Running beneath the bilge water that makes up the majority of the Mattycollector Facebook comments wall is a disturbing undercurrent of homophobia.
The LGBT community has been loosely associated with He-Fans and She-Ravers for a while now, but as He-Man.org founder Val Staples wrote recently, “I don’t think He-Man.org has any more gay fans than any other community for any other ’80s cartoon and/or toy. It’s just that more gay fans feel comfortable being who they are here because they know they aren’t going to be attacked for being who they are.”
While I think Val is right that gay fans feel comfortable at He-Man.org, I do think there may be a slightly higher-than-average number of gay fans of He-Man and She-Ra, for a variety of reasons–but that’s really neither here nor there.
The homophobia that shows up on Facebook and elsewhere is primarily centered around the idea that He-Man is gay. Now, I won’t be a hypocrite and say I’ve never made a humorous allusion or two to the fact that Prince Adam wears purple tights and a pink vest and frequently transforms into an oiled-up, half-naked muscle man with “fabulous powers” and a bouncin’ and behavin’ blond bob. The important thing is, if some canonical source revealed He-Man was gay, I wouldn’t care–he’s a hero no matter what his sexual orientation happens to be.
That said, the preponderance of the evidence does point to him being into women. While the 1980s cartoon was very, very sanitized for a pre-adolescent audience, the early comics–particularly the DC Comics miniseries–were a tad more adult in tone. In the first issue of the miniseries, we find Adam employed in that most famous of medieval pastimes: good old-fashioned wenching.
(Of course, that last line makes Adam sound sexist, but we’ll save that ball of wax for another time.)
And then there was all that flirting between Prince Adam and Teela on the 2002 cartoon. Or maybe he’s bisexual–maybe everyone on Eternia is bisexual and it’s no big thing.
Hold on–I just had an image of an orgy involving Fisto, Double Trouble, and Ram-Man and their respective action features. Must wash mind’s eye…
Monty Python
Yeah, I really needed that mental image at the end…
Thank you.
dayraven
mark- you should always be suspicious of anyone who casually whips out their magic wand.
i do back to what was said earlier by one of y'all, where does the speculation even begin? i don't think there were any overtones in the mini comics, but then again, the quality of those (and consistency) went out the crapper after about the second round of figs… the filmation series is where most of that stems from ,and it was aimed at kids and near as i can tell, is devoid of sexuality at all. it's like a friggin' rorshach test… some people see boobs, some people see meathammers. some of us just saw a kid's show. i don't see the sophistication that modern kid's shows evince (writing for both the kids and the parents who view w/ them ala spongebob) in the filmation series, it's specifically written as under 10 year olds. it's harmless. no one is asking if skeletor or hordak are analogous to satan are they? cuz they're not. they're evil dudes, but they aren't satan, grayskull isn't heaven and he-man isn't christ. but if i wanted to read into things, skeletor could certainly be seen as the fallen judas, teela is mary magdelen, man at arms is john the baptist, he-man is jesus, extendar would be thomas, ramn-man is peter and hordak is definitely satan. the sorceress represents the holy spirit, you get where i'm going here… but that doesn't make it REAL, the connection is implies, just as it is that the character is gay.
on the other hand, as a child, teela and evil lyn were lesbians doing things i wouldn't discover until another decade passed were real expressions of lesbian sexuality. so maybe i read into things what i want to and others are free to do the same. even at like 7 years old, EL was the dominant mistress, teela the submissive, and oh the tortures EL could inflict if she got the sensuous teela all by her lonesome.
Jim
HAH! Poe you're a genius….I bet you knew you'd snag a lot more viewers with this post! LOL
Topics like the "Don't worry about the Figure Flaws" and "Is He Man gay?" are the most controversial topics to discuss that make for an exciting discussion.
Wonder what the next one's going to be.
Diego Zubrycky
Is He-Man gay?
Well, the answer to that question probably tells more about the one who asks than He-man himself.
To quote Shakespeare, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder " 😉
Mark
I think I heard Dumbledore was gay as well….even the world of magic aint safe.
Jim
HAH! October 2007 he was revealed to be gay. Where have I been? Don't remember hearing this.
Jim
Wait…Dumbledore is gay?
When did he come out?
Mark
This post is gay LOL. Only joking.