After the movie I couldn’t help but feel betrayed by that ending, for various reasons: chief among them was the blatant disregard for the subtext present in the 3 cap movies.
Cap’s character has been interpreted as bisexual for a very long time now (first in the comics and then in the MCU), and for a reason.
We all knew nothing was gonna happen between Steve and Bucky, but we also didn’t suspect that we were going to be given a healty dose of no homo. Because that’s ultimately what poor Peggy was reduced to.
I can only assume it was done to put the nail in the gay coffin once and for all, after the debate that happened in the last couple of years about Steve’s relationship with Bucky in the movies and also in the comics. We all remember the reviews after The Winter Soldier and Civil War, the #givecapaboyfriend thing on twitter and the 180 Marvel pulled on Planet Hulk, going as far as to change an actual panel because Steve and Bucky were holding hands in victory in it. Like, the straights are wild.
So, I wasn’t expecting much from the announcement that we were getting a gay character in Endgame: I already suspected they were going to be minor. But, in light of that ending, I think Joe Russo’s character was only there to avoid accusations of homophobia. And it’s honestly disheartening because that scene could have been great!
Let me explain.
Again, I’m not delusional enough to believe that they would make Steve canonically bisexual: I know the world we live in and the company that owns the MCU. But! Captain America has been a gay icon for decades and it would have been nice to see him at least show support, or acknowledge in some way that he understood the man’s struggle.
I say this, because everytime gay rep is brought up in relation to Cap, I remember one of my favourite issues from the comics.
In Volume 1 #296, Cap is trying to save his childhood friend Arnie Roth (MCU!Bucky is a mix of the Bucky from the comics and Arnie, in this regard) who’s been kidnapped by Baron Zemo and Mother Superior. In a previous issue Arnie’s boyfriend Michael had been abducted as well.
Cap goes to the rescue!
When Cap finds Arnie, he is under some kind of mind control and gives a speech about how being gay is something shameful; he says that the nazis were right to lock them away in the camps and that their love isn’t real and natural. He then accuses Steve of being homosexual as well. Why would he still be his friend otherwise? At this point, Arnie manages to overcome the brainwashing (I wonder who else fought being mind controlled for Steve…)
Cap finally breaks down the barrier put in place by Zemo and Mother Superior to stop him from rescuing his friend. Arnie is drained and collapses in front of him.
Now here comes my favourite part.
Captain America gently cradles his friend in his arms and tells him that his love for Michael is pure and exactly the same as his love for Bernie (Cap’s girlfriend at the time). It is the people who don’t accept him the ones who should be ashamed. Steve’s mind then goes immediately to Bucky who, like Michael (unfortunately dead) is another victim in his “private little war”. It’s not explicitly spelled out, obviously, but it’s very telling that Cap, who’s been accused in the previous panel of being “one of us” immediately thinks about his long lost friend in relation to a gay couple. Just saying…
Now, shipping goggles aside, I think it is very interesting that Cap defines homophobes as a disease. The choice of words isn’t casual at all.
This issue is from August 1984. Let that sink in.
We’re in the middle of the AIDS epidemic, at a time when Reagan was happy to let the gay community die and this disease was still called GRID. And yet! Captain America, symbol of the nation, was fighting tooth and nail to save his openly gay friend from the clutches of Nazi monsters who didn’t accept him or his love for another man.
Steve not only defends his friend, but draws a perfect parallel between Arnie’s gay relationship with Michael and his love story with a woman, effectively equating these two types of bond, no differences at all between the two.
So you understand now why I am genuinly upset that in the year of our Lord 2019 we got this sorry excuse of representation, and a regression of Steve’s character that ignores all the subtext built up in his 3 solo movies for the sake of a heterosexual relationship that was over before even starting.
When a comic book from 35 years ago, from what has been one of the darkest moments in queer history, treats the gay community with a compassion and respect that are totally lacking in a movie filmed in the allegedly modern days of meaningful representation, well… you know that something’s rotten.