Yellow Power Ranger role is disappointing

I thought, just like there have been so many heterosexual romances in Power Rangers in the past. You can imagine my disappointment when her “queerness” was left so ambiguous that you could have easily left the cinema thinking she was straight.

This ambiguity would be fine if it wasn’t the norm – after all, you don’t see every straight character screaming about their sexuality from the rooftops.

I’m not saying that I think all queer characters should be loud or “obvious” about their identity, whatever that means.

But the problem is that this ambiguity around queerness isn’t an isolated incident – and when it happens all the time, it just implies that queer identities are better off hidden, and so are queer romances.

It’s the same with JK Rowling claiming that Dumbledore was gay all along, or LeFou from Beauty and the Beast supposedly being Disney’s first gay character – the creators and directors of these stories claim that they’re gay so that they look progressive, but onscreen they present their queerness in a way that is so ambiguous their sexuality is left open to interpretation.

It seems to me that companies are trying to get the best of both worlds here – they’re trying to look progressive offscreen, but being careful onscreen so as not to upset any super- conservative, homophobic members of the audience.

Because let’s be real: if supposedly “queer” characters openly stated their queerness, some parents wouldn’t take their kids to see the film.

We all remember the uproar over the Finding Dory advert, where two women with short hair stood next to each other and half the internet was up in arms about a supposed “lesbian” couple.

It’s happened time and time again – from the Teletubbies to Doctor Who to Noddy.

The sad truth is that queer characters will cause some parents to boycott films. And that leads to an inevitable loss of revenue for the film companies involved.

That’s why I’m fed up of creators and directors claiming ambiguous “queer” characters to make themselves look good.

Because if they really cared about LGBT+ representation, they would take a cut to their paycheques and stand up for queer rights.

Instead they’re claiming to support us while doing the worst thing possible: hinting that queer identity does exist, but that it needs to remain closeted.

I think that does more harm than good and I’d rather they didn’t insult queer people by claiming to care about us. – The Independent

Directors claim characters are gay so they look progressive, but onscreen queerness is presented in an ambiguous way.