Peacemaker’s bisexuality should be more than an Easter egg

polygon.com:

Over the course of eight episodes, James Gunn’s Peacemaker managed to do something truly surprising: it turned a relatively flat villain from The Suicide Squad into the star of an incredibly fun and unexpectedly poignant spinoff. In The Suicide Squad, Chris “Peacemaker” Smith mostly serves as a joke about American imperialism. But in Peacemaker, he’s a tortured man with an abusive and dark past, who turned to violence in the hopes of making amends for his worst mistake. He’s also a glam rock fan, the best friend of an eagle, and, as Gunn revealed in a recent interview, bisexual.

The last bit might come as a surprise. I watched all eight episodes of the show without once clocking Peacemaker as bi. And after going back through the show, it was obvious why. To the extent that Peacemaker’s bisexuality exists within the actual text of the series, it’s largely in the context of throwaway jokes and “blink and you’ll miss it” innuendoes. In the first episode, Peacemaker references having sex with other men while in prison; not long after, we’re given a post-coital shot of a three-way Peacemaker has with Vigilante and Amber (also known as the woman he briefly holds hostage alongside her husband). Later in the series, Peacemaker’s dad belittles his manhood. And, of course, he’s a big fan of glam rock and gender bending rockers.

Read one way, it adds up to a bisexual character, especially if you’re used to queerness being doled out in sidelong glances and crumbs. But it’s also just as easy to interpret the character as a super horny straight dude who will sleep with men when they’re the only option, is happy to share a female sexual partner with a male friend, has a homophobic dick dad, and is passionate about really good music