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insanityclause · 28 days

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When Tom Hiddleston landed his career-changing role in Marvel’s Thor back in April 2009, he never dreamed he would be playing the character for nearly 15 years. To be fair, no one did—except maybe Marvel’s mastermind Kevin Feige, who had begun laying the cinematic groundwork for a multi-billion dollar franchise. At the time, Hiddleston happily threw himself into extensive research and prep to play the duplicitous brother of Thor (Chris Hemsworth). “I was cast in April 2009, and I had about eight months to build the character from the ground up,” Hiddleston says on this week’s Little Gold Men. “So that was a deep dive into everything Loki from any comic book, any Norse myth, any saga, everything—from the whole run of Marvel comics to the ancient Scandinavian stories, and how he pops up in The Ring cycle for Wagner, and Jim Carrey is wearing the mask of Loki in The Mask.” Hiddleston was trying to discover “this sense of, what's Loki's impact on human imagination and culture? And then synthesizing all of that into the story we’re telling. That was such a delightful period of discovery and curiosity.”

Hiddleston’s scene-stealing portrayal made him an instant fan favorite, laying a formidable foundation for a character who went on to appear in six more films and the stand-alone series Loki. The two-season series threw the character into a new dimension and timeline, stripped him of all his creature comforts, and gave the actor new challenges to tackle.

“In successive iterations, [my approach] has been, how do I keep it interesting?” he says. “I genuinely say this to myself and to others: ‘We're not reheating yesterday's meal in the microwave. We're cooking up something new.’ It's trying to find new ingredients or new challenges for the character, for us as actors, so that it feels like the same person is growing. Because that's what human beings do. They don't stay the same, they grow. Sometimes they regress, but there's always movement.”

Hiddleston has gone on to star in a wide array of projects outside the Marvel universe, of course, from his Emmy-nominated, Golden Globe-winning work in The Night Manager to Jim Jarmusch’s acclaimed romantic vampire drama Only Lovers Left Alive and Steven Spielberg’s epic War Horse. But he’s definitely spent the most time with the God of Mischief. And though no official announcement has been made, the final episode of Loki season two strongly indicates the closing of a formative chapter.

The actor and executive producer stopped by Little Gold Men for a thoughtful discussion about the gift of developing and playing a single character for so long, the surreal fun of working with drama school classmates turned costars Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Wunmi Mosaku, and getting to come up with the character's last line (for now). Listen below, where you can also read excerpts from the conversation.

Vanity Fair: Did the series version of Loki feel a little more stripped down, or did you have the same kind of mindset playing him as you did in the films? Tom Hiddleston: Yes. I think it was stripped down literally in the sense of taking away the costume, but stripped down spiritually and in his soul. I thought [the concept] was such a brilliant idea, and it wasn't mine. It was [executive producers] Michael Waldron and Kevin Wright, and the great and the good at Marvel Studios. I thought for any character, if you were presented with your life and watching a kind of highlight reel of it, what would it add up to? Would it be satisfying? Would it be meaningful? Would it be amusing? Would it be disappointing? And I thought to do that with Loki especially, as it's the journey of a life that the audience is familiar with, but he hasn't seen it. I just thought it was a brilliant conceit. And then I leaned into this idea of the leopard being challenged to change his spots. Because you'd have to if your life ended up in murder by Thanos and humiliation. You'd want to try something new.

And that was really fun, developing a story which was actually very philosophical. It asks the question of Loki, as I hope it asks the question of all of us: Are we in control of the course of our lives? Do we have any free will, and can we break free from any kind of predetermination? It seemed like a great question, and a fun way to ask it.

You’re also an executive producer on the series. How did you take on that role? What did you get to do?

Honestly, it was such an honor and I loved it. I loved the extra imagining and problem solving. I was invited into the writer's room really early, season one, even earlier on season two. And to borrow the words from Lin Manuel Miranda, to be in the room where it happens, and to sit around the table and break story and crunch through the great creative ‘what if’ questions—what if Loki did this? What if Mobius [Owen Wilson] did that? What if they couldn't find Sylvie? What if the TVA ran on an energy source, and it wasn't energy, it was time?

