MOVIE NEWS – The discovery that Glass Onion’s Benoit Blanc is gay has drawn both praise and disapproval on social media, but Daniel Craig wants people to move on.

Daniel Craig solves a mystery again as Benoit Blanc in The Onion, the sequel to Rian Johnson’s hit Knives Out. However, since the latest outing, Johnson has confirmed that the character is gay and living with another man. While this has been the focus of some criticism of the film, Daniel Craig has warned people not to “get hung up on” the character’s sexuality.

There has been a lot of backlash lately against straight actors playing LGBTQ+ roles. That’s why the discovery that Craig, who is married to actress Rachel Weisz, is playing a man who is gay has led some to criticize the casting on social media. Given that Craig had successfully played the role once before, there was never any chance of him being cast again just because of his enhanced status, something that Craig himself dealt with. In an interview with Deadline, Craig said:

“The less we brag about it, the better for me, because it just made sense. And as I said [at the London Film Festival], who doesn’t want to live with the person they happen to be with? It’s beautiful, it’s fun. And why not could it be? I don’t want people to get political about anything.”

Is Daniel Craig’s gay character just another “tick” for “inclusivity” in Hollywood?

Although in recent years there has certainly been no end to well-known film characters who “turned out” to be representatives of an LGBTQ+ group, as Hollywood continues to try to show its diversity, the Onion’s Benoit Blanc may not be such a cynical gesture. The character is well-written, and both in Knives Out and throughout the sequel, the character’s dress sense and the dynamic of his interactions with the other characters are quite suggestive that he’s always been oriented the way he’s now revealed.

However, his sexuality is not a central plot theme, it does not interfere with the story, and although his status in The Onion is clear to most people, it is not even painfully forced or crammed into it as a key moment of the film. It just is, and comes with a subtlety that acknowledges the fact and moves on. This goes back to Craig’s comments about not making a big deal out of it. There was no massive promotion of the character’s sexuality, and the film didn’t change anything because of it. It just adds to the depth of the character and fleshes her out more, just like the scene revealed that she’s married with kids.

Glass Onion is about more than the protagonist’s orientation, and Craig has managed to establish himself with a role that can help him step out of the shadow of his recent departure from the James Bond franchise. Glass Onion is now available in selected cinemas and will arrive on Netflix on December 23rd.

Source: MovieWeb