Welcome to the main discussion thread for the Marvel Cinematic Universe! This pinned post is here to establish some basic guidelines. All of the Media Forum rules
still apply.
- This thread is for talking about the live-action films, TV shows, animated works, and related content that use the Marvel brand, currently owned by Disney.
- While mild digressions are okay, discussion of the comic books should go in this thread
. Extended digressions may be thumped as off-topic.
- Spoilers for new releases should not be discussed without spoiler tagging for at least two weeks. Rather, each title should have a dedicated thread where that sort of conversation is held. We can mention new releases in a general sense, but please be courteous to people who don't want to be spoiled.
If you're posting tagged spoilers, make sure that the film or series is clearly identified outside the spoiler tagging. People need to know what will be spoiled before they choose to read the post.
Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
At this point, Marvel's struggling to even acknowledge that Gay is a thing. I don't think they're ready for Bisexual. I think it would blow their minds.
edited 7th Jun '16 9:23:40 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Film team and TV team are different teams. The TV shows have been remarkably inclusive in just about every way, even if Dare Devil S2 was bizarrely racist against Asian people.
Nothing conspiratorial about it. Just heterosexual white guys defending their hero's heterosexual white guy cred against perceived threats.
edited 7th Jun '16 9:32:00 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Nah, it's really no different than most other nerd conspiracies. This one just looks more legitimate, is all.
Really, the kiss could just be there because the Russos thought it was appropriate. Not everyone here has to believe it's some Take That! to slash shippers.
Yeah im with Ninety in this one, why the Sharon kiss was creepy, the logic of "Ether you make Steve bi or your are erasing use" is baffing, even more because more of the conectin between him and bucky can be boil down to "THEY LOOK SO CUTE/HOT!" ughhh
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"Well, actually... even though I fucking hate ship conspiracy theories as a whole, and I've seen enough really terrible ones coming from the Fan Dumb to get on edge whenever one shows up, there might be a grain of truth to this one. There's photo evidence during the reshoot period of Evans and Vancamp at the parking lot in the clothes they were wearing during the kiss scene, and the kiss scene is the only thing they could've been shooting for because the other possibility was Rudd was touching Cap's pecs and that had already been finished way at the beginning with D23. Though, Occam's Razor indicates that scene could've been shot just as much to resolve the plot hole of how Team Cap gets their gear back as it was to rush the romance along prematurely in place of cut scenes like the cafe because the "organic" way wasn't good enough for them. We know the writers are capable of doing good romances, because they are the same people who pulled off Cap/Peggy in a shorter amount of time, and made Wanda/Vision and Black Widow/Panther believable without any kissing.
Also the Russos and Scarjo started off early saying that they saw Cap and Bucky as brothers but wouldn't try to define the relationship either and Scarjo mentioned that there wasn't much romance in the film at all, much like TWS, but welp. Come the months right before CW came out and you have a bunch of interviews released around the same time where the writers and actors were all acknowledge the popularity of Cap/Bucky but reiterate they're totally brothers and the gay was totally unintentional (OK, I could've believed that enough without them telling me, so at this point it starts to sound like they're doth protesting that much) and the Russos starting to tease there would be a kiss in the movie. Also a few unconfirmed rumors circulating around the same time about Marvel getting cold feet and adding more Sharon romance to avoid the movie getting Banned in China, at a time before the movie got screened by critics.
It really does sound like their fear of Chinese censors played a factor in things (you have enough audience members in the West still convinced that Cap/Bucky aren't gay that shoehorning additional het romance elements in shouldn't be necessary), coupled with an interview released afterwards by the Russos mentioning that if they take risks and it pays off then Marvel would allow them to put LGBT characters in their films sooner than later. Rather than a Perlmutter-esque active hatred of LGBT people as the conspiracy theorists allege. The fact that they consider LGBT people an "expendable" demographic is still problematic in and of itself, but it's a matter of financial risk aversion to a fault rather than an active political agenda.
If they're dead set on committing to the Steve/Sharon romance plotline they ought to have fixer stuff like Steve admitting it was mostly him being an impulsive bastard or Sharon getting annoyed with him for trying to use her as a Peggy substitute and them going back to being friends and getting to develop Sharon as her own character before pushing the romance further.
edited 7th Jun '16 10:27:38 AM by AlleyOop
The Russos don't write romance at all, that is the job of Marcus and Mc Feely, who happened to have written the only romance in the movie I have ever been fully invested in with Peggy and Cap.
As someone who still wants Cap with Peggy and was really against the notion of hooking him up with Sharon, I am now weirdly okay with them eventually becoming an official item, mostly because they DON'T spend much time on their romance but instead ensure that Sharon is a character I can get behind, no matter with whom she hooks up. And unlike everyone else, I am totally okay with two characters kissing without having a date and a lot of romantic (unrealistic) talk beforehand.
![]()
I disagree with there being no subtext for Steve/Bucky. But admittedly rushing it would make no sense either. These are two guys from the 1940s. They'd need time and effort to even think about entering a relationship if it were ever to take place (Steve isn't even ready to date a girl with a nose ring, I don't think he's ready to undo decades of homophobia in a heartbeat).
That being said, if the proper amount of time was dedicated to it it could have worked. The issue is making it work in a movie that also has 10+ heroes in it and a debate about the legality of superheroism. And Marvel doesn't want to try to make it work because Banned in China anyways.
edited 7th Jun '16 10:17:58 AM by PhiSat
Oissu!I doubt that Steve is homophobic. But if he were inclined in that direction, I suspect the notion just would have never occurred to him. He was all the "find the right girl and have sex after marriage" type he was supposed to be back then. But he has also been exceptionally liberal, leading a mixed unit before there even were such a thing historically, doing his best to respect Peggy. It is kind of cute when he does a misstep and Peggy helps him out, because she know that he doesn't mean to be insulting.
In the comic Steve helps out a gay friend when the bad guys brainwash his friend into thinking he's a freak.
Non Indicative Username![]()
Sorry, I wasn't clear. I don't think Steve is openly homophobic, but yeah, the notion that he could be bisexual probably wouldn't occur to him right away and the idea of entering a gay relationship would probably be something he and Bucky would need time to get used to, realistically.
edited 7th Jun '16 10:35:23 AM by PhiSat
Oissu!

The other theory I've heard is that the kiss with Sharon was supposed to be put in there to appeal to the female audience because execs believe they would find her a good self-insert to imagine themselves getting with Captain America, similar to Jane but more proactive. Sounds unlikely, but execs are dumb and backwards enough that I can believe they might actually think that.
Either way I think it's important to avoid letting one's own personal preference in ships affect their judgement of the Sharon romance which happens way too much (and has led to people saying and trying to do awful shit towards Vancamp for just doing her damn job).