About That Ben/Phastos Discourse...
No, fans aren't 'racist' if they're unbothered about Ben/Phastos, it's simply a lacklustre ship.
We are barely into 2022 and I see a worrying trend among fans of Marvel Studios/The MCU claiming that any fan not fully supporting one particular 'ship in The MCU is a racist.
Wow! How come?
Well this latest stan Twitter row is due to recent MCU movie Eternals, which was only released two months ago.
Some more vocal fans of The MCU are currently claiming that fans who don't care about new couple, Phastos/Ben, are racist. They claim that fans have shown more support to the recent Loki show on Disney Plus than they have to Phastos/Ben in the Eternals movie, claiming it's because Loki is white while Phastos and Ben are not (the actors are Black and Lebanese respectively).
The same fans claim that MCU Loki has more fans generally than Phastos and his walk-on-character-husband named Ben. (Well, obviously? Loki has been a fan favorite for ten years. Eternals has only been out for two months. Do the math!)
Yet these fans claim that other fans will support Loki in his new show but not the gay couple in Eternals.
Look.
Let's be realistic and state off the bat that Loki will obviously have more of a fanbase having been a MCU fan favorite character for a decade. That should be obvious? It's his first solo show, his fans were excited. It was also available via streaming, thus available to more fans than a theater only release like Eternals was.
So generally speaking, his large fanbase will be present, and they showed up for his first show, and they showed up for the episode where he was supposed to confirm he is bi. (Apparently.)
Why are Loki fans under any obligation to watch a new MCU movie that doesn't feature Loki? What if they're unhappy with the post-canon of Avengers: Endgame which killed Loki (and many others!) off, and they don't feel a great need to visit a theater during a pandemic (this cannot be understated) to watch a new MCU ensemble movie of newbies. If they didn't go to the theaters for Eternals last November, I don't blame them.
Maybe more fans will watch Eternals when it streams for regular subscribers on Disney Plus. (Maybe they won't! I wouldn't blame them after the mixed reviews.)
But to go out on such a limb and claim that any Loki fan who won't now ship Phastos/Ben in Eternals is not only redundant but also shows a worrying trend of cultish driven peer pressure to back Disney the megacorp in literally anything they do.
That's concerning.
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Eternals seems to be the first really divisive MCU movie for some years now, and it's brand new characters. It's a hard sell to most fans, not just MCU fans.
And for fans who want to see m/m ships? Let's be real here. Eternals as a movie has had very mixed reviews. It's also an ENSEMBLE movie with Hetero couples as the leads. Phastos, the MCU's 'first openly gay superhero', is a supporting character at best. AT BEST! His relationship with his gay husband is brief, vague, and fleeting at its best.
Their kiss wasn't terribly passionate, it actually made me feel uncomfortable to watch it because I could tell the actors weren't allowed to have too much contact. (It's Disney! Who is surprised!) And why was it so dark? I could barely see anything! Put a spotlight on them, please! Meanwhile the Het couples got better lighting, it doesn't take a genius to notice the Het couples getting priority at every step here. Why do I have to point out the obvious?
With all that in mind, what exactly is there to get behind, here? With Ben and Phastos? What is there to get excited about? Who wants to watch a LONG messy movie with dozens of brand new characters and some overly convoluted plot for barely A FEW SECONDS of gay rep onscreen?
Gay rep that consists of: a supporting character, with a walk-on character.
No wonder fan's reactions are mixed!
Not to mention the details. As a friend of mine has rightly pointed out, is the husband Ben a mere mortal? Seems that way! If so, this so-called first openly gay relationship in the MCU isn't permanent. Ben will die, Phastos will live on. We know that from the start, and all the other Eternals characters are in relationships with each other: other immortals. There's weight and longevity with immortal/immortal relationships.
There's details and backstory for literally all the other cast of characters. None of which is present with Ben, the mortal husband, whom we know little to nothing about.
So why should we care about his relationship with Phastos when he's likely a flash in the pan? Even the actor for Ben, Haaz Sleiman, said he would've preferred to play a superhero:
"Even though I wished I was the superhero, because when will we see an Arab Muslim openly gay actor playing a superhero? I can't wait to see it."
Well, my thoughts exactly.
Why didn't Disney do that? I would've rather seen this actor play a superhero than have to watch two white dudes from Game of Thrones both dating Gemma Chan's character. Or *checks notes* a white woman in a young girl's body (Sprite) pining for one of the white GoT dudes. (This movie earned its mixed reviews.)
I'm sorry, Disney boot-lickers, but this 'rep' of Ben/Phastos in Eternals is rather pathetic and hollow.
