Tag Archives: Queer Superhero

Black Lightning’s Nafessa Williams Opens Up About Getting A New Girlfriend On The Show

Black Lightning’s lesbian superhero just got a new girlfriend – and the actress playing her could not be more excited.

CW’s new show, Black Lightning – which is available on Netflix) – just gifted it’s awesome lesbian superhero a new girlfriend – and the actress playing her could not be more excited.

Played by Nafessa Williams, Anissa Pierce is an out and proud lesbian superhero known as Thunder, who is practically invincible.

In the first few episodes, Anissa came to terms with her newfound abilities – a process which Williams has compared to coming out as a lesbian.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, the actress said her character, who is also a medical student and a teacher at her father’s school, was in a period of “discovery”.

“She begins to struggle with it because she’s learning these things about herself and she’s finding out about how these powers work and where they came from. But it’s one of those things [where she wonders:] am I a freak? Do I share it? Is anyone going to believe me? My parents are overprotective, how are they going to accept it?”

“It’s almost in the mental space you’re at if you’re coming out as a gay or a lesbian to your parents,” she continued. “It’s a parallel like that as well. It’s a secret that she holds onto for a while because she really doesn’t know who to talk to about it and how people are going to react to that.”

After revealing her powers in episode two with her destruction of a sink, the programme chose last week to casually reveal Anissa’s sexuality by showing her in bed with her girlfriend Chenoa.

They kissed, they talked, they argued and they generally acted like a normal couple.

But Anissa’s love life is about to get a whole lot more complicated, it seems.

Grace Choi, played by Pretty Little Liars actress Chantal Thuy, will be introduced as Anissa’s girlfriend at some point in the series.

In the comics, half-Amazonian, Asian-American Grace is bisexual, and there seems to be no reason to doubt she will be in the show as well.

Williams said Anissa and Grace “have a lot in common. If you’re familiar with the comics, they were a group called  The Outsiders.”

And the actress said that Grace would help her character.

“She’s a peace of mind for Anissa. It’s pretty cool to be able to tap into that.”

A black lesbian superhero is a groundbreaking role to play, but Williams dismissed suggestions that it was in any way a strain on her.

“I won’t say that I feel any pressure. I believe love is love.

15 Reasons To Create Queer Art

Make queer art.

If you’re an artist, create a queer superhero. If you’re a writer, include queer characters. If you’re a filmmaker, don’t shy away from LGBT content. If you like video games, please, for the sake of queer gamers, create.

Of course, you don’t have to make queer art. You have no obligation to, even if you’re the queerest queer artist who ever dared to queer.

But here are 15 amazing reasons why it’s worth it.

  1. LGBTQ youth need to see queer representation now more than ever.
  2. Writers keep killing off LGBT characters. Only you have the power to make it stop.
  3. We’re sick of tragic coming-out stories. For the love of God, introduce writers to the concept of happy endings.
  4. Not all lesbians are hot women secretly looking for a man. Or gym teachers. Let’s start making lesbian stories realistic.
  5. Cisgender white men haven’t realized that gender and sexuality are a spectrum. You can create something truly diverse.
  6. The media industry is frantically looking to queer people for new stories.
  7. You’ll grow a thick skin. Why? Because you’re going to accidentally offend someone at some point, most likely conservatives. You’ll get used to it.
  8. I mean, Disney is doing it.
  9. The world is becoming so openly diverse that if you don’t include queer characters, you’re going to look behind the times.
  10. People finally have the courage to ask – no, demand – to see themselves represented.
  11. You can finally create the characters you dreamed about seeing as a teenager.
  12. You’ll get to roll up to the Lambda Awards in style.
  13. Think of it as slash and femslash come to life. We all know you wrote Sirius Black/Remus Lupin fanfiction when you were fourteen.
  14. You can shine light on the LGBT issues people overlook, like microaggressions or police brutality against trans women.
  15. You can collaborate with other amazing queer artists and form a coalition of queer talent.

What are you waiting for? Pick up a super-gay notebook and start brainstorming!

Doctor Strange’s Tilda Swinton Is Holding Out For A Queer Superhero

Tilda Swinton is soon to appear as The Eternal in the new Marvel film, Doctor Strange, has said she is hoping that Marvel will soon give us a gay superhero.

During an interview with Out Magazine, Swinton discusses some of the criticism Doctor Strange has received, especially around the fact that her character was changed from an Asian comic book character.

tilda-swinton-doctor-strange

Swinton said her message to these critics is simple:

Anyone speaking up for a greater accuracy in the representation of the diversity of the world we live in has me right beside them. As someone who has worked from the beginning as an artist within a queer aesthetic, the urgency of that voice is always going to be welcome.”

Swinton goes on to talk about Marvels own commitment to diversity.

I believe in Marvel’s wholehearted commitment to creating a diverse and vibrant universe, avoiding stereotype and cliché wherever possible in a determination to keep things fresh and lively. We are also still looking forward to our first gay Marvel superhero, naturally. Let’s hope that’s only a matter of time.”

During the interview in Swinton also discusses ‘the nature of queerness’ and expresses this view:

I have lived for my entire adult life closely integrated into a queer aesthetic, occasionally in situations where I may have been—for months at a time – either the only cis woman present or the only person in a heterosexual relationship, without particularly questioning why it might be strange for me to be included. The issue of sexuality is a secondary one to the issue of spirit. My analysis is, as my grandmother would say, ‘Horses for courses,’ meaning, each to their own.”

She also has strong opinions on attitudes to queerness and how these attitudes can unite.

Queerness is an attitude that, when acknowledged as shared, can bring more people together than could ever be divided by it being used as a term of rejection.”

Tilda is very open and proud about her own attitude to queerness and continued by saying:

I think this attitude is what I carry above my head, without any effort or influence. I think it is a form of semaphore that my colleagues recognize as a homing beacon—and I am proud to say I think it was probably blinking away even in my cradle.”

Swinton is a very positive voice for the queer community and it’s an honour to have her speak up for us in such a vocal way.

Let’s hope she gets her wish and Marvel will indeed give us our first ever gay Marvel Superhero.