Can you take any credit for bringing Ke Huy Kwan or your RADA buddies Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Wunmi Mosaku on board? I love that that was a little bit of a through-line, that you all got to work together.

Well, when their names came up, Gugu and Wunmi particularly, I was able to say, those guys are great. And Ke was just an amazing idea because actually, [his character] Ouroboros was coming to life on the page. Somebody suggested Ke, and Everything Everywhere All At Once had just come out. And I was like, genius: somebody call him now before we lose him. He was so joyful and optimistic and happy to be there, so honored to be there. He'd wanted to be in a Marvel project his whole life, I think, and, and he brought everything and more to that character.

The day he landed, he came from the airport straight to the studio, probably thinking, ‘I'll just say hello and go back to my digs.’ And Owen and I were actually rehearsing the scene before Mobius and Loki meet OB for the first time. And he came in and he listened. And then we got to the bit where we were like, ‘You're in the next bit. Do you want to do it?’ He said ‘Okay!’ And he stayed and rehearsed for three hours. I think he felt completely crazy having just [traveled] across the continents, but it was so brilliant. And the chemistry was so immediate between the three of us, and so funny. We all love Ke.

Thinking about your journey with this character and all the places he has taken you, has there been a surreal aspect to it? I think about you being in drama school with Gugu and Wunmi—now you're getting paid to play.

It's a wonderful question, and I'm never unaware of the great gift that this job is. Especially because it happens all the time,: I go out into the world and I meet young people or children, and they're so amazed that they’re meeting Loki. I'm obviously not Loki, but the response is so immediate and so emotional and so joyful. What a gift. It's the best job in the world. And I never dreamed back then that I would be part of something with such reach and for so long. It just is the most unlikely, surprising, delightful thing. And we—Wunmi and Gugu I've known for a long time. It is amazing to look and go, ‘Can you believe we're here, we're doing this?’ It is exciting too, because it feels right in some way and they're great actors. They are brilliant.

Do you get recognized as the character, or are people starting to recognize you for your other work?

Oh, it's always different. I went to a friend's birthday party the other day—a friend and his wife, both turning the same age. They got a taco stand. I went to get my taco and the guys were like, ‘Only Lovers Left Alive, man. Love that film.’ And I said, ‘Thank you very much. That's very kind.’ Some people say The Night Manager. Some people stop me in the street and go, ‘It's you! You're the dancer.’ And they're referring to some talk show, some bit of dancing I did on a talk show from like a thousand years ago, which really tickles me.

Speaking of dancing, I wanted to bring up your physicality. With the most recent season of Loki in particular and that time slip, did you have to have massages and stretch after? Because it seems like such a jarring movement.

It's jerky, yes. I had to put my body under a kind of relentless physical stress. But I think it pays off in the way it's presented. In terms of movement and physicality, it comes from my own admiration for other performers when I sense that there is a really, alive and visceral physicality in the performance. Some of people are great actors, very cerebral, very intelligent, but sometimes not always fully embodied. And I love the actors who are giving me a sense that the whole body is occupying whichever space that is. They could be on a horse, they could be driving a car, they could have just run in through the jungle. I don't know, it could be anything, but a real sense of physicality is always something I admire in other actors.

One of my favorite things in doing a little research about your work on this season was that you got to craft Loki’s last lin,e and it also maybe came from going on a run. Can you talk about that? Well, first on running, I love it and it is a big part of my life. And a big part of my creative life. Running outside, in space, in the world with only your own legs to carry you and your own breath to fuel you, I find incredibly freeing. And it's where I do some of my best thinking and dreaming and imagining. Things bubble up from inside you. So I often run at the beginning of a day, very early and with an awareness of what's coming, what the scenes of the day are. Sometimes things will bubble up. And maybe that's just extra oxygen in the brain, who knows?

