population. Must we be in everything, regardless of quality? And with a gay character, especially, such a move wouldn’t constitute a groundbreaking Ellen Show moment anyway — it would be a targeted, social media-appeasing ploy. The kind of shallow gimmickry we see over and over again.

Endgame: Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Karen Gillan, the character Rocket, voiced by Bradley Cooper, Paul Rudd and Scarlett Johansson.

Remember in 2007 when J.K. Rowling announced that Professor Dumbledore had been gay in Harry Potter the whole time? Or when Disney promised an “exclusively gay” moment in its remake of Beauty and the Beast that amounted to little more than LeFou batting his eyelashes at Gaston at the pub? The most recent bait-and-switch actually came from Marvel.

When Endgame was released in March, we were told that it featured the MCU’s first openly gay character. “Huh,” I thought. “Perhaps my glasses prescription isn’t strong enough.” The millions of people around the world who have seen that movie probably also didn’t spot it, because it was the unnamed guy in the “Five Years Later” group therapy session who talks for 30 seconds about going on a date. To whom should we address our “thank you” cards?

MCU: first gay marvel character to come in Endgame!!
Me: it’s gonna b some random guy saying he went on a date with a man
MCU: it’s a random guy saying he went on a date with a man!! 😱
Me: pic.twitter.com/YK2D7o3sQL

— Tara (@SerafiniTt) May 7, 2019

“Representation is really important,” Joe Russo told Deadline of the scene. “It was important to us as we did four of these films, we wanted a gay character somewhere in them … It is a perfect time, because one of the things that is compelling about the Marvel Universe moving forward is its focus on diversity.”

Tell ya what — instead of focusing on bowing to the whims of Twitter and Medium.com with a head-scratching cameo, or trying to pry salty tears out of my eyes with a single scene of gay flirting, just focus on making a good movie. We’ll buy a ticket if it’s good.

Director Joe Russo, Chris Evans and director Anthony Russo on the set of Avengers: Endgame.

Johnny Oleksinski is the Entertainment Critic at the New York Post. Continue the conversation via @JohnnyOMG

This article originally appeared on The New York Post and was reproduced with permission