Deadpool and Wolverine’s marketing blitz is one long gay joke

Next month will see the release of Deadpool & Wolverine, the third Deadpool movie and first since Marvel Studios acquired the character, and insiders are predicting that the film will be a financial success. According to The Quorum, a firm that tracks and predicts box office numbers, Marvel should expect a $200 million opening weekend, an absolutely huge number — it would be the biggest opening for an R-rated movie in history. As such, the multifaceted marketing campaign has already kicked off, with trailers, posters, media appearances, an outing to a Taylor Swift concert, and accompanying movie merch.

The previous Deadpool movies were huge hits, both made over $700 million worldwide; and Deadpool himself (played by Ryan Reynolds) has become a fan favorite — an anti-hero with a superhuman ability to turn everything into a farce.

Yet, the promotion and marketing for this movie has centered on one tired joke in particular: Wolverine and Deadpool are gay.

The IMAX poster, a riff on one of the 2017 Logan (a dystopian western about Wolverine) poster, shows Deadpool holding Wolvie’s hand, and caressing one of his adamantium claws with his gloved finger:

Another, a play on Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, shows the pair slow dancing together with Deadpool taking the place of Belle:

And audiences will have the chance to commemorate the movie with a special popcorn bucket. The container is shaped like Wolverine’s head with his oversized mouth functioning as the opening. The vessel was teased with butter goo drizzled over Wolverine’s face and Deadpool lovingly caressing it:

The idea of Deadpool and Wolverine sharing feelings for each other could be interpreted as funny in that they’re playing against type. Although there’s a little more at work here.

Both characters are sexually fluid in their comic book source material. Obviously, the degree of that openness depends on the writers, but Wolverine, specifically in the most recent publishing era, was interpreted to be part of a polyamorous relationship with fellow X-Men Jean Grey and Scott Summers. Deadpool, in the comic books, has expressed attraction to or flirted with characters like Spider-Man and Cable, and aliens, and the embodiment of Death herself.

Movie superheroes are also usually negative horny (or if they are horny, it’s only by accident) and aromantic. Wolverine and Deadpool being gay and horny for each other goes against the grain of what superheroes generally are. But going against the grain is what Deadpool is known for as — despite being a box office blockbuster — the series has come to represent a type of sardonic counterculture.

Reynolds and Jackman have also supplemented the movie’s promotional tour by hanging out in real life and affirming their bromance. Reynolds and Jackman were seen together in September, right after news broke that Jackman and his wife Deborra-Lee Furness were getting divorced after 27 years. The next month, the two attended a Chiefs game with Taylor Swift. This past May, the co-stars interviewed each other for People magazine, and spoke candidly about how they met (in the 2009 movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine) and how both cherish their relationship with each other.

The actors who play Deadpool and Wolverine are two men who aren’t afraid to be friends, go to concerts, and talk about the tenderness of their relationship. Both actors are working extremely hard to show us this movie is coming from a good place.

Yet the joke can’t help but feel a little listless if all it consists of is pointing and expecting someone to laugh — a kind of ironic allyship. The laugh is not meant to be mean or anti-gay but at the same time, these promotional materials and fellatio-themed popcorn vessels aren’t asserting that there’s some kind of important queer relationship here either.

What’s the punchline beyond: these two guys are gay for each other? I do not want to be the bearer of bad news, but this world we share is full of gay male couples as bearded and muscular as Wolverine and as snarky and annoying as Deadpool, and I can report firsthand that many of them are deeply unfunny.

The problem — and the real joke that’s missing in these promotional materials — is that Marvel and Disney, its parent company, have tried multiple times to woo LGBTQ fans and more importantly good press by continually asserting that their upcoming movies will feature a gay character.

Marvel and Disney have both been criticized for queerbaiting, the practice of marketing a movie with supposedly queer characters or LGBTQ romantic plots but never actually depicting them on screen. An example: Disney spent a lot of time and money hyping its first gay character, a lesbian cyclops police officer in 2020’s Onward. As if that combination of words isn’t comical in itself, the character’s big gay moment was a passing line about her girlfriend. As Out highlighted, a lot of these “gay” moments in Disney movies are nothing more than brief cameos or small wrinkles in animation. And Disney congratulating itself for these inconsequential crumbs can’t help but make one a little cynical.

Marvel isn’t much better.

The first gay guy in the MCU was a nameless character talking about his date in Avengers: Endgame. Since then, multiple actors and directors have talked about characters (Valkyrie and Captain Marvel in particular) as queer or gay in promotional interviews but none of the material ever seems to make the final cut.

Making fun of a one-eyed purple policewoman with a purple haircut created by the establishment as a gay token is the type of thing that Deadpool, a character who’s supposed to be irreverent and sarcastic, would spoof. That Disney, a massive entertainment giant that holds the purse strings of dominant culture, now owns Deadpool is sort of the rub too. What should feel edgy and raunchy can’t help but feel a bit sanded down or restrained.

How subversive can Deadpool be, if he’s owned by the wealthiest cultural force in the world? Was he ever subversive in the first place? Could he ever be? Surely Deadpool could be more shocking and revolutionary than two men holding hands.

To be clear, I do not care if Deadpool and Wolverine are or aren’t in a relationship. Representation in a Marvel movie is not going to move the needle in either direction. Someone made the brilliant observation that getting queerbaited by Disney or Marvel would be like losing to a dog at chess. I just hope the movie is funnier than it’s being sold.