But to the point about that last line: one of the things I kept trying to guide our team back to was that the whole series, both seasons, was really about finding purpose, or re-finding, re-defining, re-discovering a sense of purpose. And I think a primal need in all of us, is that we need our lives to mean something. So I kept coming back to this line from The Avengers, ‘I am Loki of Asgard and I am burdened with glorious purpose.’ And we kept thinking, well, if Loki has a second chance, he gets to redefine his purpose or re-imagine it. I went for a run and was listening to some film scores, and it was a beautiful day. I was thinking about the journey of playing this character and where it started, and all the people that I have had the great good fortune to work with and become friends with—that completely unique kind of soul-sharing relationship where you make something together. And I remembered the end of the first Thor film, and how emotional that felt and. I just suddenly thought, that's what he should say—but it should mean something completely different. Loki's last line in Thor, directed by Kenneth Branagh, is, ‘I could have done it, Father. I could have done it for you, for all of us.’ And of course his effort to gain his father's pride has been misguided and ill thought-out. And then at the end of Loki season 2, 14 years later, he turns to Mobius and Sylvie and says, ‘I know what I want I know what kind of god I need to be. For you. For all of us.’ It felt very resonant somehow. I hope the audience picked up on that.

Are you able to just say goodbye when it's wrap time, or do you have any sort of meditative, formal way of saying goodbye to a project or a character?

That's such a good question. I think it's a very honest, immediate feeling of relief, which they say is the most intense human emotion. You'd think it was anger or grief or something, but actually relief is—the way relief kind of washes through you, and a sense of finality that some finish line has been crossed and there are no more miles to run. And for me anyway, huge amounts of energy have been stored inside myself which had been poured out over time—over maybe 20 weeks or however many months.

I love that feeling of completeness. The great joy of what I do for a living is that it involves very intense, very close working with a team. And the pride that you can feel with your teammates, with your crew, with your cast—you just hang around and say goodbye, but it never really is goodbye. And there's just a sense of, like, “that'll do, pig,” you know? Yeah: that'll do, pig.

#tom hiddleston #loki #little gold men #emmy fyc interview #babe

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musclesandhammering · 3 days

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Something about the fact that the Loki writers have confirmed multiple times that his variants all look so different because of their inherit chaotic nature.

Something about the fact that it says in the show that the universe wants to be free so it manifests chaos in the form of Lokis.

Something about the fact that Loki is the TVA’s most common variant because every version of them refuses to adhere to their ‘destiny’.

Something about the fact that there was a scene in the show where Ravonna said “this is about order & chaos. I’m order-“ and then a loki variant violently burst in, implying “I’m chaos.”

Something about the fact that the entire story arc of the Loki series was about him choosing to free the sacred timeline & embrace all the anarchy & endless possibilities- positive & negative- that came with it instead of continuing to enforce the absolute order that would keep them all safe.

Something about Loki literally sacrificing himself so chaos could reign.

Something about the fact that Loki tried for years to beat He Who Remains through playing by his rules, and was only able to do it when he came up with a solution so insane that HWR didn’t anticipate it.

Something about the fact that messing with people’s minds & using tricky and unorthodox means of fighting has always been Loki’s Thing.

Something about the fact that at least one loki variant has the natural ability to rewrite the laws of time, space, and reality.

Something about the fact that Loki is literally the god of chaos- in the series, in the comics, and in Norse mythology.

And also..

Something about the fact that all of Wanda’s variants look and act exactly the same.

Something about the fact that the TVA never mentioned Wanda whatsoever despite her being a Reality Breaking Cosmic Anomaly.

Something about the fact that Wanda fans thought her reading the Darkhold caused the multiverse to open but Kevin Feige confirmed it was Sylvie killing He Who Remains that opened the multiverse, and in turn allowed Wanda to hear her kids through the Darkhold.

