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Credit: D23Marvel Studios allegedly decided to scrap an upcoming transgender storyline from a popular series in the wake of President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in last week’s election.
Five years on from what was pushed as Marvel’s first openly gay scene in Avengers: Endgame (2019) – which ended up being nothing more than a throwaway line – the past few years have seen Marvel Studios gradually improve its LGBTQ+ representation.
Most recently, Aubrey Plaza’s character Rio Vidal (AKA Death) and the eponymous Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) shared a kiss in Agatha All Along, a show that Out has dubbed “the MCU’s gayest project ever.”
But despite recent strides, recent news suggests that Marvel is actually taking a step back representation-wise.
Artists who worked on one upcoming release have taken to social media to complain that the studio has decided to pull an entire episode due to its focus on a trans character who wants to play in a girls’ volleyball game but is refused by “a narrow-minded coach.”
According to Polygon, artists claim that the episode was “shelved because of which party won the recent election.” However, a source from Disney told the site that the decision was made over a year ago and was not based on the result of recent U.S. elections.
They said the decision was based on “this specific episode, not because of the character being trans.” They also added that the episode is not “banned,” per se, but is simply being “held.”
The episode came from an animated Marvel series known as Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, which debuted on Disney Channel in February 2023 and later streamed on Disney Plus.
Based on the Marvel Comics of the same name, it follows a 13-year-old genius named Lunella Lafayette (Diamond White), who accidentally brings a massive T. rex named Devil Dinosaur (Fred Tatasciore) to modern-day New York City, where the pair decide to team up to defend her neighborhood.
According to The Verge (which saw a leaked version), the episode focused on Brooklyn (Indya Moore), an openly trans character in the show, who is team captain until Greer (Amy Sedaris) – a coach/parent from a different school – disputes her inclusion after discovering that she previously played on a male team.
The episode reportedly featured “a couple of queer and trans pride flags” and is “fundamentally uplifting and clearly meant to emphasize the importance of respecting other people.”
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur started airing its second (and final) season in February, and the remaining episodes are set to premiere in 2025.
While there’s a chance this episode was, in fact, delayed (or canceled) due to quality reasons, as the source from Disney claimed, there have been concerns over the impact the recent election may have on The Walt Disney Company.
Some fear that the Republican leader and his running mate, J.D. Vance, could have more widespread impacts on the Disney parks, with Trump having previously slammed the company for going “woke.” Trump’s re-election campaign also featured plenty of transphobic comments.
Since the election, it’s been reported that Disney has once again started paying for ads on X, formerly known as Twitter, despite previously boycotting the platform owned by Elon Musk (who is set to play a key role in Trump’s government).
Combined with the fact that Disney CEO Bob Iger himself has noted that the company’s content has become too “message-focused,” this may be the beginning of a different era of messaging for the studio’s films and TV shows.
Much has been made of Kevin Feige’s, the President of Marvel Studios, efforts to make the MCU more inclusive. According to Mark Ruffalo (who plays Bruce Banner/The Hulk in the franchise), the executive was even willing to quit his job over his belief that the franchise needed greater representation.
As Ruffalo said in 2020, “When we did the first ‘Avengers,’ Kevin Feige told me, ‘Listen, I might not be here tomorrow,'” Ruffalo said.
“And he’s like, ‘Ike does not believe that anyone will go to a female-starring super movie.’ So if I am still here tomorrow, you will know that I won that battle.'” Ruffalo added: “Kevin wanted black superheroes, women superheroes, LGBT superheroes. He changed the whole Marvel universe.”
What do you think of Marvel’s decision to pull the episode?