Are they gay in challengers

If it isn't allure in the air, it's intrigue.

He's certainly not shy. In this sense, Challengers is a deeply heterosexual movie — here are two culturally straight sports lovers circling the same woman like lions warring over a mate. Such speculation was hardly muted by the trailers, which teased a simmering load of homoerotic tension between the film's male leads.

They've both wanted her since they were red-blooded, horny teenagers. That moment is played for laughs, but Art does have a boner immediately after. Guadagnino teases further something a little fruitier about both of the boys, and their relationship.

Patrick is literally surrounded by swinging dicks. The film itself? Because Challengers is a Luca Guadagnino film, and we can reliably expect the movies of the guy who associated Timothée Chalamet with peach-fucking to be at least a little gay, people on the.

It's hardly a surprise that Guadagnino elects to pick at Challengers ' undergirding queerness in a packed-out locker room. Such is how it has been framed plenty of times on screen. Big dicks, small dicks, dicks hidden under towels; the unseen dick attached to the sulking contestant Patrick has just beaten.

Sometimes the film's homoeroticism is waved in our face like a well-worn jockstrap: There's already a ton of conversation online about the part where Art and Patrick are shepherded to each other's tongues by Tashi, devouring each other like ravenous bulldogs.

But stopping there would be the analytical equivalent of serving into the net. I'm a little less interested in the app stuff specifically: sure, maybe it's implying that he's bisexual, but we also know that he's desperate for somewhere to sleep for the night, and in that context, what's a little dick sucking, really?

For most of their adult lives, they've rallied for the love and affirmation of one-time Adidas-sponsored tennis wiz Tashi Duncan Zendayawho was sidelined by a tragic injury early in her career. This speaks to a number of things.

Challengers star Josh O'Connor has shared his thoughts on whether the lead characters in the film are queer. It is deeply, unmistakably homoerotic.

Just how gay is : Through a non-linear narrative, the film follows Art Donaldson and Patrick Zweig, two childhood friends who take on the world of professional tennis together

In this particular scene and throughout Challengers, one thing is clear: white men really get to explore their sexuality and not be questioned for it and write it off as a one-time experience. Another major scene that comes to mind plays out in the present day, after Patrick wins his first match of the Challenger.

Pretty gay—but it's not as direct as you might expect. It also speaks to a greater appetite for queer desire on screen, not least shot by someone who has a proven track record for getting gay horniness right. He sits in the locker room swiping through both men and women on Tinder.

Challengers is centrally about aging tennis wunderkind Patrick Zweig O'Connor and his ex-bestie-now-frenemy Art Donaldson Faistwho went on to become a Wimbledon-winning world champ while his old pal faltered. In movies, as in real-life, locker rooms are tinder boxes for queer curiosity and charged homoeroticism.

In Queer as Folkan empty school changing room is where year-old horndog Nathan Charlie Hunnam tugs off one his bullies for the first time. More important is the way that Guadagnino frames the scene from his perspective.

Even after they all grow up and Tashi has kids with Art, she can't help but indulge the friction.