Something about the fact that Wanda almost always uses her ‘chaos magic’ to control people/events & bend reality to her will, which directly contradicts the meaning of chaos.

Something about the fact that Wanda has never once had any sort of symbolic arc or subplot or character dive directly linking her to chaos as a concept.

Something about the fact that the only thing about Wanda you could consider overtly chaotic is her propensity to go on destructive rampages when she doesn’t get her way.

And finally..

Something about the fact that, in the mcu, Wanda is constantly awarded with the chaos moniker- they decided to keep the ‘chaos magic’ name from the comics, fans call her the queen of chaos, and she gets credited as the token reality breaker pretty much constantly… while they’ve never even acknowledged on-screen that Loki’s the literal God of Chaos.

#late evening musings #I’m not bitter I swear #anti wanda maximoff #anti Wanda #not Wanda friendly #not Wanda maximoff friendly #mcu #loki #loki series #loki season 2 #loki meta

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mdccanon · 1 year

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I just saw Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

I imagine the 2-martini lunch discussing this movie went something like this:

Ryan Coogler: So, who is Namor?

Kevin Feige: A self-righteous, condescending asshole of the highest order. A wife-stealing, incredulous, charismatic jackass. When supervillains and superheroes make secret councils, he demands to sit on both.

Ryan Coogler: ... ... *sip* ... I can work with that.

#Black panther #black panther wakanda forever #Wakanda Forever #Bpwf #bpwf spoilers #Wakanda Forever review #Wakanda Forever spoilers #namor the sub mariner #Namor #namor x shuri #namuri #Seaprincess

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starsopinions · 6 months

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Sylki should have been a sibling relationship

Loki season 1 starts with Loki from The Avengers, Loki is at a very low point in his life, and he hates himself. I have seen people claiming that he falls in love with himself because he is just such a narcissist, but he doesn't even like himself let alone a different version of himself. He hasn’t had any of the character development of the later movies yet so why would the writers try and give him a romance plot when there is such a good opportunity to have Loki and Sylvie have a sibling relationship which neither of them had growing up. So here is why is think Sylki should have been a sibling relationship.

Sibling relationship

In Thor: The Dark World and Thor: Ragnarok we see Loki and Thor’s relationship building and slowly getting better but before that and up until The Avengers, they fight all the time and Loki is angry at Odin and Thor. Loki constantly feels left out and, in his own words, lives in Thor’s shadow. So when his life is suddenly uprooted by the TVA and he meets Sylvie, instead of being interested romantically he could instead take her under his wing and have a more sibling-like relationship. He could then see what it is like to have a good relationship with a sibling, in contrast to what his relationship with Thor was like.

I think this could also work to set up a future reunion between Thor and Loki. Kevin Feige recently said: “But for that meeting to really be fulfilling, we have to get Loki to a certain place emotionally.” I think that this sibling relationship could get him there. He could see what went wrong between him and Thor and see that maybe Thor didn’t always do the right thing but he meant well. Loki would be the ‘older sibling’ in this situation which could help him gain more insight into Thor’s decisions and have a better understanding of them.

I think that, on the flip side, it also works well from Sylvie’s point of view. She barely remembers Asgard or Frigga and probably can’t recall ever having a (good) relationship with Thor. She has been on the run her entire life and has never known real friendship or family. So Loki could teach her what it means to have a family, or they could even discover it together seeing as Loki doesn’t have the best relationship with his family either. Loki could teach her what Frigga taught him and tell her stories about their home (imagine how cute that would be). Sylvie could learn to trust again and experience fun in her life.

