Thor: Ragnarok is “the single gayest movie” in the Marvel franchise, proclaims a June 2018 article in Vulture’s queer cinema section. While the author cites a few clearly subjective metrics in the ranking (e.g. “Thor’s haircut”), director Taikia Waititi acknowledged the article by tweeting “Yaaaaaaas! Take that Iron Man!” along with a rainbow flag emoji. Fans responded energetically to this exchange, adding to the existing conversation around the potential queerness of the film. Other components of cultural exchange around Thor include the erasure of the canon bisexuality of the Valkyrie character— portrayed by recently out bisexual actor Tessa Thompson—, the gender fluidity of Loki, Korg, and Hela. By employing a close reading of these characters through their identity performances in the film and comics combined with the surrounding audience discourse, this research offers a scholarly examination of negotiated queer identity in Thor: Ragnarok.
Scholarship using queer theory has long addressed issues of performativity and closetedness of LGBT identity (Lipton, 2008) and how audiences read queerness (or lack thereof) in popular culture. Consumers often report using media to negotiate their own identities through readings that contextualize LGBT imagery and situate queer performances through characters onscreen and in media texts. Building on Lipton’s readings of queer symbolism in popular culture, this paper uses a hermeneutic approach to understand the potential interpretations of queer text and subtext in Thor: Ragnarok. Specifically this close reading argues that LGBT imagery and identity manifests most resonantly through the character performativity of Valkyrie, Loki, Korg, and Hela. In addition to the hermeneutic decoding of the film, featured social media cases and fan response complement the negotiated meanings therein.
References
Benshoff, H. M., & Griffin, S. (Eds.). (2004). Queer cinema: The film reader. Psychology Press.
Buchanan, K. (2018, June 20). What is the gayest Marvel movie? Vulture. Retrieved from http://www.vulture.com/2018/06/what-...
Fawaz, R. (2016). The new mutants: superheroes and the radical imagination of American comics. NYU Press.
Lipton, M. (2008). Queer readings of popular culture. Queer youth culture, 163-180.
North, R. (2001). ‘Loki’s Gender: Or why Ska i Laughed’. Peeters Publishers and Booksellers.
Palmer‐Mehta, V., & Hay, K. (2005). A superhero for gays?: Gay masculinity and green lantern. The journal of American culture, 28(4), 390-404.
Shyminsky, N. (2011). ‘‘Gay’’Sidekicks: Queer Anxiety and the Narrative Straightening of the Superhero. Men and Masculinities, 14(3), 288-308.
About the presenterCandice D. Roberts
Candice is Associate Professor of Communication and Director of the LGBTQ+ Center at St. John’s University.
They hold a PhD in Communication, Culture & Media from Drexel University and designed a transnational network ethnography of the CouchSurfing community and its function as a hybrid collective. More broadly their work examines cultural narrative and identity in popular media, and they are particularly interested in archetypes, consumer behavior, and sociality around themes of class, sexuality and space/place.