AI: Thanks a lot, Woody Allen
By It will surprise precisely no one that I caught an opening night show of Captain America 2: The Winter Solder (which I loved a whole hell of a lot), but one thing in particular has stuck with me these past couple days: the relationship between Steve and Natasha. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that their friendship is pretty central to the film, but it’s explicitly a platonic relationship.
The media tends to have some pretty serious difficulties portraying mixed-gender friendships without fucking it up. The trope is so pervasive that even somebody as thoroughly queer and generally mindful of stuff like this as I am just kind of expects things to go in that direction whenever a dude and a lady start exchanging banter. That they managed it in Winter Soldier–and managed it without queering either character or harping on their romantic connections to other people–is pretty remarkable to me. (Although I think it goes without saying that I’d be pleased as punch if they had queered Steve up a little. I am not ashamed.)
So the question of the day is:
Have you seen any other movies that portray this kind of relationship well?
The Afternoon Inqueery (or AI) is a question posed to you, the Queereka community. Look for it every Sunday at 3pm ET.
Featured image from Captain America 2: The Winter Solder.
“Lost in Translation” People seem to either love this movie or hate it. I fall into the “love it” group. I found it very refreshing to for a man and woman to have an intimate relationship without sexualizing it.
Pacific Rim did it with Raleigh and Mako – I was expecting a mildly entertaining action flick and I got a /well-paced/ action flick with an emotionally mature male lead (?!?!??!) and a badass female lead with a nuanced platonic dynamic. It fails the Bechdel test pretty solidly, but that’s pretty much the only thing I didn’t like about it.