Sylki doesn’t work

Besides this, I also want to shine some light on why I think that Sylki, as a romantic relationship, does not work. As I said earlier, Loki is at a really low point in his life and it doesn’t make sense to give him a romantic interest because he has issues and he desperately needs some character development which is just blatantly ignored in favour of this romantic storyline. But even his romantic interest doesn’t seem to be ready for any romance in her life. Sylvie has barely had the chance to see what life is like and it seems such a weird choice to immediately jump into something romantic without her getting the chance to live. There is also the argument that these characters may not be ready for love but that sometimes it is just there, no matter if you are ready or not. But I don’t agree with that because these aren’t real people, there are writers who can 100% decide what happens. So I think they should get that character development that they need through their sibling relationship.

I think something else that has been bothering me is that it is kind of, maybe, possibly incest. I know the lines of that are blurry because obviously, we have never seen something like this before in real life so it’s hard to judge, I do understand if anyone else doesn’t think it is weird, but it just doesn't sit right with me. I also think the show writers realised this and that’s why Sylvie isn’t named Loki and she doesn’t look like Loki at all and all that makes it even weirder.

Chemistry

Another issue I have with this couple is that, in my opinion, they just aren’t that cute together. They don’t have any romantic chemistry and all their bonding seems more sibling-like rather than anything else. Take for instance season 1, episode 3. They are on Lamentis and they are fighting over the TemPad (around 6:30 if you want to watch it back), their bickering and taunts seem so sibling-like. Another example is season 1, episode 4. They are both captured and are about to meet The Time-keepers (around 35:00). The way Sylvie checks in on Loki, I just don’t see them as a couple they act like siblings. Even the iconic blanket sharing moment (S1, ep 5 30:00), the awkwardness and the way Loki tries to take care of Sylvie. To me, it just seems like an older brother trying to take care of Sylvie.

Lokius

And on top of all of that, I think there is one more point left to make. There is a much more suitable match for Loki right there, and it’s Mobius! But like I said, I think Loki needs some character development before he is truly ready for an actual relationship. Especially because this show is about Loki and a part of that is that he is bisexual and genderfluid which isn’t explored at all in the show so I think it would be cool to see him coming out as bisexual in season 1 and slowly growing comfortable around Mobius. I think it would fit the themes of the show well and a good slow burn is always welcome in my book. Also, did y’all see the way Loki searched for Mobius in season 2, episode 1? Because that’s the kind of chemistry I’m missing in Sylki!!

I’m very excited to see where they will take us with Loki season 2. I think so far (2 episodes in) they are doing an amazing job with storytelling, comedy and cinematography and as always Tom, Sophia and the rest of the cast have been absolutely killing it!! Let me know if you agree with me and don’t forget to maybe reblog and like and all that fun Tumblr stuff :)

Disclaimer: This is no hate at all to anyone who worked on the show! I am a huge fan but these are just my opinions! :D

#loki #loki season 2 #loki series #loki laufeyson #lokius #sylki #anti sylki #pro sylki #mcu #marvel #mobius #thor #thor odinson #thor loki #siblings #thor the dark world #the avengers #marvel cinematic universe #opinion

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percheduphere · 4 months

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people saying, oh it wasn't intended from the beginning so it wasn't intentional thus has to stay fanfiction bug me. like, shows can develop organically based on chemistry. they can surprise you and take you in a direction that wasn't planned but now just works. like, fucking, chandler and monica wasn't planned from the beginning! but the actors had chemistry and the writers tried it out and it became iconic. you don't throw something away just because it surprised you instead of being pre-planned; you cultivate whatever gold you find!

With Hollywood entertainment in particular, I think there is a lot of ignorance regarding how the creative process, production process, post-production process, and business all work. It is readily apparent that in Hollywood, there are many hands in the kitchen when it comes to creating a movie, documentary, or show. The "Original Intent" argument is weakest when it comes to Hollywood art, and in fact fails to be a viable argument in multiple areas. I will discuss how the "Original Intent" argument fails in Hollywood in more depth under the read more, using what I know from having worked in the industry myself as a writer. And to be honest, the fact I have to pull my private professional history out online, just to prove I'm not being delulu when it comes to the importance of queer subtext in film, pisses me the fuck off.

