Some might question the interpretation of Challengers as queer art. Aside from its gay director, the film is ostensibly about a heterosexual love triangle between tennis coach Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) and tennis pros Art Donaldson (Faist) and Patrick Sweig (O’Connor). Still, culture writer Zing Tsjeng thinks the queer fandom of the film, which was inescapable online for months surrounding the film’s release, speaks for itself: “Even if there isn’t an explicit queer context, Guadagnino seems to have crafted the film with a deliberately queer sensibility.” Tsjeng thinks the casting of Zendaya as an impeccably dressed alpha female tennis coach is not only destined to spark “a million lesbian awakenings” (especially given the sport’s history of pioneering lesbians, such as Billie Jean King) but her character has the makings of an icon for gay men, too. “From the first moment we meet her, Tashi is bending these men to her will,” she says. “It’s quite similar to the heroines of mid-20th Century cinema, who gay men have been obsessed with for decades.”
The bond between Art and Patrick is the most intriguing (and erotic) in the film. Officially, the two of them are best friends-turned-enemies, but their relationship still radiates sweaty, playful, competitive sexual tension. Kuritzkes sees Patrick and Art as both “brothers” and “orphans,” who were effectively shunted off by their well-to-do parents to be raised at a tennis academy. Near the start of the film, the three leads drink cans of beer in a cheap hotel room, and Patrick shares the oddly touching story of how he instructed Art on how to masturbate when they were teenagers sharing a dorm room. “They’ve gone through everything together, and they’ve shared a lot of the intimacy that you share with somebody who you grew up with,” Kuritzkes says. “And whether we acknowledge it or not, in every friendship, and especially in every male friendship between two guys who have literally grown up together since puberty, there’s an unspoken hum of eroticism and repression.”
In the early stages of the film, there is a scene where Art and Patrick end up sharing an impromptu kiss when Tashi excuses herself from what started out as a three-way smooch. But soon that is eclipsed by an unexpectedly homoerotic scene, where the pair playfully eat a stick of churros together. The moment went viral on social media, and was described as the film’s “best sex scene,” with some fans even recreating the moment for Halloween. “Art and Patrick’s relationship was always very pronounced to me. In every draft of the script from the very first one, there was this theme of them both eating stuff that was shaped like a churro, whether it was hot dogs or smoking cigarettes or whatever,” Kuritzkes says. “Then when we got on set, Mike and Josh developed a deeper relationship and it turned into the iconic thing that it’s become.”
‘Real portrayals’
Netflix’s Baby Reindeer, written by and starring Richard Gadd, was one of the year’s most talked-about TV shows. It followed Donny (Gadd), an aspiring comedian who is targeted by a stalker, Martha (Jessica Gunning), who becomes an overwhelming (and terrifying) presence in his life. As Donny navigates their complicated relationship, he questions his own sexuality. We learn about his encounters with Darrien, a male TV executive (Tom Goodman-Hill) who plied him with drugs and sexually assaulted him. He also begins a relationship with Teri (Nava Mau), a trans woman he met on a trans dating app.
