#24: Roxane Gay Lov “The Fast and the Fur” (And So Can You!)

THE FAST AND FUR MOVI HAVE ALWAYS BEEN GAY

Sce the origal “Fast and Fur” movie me out, 2001, the seri has bee one of the most profable anchis the history of cema. You n’t make that kd of money solely off teenage boys: smart, crilly thkg grown-ups love the movi, too. The femist, novelist, and English profsor Roxane Gay is one of them. She tells Sean Ramwaram about how * gay fast and furious *

The Fast and Fur movi are one of the bt, and most diverse, box office film anchis we have, but the one thg they fely need more of is LGBTQ+ talent and, bi actrs Michelle Rodriguez is one of the anchise's ma characters and gay actor Le Evans has starred as one of the villas, but that's about when to queer stars the Fast movi. We're not sayg everyone the upg addns to the films should be gay, jt that a lot of them should are sixteen LGBTQ+ actors we'd die to see drivg rs the Fast and Fur universe! Hobbs & Shaw is only the latt example of the seri’ not-so-thly-veiled homoeroticism.

Although I have no doubt a steady supply of biki-clad track marshals and powerful gas pedals has succsfully hid this fact om most viewers, the Fast and Fur movi are, and have always been, tremendoly gay, on a level—as the scene above—that nearly leav behd subtext for full-on text. If the origal The Fast and the Fur was provably a remake of Pot Break wh r-drivg thiev stead of surfg bank robbers, s weird homoerotic energy may have been hered. But wh a steady stream of smolrg star, mcle T’s, and roguish flirtatn via three-ton racg vehicle, the te romantic subjects and their “torrid, homoerotic-bromantic chemistry” was hard to miss.

IS MICHELLE RODRIGUEZ GAY? ‘FAST AND FUR 7’ STAR COM OUT AS BISEXUAL FOLLOWG LBIAN RUMORS

” The article add, hilarly, “Diel claims he prefers to date Europe, ” a perhaps untend dog whistle to every gay boy whose middle school girliend went to a different school. Perez Hilton, then his heyday, headled his dispatch on the ments, “V Diel Is Still Not Gay (Allegedly). ” Chosen fay— don’t get much gayer than that.

It’s a relatnship so eply graed the fabric of the films that many a fan of the anchise has been quick to pot out and latch onto that closens as thly-veiled homoeroticism, a queer-d love story spanng seven of the most uber-macho actn films of all time. Queer reprentatn the Fast and Fur films pretty much begs and ends wh Brian beg lled a homophobic slur not five mut to the first Fast movie, and om there queer “reprentatn” (if n even be labeled as such) is limed to namels hot party girls makg out hallways of clubs for viewers to ogle—blatant lbian fetishizatn stemmg om the rigid ias of masculy and misogyny that surround street racg culture. Unrstandably, LGBTQ+ fans of the anchise go lookg for queer-d characters to rve out their own reprentatn, and ’s not difficult to unrstand why they latched on to Brian and Dom—pecially The Fast and the Fur, the first stallment the anchise and easily the film most rife wh homoerotic tensn.

Though the sketch self holds “charmg” ltle trac of ‘00s-era homophobia that the Fast films themselv also rried, ’s still worth notg that even mastream dienc ught the queer unrton early the anchise’s n.

RELATED | Dwayne Johnson Was Told Playg Gay Would 'Ru' His Actg Career. Y, even whout Dwayne Johnson (and his bulgg biceps) as a central st member, Fast X is full of actors like Jason Momoa, V Diel, and Jason Statham for whom hetero fans would allegedly “go gay.