To be clear, since this whole discourse mess on my Tumblr is likely the result of someone thinking I'm an anti-sylki: I AM NOT AN ANTI. I have an extensive analysis on Sylvie as an integral character to the Loki series, Sylki in canon, and her relationship with Mobius here.

I agree with you: a lot of amazing art deviates from the original intention, especially writing. If deviating from original intent in the writing process did not exist, we would not have DRAFT REVISIONS, we would not have IMPROV, we would not have EDITORS (whose entire job hinges on giving the writer not only grammar corrections, but feedback on how to IMPROVE character, plot, and pacing, which inherently means making changes from the original intent!). This is to say nothing of the thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands, of media scholars--with actual PhDs--who spend years of their lives performing meta-analysis to write academic papers on subject matters like this. Papers that become formal publications and contribute to how queer history is taught in universities! This is no different than academic scholars analyzing women and race representation and resistance in film. Why should analyzing queer representation and resistance in film be treated any less?

LET'S TALK ABOUT ORIGINAL CREATIVE INTENT VS POWER HIEARCHY & POLITICS IN HOLLYWOOD

For context with respect to this ask, a different Tumblr user critiqued against queer subtext in one of my posts using the "original intent" argument for the Loki series and Lokius specifically. By this logic, if original intent is always honored, then the original script for Loki's S2E5 (written by Eric Martin) would not have been NUKED by the executive powers that be at Marvel. [source] But no, the original intent was not honored, it was rejected. So how does one square the primacy of original intent with original intent being rejected by people who are not the artist but the people who manage Disney's finances?

In television, "Executive Producer" (i.e. Tom Hiddleston, Michael Waldron, Eric Martin, etc.) is a title that can be given to a writer or actor who has more creative say in the execution of a story than a regular staff writer or actor on crew. It also indicates that the writer or actor is in a much higher salary range compared to their professional peers. It does NOT mean the same thing as a CORPORATE "Producer" of Kevin Feige's level, who ultimately has the FINAL SAY on what does NOT end up on the cutting room floor. The corporate Producer must take into account the wishes of corporate's shareholders and board of directors, who are often multi-million if not multi-billion global investors who need the distribution of the product to succeed internationally in countries like China, which is very anti-LGBTQAI+. This is how a script like Eric Martin's S2E5 can be nuked and the writer can be contractually gagged from talking about its specific contents by Disney, lest they be SUED TO HELL for breaking their non-disclosure agreements (NDAs).

This doesn't even take into account politics.

In 2020, Ike Perlmutter, Chair of Marvel, "gave $575,000 to Trump For Victory, $35,500 to the Republican National Committee in April, $5600 for Texans For Ronny Jackson in February. 2019 saw him donate $248,000 to the Republican National Committee, $466,100 to Trump For Victory, $5,600 to Donald Trump For President." His wife, Laura, mirrored those donations. "In late 2016, he also gave $5,000,000 to the Great America PAC." [source] Ike was only recently laid off from his position in March 2023 [source]. Perlmutter was in a power-struggle at Marvel with Kevin Feige for years. Feige was promoted to Chief Creative Officer in 2019, which brought the power struggle to a head, ultimately contributing to Perlmutter's departure.

There is also Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, who was famously quoted during the Writers Guild of America strike for saying, “It’s very disturbing to me. We’ve talked about disruptive forces on this business and all the challenges we’re facing, the recovery from COVID which is ongoing, it’s not completely back. This is the worst time in the world to add to that disruption”

This is the worst time in the world to negotiate to pay your writers, YOUR CREATIVE LABOR FORCE, who entertained millions of people while they were stuck in their homes for 2 years, fairly?

And these are just two men in executive power at Marvel and Disney. We're not even talking about all the other board members and shareholders. You think Tom Hiddleston, Michael Waldron, and Eric Martin have any real power compared to these guys? They do not. They are peons by comparison. And these artists (despite their "Executive Producer" title) are always at odds with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), who are ultimately not artists but FINANCIERS.

