‘Q-Force’s’ main character has a Bear for a boyfriend, and we love it!
So, by now we’ve all either seen or at least heard about the new queer animated comedy series Q-Force on Netflix. So far, I give it a B+, or about three and a half stars out of five, if we’re doing the “star rating system”.
However, I’ve seen some reviews online that haven’t been as kind. Some Twitter users have bashed the comedy as “dated”, and despite the fact that the creative team behind the show is queer, many still think the show comes across as homophobic. However, many other viewers were surprised that the show turned out to be good, despite the first impression from the trailer.
The show currently holds a critics’ score of 25% on Rotten Tomatoes, despite it holding a 77% audience score, with the critics consensus reading, “Q-Force‘s heart is in the right place, but dated stereotypes and a general lack of humor make this animated action adventure fall flat.”
No, the show isn’t groundbreaking in the comedy sense: the jokes are a parody on queer stereotypes that have been around for eons. It doesn’t feel any different from any of the other jokes that have been made at the expense of queer people, but knowing that the creative team is queer sort of changes the impact. This is queer people making fun of queer people, so that actually makes it cute and funny.
But, even though the comedy isn’t groundbreaking, there is one fresh perspective that we would be remiss to not mention — a Bear as a love interest. Yes, the main character, Steve Maryweather (voiced by Sean Hayes), who is also known as Agent Mary, is dating a Bear named Benji (voiced by showrunner Gabe Liedman), and we love to see it!
Mary and Benji were attracted to each other at first sight, and when Mary showed up at Benji’s door with a bottle of wine, it wasn’t long before the two were in bed together with Mary resting his head on Benji’s big hairy chest! Woof! Does that sound like the perfect gay love story or what? And it seems that we aren’t alone. Twitter is in love with Benji!
The best part about it, however, is that Benji’s weight (as of now) has not really been mentioned — unless I missed something. I’m about six or seven episodes in, and none of the characters have made any wisecracks about Benji’s size.
Though I would like to see Benji fly a little Bear Pride by taking Mary to a Bear bar or maybe even hanging a Bear flag on his wall, The fact that Benji is just allowed to be who he is without any body shaming, or having his weight be the topic of discussion or the center of all his problems, is very refreshing. As I said earlier this month, representation of larger bodies in the media will be what eventually ends body shaming.
So, kudos to Q-Force for giving us Benji Bear! Hopefully they will be around for more seasons so they can continue to do more for queer TV.
