When the first trailer for Wonder Woman 1984 arrived online, we were treated to Diana Prince and Barbara Minerva sitting opposite each other for five whole seconds. Barbara asks: "Have you ever been in love?" and Diana replies: "A long, long time ago."
Though it was short, it was certainly sweet, and though the sentiment of Diana's undying love for Steve was definitely there, some were quick to jump on the idea of a potential relationship between Barbara and Diana. After all, that's exactly the kind of awkward, first-date question a nervous single might ask.
Despite never explicitly saying so, there has long been precedent for the movie version of Wonder Woman to be bisexual and in the comics, she is canonically bi. The trailer only served to heighten fans' excitement for a potential relationship between Cheetah and Wonder Woman—but this, apparently, won't happen.
Gal Gadot herself has confirmed the character is queer, saying: "She's a woman who loves people for who they are. She can be bisexual. She loves people for their hearts." In the first film, Wonder Woman herself says: "Men are essential for procreation, but when it comes to pleasure... Unnecessary."
Gadot also teased SFX that "Sexual tension is always there" between Diana and Barbara, which though it isn't confirmation isn't erasure, either. Cheetah, too, has had her own relationships with women in the comics, in particular with the character Etta Candy in DC Rebirth.
Yet, for all the groundwork laid out, Patty Jenkins has decided that there will be no romantic feelings between Barbara and Diana, saying a relationship "might have [happened] in a different storyline".
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The justification for not explicitly including a queer relationship between two women in Wonder Woman 1984 was down to storytelling, according to Jenkins who said: "This storyline was so clearly about Steve coming back, the whole story was about Steve. It's all a love story with Steve."
To say we're disappointed is an understatement, and the reasoning behind the creative decision feels like a cop-out when audiences are craving for clearer, defined representation from the characters they hold dear. Jenkins further clarified her decision by adding: "There wasn't room for two for Diana."
Anyone who has been in love knows that it's complicated—even people in happy, long-term relationships have found themselves casting a sideways glance at someone they find attractive, or flirting with a stranger in the queue at the coffee shop. In the world of films, especially films like Wonder Woman, that Diana has sealed off her heart to anyone else besides Steve is confusing at best.
Yes, it's a Notebook-level romance plot, but it also begs the question: what has Diana been doing for 66 years since Steve's death? Has she never had another love or another lover? Has she never been on another date or had a fleeting thought about a stranger or someone she saved?
Jenkins shutting down the rumor also stings of an additional slap, and evokes memories of JJ Abrams' shoe-horning the romance between Zorii Bliss and Poe into Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. This effectively shut down the fan-driven fervour for a romance between Poe and Finn, colloquially called StormPilot.
Before The Rise of Skywalker, romance in the contemporary trilogy was mostly ambiguous, so the introduction of a heterosexual partner for Poe effectively destroyed the ambiguous space in which LGBTQ+ relationships could exist. It essentially said: if we haven't said it's romance, it isn't romance.
Jenkins has, perhaps unknowingly, done the same thing by explicitly shooting down any possibility of sexual or romantic tension between Diana and Barbara. She has opted for a black-and-white world when, as we all know, it's actually very grey.
Sexual orientation exists on a spectrum, and Wonder Woman 1984 was poised to acknowledge that spectrum in a meaningful way. Instead, the film seems to have shied away from saying something—anything—about a non-straight romance.
There are ways of explicitly acknowledging queer romance without it becoming a 'distraction' to the plot. Harley Quinn's bisexuality was confirmed in Birds of Prey and it didn't distract from the break-up story with Joker.
LGBTQ+ audiences often have to find representation in these ambiguous areas, particularly when it comes to tentpole franchises like Star Wars, Marvel and the Worlds of DC. Now even those ambiguous spaces are being erased.
Luckily for us, fans will likely continue to 'ship' Wonder Woman and Cheetah despite Jenkins' remarks. And if we're even luckier, the third Wonder Woman will truly develop Diana into the bi icon we could all use right now.
Until then, at least we have Valkyrie.
