Deadpool and Wolverine’s ‘gay’ posters frustrate queer fans: ‘Stale and gross’
Deadpool & Wolverine‘s marketing is ramping up, and queer fans have slammed the use of the pair being gay as a punchline for the latest Marvel film.
Just a few weeks after a Pride month post that featured no queer characters, and the confirmation that Taylor Swift will not appear in the film, the Deadpool & Wolverine marketing trail continues.
Fans weren’t exactly thrilled with the IMAX poster for the movie, which showed stars Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman holding hands – the joke being, as one fan wrote: “Omg, the idea that they could be gay is so f**king funny I’m in hysterics.”
A few days later, another poster, this time parodying 2017’s Beauty and The Beast, prompted a new wave of angry reactions.
“If they don’t f*ck in this movie then I do not want it. This marketing is getting stale and gross,” one fan wrote, while another sarcastically added: “Oh I get it, it’s like they’re gay.”
Another pointed out that the film does contain canonically queer couple Negasonic Teenage Warhead and Yukio, who are absent from any marketing. “Having this cute lesbian superhero couple in the film, but let’s do queerbaiting with two dudes,” they wrote.
The film also features The Crown‘s non-binary star Emma Corrin as the film’s big bad.
Both Deadpool and Wolverine are canonically not heterosexual in their comic book origins, with the former being pansexual and the latter having an alternate universe version of himself who’s gay.
A number of queer fans picked up on this, with one writing: “My problem with how this movie is handling Deadpool and Wolverine’s relationship is that they’re making the punchline the fact that they’re implied to be gay. It’s such a lame way to handle canon LGBTQ characters.
“This movie would have so much more sauce if it was a romcom.”
Another fan offered their opinion, saying: “Ok [this] is getting tiresome that the only joke they’re using for promos is that ‘ha ha, get it, it’s like they’re a couple’, and I feel the movie isn’t gonna be different.”
Deadpool & Wolverine is due to open in cinemas on 25 July.
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