Gays, rejoice! Queer actress Tessa Thompson is playing queer again, but this time MUCH more obviously! While I, like any queer nerd, love Tessa Thompson’s portrayal of King Valkryie in the MCU, her queerness is not as…overt as it could be. Cut scenes and lines try to bury her obvious (to us) queerness under all that swagger and charm, but we couldn’t be fooled. Well, there is no hiding Tessa Thompson’s new role under a bushel; even just in the teaser trailer, it’s obvious that her character, the titular Hedda, is queer and attracted to the magnetic and sultry Eileen. (Hedda even says, quite literally, “Come on, Eileen,” which had me giggling and kicking my feet a bit, I won’t lie.)
Based on the 1891 play by Henrik Ibsen, Hedda tells the tale of a stifled housewife who throws an elegant party with her husband where things start to devolve into chaos. As in the play, an ex of Hedda’s shows up to shake things up…but writer/director Nia DaCosta has gender-bent this ex into a woman named Eileen (Nina Hoss) who shows up with her new gal pal Thea (Imogen Poots), sending Hedda into a bit of a tailspin. DaCosta (who was also the writer/director of The Marvels, which featured aforementioned Valkryie) says that making Hedda’s ex a woman gave Hedda’s fight against “the men that tell them what they should and shouldn’t be doing” more depth, saying it “made it more potent, more powerful, and also more unfortunately tragic.”
This is not the first retelling of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, but it is definitely the gayest, and I can’t wait.
Hedda will be coming to theaters in October, but you can watch the electric energy for yourself in this teaser trailer.
“A little chaos is good for the gathering,” indeed.
A Chaotic Selection of News
+ Sophie Turner read her thirst tweets at Buzzfeed, and most of them were lesbians fawning all over her and she was LIVING for it
+ Betty Who falls victim to this horrifying new trend of queer female celebrities getting so defensive about the fact that they’re dating a man when literally no one said anything about it that they spin out into homophobia and start talking like far right straight people saying things like “It’s kind of like, now we’ve come so far, that our community is so strong, that now it’s like a crime to be straight”….when meanwhile, straight marriage isn’t the thing being potentially outlawed in our country
+ There are some queer bakers in this year’s cast of The Great British Bake Off, including a drag king
+ Lupita Nyong’o stars in the famously gender bendy (I mean we’ve all seen She’s the Man, right?) Twelfth Night for Shakespeare in the Park
+ ICYMI Abbi Jacobson talked to Autostraddle about voicing another queer animated character
+ Chappell Roan performed at the Reading Festival this weekend, singing all of her songs plus a cover of Heart’s Barracuda
+ This is only tangentially pop culture related but I thought it was sweet: The two women who run the Aubrey Plaza and Kathryn Hahn fan pages started dating each other, just as Agatha and Rio would have wanted; fandom can be so cute sometimes!
+ British artist KWN is coming across the pond to host and perform at Atlanta Black Pride Weekend
+ Julia Fox is pansexual but “can’t see why a man would be beneficial” which is such a mood
+ Lady Gaga performed to a sold-out crowd at Madison Square Garden this weekend
+ Last but definitely not least: We have extended the deadline for the 2025 Autostraddle TV Awards until TOMORROW (August 26th) and noon EST so if you thought you missed your chance to vote THINK AGAIN and go vote now!
