With the season finale of Peacemaker on HBO Max giving viewers some closure to the surprise smash hit of 2022, people are still coming down from the high brought on by this unexpected-in-every-way series. It's one thing to make audiences genuinely care about a character who admits to killing men, women, and children in the interest of peace. But it's another entirely to give him and his team enough depth to bring them back for another season.
Not only is Peacemaker officially getting a second season (not bad for a spinoff of the excellent The Suicide Squad), but that character depth has expanded beyond simply what director James Gunn had even planned for the already eclectic group of hero-ish leads. According to a recent interview, there's at least one important aspect of John Cena's titular character Christopher Smith that wasn't necessarily in the script. But Cena himself added the idea of Smith being bisexual throughout his performance, and Gunn thought it fit so well that it became canon.
During an Empire magazine interview in the publication's latest release, Gunn and Cena discussed how Peacemaker's bisexuality came about, and it was a surprisingly organic process. "John does improv all the time," Gunn said, "and he just turned Christopher Smith into this hyper-sexualized dude that is open to anything sexually. I was surprised by that. But I thought, 'I guess it makes sense that this guy isn't one-dimensional.'" According to Gunn, some of this was helped along by Smith's relationship with Danielle Brooks' Leota Adebayo, with whom he forged a close (if complicated) friendship.
"She is his polar opposite in so many ways, politically," Gunn explained. "She's a Black, gay woman. He's a white, straight — nah, he's not straight [laughs] — white, whatever-he-is male. And yet they really like each other. They have a lot in common... Peacemaker is an interesting character because he's so f*****-up in so many ways, and then in other ways, he is kind of weirdly forward-thinking." Some viewers will have picked up on that part of Peacemaker's character just by watching his development. But others might not have noticed until his character's closed-minded, white supremacist father, Auggie, specifically tried to shame him for it.
It's an interesting characteristic for a character who was raised by a hyper-conservative dirtbag like Auggie. For someone like that, being open-minded can be a form of rebellion, even if he's still got some unfortunate personality traits from that upbringing. "We see in the show that he doesn't have any issues with sexuality," Cena explained. "And yet other things he's completely close-minded on." This isn't the first time in recent years that a character's theorized sexuality has been confirmed in a sly way, as also seen when Loki confirmed its titular character's bisexuality during a quiet moment. However, some audience members might take some issue with how Peacemaker's bisexuality was conceived.
The idea that something like one's sexual preferences can be affected by upbringing might skew a little uncomfortably close to the outdated concept that sexuality is a choice. In reality, science points overwhelmingly to the fact that it isn't. However, that aside, it's also hard to deny the storytelling power of a neo-nazi's son turning out bisexual and having a much more open-minded view of the world (in some ways, at least). However it came about, representation matters, and bisexual erasure has been an issue in media for a long time. So more of this is always a welcome addition for the LGBTQ+ community and, really, everyone.
Peacemaker season 1 is available to stream on HBO Max.
Source: Empire magazine (via Slashfilm)