Last year, one of Marvel’s heavyweight villains came out. In the Disney+ limited series Loki, it was confirmed that the titular character played by Tom Hiddleston was bisexual. The superhero world has traditionally been a hypermasculine, heterosexual realm, but this was a sign that times are changing – and catching up with the source comics, where queer characters have appeared in print for years.
In the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), the gears have ground a little slower. Last year’s ensemble Eternals established the first same-sex couple, with Phastos, the MCU’s first gay superhero.
Now comes Thor: Love and Thunder, a film that promises to push this further. “I think we’re all in agreement that we need to talk about it,” says the film’s director, Taika Waititi.
“We need to keep bringing the subject up. It’s gonna be nice when one day we don’t have to say: Oh, tell me about that scene where those two men held hands!”
Love and Thunder, the fourth solo outing for Chris Hemsworth’s Asgard god, is another action-packed, fun-loving blockbuster. It features the return of Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), the King of New Asgard, and reintroduces Thor’s former flame Dr Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), who channels his powers when she touches his now-shattered hammer and re-emerges as The Mighty Thor.
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Thompson, who has dated men and women but prefers not to label herself, previously said her character “needs to find her queen”, but added, “Whether or not she finds love in this movie doesn’t mean she’s not still a fabulous queer character.” Portman’s character riding a rainbow, meanwhile, led to one journalist dubbing it “the gayest movie ever made in the MCU”.
“I think so too,” Waititi nods when we meet, delighted by the queer reading of his work.
“And I think that what is good about it is that we don’t mention it. There is no scene which you expect from all movies or shows at the moment: I have to have this monologue about how it’s OK to be gay! All they do [in Love and Thunder] is just talk about the relationships that happen to be gay. I think it’s almost a cooler way of normalising it.”
Calling it “the gayest movie ever made in the MCU” might be overselling it a little, especially as many will be disappointed that Valkyrie has not been permitted a same-sex relationship in the film – Thompson recently stated that her character’s sexuality was “a big topic of conversation” on set, but with such a bulging plot, it was decided that there wasn’t the room to pursue a romantic storyline.
Yet, given how mainstream the MCU movies are, even a nod to representation is bound to make headlines. Even the question of Thor’s sexuality has been raised. When the first trailer dropped, showing a scene in which Thor and Chris Pratt’s Guardians of the Galaxy character Star Lord exchange a few admiring glances, fans began to speculate whether Thor, like his brother Loki, is bisexual.
So – is he? “He’s a Viking,” says Waititi. “I feel like they were all very fluid in those days! I’m happy to think about them in a kind of romantic sense,” he says, sincerely. “Yeah, sure, here’s a romance between those two guys. The word ‘bromance’ is such a cop-out.”
For Ragnarok, he shot a scene – later cut – with Valkyrie that teased her sexuality, with a woman glimpsed leaving her apartment.
“We tested that scene,” he confirms. “And people were just so confused. I think we were just being so subtle about it that most audiences were like, ‘Who was that? Was that a flatmate?’ People didn’t connect the dots – or not enough did. So it was more confusing for audiences. We should have just had her come out and kiss her and then leave.”
Waititi, 46, has a line in quirky comedies about people on the margins, from cult comedy breakthrough Flight of the Conchords to 2014 movie What We Do in the Shadows and the Oscar-winning Jojo Rabbit, the risky 2019 Second World War tale in which a young boy in the Hitler Youth had the Nazi dictator – played by Waititi – as his imaginary friend.
He worried that his unique style would be stifled if he took on a franchise. “On [2017’s] Ragnarok, I didn’t think I’d really get my personal vibe in there. I thought, ‘I didn’t invent Thor. This is their thing. I’ll go and try to make some money!’ I’d just had my second kid [he has two daughters with producer Chelsea Winstanley]. And I was totally prepared to take one for the team and make a film that does not necessarily sit within the box set of ‘Taika’ films.”
But Love and Thunder features plenty of what he calls “Taika-esque moments” (he has a habit of speaking in the third person): there are space dolphins, references to Jane Fonda and even talking bao buns – which came about after he was eating lunch in the film’s production office one day. In need of some non-human gods for the script, “[I said] ‘I need to push it… who is the god of dumplings? We should have a god of dumplings!’”
Ragnarok took $853m at the box office, $209m more than its 2013 predecessor, the Alan Taylor-directed Thor: The Dark World. But rebooting a major Marvel character was no mean feat.
“On paper, you look at Thor… he’s basically a big, hetero blonde Viking from outer space,” says Waititi. “A zillionaire who lives in a castle. He’s the son of the king. No one really gives a shit about a character like that. It’s like someone from Bel-Air. You’ve got to make this guy more relatable. Give him human problems – like having a midlife crisis.”
In Love and Thunder, that crisis comes as Thor moons after Jane and realises there is more to life than saving planets. I wonder whether this introspection comes from Waititi himself. He has previously wondered whether he should have been a carpenter or gardener instead of a director. Today it is rugby union that’s preoccupying him.
“I feel the fact that I was never an All Black makes me, as a New Zealander, a massive failure. That’s why we have a country full of depressed people: it’s all just a country of failed All Blacks. None of us made it!”
Waititi is being facetious: his next blockbuster will be a Star Wars film. As for another Thor, he’s not sure yet. But if he returns to the MCU, maybe Valkyrie will finally get that kiss.
Thor: Love and Thunder is out in cinemas now