Straight actors keep describing their projects as “very gay,” when they are, in fact, very not. Recently, for example, Natalie Portman did this when talking about Thor: Love and Thunder, a movie that didn’t even give Valkyrie a girlfriend! Maybe straight people don’t know how to answer this question because they don’t understand the scale of gayness? And so I have made a handy visual guide to help straights answer the question: How Gay Is It? Feel free to distribute to all your straight companions.
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Heather Hogan is an Autostraddle senior editor who lives in New York City with her wife, Stacy, and their cackle of rescued pets. She's a member of the Television Critics Association, GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, and a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer critic. You can also find her on Twitter and Instagram.
Heather has written 1718 articles for us.
We are all dying over the WNBA being more gay than the L-Word, right?! Sue Bird’s suits put the league over the top.
The Courtney Vandersloot cam while Allie Quigley winning her FOURTH (!!!!!!!) 3-point contest is profoundly gay. Candace Parker filming Courtney and Allie for IG is a gift to all of us.
The All-Star weekend may have been produced for $5 but it sure delivered on the profound gayness I expect from the WNBA.
And Candace wearing a Quigley DePaul jersey!
So I’d say according to this scale, Thor LT falls somewhere between intensely straight and moderately straight, right?
Agreed. There were some extras in the background that might’ve been queer and a couple references with Valkyrie that seem very gay to straight people. Very straight, also kinda boring, unfortunately.
can we make this interactive? i’ve got things i want to add.. <3
mario kart should be more gay. cat peach??? a princess who is also a furry ??come on
thank you. also daisy is a dyke, and yoshi is queer hello
For real. Also MAKE TRANS ICON BIRDO A MAIN PLAYABLE CHARACTER IN MARIO CART, YOU COWARDS.
She’s playable on Mario Kart Tour, if you have any interest in that! For me as a MK fan since childhood it was extremely weird to get used to (it has like.. phone game/pay to win/gambling/gacha elements) but I’ve gotten used to it now and I play it on my phone alongside regular Mario Kart on the Switch. Right now there’s like 5 colours of Birdo you can collect and play.
mario kart’s super gay, if i do say so myself (wow i wrote this 4 years ago): https://www.autostraddle.com/mario-kart-characters-ranked-in-terms-of-queerness-421122/
A very useful chart. Bookmarking this article for future reference.
#LoveIsLove = moderately straight Hahaha those well meaning heterosexuals in their pride month posts
Excellent work here Heather! 🌟 I think this dovetails nicely with Erin’s extensive Straight People Watch research:
https://www.autostraddle.com/tag/straight-people-watch/
YES AMEN YES
Heather Hogan: you are a treasure.
It is nigh impossible to my brain – and yet it is true – that the same person who did this and hilarious recaps of things also writes such beautifully heartbreaking essays on family and love.
I repeat: an absolute treasure.
This. Is brilliant.
gonna print this out and post it on the fridge
Yess, by this token, teachers should laminate it and put it up in the classroom next to the color wheel and weather charts!
New merch: “Profoundly Gay”. On everything.
The floor is lava! Is that why I cannot sit on chairs or couches like straights? I even use a homemade foot raiser for better restroom experiences. Not as gay as that L-Word double-decker-lesbian-sex-on-a-toilet scene, but still pretty gay to be aware of bowel health.