I originally had this in the tags of the post I just reblogged about LOL NO HOMO pandering, but it got so out of control I decided to make it its own post.
re: the inclusion of Thor (2011) in the slash pandering conversation with things like Supernatural, Sherlock (BBC and RDJ films), Merlin, X-Men: First Class, the entire USA line-up etc.
I am legitimately boggled every time I see someone mention Thor in one of these conversations!
I get that people really want Thor and Loki to kiss but, uhhhhh, while obviously their bond exists and I am personally SUPER invested in it in the film canon, I don’t think it warrants inclusion with regard to this phenomenon at all. Especially with the company it’s keeping. I mean, look at that list! Pretty sure I don’t need to go down it and start pointing out the high degrees of gay, so!
In terms of Thor specifically: Thor and Loki are okay with each other early on, but the film becomes about Loki’s resentment really quickly, and for the rest of its duration his emotional drive revolves entirely around getting Odin to love him. Meanwhile Thor is on Earth with Jane also being sad about Odin and having no idea that his brother is off imploding.
It’s a pretty straightforward (no pun intended) story about brothers torn apart by the quest for their father’s approval, but that brotherly bond basically rests entirely on the back of the scene with them as little kids and Hiddleston and Hemsworth’s chemistry?
Like the end of the film is sad for many reasons, not least because you UNDERSTAND that they’re brothers and they love each other, but the film is not really at all about the ~special~ intensity of their bond, nor does it place any kind of primacy on their bond in comparison to their other major relationships, i.e. the number one fundamental way in which every last one of the other mentioned things wink and nudge at the slashing audience. And despite the fact that you can analytically discuss or make arguments for Loki’s talents and persona being coded as feminine (and simultaneously, thus, as of less value) as compared to Thor’s hypermasculinity, there aren’t actually any no homo type jokes at all.*
I guess people could be conflating the film with the comics and the myths which are both waaaay more queer (the comics because in them Thor and Loki’s relationship IS treated with that intense primacy and the myths for numerous NUMEROUS reasons only starting with the fact that myth!Loki is genderfluid), but that is… not a good idea? Or a good way to make an argument about that film specifically?
And this isn’t a Thor/Loki doesn’t make sense to me and so I shall attack it so you stop saying it’s slashy post, btw. People can do what they want and they certainly don’t need my permission and also… I don’t care.
I just honestly don’t think that the film fits in with this pattern at all, unless we’re saying that any piece of fiction in which two attractive white dudes exist is automatically slash pandering. Which… to some segments of fandom I suppose it is… But that aside, this pattern and acknowledging and hopefully someday dismantling it by providing legitimate queer representation is something in which I am extremely personally invested. And I think that carelessly making the definition of this kind of pandering and the legacy of homophobia it reinforces into essentially “anything in which two attractive white dudes exist” and/or “anything that fandom gloms onto (due to existence of attractive white dudes) and projects slash tropes onto” weakens an extremely important and valid argument.
*I mean, there’s “Run home, little princess,” but that much like Thor’s hypermasculinity being valued is much more reflective of the misogyny inherent in androcentrism. While that style of misogyny does tie directly back into homophobia often, it’s clear that wasn’t really the thrust of that specific insult? I am being a pedant to break it down this far but there’s a difference between calling someone a girl to say that they are generally a coward and calling someone a girl to bring their heterosexuality into question.
*It also occurs to me that “Now give us a kiss,” from the deleted scenes could be interpreted as the film’s singular no homo joke? But, full disclosure, given that my opposite gender siblings and I have spent our entire lives jokingly threatening each other with sloppy physical affection (to cries of STOP IT/GET AWAY FROM ME/I HATE YOU), I have a hard time taking it that way, personally.
