[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”11097″ img_size=”700×380″ alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Thor: Ragnarok was amazing because of so many elements and one of those elements was Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie. As the hard-drinking warrior who was escaping the dark memory of her past, Valkyrie not only fought alongside Thor, but was a part of a group of fighters that the likes of Thor looked up to. While there were some glances here and there and you could have made a case for a romantic relationship between Thor and Valkyrie if you squinted, one thing I liked was that they didn’t try to push an intimate bond between the two. The romance between Thor and Jane in the previous two films felt more forced than not and considering the world was at stake, there was no time for that!
Tessa Thompson, though; took a moment to talk about a scene that did get cut from the film. In this scene, we see a woman leaving Valkyrie’s bedroom, which would have confirmed the character’s bisexuality. Even though we all know this, it was not shown on screen, which could be both a telling of a big movie franchise not wanting to show anything LGBT on the big screen and how we as the audience feel like we need to see this to confirm someone’s sexuality when heterosexual relationships are not needed to be seen for you to know. Thompson reflected on such points:
“One thing to clarify about that, is it was so in passing. I hope we get to that space, where someone’s sexuality is as immaterial as me drinking this green juice.
“It wasn’t Marvel or Disney or anyone extracting that because it was an issue,” she continued, “it just was like, that particular moment didn’t make sense in the context of the scene.
“And there were other beautiful things where you get a sense of her back story. The woman that dies is her lover. In performance we were, like, ‘That’s your lover.’
“So in my mind it isn’t cut; I played her as a woman that’s queer. I hope that we get to a space, in terms of the stories that we tell, where that’s something that gets to exist, and it doesn’t have to be noteworthy.” – via Digital Spy
Hopefully, we will get to the day soon where the showing of a queer relationship is normalized like any heterosexual relationship is. Unlike the Marvel television shows which have freely showcased same-sex relationships, the MCU is lacking. This is something I hope Kevin Feige and others take into account as we move into 2019.
Avengers 4 will hit theaters May 3, 2019.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]