So I was watching Jessica Kellgren-Fozard’s “The History of Queercoding” video and she made a remark about how many times there are storylines that are really gay, but they’re superpowers, and it made me think of Ninjago. Here is my YouTube comment on that topic. (Contains spoilers for Season One of Ninjago)
The thing about LGBTQ+ storylines being disguised as ✨ secret magic powers! ✨ Is so real lol. Zane and Cole’s “true potential” episodes of Lego Ninjago were so gay. Whenever I talk about Cole’s episode, I call “the episode where Cole comes out to his dad as a Ninja.” It’s hard for me to describe their gayness, so if you want, you can watch them yourself on Hulu.
But basically, in Zane’s he finds out he’s a robot and he doesn’t know how to feel. He cries out when he finds his blueprints and just sits/lays on the floor for a long time before he reconciles with himself and reaches his true potential.
If that sounds relatable to your or someone you know’s LGBTQ+ experience, then wait ‘till you hear Cole’s. It’s... it’s just a coming out story.
Basically the bad guys need this trophy from a contest that happens in Cole’s dad’s village so the ninja have to go and Avengers: Endgame it and visit his dad. Now his dad thinks he was at a music school (because dad was a music guy and he wants his kid to be a music guy too), but really he was training to be a ninja, and they have to improv and stuff to make it look like they’re from a music school. Their plan is to enter the contest and then steal the trophy. But when the time comes, Dad overhears him going over the plan with his friends, and he’s really angry and disappointed. Cole tells him he’s a ninja and his dad says, “I can’t support any son who thinks stealing is right.” And walks away. Then Cole decides they’re going to win the trophy instead of stealing it, and as they dance to the show’s theme song the bad guys come up onstage and fight them, and they have a fight-dance. But Cole doesn’t see his dad in the crowd. But then as they’re walking back stage with the trophy, Cole sees his dad and Dad says, “I saw it all, son” and he’s proud of him. But then the bad guys drop on big rock on Dad but Cole reaches his true potential and saves him.
So hecking gay.
Queercoding is so ingrained in our society that people write stuff that’s gay without even knowing. At least I think the writers didn’t know....
Edit: I forgot another gay thing about Zane’s storyline. There’s an episode earlier in the first season about how Zane’s weird and different from the others. There was always something odd about him, but no one knew what until Zane put the pieces together....