When I first saw Deadpool on Valentine’s Day with my civilian partner, I remember leaving the theater on cloud nine, sure that my relationship could withstand anything. The movie made me feel like my job was not an obstacle to be overcome by romantic interests but a core part of me that could be embraced. I remember thinking that Morena Baccarin never had to go back to Joss Whedon to play a laterally whorephobic space courtesan because this film had allowed her to play an amazing sex worker.
…Baccarin as Vanessa is awesome and her relationship with the titular hero is everything I have ever wanted from a story about a guy dating a sex worker. And it also represented everything that I wanted from being dated as one, with the addition of bad guys, bullets, and the breaking of the fourth wall.
…Wade thinks this woman is hot and if paying is what he needs to do to spend time with her, he will. He respects her job. He doesn’t haggle. He’s kind of a douchebag, but Vanessa seems to respond well to that. At no point is there any indication that Vanessa quits her job in order to date Wade, though she does seem to stop doing full service work after he leaves. Wade makes Vanessa happy and she is the one who decides to upgrade him from client to partner. He makes his own good money so he never mooches off of hers. And she is shown to make good money, free styling in a mercenary bar, so she also doesn’t need his. Their relationship isn’t about dependence on either side, but rather seems to be based on dark humor and some really amazing sex.
…[A]fter being tortured, mutated, and disfigured by the bad guys Wade goes looking for her. Nearly dying for real and then gaining some sweet healing powers has him knowing he can go back to her. It’s all going to be okay.
Except for the disfigurement. Some strangers on the street stare at him and Wade shells up. He lets Vanessa go, convinced his looks are the only thing he has to offer her. Wade’s whole thing of killing people to get to the head bad guy isn’t just about revenge for his torture. It’s to force the head bad guy to fix his face so his girlfriend will love him again.
This entire movie is about a guy trying to be hot enough for his fiancée.
Which is one of the more progressive things it does. On the surface, this seems to demonstrate that he thinks his sex worker girlfriend is shallow. But on a deeper level, this is an action hero expressing a deep sense of insecurity. Wade honestly thinks that without his good looks he’s not worthy of a woman like Vanessa. It’s an extension of him not wanting her to see him go through cancer because that would not only rob him of his looks but also his virility and physical capabilities. It’s not just that she would watch him die, she’d watch him be weak. And when you’ve got a girlfriend who is already the strong one, who holds her own against career killers and takes charge of fighting your cancer? Well, that might make you feel like you constantly need to impress her.
The patriarchy really can fuck with men too, and it has fucked Wade hard.
And the woman Wade really wants to impress? Whom he loves more than anything? She just happens to have sex for a living. It’s not a big deal in the script and that’s why this is such a big deal. Because Vanessa’s job is a vehicle for them meeting, but it’s not her whole character. Vanessa is tough, resourceful, funny, caring, and so many other things in this film before she is her job. But because she’s introduced through her job there’s no denying that this amazing woman is a sex worker. There’s no Breakfast at Tiffany’s vagueness on the subject here. If you like Vanessa, then you like a sex worker. And if you want to be friends with Deadpool, you gotta be chill with his girlfriend being a sex worker.
Maggie Mcmuffin’s shrewdly observed meditation on sex worker love interest Vanessa Carlysle in Deadpool at Tits and Sass today (via marginalutilite)