Thor: Love & Thunder Doesn’t Fix The MCU’s LGBTQ+ Failures
When Natalie Portman and director Taika Waititi hailed Thor: Love and Thunder as «so gay» and «super gay» at an early screening of the film, one might have hoped that the MCU had overcome its historically inadequate LGBTQ+ representation and finally delivered a project with authentic and unapologetic queerness at its core. Unsurprisingly, Thor: 4 fell far short of Portman and Waititi's characterization. The MCU's history with the LGBTQ+ community is a dismal one, as not a single queer character graced the screen until 2019's Avengers: Endgame, the franchise's 22nd film, which included a nameless man played by co-director Joe Russo mentioning his blipped husband in a short scene. Three years later, the MCU has displayed progress with its LGBTQ+ representation. However, as in Love and Thunder, the newfound queer visibility is purposefully kept to a minimum.
In Thor: Love and Thunder, Chris Hemsworth's titular God of Thunder — aka Thor Odinson — reunites with Portman's Jane Foster, whose cancer battle compels her to seek the powers of Thor's old hammer Mjolnir to keep her alive and thus earns the title Mighty Thor. When Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale) resolves to slaughter every god in existence following the death of his daughter the pair enlist the help of allies Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) and Korg (Waititi) to defeat Gorr and recover the Asgardian children he holds hostage in the Shadow Realm.
Related: A Complete Guide To Every Classic Thor Adventure In The MCU
In simple terms,Thor: Love and Thunder's LGBTQ+ representation indicates a step forward for the MCU’s queer visibility in the forms of Valkyrie and Korg, though merely offers crumbs in that regard. As two canonically queer characters in the Marvel comics,
Read more on screenrant.com
