Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok edited out a character’s sexuality
One of the characters from Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok originally had a scene depicting their sexuality, but it was edited from the final cut.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Tessa Thompson said that she asked director Taika Waititi to depict Valkyrie — who fights alongside Chris Hemsworth’s Thor — as bisexual, based on her relationship with Dr. Annabelle Riggs in Marvel’s Fearless Defenders comics.
Waititi agreed to Thompson’s request, and filmed a brief shot of a woman leaving Valkyrie’s bedroom.
Rolling Stone notes that the scene remained in the film for as long as possible, but had to be cut because “it distracted from the scene’s vital exposition.”
“There were things that we talked about that we allowed to exist in the characterization, but maybe not be explicit in the film,” Thompson said, such as after Cate Blanchett’s Hela murders Valkyrie’s warrior clan. “There’s a great shot of me falling back from one of my sisters who’s just been slain. In my mind, that was my lover.”
Thompson added that she hopes Valkyrie’s love life can be expanded on when she next appears in a Marvel film, such as next year’s Avengers: Infinity War, if rumors are accurate.
Last month, Thompson had hinted that Valkyrie would be the first openly LGBTQ character in a Marvel film, after a fan complained about her “tomboy” appearance in Thor: Ragnarok.
“She’s bi. And yes, she cares very little about what men think of her,” Thompson tweeted. “What a joy to play!”
However, Thompson followed that two days later by tweeting that, while she was “faithful” to Valkyrie’s bisexuality in her depiction, “her sexuality isn’t explicitly addressed in Thor: Ragnarok.”
To date, Marvel has yet to feature an openly LGBTQ character in one of their films, despite a wealth of options present in its comics.
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