SBG 162: Challengers

Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast that would lovingly hand-feed you a churro. 

This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out and talk about why the 2024 box-office smash hit, Challengers, Should’ve Been Gay(er). Honestly, we went into this movie assuming it was going to be so much gayer than it actually was. All of the promos hyped the threesome and made the story sound super queer, which made us all the more disappointed when it just did not deliver. Luckily, we have plenty of ideas on how to fix Challengers so that it can be the gay movie we were advertised.  

For a film by the same director as Call Me By Your Name, the queerness is way too subtle. Sure, there’s a threesome; but the film doubles down on both boys being into Zendaya’s character, Tashi, rather than each other. And beyond that one intense make-out, Art and Patrick never get together. There’s not so much a love triangle as there is a beard triangle, with each character equally in-the-closet. Between cringing at the poorly crafted CGI tennis balls and overly on-the-nose suggestive subtext, we couldn’t really understand why this movie got so much gay buzz. We get that everyone is desperate for queer crumbs; but the characters are not even likeable, there's barely any on-screen queerness and they somehow made Zendaya unattractive! While the film does provide an interesting take on sex and power (and on paper looks to be the tennis-equivalent of Heated Rivalry), it falls short on delivering any resolution to the sexual tension between Art and Patrick and never touches on Tashi’s sexuality at all. 

We know one thing for sure, Challengers Should’ve Been Gay(er).

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