Tom Holland's Thoughts On A Gay Spider-Man Will Give Fans Hope For The MCU

There may be no film empire in the world more powerful than Marvel, but fans still have a few requests that could help improve upon their massive success. One of the most prominent demands is a gay superhero in a Marvel film, something that Spider-Man himself is on board with. In a recent interview, Tom Holland said he's open to a gay Spider-Man, adding that he understands the need for Marvel to show more than a "straight white guy" on screen.

In a new interview with The Sunday Times, Holland was asked if he would be open to the idea of Spider-Man being gay in future films of the franchise. “Yeah, of course," he responded, as reported by IndieWire. “I can’t talk about the future of the character because honestly I don’t know and it’s out of my hands," he added. But, while Spider-Man the character might not be gay in the MCU (at least not yet), Holland assured fans that a gay superhero is only a matter of time. "But I do know a lot about the future of Marvel, and they are going to be representing lots of different people in the next few years," he teased.

According to Holland, that diversity is much needed in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “The world isn’t as simple as a straight white guy," he remarked. "It doesn’t end there, and these films need to represent more than one type of person.” Even Spider-Man himself is aware of his white privilege.

Fans who have been waiting for an openly gay superhero in the MCU might have to be even more patient. Marvel finally unveiled their first gay character in Avengers: Endgame, released in April 2019, a man who takes part in a support group for the loved ones of people who vanished at the end of Avengers: Infinity War. He talks about going on his first date since losing his male partner, and that's as far as it goes.

The moment was primarily met with criticism from Marvel fans, who were disappointed that this groundbreaking moment for one of the world's largest film franchises was down-graded into a short "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" scene, as Mashable put it.

“That was never meant to be our first focused character,” Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige said about the gay character in Endgame in an interview with io9. “That was just meant to be a matter of fact and a matter of life and a matter of truth. And I liked it that our hero, Steve Rogers, doesn’t blink an eye at that fact," he said. "It is just truth and is heartbreaking for his loss and for the life he’s trying to put back together. It was never meant to be looked at as our first hero. I guess it’s the first reference so it does, of course, get a lot of attention.”

However, Feige did add that fans could expect to see a proper gay superhero in a Marvel film soon. “We haven’t been shy about saying that that’s coming and that there’s much more prominent LGBT heroes in the future," he said.

One rumor that keeps popping up is that fans will see their promised LGBT hero in The Eternals, set to star Angelina Jolie, Richard Madden, and Kumail Nanjiani. Whether the speculation turns out to be true or false, a truly groundbreaking LGBTQ moment in the MCU is bound to happen soon.