What Is Deadpool and Wolverine’s Big Gay Marketing Campaign Trying To Say?

Deadpool and Wolverine is coming to save the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or so hope the MCU faithful. Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman’s multiversal mashup, in which the duo will reprise their titular fan-favorite superheroes, comes at a critical crossroads for the comic book movie era: with diminishing box office returns after years of oversaturation, superhero studios are tacking toward quality over quantity, and the hope is that the third Deadpool will mark the genre’s resurgent return to form.

The major sell is that Shawn Levy’s threequel will unite two of Marvel’s most valuable toys, bringing what were once Fox’s Uncanny X-Men into what is now Disney’s MCU, and pay off a la Spider-Man: No Way Home, which brought together the three cinematic Spider-Men of the 21st Century on the way to just shy of $2 billion at the box office. Will it be such a huge draw? Time will tell, but on current evidence, our expectations are mixed. On the one hand, Deadpool‘s signature sense of humor has historically meant a decent time had by all, and Jackman was built from scratch in a charisma factory; I mean, who doesn’t like Hugh Jackman? And who didn’t love his Wolverine?

But the marketing campaign, so far, has all but relied on a single tiresome joke, in what is the movie marketing equivalent of pointing at something and going “Ha, gay!”— namely, that Deadpool wants to fuck Wolverine.

It began with the very first poster, where Deadpool and Wolverine’s masks represent one part each of a BFF broken heart necklace, with the caption “come together,” essentially a thinly-veiled joke about platonic bros having sex. Other materials emphasising their more-than-a-bromance have followed. It’s all very late ’90s, touching on the age-old cliché that homocurious straight men are but one poppers-sniff away from full-on doggy with their childhood bestie—“brojob, choo choo,” etc.