'Deadpool & Wolverine's 5 most boring, homophobic jokes

Editor's note: This post contains major contains spoilers for 20th Century Studios and Marvel Studios' Deadpool & Wolverine

Is Deadpool & Wolverine the Marvel Cinematic Universe's gayest movie yet?

Well, if you measure gayness by how many times penises are mentioned and boners are joked about, sure. But if you measure it by how much genuine queerness is shown, or even considered, then the answer is simple: not by a long shot.

Deadpool is, ostensibly, a pansexual superhero. In the pages of Marvel comics, his queerness has been explored quite extensively. But so far in live-action films, his pansexuality is defined by actor Ryan Reynolds as "sexual tension with everything and everyone."

Throughout the newest movie, Deadpool is constantly making jokes about anal sex, boners, and men stroking each other's bodies, but he never once is serious about it, which is strange considering how genuine he gets whenever he talks about his attraction to a woman (namely his ex-girlfriend Vanessa).

Some critics have said that since Deadpool jokes about any and everything, of course he's going to joke about his sexuality from time to time. However, whenever he talks about his girlfriend Vanessa, he suddenly gets serious and earnest, and drops the jokes. Why can't he do the same for jokes about same-sex attraction?

In Deadpool & Wolverine, Deadpool's entire motivation is to show Vanessa that he can be serious, so accordingly, when he talks to and about her, he is geniune and mature. Then, he turns around and talks about his attraction to men, and it's purely jokes and over-the-top sex.

Other queer critics and fans have argued that it's only the average straight fans who are laughing at these lines, and that the characters and filmmakers mean them as genuine signs of attraction.

For that to be true, though, we have to assume that the people making the jokes are in on them, that they "get it," and that there is a layer of vulnerability behind these jokes. I do not believe for one second that Disney, Marvel, Kevin Feige, Shawn Levy, or Ryan Reynolds will ever "get it."

That's not to say that straight people can't be on the inside of jokes like this, but corporations can't, and the people who make self-referential nostalia-bait for those corporations apparently can't either.

These aren't the kinds of gay jokes my friends and I tell each other. These are the kinds of gay jokes that 16-year-old straight boys make when they play gay chicken. These are jokes about how "icky" and "laughable" gay attraction is. This phone call isn't coming from inside the house, it's coming from an episode of Family Guy from 2005.

It's not that these jokes are hurtful, or offensive, or even particularly annoying. They're just boring, unfunny, and uncreative. We've heard them time and time again. We're not calling on anyone to be canceled. We're just asking for writers and actors to write some better jokes.

It's also not that we don't love the Problematic Gays trope. In fact, queer characters who commit crimes, murder people, lie, cheat, steal, and are predatory are some of my favorite characters of all time. But the characters we love never feel like they're providing more entertainment for straight people laughing at their queerness than for queer viewers hoping to see something of themselves in their media.

Here are five of the weakest homophobic jokes from Deadpool & Wolverine that had us rolling our eyes.

1.) "FYI your tailor is a predator, but I love it!"

When Deadpool goes to the Time Variance Authority and gets fitted and equipped with his new suit, we see the tailor grabbing, groping, and slapping his ass and crotch repeatedly. "FYI your tailor is a predator, but I love it!" Deadpool quips at the end of the scene.

2.) "Not all of you was asleep."

When Deadpool and Wolverine get captured in the void and are tied together, Deadpool asks "How long was I asleep?"

"Not all of you was asleep," Wolverine replies, referring to Deadpool's crotch.

This moment is an example of the kind of "sexual tension" the characters have throughout the entirety of the film: Wade shows attraction to Logan, and Logan gets mad.

3.) "Getting my knife out of your buttocks, pervert!"

After the pair escape from Cassandra Nova for the first time, they again are lying on top of each other.

"Get the fuck off of me," Logan tells Wade.

"Shh, shh, shh, almost done," he replies.

"Almost done what???" Logan asks, freaking out.

"Getting my knife out of your buttocks, pervert!" Deadpool replies.

4.) "...take Wolverine's dick out of your mouth."

"Hey when I want your opinion, I'll take Wolverine's dick out of your mouth," Kidpool says to Deadpool in a line that sounds like it came out of Cartman's mouth in a particularly unfunny episode of South Park.

This is one of the film's smaller jokes, but after we sat through a dozen similar tiny jokes where the punchline is "sucking dick or receiving anal sex is bad," we were worn down.

5.) "That's what scoutmaster Kevin used to say."

Towards the end of the movie, Logan and Wade are in the TVA again.

"I want to show you something… something huge," B-15 of the TVA says.

"That's what scoutmaster Kevin used to say," Deadpool replies to the laughter of audiences.

Deadpool & Wolverine is in now playing in theaters.