Thor: Ragnarok's Tessa Thompson made headlines recently when she came forward and admitted that her character, Valkyrie, is bisexual. There has been quite a bit of excitement about the debut of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's very first LGBT character, but now it looks like the debut may not be quite as full-blown as some had anticipated. In fact, Thompson has taken to Twitter in an attempt to clarify her comments and explain that Valkyrie's bisexuality is faithful to the source material, but the film does not necessarily address it. The Creed star explained the Han Solo-inspired hero's sexuality, writing:
So there you have it. Tessa Thompson's Valkyrie is bisexual, but according to her Twitter post, it is not necessarily a significant plot point in Thor: Ragnarok. In fact, it is not even something that gets brought up throughout the course of the film. That last bit kind of makes a certain degree of sense in the grand scheme of things, as Thor's big rush to save his people from Hela makes it reasonable to assume that nobody in the film will stop to talk about his or her sexual orientation at any point.
That said, Valkyrie's status as an LGBT heroine is still a critical moment for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. To date, the franchise has never included a non-heterosexual hero; even if Valkyrie does not necessarily show it on screen in Thor: Ragnarok, the fact that the folks behind the scenes have recognized her bisexuality from the comics feels like a significant indicator that the creative team did their homework in the creation of the character.
In fact, Tessa Thompson's confirmation of Valkyrie's bisexuality makes her movie character very similar to the comics. There has been quite a bit of talk about the representation of LGBT characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe over the course of the last few years (such as the campaign to give Captain America a boyfriend in the MCU), but Valkyrie is different because she is bisexual in the source material. It would not require a change of anything that fans know about the character, which means establishing it on the big screen merely means that Marvel is faithfully adapting the heroine.
To get a better look at just how badass Valkyrie will be in Thor: Ragnarok, take a look at a trailer for Taika Waititi's upcoming sci-fi superhero epic below!
Thor: Ragnarok will premiere in theaters one week from today on November 3, 2017. Tickets for Thor Odinson's third big screen adventure are currently available. Make sure to get yours now and take a look at our 2017 movie premiere guide and our 2018 movie premiere guide to see what else is coming over the next year!
