MARVEL STUDIOS BOSS PROMISES
"LGBT" CHARACTERS IN FUTURE FILMS
BY SELWYN DUKE
SEE: https://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/item/29409-marvel-studios-boss-promises-lgbt-characters-in-future-films; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
We don’t know if they’ll have a “gay ray” or be able to close down a Christian bakery in a single bound, but Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films may soon feature two “LGBT” superheroes. Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige made this promise in a recent interview, because, as we all know, portraying anomalous sexuality all the time, everywhere, is a modern American imperative. As Bustle reports:
Now that the MCU has completed its first three phases and released 19 superhero movies, it's time for a change. The lack of LGBTQ heroes has long been criticized, and the Disney-owned Marvel Studios has heeded those critiques. In an interview with The Playlist, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige revealed that at least two LGBT characters will join the MCU. The always hush-hush studio didn't quite name who those heroes would be, but Feige did reveal that the LGBT heroes won’t all necessarily be added to the MCU as new characters. When asked who the LGBT characters would be, Feige said, “Both [characters] you’ve seen and ones you haven’t seen.”
Of course, this is remarkably narrow open-mindedness. What about polygamous and zoophile (relating to bestiality) characters and those with various paraphilias (strange sexual desires, such as fetishes)? What about the “species dysphoria” people who identify as animals? It’s a big world out there. Why exclude anyone?
The point is that virtually everyone here gets things backward without even realizing it. The sexual devolutionaries condemn their opponents for singling out, let’s say, homosexuality. But it is they who single it out — for special treatment. They do not take up the cudgels for most sexual behaviors.
Consider that when Christians refuse to rubber-stamp homosexuality, it’s merely part of a paradigm for man’s sexuality that also forbids fornication, adultery, self-gratification, polygamy, viewing pornography, and often even impure thoughts. And a Christian baker would balk at being party to an event celebrating any of those things. Yet we don’t see adulterers, fornicators, or polygamists trying to shut down Christian businesses. Nor are Christians condemned as “fornicaphobes,” “adulterophobes,” or “polygaphobes.”
But the tune changes when the issue is a certain narrow range of anomalous sexual behaviors. Let’s be clear, however: What the sexual devolutionaries are actually upset about is that Christians and certain others won’t offer the same special dispensation for those behaviors and discriminate as they do.
Of course, they have their particular agenda and are very effective at advancing it, and media and entertainment are the main vehicles through which this is accomplished. This process was explained well by sexual devolutionaries Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen (a marketing man by trade) in their 1989 book After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90’s. The authors called for a desensitization of Americans to homosexuality through a “continuous flood of gay-related advertising,” a “conversion of the average American’s emotions, mind, and will, through a planned psychological attack, in the form of propaganda fed to the nation via the media.”
Entertainment’s power in this regard is unparalleled, and the tactic is simple: Create a likable character people will bond with and define him, in part, with a behavior you want accepted. Since people have trouble loving the sinner but hating the sin and too often either accept or reject both, they’ll start to accept that with which this beloved character is associated.
Some say, however, that Feige may be all talk and no action. As LifeSite reported yesterday, in “2015 he told Collider that audiences could expect to see a homosexual, bisexual, or transgender character sometime within the next decade.”
“However, whether Feige’s words signal a sincere desire to add LGBT messages to the movies, or are merely meant to appease disgruntled LGBT activists, remains unknown,” LifeSite continued. “‘Never EVER believe anything that #KevinFeige says,’ entertainment journalist Grace Randolph said Monday.... ‘He says yes to everything he’s ever asked because he doesn't want any negative coverage.’”
Moreover, there may be a reason why oh-so progressive Hollywood has been reluctant to promote homosexuality as overtly on the silver screen as it does on TV. Putting pocketbook before principle, it may be wary of alienating the Chinese, who boast a huge market and may ban films with sexual-devolutionary content.
Unbeknownst to most Americans, the Chinese wield tremendous power over Hollywood and already control much of what you see on screen, as The New American has reported in the past.
Yet the home front could be an issue, too, as “domestic audiences may be increasingly wary of ‘representation’ in their entertainment,” LifeSite also informs. The news organ continues:
In March, GLAAD found that America’s LGBT acceptance has actually begun to decrease, which conservatives attribute to the LGBT lobby’s transition from “live and let live” arguments to attacks on other Americans’ religious, conscience, and privacy rights.
Parent company Marvel Entertainment, which is owned by Disney, has taken a beating on the political front in recent years, as well, raising further questions as to whether it really wants to risk altering the formula that has brought it success across nineteen [MCU] films so far.
Marvel Comics canceled all three of its comic book series that won GLAAD awards in 2017, citing poor sales. Last year, comic retailers excoriated the publisher for hurting their business with books that alienated readers by emphasizing political and “social justice” themes.
Philosopher C.S. Lewis once noted that sex “is not messed up because it was put in the closet; it was put in the closet because it was messed up.” Perhaps some Americans are tired of going to a theater to be entertained and seeing the inside of Hollywood’s closet instead.
