‘WandaVision’ Finally Gave the Gays the Content We Crave

By Brett White @brettwhite
Published March 9, 2021, 9:00 a.m. ET

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Despite essentially being a soap opera where everyone wears skintight clothes, wigs, and continually causes scenes because of feelings, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is pretty straight. Scan the totality of the MCU and you’ll see nary a moment of significant queer representation across nearly two dozen movies. One unnamed character in one group therapy scene in Avengers: Endgame does not count until he gets his own Disney+ series… which, at the rate they’re announcing new shows, will probably be 2023.

That’s not to say the MCU is the stuh-raightest franchise, either. You could tweet a screenshot of Captain Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame haircut with the caption “gay rights” and probably amass a decent number of RTs. And then there is Thor: Ragnarok, which is incredibly gay because of subtextual pansexual Valkyrie and the presence of Cate Blanchett in a Drag Race finale look (she does not care that Michelle hates green)—but TBH Thor: Ragnarok’s vibe may just be incredibly New Zealand-y? I mean, the country also gave us Samwise/Frodo, What We Do In the Shadows and the upcoming RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under. Seems like they’re having a gay old time down there, in every sense of the word. Also, they’ve figured out how to deal with COVID so, please, take me New Zealand.

This is why WandaVision matters—at least why it matters to me as a man who knew he loved Marvel long before he knew he loved men (although those X-Men swimsuit trading cards were a nice overlap of my pre-teen interests). With it’s witchy vibes, campy jokes, bright colors, and the presence of Kathryn Hahn, WandaVision felt like the big coming out party that a lot of queer Marvel fans have been waiting for… even if the only canonical bit of gay representation was Billy Maximoff, a 10-year-old who… is… Y’know what? I’m not going to try to figure out if a magical construct with a surprising level of self-determination and magical powers who grew 10 years overnight has the kind of inner life and self-awareness that would lead to being in or out of any type of closet. The point is, WandaVision’s only actual gay representation was, essentially, a magic baby.

Still, the community—a community that’s used to seeing our own narratives in media that does not specifically include us—loved WandaVision. Like, we lived for WandaVision to a degree that I really haven’t seen before. It’s partly because WandaVision ticks off all the boxes: female protagonist, female antagonist, subversive humor, kitschy vibes, campy acting, costumes costumes costumes, lots of one-liners, and did I mention Kathryn Hahn?

But I think the connection runs deeper than all of our usual touchstones. Overall, the series possesses a level of authenticity and sincerity that I consider absolutely vital to the queer experience. WandaVision is a show that is what it is, and it’s not gonna compromise. WandaVision wants to do an entire episode about a topsy-turvy dinner party, followed by a full-length magic act, and then have Wanda use her powers to fend off… a stork? Yeah, WandaVision did all that, and with an attention to detail that not even Michael Kors could judge. That’s what the queer experience means: being so comfortable with who you are that you are gonna stunt no matter what and you absolutely do not care if the people around you want you to hurry up and get to the bland plots with the soldiers and humvees and drones or whatever.

And look at WandaVision is! Look at the material! It’s a show about a non-traditional couple trying their hardest to fit in while also dealing with the anguish of losing family members.

That content, especially when filtered through retro sitcoms that were sometimes themselves queer-coded, is guh guh guh GAY. And, as evidenced by the tweets above, we noticed.

That’s not even getting into the meme economy single-handedly created by Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn). Whether she’s winking or holding a dog she killed or vamping it up in her own theme song, the general consensus to Agatha all along was “Yes, werk.”

And yeah, I keep quoting drag queens because you better believe I was thrilled every time I saw another queen tweet about this bizarre little Marvel show! To me, it just pulled WandaVision fully into the gay fray.

Not to mention the synergy of “Agatha All Along” arriving right as we were all losing our minds over “UK, Hun?” from RuPaul’s Drag Race UK Season 2.

The synergy didn’t stop there. WandaVision and Drag Race rhyme with each other.

If you can’t embed-tweet yourself, how the hell can you embed-tweet somebody else?

But the gag of the entire queer WandaVision experience for me was watching Jackie Cox deliver on this promise.

And a month later…

All this being said, there has gotta be a lot more representation in the MCU. WandaVision got me all up in my gay feelings, for sure, but that is nothing compared to seeing actual gay superheroes on the big screen.

Things are changing; Eternals will have a gay character in its ensemble (Phastos, played by Brian Tyree Henry), Taika Waititi has said Valkyrie will be unmistakably queer in Thor: Love and Thunder, and one of the most prominent queer characters in the comics—America Chavez—will debut in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. And, y’know, Billy Maximoff ain’t done yet (presumably)! So, actual rep is on the way—and I can’t wait to revel in it the way we all celebrated WandaVision.

Stream WandaVision on Disney+