‘Thor: Ragnarok’s Tessa Thompson Clarifies Valkyrie’s Sexuality Comments

Earlier this week Thor: Ragnarok star Tessa Thompson revealed that her character, Valkyrie, is bisexual which would make her the first confirmed LGBT character to appear in a Marvel Studios movie. Now, Thompson is clarifying her statement.

When a fan on Twitter mistakenly referred to Valkyrie as being a lesbian in comics, Thompson replied and explained that wasn’t the case.

“She’s bi,” Thompson tweeted. “And yes, she cares very little about what men think of her. What a joy to play!”

The tweet did not clarify if Thompson was referring to Valkyrie being shown to have relationships with both men and women in Marvel Comics or if that the character’s bisexuality was explicitly established in Thor: Ragnarok. To clarify, Thompson issued another tweet a few days later.

“YES! Val is Bi in the comics & I was faithful to that in her depiction,” Thompson wrote. “But her sexuality isn’t explicitly addressed in Thor: Ragnarok.”

This slight clarification means that while the character will remain authentic to her comics representation, Valkyrie’s sexuality doesn’t factor in Thor: Ragnarok. This may come as a disappointment for Marvel fans who were hoping an official LGBT character representation in a Marvel Studios movie. While LGBT characters have appeared in other areas of the MCU — specifically Joey Gutierrez (Juan Pablo Raba) on Agents of SHIELD — they haven’t had much of a presence on the large screen, something Marvel has come under criticism for.

Hopefully, between Thompson’s portrayal of Valkyrie and the MCU’s third phase beginning to wind down there will be room to explore LGBT heroes in future films.

Thor: Ragnarok currently has a 4.17 out of 5 ComicBook.com User Anticipation Rating, making it the second most anticipated upcoming comic book movie among ComicBook.com Users.

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Thor: Ragnarok opens in theaters on November 2, 2017.