For queer comic book movie fans of recent years, there has been a serious lack of representation. While films like Black Panther and Wonder Woman became cultural touchstones for their honest depiction of black and female superheroes, respectively, there has been a lack of openly queer superheroes on the silver screen.
Deadpool 2, the sequel to the hyper-popular 2016 superhero film, finally gave the audience what they wanted. In an early scene of the film, Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) meets up with teenage mutant Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand), who introduces the Merc with a Mouth to her girlfriend, a fellow mutant named Yukio (Shioli Kutsuna).
Fans rejoiced over the news online, praising the film and its creators for finally bringing an openly queer superhero to the screen, while also praising how ordinary their relationship is treated.
In a recent interview with Yahoo, the film’s director, David Leitch, said the romance was portrayed exactly as he wanted it to be. “[It wasn’t] a statement we were trying to make,” he said. “I never really thought of it that way.”
Writer Paul Wernick added that the queer couple should be treated as any other couple would in a film. “It’s everyday life,” Wernick said. “We ground Deadpool in real life. As outrageous as it is, Deadpool is a very, very grounded movie.” His writing partner Rhett Reese concurred: “We didn’t want to make too big a deal of it.”
In the canon of Marvel comic books themselves, the character of Deadpool actually identifies as pansexual. In the films thus far, Reynolds’ foul-mouthed crimefighter is in a committed relationship with a woman, while the character has yet to explicitly mention how he identifies.
Read the full interview with the Deadpool 2 creators here.