Teen (Joe Locke) in Marvel Television’s AGATHA ALL ALONG, exclusively on Disney+. Photo by Chuck Zlotnick. © 2024 MARVEL.

Actor Joe Locke, who plays a character named Teen in the upcoming Marvel Studios show Agatha All Along, reiterated that his character is gay while also asserting that he has “internalized homophobia.”

Teen (Joe Locke) in Marvel Television’s AGATHA ALL ALONG, exclusively on Disney+. Photo by Chuck Zlotnick. © 2024 MARVEL.

In an interview with Variety, Locke shared, “The show never shies away from his queerness, but it’s not a defining feature of his character. It’s just one layer of him as a person.”

It was previously revealed by Rolling Stone’s UK’s Alastair James that Locke’s character was gay. James wrote, “In what is familiar territory for Locke, Teen identifies as gay.”

Locke also told James, “The way it’s explored in the show is very truthful and very positive. His sexuality is just one part of the character.”

(L-R): Jennifer Kale (Sasheer Zamata), Lilia Calderu (Patti LuPone), Ali Ahn (Alice Wu-Gulliver), Teen (Joe Locke), and Mrs. Hart/Sharon Davis (Debra Jo Rupp) in Marvel Television’s AGATHA ALL ALONG, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Marvel Television. © 2024 MARVEL.

It does not appear that Locke’s character will be the only gay character in the Marvel show.

Showrunner Jac Schaeffer shared with Variety, “This isn’t stepping into any Marvel project. Joe, young queer icon that he is, was joining a cast of queer icons.”

(L-R): Jennifer Kale (Sasheer Zamata), Teen (Joe Locke), Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn), Lilia Calderu (Patti LuPone), Mrs. Hart/Sharon Davis (Debra Jo Rupp), and Ali Ahn (Alice Wu-Gulliver) in Marvel Television’s AGATHA ALL ALONG, exclusively on Disney+. Photo by Chuck Zlotnick. © 2024 MARVEL.

Locke also responded to criticism of the character following the first trailer. He said, “It was like, ‘Oh, why has Marvel done this campy gay stereotype?’ It really annoyed me because I was like, ‘You can’t ask for authentic casting and then be upset if you have a camp character.’”

He added, “I’m fully aware that the Marvel fandom is far less nice than the ‘Heartstopper’ fandom. There’s going to be a lot of people that just hate everything about the character and everything about what I’ve done with it, and I just have to be OK with that.”

He then mocked Marvel fans saying, “Marvel fans are very open with their opinions. But they’re not in a Marvel show, so—. I’m doing the one thing that they really wish they could be doing. Sorry!”

(L-R): Teen (Joe Locke), The Green Witch/Rio Vidal (Aubrey Plaza), Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) and Jennifer Kale (Sasheer Zamata) in Marvel Television’s AGATHA ALL ALONG, exclusively on Disney+. Photo by Chuck Zlotnick. © 2024 MARVEL.

Interestingly, earlier in the article, Locke claimed he had “internalized homophobia.” While discussing casting opportunities and his desire to play non-gay characters, Locke shared that he wants to prove to himself that he’s not “a one-trick pony who was just the guy from Heartstopper.”

He added, “Which in itself is maybe a problem of the industry, or a problem of me and my internalized homophobia. I don’t know.”

Joe Locke as Charlie Spring in Heartstopper (2022), Netflix

It seems rather obvious that this show is just another one in a long line of shows on Disney that is attempting to not only normalize homosexuality and sodomy, but confirms the show will be just another humiliation ritual.

As noted by the Catechism of the Catholic Church, homosexuality can never be approved. It states, “Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’ They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.”

(L-R): Lilia Calderu (Patti LuPone), Jennifer Kale (Sasheer Zamata), Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn), Mrs. Hart/Sharon Davis (Debra Jo Rupp), and Ali Ahn (Alice Wu-Gulliver) in Marvel Television’s AGATHA ALL ALONG, exclusively on Disney+. Photo by Chuck Zlotnick. © 2024 MARVEL.

However, instead of showing homosexuality and sodomy in a negative light as it should be shown, Locke makes it clear it will be a positive representation. Soul Cycle novelist Brian Niemeier explains that Hollywood does this by “churning out decades of movies wherein heroes whom audiences identified with achieved their goals by acting according to the Death Cult’s morals.”

He reiterates, “To bring movie audiences around to your way of thinking, show characters they like being successful by acting in line with your moral standard.”

Not only does he explain how this is part of normalizing this type of behavior, but he also shares how it is a humiliation ritual by noting that modern Hollywood introduces characters that have no reason to pursue any kind of goals, but instead spend their time issuing lectures promoting “Death Cult pieties.”

Rio Vidal (Aubrey Plaza) in Marvel Television’s AGATHA ALL ALONG, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Marvel Television. © 2024 MARVEL.

Given the fact, the actor and show are clearly promoting his sexuality as a positive already, and he’s already taking shots at the Marvel fandom, one can only imagine there will be numerous lectures about it in the actual show.

In fact, the show is being run by Jac Schaeffer, who created WandaVision and wrote the Black Widow movie. Schaeffer made it abundantly clear she adheres to Death Cult rhetoric and ideas in an interview with Inverse in 2019 where she declared, “I’m not interested in adhering to comic canon that is discriminatory in any way or that violates my values system.”

She also informed the outlet, “I wasn’t a huge superhero movie fan before starting to work [at Marvel], but now that I’m doing it, there’s just so much opportunity to make big, positive statements.”

“Especially something like Captain Marvel and Black Widow, to have these female-centered stories — I just can’t not be involved in that,” Schaeffer added.

Jac Schaeffer via American Film Institute YouTube

READ: Report: MCU’s Woes Due To Bad Writers, Directors, Focus On Unpopular Characters

Agatha All Along stars Kathryn Hahn as Agatha Harkness who “finds herself down and out of power after a suspicious goth Teen helps break her free from a distorted spell. Her interest is piqued when he begs her to take him on the legendary Witches’ Road, a magical gauntlet of trials that, if survived, rewards a witch with what they’re missing. Together, Agatha and this mysterious Teen pull together a desperate coven, and set off down, down, down The Road…”

The series premieres on Disney+ on September 18 at 9:00 p.m. ET. It will debut its first two episodes.

(L-R): Kathryn Hahn as Agatha Harkness and Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff in Marvel Studios’ WANDAVISION exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved.

What do you make of Locke reiterating that this character is gay?  What do you make of his admission that he suffers from “internalized homophobia?” What about his mocking of the Marvel fandom?