Filmmaker Joseph Kahn has come out to finally say what we’ve all been too polite to voice… gay people don’t care about the Avatar movies. Oh who am I kidding, we aren’t polite. But it’s nice to finally hear someone say it!
In his tweet, Kahn writes: “Here’s my theory why Avatar has no cultural impact even though they are the biggest selling films of all time. Gays cannot give a fuck about Avatar,” adding that “it does not tap into the Gay industrial complex that highly influences media – from fashion editors to music critics to bon vivants.”
Queerty speculated that this has been wholly proven by the absolute domination of Wicked: For Good in movie theaters. There has been so much hype around the homoerotic dynamic between Glinda and Elphaba that many of us haven’t even heard whispers of excitement for the new James Cameron flick.
The Avatar films are some of the highest grossing films of all time. The 2009 Avatar raked in almost $3 billion, and the 2022 sequel made around $2.3 billion. Despite this, it feels like there has been absolutely no traction or excitement for 2025’s Avatar: Fire and Ash.
Although Kahn doesn’t identify as gay, he’s played a huge part in creating art for gay culture, especially iconic music videos, having directed Britney Spears’ “Stronger,” “Womanizer,” and “Toxic,” Kylie Minogue’s “All the Lovers,” Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space,” and even Lady Gaga‘s “LoveGame” music video.
He clearly understands the “gay industrial complex” he mentioned above, with all of these songs and music videos being iconic especially within the gay community.
Many people responded to this tweet in argument, claiming that gay people dress up as the blue Navi’s for Halloween, and that certainly plenty of them do care and watch the films. Kahn pushed back against this, claiming that there are plenty of other huge box office hits that do appeal to gays.
“John Wick is homoerotic man grappling,” and “Terminator is a muscular man in biker leather. Star Wars is light saber dick tapping. Fast & Furious? Gay.” He’s got a good point.
Regardless, millions of people are probably going to see the new Avatar movie, but are people going to be talking about it as much as whatever Chappell Roan does next? Probably not.
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