Here's another quote from a studio executive that occurred during the writer's strike:

"Receiving positive feedback from Wall Street since the WGA went on strike May 2, Warner Bros Discovery, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Paramount and others have become determined to “break the WGA,” as one studio exec blatantly put it.

To do so, the studios and the AMPTP believe that by October most writers will be running out of money after five months on the picket lines and no work.

“The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses,” a studio executive told Deadline. Acknowledging the cold-as-ice approach, several other sources reiterated the statement. One insider called it “a cruel but necessary evil.”" [source 1] [source 2]

Fortunately, this negative press and the WGA members' solidarity led to the WGA getting everything they demanded. I still have friends in the industry, specifically in the WGA and MPEG. A lot of them were indeed starved out. My friend who's a film editor is still unemployed because pre-production has only recently started to ramp up again and her profession is all in post. She has to wait for production to catch-up and finish in order to get work.

If the AMPTP is willing to use clearly unethical tactics to underpay their writers and actors (don't forget the SAG-AFTRA strike that joined later), do we really think members of the AMPTP (the studio execs) are willing to honor artists' original intent if the original intent may be "offensive to some viewers" and therefore can potentially cut into their financial bottom line?

We're not naive. We know the answer to this.

OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH, KILLING EVE, AND GOOD OMENS

But what about OFMD, KE, and GO? These shows are on MAX, BBC, and Amazon Prime respectively. These corporations have a different branding image than Disney. Disney touts itself as "family friendly"; (read: on-screen LGBTQAI+ affection between two lead characters is "not family friendly"). MAX and BBC's branding type also affords them the luxury of creating content for niche audiences. Disney, on the other hand, makes additional revenue through using their plethora of licenses to make toys, additions to their theme parks, and other merch. If a parent is offended that a canonically queer character like Loki has romantic love not just for Sylvie but also for Mobius (a same-sex relationship), what are the odds of parents like them not buying Disney's merchandise? We can apply this same question to Star Wars, Pixar, and any of Disney-branded animation or live action movies. How deeply can audience offense potentially cut into Disney's bottom line? If there were no discrimination taking place, we would have LGBTQAI+ representation through a lead character in any one of their licenses already. We do not, and that is a huge red flag.

In addition, these entertainment corporations (who do not tout themselves as "family friendly") generate other sources of revenue elsewhere. Netflix generates international revenue through the production of international programming like "Squid Game" and other K-dramas such as "The Glory" or Mexican shows including, "The Surrogacy" and "Haunted: Latin America". MAX is struggling. They were bought out for that reason. With AppleTV and Hulu, their target audiences are more diverse, they offer a variety of media product, and their business strategy is ultimately different from Disney. All of this grants them more freedom in what kind of characters they choose to represent, including LGBTQAI+ characters.

Remember House and Wilson from House M.D.? That show was on FOX. We know the political alignment of FOX. Dean and Castiel from Supernatural? WB Television. Both shows came out before streaming became dominant, and thus, these shows had to cater to anyone who might happen to land on their channels. When the market demands that you cater to the widest possible audience in order to generate the largest revenue, the creatives are forced to create relatively conservative artistic product. Hence, creative censorship and our long history of queer subtext.

At Nickelodeon, the artists actually had the support of corporate to move forward with Korrasami because the final season Legend of Korra was only available online. It did not air on their channel. If that had not been the case, corporate would not have approved Korrasami. However, that approval was contingent upon the artists being subtle subtle about Korra and Asami's relationship. Even in this canon ship, the animators relied on subtext for queer romance.

Not helping Disney's case is the cancellation of "The Owl House". Why was "The Owl House" canceled? It didn't fit Disney's "brand". [source]

THE FAILURES OF THE "ORIGINAL INTENT" ARGUMENT IN HOLLYWOOD

The "Original Intent" argument fails when it comes to art in Hollywood because:

Original Intent can change, and often does change, during the creative process. This applies to all forms of art, not just Hollywood.

