General

Marvel Set To Include More LGBTQ+ Characters In The 2020s

Published

2 years ago

July 4, 2022

All Naija Entertainment

Share this post:

Kevin Feige, the boss at Marvel, has promised greater diversity, including more LGBTQ+ characters in the MCU.

Marvel Set To Include More LGBTQ+ Characters In The 2020s

Download & Install The New ANE Android App To Your Device

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been becoming more diverse for a while now. The historic global success of Black Panther, with an almost exclusively black cast, seems to have paved the way for better representation. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Ring, which is currently being filmed, will feature a 98% Asian cast, including Awkwafina, a rapper and actress of Japanese origin.

Marvel also waited ten years and twenty films before giving a starring role to a superheroine. But the huge success of Captain Marvel, which surpassed that of even Avengers: Infinity War, encouraged the studios to continue on the same path and increase the diversity of their movies.

This trend was confirmed once again last year with the first openly gay character in the MCU: a discreet but notable cameo in Avengers: Endgame by Joe Russo, the co-director of the movie, who played the first gay character in the Marvel universe.

Gay And Transgender Characters

But 2020 truly looks set to be the year of diversity at Marvel. When asked about the diversity of MCU characters during a panel at the New York Film Academy, Kevin Feige, the boss at the studios, explained that more LGBTQ+ characters would be appearing on screen very soon.

The Eternals, which is currently being filmed, is likely to include at least one openly gay main character, a married father. In response to a question about improving the studio’s future representation of LGBTQ+ and especially transgender characters in Marvel films, the director was particularly assertive, saying: “Yes. Absolutely, yes. And very soon, and in a movie that we’re shooting right now, yes.”

This summer, the studio announced that it was searching for a transgender woman aged 20-30 years old for a forthcoming production. Speculation abounded as to which character the actress might play, with most fans putting their money on Sera, the only transgender superheroine in the Marvel universe, who could appear in Thor: Love and Thunder.