Peacemaker’s bisexuality was meant to be more than a Suicide Squad Easter egg

Over the course of eight episodes, James Gunns peacemaker managed to do something really surprising: It turned out to be a relatively shallow villain The Suicide Squad to star in an incredibly funny and unexpectedly poignant spinoff. in the The Suicide SquadChris “Peacemaker” Smith mostly serves as a joke about American imperialism. But in peacemaker, he is a tortured man with an abusive and dark past who turned to violence in hopes of righting his worst mistake. He’s also a glam rock fan, an eagle’s best friend and, as Gunn revealed a recent interviewbisexual.

The last piece might surprise you. I watched all eight episodes of the show without bi-clocking Peacemaker once. And after going over the show again, it was obvious why. To the extent that Peacemaker’s bisexuality appears in the actual text of the series, it is largely in the context of throwaway jokes and “blink and you’ll miss it” innuendos. In the first episode, Peacemaker refers to having sex with other men in prison; Not long after, we get a post-coital shot of a threesome peacemaker starring Vigilante and Amber (aka the woman he briefly holds hostage alongside her husband). Later in the series, Peacemaker’s father belittles his masculinity. And of course he’s a big fan of glam rock and gender-bending rockers.

In that sense, it adds up to a bisexual character, especially if you’re used to queerness being doled out in side glances and crumbs. But it’s also just as easy to interpret the character as a super-horny straight guy who sleeps with men when they’re the only option, likes to share a female sexual partner with a male friend, has a homophobic dick dad, and has a passion for really good ones Music (to be blunt, that’s how I read the character on my first run through the series).

Peacemaker isn’t the only bisexual—or bicoded—male character that exists in this gray area. Bisexual (and pansexual and omnisexual) male characters are more common than ever, and yet their weirdness never really seems to transcend innuendos, jokes, and dropped comments about male attractiveness. Whether it Dead Pool

loki, Lando Calrissian, Bob Belcher from Bob’s burger, Rick from Rick & Mortyor Sterling Archer by archer (to give just a few examples), bi-male characters – or at least characters read as bi by viewers – may flirt with men, call other men hot, or even indirectly refer to past friends (as in the case of Loki’s official ” Come “from” in Disney Plus” Loki). In some particularly outlandish cases, they become sexually involved with other men in a one-off gag, such as Peacemaker’s threesome. But when it comes to their on-screen relationships, these characters tend to work exclusively with women, their interest in men remaining largely theoretical (and frequently played out as a blatant joke). On screen, men’s bi experiences appear to be rooted, not in a desire for intimacy and closeness with other men, but rather in a free-ranging horniness wide enough to encompass male bodies and sexuality. It is bisexual in the sense of being – to quote it Parks & Recreation’s Jean-Ralphio Saperstein — “open minded as hell.”

It’s not that there’s anything wrong with identifying characters like Peacemaker or Loki or whoever as bi, or that any bi-male character needs having an on-screen relationship with another man. Like all sexual identities, male bisexuality is incredibly complex. For some bi men, the queer part of their identity really begins and ends with sex; and it’s not hard to see why a character like Peacemaker, who grew up in an incredibly conservative and homophobic environment, would feel more comfortable sexually pursuing or ganging up on men than actually engaging in a gay romantic relationship to lead.

But if that’s them only Portrayals of male bisexuality that we ever get in movies and on television flatten our understanding of what it means to be a bisexual man. Rather than looking at the many different ways men can be bi — whether that’s mostly straight men who have occasional sex with men, mostly gay men who regularly flirt with women, men whose sex and dating histories are partners of different genders encompasses, or entirely different experiences – we’re stuck in a limited vision that reinforces the notion that male bisexuality is nothing more than an excess of indiscriminate horniness, that bi men are nothing more than straight men with a broader sexual appetite, and aren’t an entirely separate category of man with his own relationship to sex, intimacy, and masculinity.

It’s an interesting contrast to depictions of female bi-characters, who are often given much more elaborate queer identities — sometimes even in the same traits that just indicate a male character’s desire to walk both paths. At Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Rosa Diaz is openly bisexual and is depicted in relationships with both men and women; Jake Peralta, on the other hand, remains with two codes Some fans read him as bi due to his willingness to acknowledge other men’s attractiveness and a self-confessed crush on Mario Lopez. how peacemaker, Harley Quinn offers a fancy version of a suicide squad Character; not how peacemaker, The show’s title character actually ends up in a same-sex relationship, being paired with her best friend by the end of the show’s second season.

It’s an odd sight: even as queer representation in television and film thrives, with thoughtful, complex LGBTQ characters of all stripes popping up across the spectrum, bisexual men remain on the fringes, bogged down in this territory of plausible denial. What gives?

Well, for starters, there’s a long history of stigmatizing male bisexuality. In the mainstream straight world, bisexual women are often portrayed as sexy and funny; adventurous wild girls whose attraction to other women is often what sets them apart more, no less, desirable for male partners. Bisexual men, on the other hand, tend to be dismissed as closeted gay men at best and vile intruders at worst. At the height of the HIV epidemic, bisexual men were often portrayed as disease vectors, a channel that allowed HIV to move from the gay community to straight women. Decades later, bi men are still treated with suspicion — even in porn, where pretty much every female performer is expected to be bi (or at least pretend to be bi), male bisexuality is largely taboo.

In a way, the wink at male bisexuality allows these traits to claim representational credibility without ever having to confront the many uncomfortable beliefs people still hold about bisexual men. Also, the specific taste of bisexuality keeps popping up – the guy is so horny he doesn’t care What

sticking his cock in – doesn’t require us to think deeply about how bisexuality might alter a male character’s relationship to masculinity and other men. After all, what’s more manly than just wanting to fuck all the time? (Especially at the request of vulture about Peacemaker’s bisexuality, Gunn responded by commenting on the character’s liberal attitude towards sexuality – which he then contrasts with the more “conservative” monogamous marriage embraced by the lesbian character Leota Adebayo.)

What would it mean to give Peacemaker a fully fleshed out and more nuanced queer identity if, instead of just showing up in bed with Vigilante and a woman, he was actually allowed to explore a romantic relationship with Vigilante alone? What if Loki’s romantic interest in his self-titled series wasn’t a gendered version of himself, but another man instead? Would it change how we view a character like Deadpool if, instead of merely expressing (often violent) sexual desire for other men, we were asked to accept him as someone who is sexually and emotionally vulnerable in the company of men; someone who not only dominates ruthlessly, but opens up emotionally, forms romantic bonds, and maybe even submits sexually?

It probably would – but there’s good reason to believe the change would be for the better, not just for bi men and the people who love them, but for the quality of media in general. After all, it wasn’t long ago that bi-female characters were in a similar position as bi-male characters are now; reduced to flat 2D caricatures whose bi-identities consisted largely of crass jokes and innuendos. (Seriously, 2014 The toast praised How I met your mother for his portrayal of Lilya character who never identifies as bi, never dates a woman, and mostly expresses her naughtiness by comments about groping her boyfriends and going to strip clubs.)

And how portrayals of bi women have become richer and more nuanced — not just the badass Rosa Diaz or the messy Harley Quinn, but owl house‘s nerdy teen witch Luz, dead to me‘s “casually queer” Judyand even Miranda Hobbes im Sex and the City reboot And just like that – It has opened doors for a variety of new storylines and new avenues for these shows to explore, creating richer, more thoughtful television shows and films. Liberating bi male characters to be truly bi on screen would present a similar opportunity. Hopefully it’s one that more showrunners will actually adopt.