Multiple artists are involved in pre-production, production, and post-production. At any point in this 3-part process of filmmaking, original intent can be changed for a variety of reasons.

Studio Executives, Boards of Directors, and Corporate Shareholders have more power than the artists in Hollywood. If they think a product will not make money, they will order changes accordingly.

Disney specifically touts itself as "family friendly". Its lack of a lead character (in ANY of its live-action licenses) being in an openly queer relationship with someone who presents as the same sex, is the direct result of not wanting to lose conservative audiences.

Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) are common in Hollywood and prevent artists from providing specifics regarding original intent. This is done not only to safeguard corporate's intellectual property (IP), but to also safeguard their public relations image.

THE ORIGINAL INTENT ARGUMENT WEAPONIZED

The "original intent" mindset can be either very naive or very cynical, depending on the thinker's motives for choosing this belief. Naive, in that thinking creative purity actually exists (it does not) or that oppression does not still occur in Hollywood (it does). Cynical, in that either the thinker doesn't believe in artists intentionally finding ways around mass produced arts' media censorship, which has in turn created our rich history of queer subtext in film, OR the thinker wants the "original intent" argument to invalidate a change they do not like.

The last motive is the same strategy used by fans who reject Miles Morales as being a real Spider-Man. The same strategy fans use to deny that Shuri is indeed the new Black Panther. Both are tactics used to mask racism and sexism beneath the veneer of "creative purity". Fans who have internalized racism, sexism, or queer-phobia may also use this tactic at a subconscious level to protect themselves emotionally from disappointment. Finally, there are fans who use this argument to invalidate another ship, usually a queer ship that cannot be formally canonized because of corporate studio power.

Regardless of the reasoning, using this argument is frequently insidious because it perpetuates straight white male dominance in media representation.

PERSONAL LIVED EXPERIENCE

I'm an old poc queer and have worked in Hollywood long enough to know that the writers' original vision rarely ever--IF EVER--pans out as originally intended. If you ever sit through a movie and wonder why the story feels so weird in certain parts, I can guarantee you that about 2/5ths of the time, a corporate producer stepped in and messed with the original story in post-production (usually in an poor, over-worked editor's dark editing bay) and ordered reshoots the director may not have agreed with.

I've also worked in the industry long enough to know that it is an absolutely toxic work environment in which women, people of color, and queer people still struggle to get a creative foothold anywhere. My first experience pitching a script to a prospective agent involved being asked to meet at a hotel for drinks. We didn't talk about my writing at all. What I thought would be a pitch meeting was actually the writer's version of the "Hollywood casting couch". Yes, I was propositioned. No, nothing happened to me. I walked out. This happened to me in June 2008. It was not my last experience. The "Me Too" movement that came years later in 2017 was in response to situations I have encountered like this.

Those of us who succeed are very rare, and 97% of the time, the executive staff is very, very white and male. There is absolutely oppression and exploitation of all sorts still happening in Hollywood. I fucking lived it and continue to have nightmares about it.

QUEER SUBTEXT STILL EXISTS

Thus, to deny queer subtext's validity as an art form and to only accept the words of those who are either in power or limited in what they can say because of those in power, undermines not only the artists' efforts to tell the story they want to tell but cannot tell explicitly, it also undermines queer joy and queer resistance in cinema. And yes, sometimes those artists are cis straight white male allies who want to tell these stories because they simply make sense for the characters. These people are the artists, not the financiers.

It's more mature to embrace, or at least leave alone, the loud joy others experience from shipping and performing meta-analysis instead of publicly pissing on them with the profoundly weak and ignorant argument of "original intent". Don't mess with me on this. The number of scripts I have worked on that completely warped from what I wanted, and then to have my writing credit removed or stolen, still makes me sick. Yes, I'm bitter, but I'm also glad I left.

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