One sanitised married couple with a kid doesn't represent all queer people. It certainly doesn't represent my queer lifestyle. That's the reason I'm feeling Meh about 'the MCU's first gay couple', because it's so boring and sanitised, because it lacks depth.
They could've been so much more! They both could've been heroes! It's frustrating, but this is Disney all over. I'm not even surprised, but I am surprised at other fans dumping on queer fans over it.
I've already written a review about Ben and Phastos, but it bears repeating because now us fans with genuine criticism of A GLOBAL MEGACORP and its hetero focused content are being called racists for not supporting Eternals.
Seriously: Stop punching down onto other fans.
The MCU is no different than other megacorps who pin up a Pride flag for one month out of the whole year, pat themselves on the back several times, then take the flag down having changed absolutely nothing about the way they do business or support LGBT+ people.
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The Ben/Phastos relationship so far has had about as much impact as a damp tea bag landing on your foot, i.e. next to none, but that isn't on fans.
Fans are ready and willing to ship characters, we are here, but the characters have got to be INTERESTING. The characters have to MATTER, to MEAN SOMETHING.
And Ben did not matter to Eternals nor its plot, not in any meaningful way. At best this couple was Disney's toe in the water for gay representation, and that hesitation is palpable onscreen.
If the movie had featured Ben and Phastos as the leads, given them more prominent roles, made their relationship a key point of the story, made their interaction less wooden, well then, that would be different.
But Disney did not do that.
Disney chose to feature the Het couples up front (rather dull Het couples to boot) and to shove their queer characters to the back. No wonder fans either didn't care or didn't notice the m/m couple, it's like asking them to find Waldo.
It's on the corporation to provide good representation in their movies and their TV shows. So far, it's been drops in an ocean, the ocean being The MCU spanning fourteen years now.
We have three official pieces of representation so far:
1. Gay Joe Russo in Avengers: Endgame
2. Loki saying some vague line about 'princes, too' in the Loki show
3. Ben and Phastos in Eternals.
That's it so far for 'official', corporate sponsored queerness allowed onscreen.
After years of queerbaiting fans, saying "wait and see!" repeatedly instead of answering our questions plain and simple, with its other hand Disney willingly split up the most popular same sex ships to actively STOP fans from engaging with them: Steve and Bucky, Carol and Maria, Loki and Thor.
All three ships have been (still are) the most popular same sex relationships in the MCU, and all three ships have been separated in MCU canon for no good reason, other than to stop fans from supporting them.
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Don't blame the fans, we are here and willing. Disney is the problem. Point your blame at the corporation who makes these executive decisions, who constantly makes the stories center Het characters, white characters and light skinned characters. That's all on Disney.
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I'd also like to add, I don't see these Disney/MCU stans EVER supporting queer content outside of the MCU.
I can list at least six recent superhero shows that feature ONSCREEN queer characters (m/m, and w/w) often with PoC actors too. But because they AREN'T The MCU I never see those Disney stans cheering those properties the same way they'll cheer any dry turd Disney that squeezes out, slaps a rainbow sticker on and calls it a day.
The message is loud and clear. What these fans are saying is: support Disney/MCU or we'll hurl wild accusations about racism at you to silence you.
This is some bullshit.
Why aren't those same fans supporting m/m and w/w ships in movies like The Old Guard? Or hyping up the first Arab superhero show, Grendel, now filming?
Or all the diversity in DC's Legends of Tomorrow, or Batwoman, or literally any superhero property that has queer rep onscreen with a diverse cast?
I am begging you to look outside of Disney and The MCU for LGBT+ rep. You cannot trust a corporation with Disney's reputation to be on your side. Please open your eyes.
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And definitely support these non-Disney superhero properties:
1. The Old Guard movie. Join us in politely tweeting Netflix to ask for updates on the sequel!
2. Grendel, and the first Arab superhero! Currently filming for Netflix
3. Batwoman, for lesbian and bisexual women characters in all the lead roles
4. Q-Force, animated series about LGBT+ super-spies (and the lead white guy gives me Steve Rogers vibes, I'm not kidding) made by an all queer creative team!
5. Super Crooks, another animated series but this one's about the super villains! There's a supporting character in a few episodes named Gladiator, who is a gay superhero. Again, giving me Captain America vibes especially with the costume! I was so pleased to see a gay character featured where his presence seems more organic than forced. What a welcome change!
There's a few more shows/movies to support but these are the ones I'm particularly interested in.
~*~
Have you spotted any MENA characters in superhero media lately? Tell me!
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