The Batman (2022)

Before I start, I feel the need to clarify that by bisexual, I’m talking about sexuality directed towards members of more than one gender identities. I’ll admit that the clarification will seem pointless since the films I’m about to mention barely involve characters who aren’t either male or female. However, that is due to the lack of gender-queer representation in media and not how I personally perceive bisexuality.

Now, bi-erasure, for those who might not know, simply identifies the often common phenomenon of bisexuality not being acknowledged. This can be in cinema, music, art, novels, or even in real life. This has happened to every community that falls under the umbrella term 'queer', you might be thinking. However, bisexuality has a more prominent history of being subjected to this. Bisexual coming-out scenes are extremely scarce, and most bisexual stories acknowledge only homosexual tendencies or otherwise just portray bisexuality as a phase or an experimental experience. It sometimes manifests from the urge to steer narratives away from heteronormativity. In an attempt to portray heteronormativity negatively, homosexual experiences are highlighted to the point where bisexuality doesn’t get acknowledged. So is it really queer-positive if it comes at the cost of bi-erasure?

A very common form of bi-erasure is when a character who’s only had heterosexual experiences, starts experiencing homosexual tendencies and is then shown to realize that they were homosexual all along and pretended to be heterosexual. This is bi-erasure because quite often, the character might just be bisexual, and by saying they finally realized they’re gay, the narrative is essentially erasing the possibility of the character being bi. If only a few stories were of this kind, it wouldn’t be an issue, but this is extremely rampant (Brokeback Mountain, Call Me By Your Name, and Teorema to name a few, are all considered to be gay films).

One of the most classic examples of bi-erasure from Hollywood in the 21

Century is Jennifer’s Body. Starring Megan Fox as the titular Jennifer, the film was marketed as an overly sexual horror film that specifically caters to the male gaze of heterosexual adolescents. However, its cinematography is abundant in the female gaze, which usually includes focusing on hands, lips, and eyes, sensuously but emotionally perceiving the characters on screen. The male gaze, on the other hand, tends to focus on the body itself, with a certain lust in its framing of female characters specifically. Plus, Jennifer Check actually says the words “I go both ways” in reference to her sexual preference. Still, being perceived as a heterosexual narrative is blatant bi-erasure. However, I have good news for you. The film is being re-evaluated and reclaimed as an important work in queer horror.

Moon Knight is the newest Marvel series to premiere on Disney Plus.  The pilot aired about a month ago.  He is a lesser known character in the Marvel universe.  As someone who’s been reading comic books and obsessing over Marvel lore for decades, I admit I was unaware of the character for many years.

Moon Knight begins with Steven Grant (Oscar Isaac), a straitlaced, fairly insecure British man who works in a museum gift shop.  Mr. Grant has trouble when he sleeps at night.  He surrounds his bed with sand to monitor footprints and braces his ankles to the floor to trace his somnambulism.  But it gets worse.  Mr. Grant starts experiencing black-outs in the daytime, waking up in strange places, not knowing how he got there.  He then meets Arthur Harrow (Ethan Hawke), a mysterious, cult-like figure in search of a golden scarab.  You get the impression that Harrow is not up to anything good, and he sends a few goons after Steven.  Steven loses consciousness once again, then wakes up to find himself surrounded by the same men now bloody and beaten.  

We begin to piece things together and discover that Mr. Grant has dual personalities.  One being Steven Grant, the other being mercenary Marc Spector.  Spector is Moon Knight, an avatar and servant of the Egyptian Moon God Khonsu.  Khonsu is a tall ghostly creature with robes and the skull of some type of bird in place of its head that follows Steven and Marc wherever they go.

Toward the end of the first episode we meet the eponymous Moon Knight, a superhero cloaked in Egyptian burial threads, a hood and a cape beating some hell hound dog creature to a pulp.  He's a cool-looking Marvel character right off the page!  He’s got these glowing eyes and he just kicks ass everywhere he goes, seemingly impervious to pain.  

From there the series follows Marc/Steven and his partner Layla (May Calamawy) on their quest to track down the scarab which leads to a lost tomb filled with otherworldly power. It’s up to Moon Knight to save the world from annihilation, all the while struggling with multiple personalities that tend to get him into serious trouble.