The Erasure of Gay Characters Continues in Jurassic World: Fallen Franchise—I Mean Kingdom
I really don’t know many people who are excited for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. There have been video essays explaining how the Jurassic movie series has failed to live up to the perfection of the first film. Now, I don’t think that every sequel needs to be a perfect film, but it doesn’t mean it has to be so poorly thought out. Even the hilarious “Alan” scene cannot save Jurassic World 3. We got some dope memes though.
Still, with all the disappointments that were already being expected for the movie, i09 did the favor of sharing another one: erasing their token gay character’s sexuality from the narrative. The new character is Dr. Zia Rodriguez, an ex-Marine turned paleo-veterinarian, played by Daniella Pineda.
Dr. Rodriguez is brought in with the team to help evacuate the dinosaurs from the island, which is about to explode because—for some reason—they built this park on top of a volcano. Sure, Jan.
According to reviews of the film, it seems like Zia gets to be a very active heroine, which is a good thing. In bad news, we now know that at one point during the movie, she was supposed to confirm being a lesbian—except the part of a scene containing that dialogue was sliced from the final cut.
Danielle Pineda spoke about the scene in an interview:
I look at Chris [Pratt] and I’m like: ‘Yeah, square jaw, good bone structure, tall, muscles. I don’t date men, but if I did, it would be you. It would gross me out, but I’d do it.’ I love that I’m looking at Chris Pratt, the hottest guy in the world, and I’m like, ‘It would gross me out, but I guess I would do it!’ It was also cool, because it was a little insight into my character. But they cut it.
Now, in all fairness, that piece of dialogue is bad. Not only because of how awkward it sounds, but why is the way she’s confirming being a lesbian by talking about the sexiness of a man? I mean Bryce Dallas Howard, with her glorious face and hair-cape, is right there. But I guess it might be offputting to have lesbians exist without at least acknowledging penises. 🙄
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom joins many other films in the “gay on the press tour” faction that includes Solo, Thor: Ragnarok, and others. It’s really annoying that in 2018 (during Pride month no less) that the best creatives can think to do about including queer characters in their series is the old “if I were into dudes” line, which is so pointless that of course it gets cut. I mean, considering Zia is going to an island where all the dinosaurs are female, I’m sure a fun quip could have been made about that.
With all the outrage that has been going on about this ongoing erasure, I’m hoping that Disney, Marvel, Universal, Warner Bros., et al are listening. We don’t want LGBTQ characters to only exist in “gay” movies, especially when they want to share with us Lando was pansexual after the fact. The fact that Deadpool 2 gave us the first MCU gay couple, while still not confirming that Wade is pansexual, is a reminder that it’s one step forward, two steps back.
There is only so long Hollywood can keep blaming China for their choices.
(via i09, image: Universal)
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