American Gods creator Bryan Fuller accuses Bohemian Rhapsody teaser of 'queer-erasure', 'het-washing'

Bryan Fuller has criticised the Bohemian Rhapsody trailer for ‘ignoring’ important aspects of Freddie Mercury’s life. The trailer for the highly-anticipated biopic of the legendary rock-band Queen was recently released online starring Mr. Robot's Rami Malek as front-man Freddie Mercury.

The are numerous visuals in the trailer of the band, and of Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury. The trailer is seen teasing Queen’s formative years, along with scenes of the band working on their iconic track 'Bohemian Rhapsody' for the very first time.

Bryan Fuller and Rami Malek from Bohemian Rhapsody/Image from Twitter.

Writer and producer Bryan Fuller — who has worked on shows such as the Star Trek television series, highly-acclaimed American Gods, and Pushing Daisies — has heavily criticised the movie's first trailer.

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Taking to Twitter, Fuller wrote: “Anyone else mildly annoyed (enough to tweet about it) that the #BohemianRapsody (sic) trailer features gay/bi superstar Freddie Mercury flirting with and twirling with a woman but no indication of his love of men?”

There were other users who said that Fuller was disrespecting Mercury’s bisexual identity. Some Twitter users suggested that the filmmakers may be holding back scenes surrounding Mercury’s sexuality and AIDs-realted death in order to “thrill-audiences.”

Fuller replied saying, “I disagree. It’s #HETWASHING (hetero-washing) for marketing sakes.”

He later shared a screenshot of the film’s YouTube channel, highlighting the part in its description that says Mercury faces a “life-threatening illness”. “Dear 20th Century Fox,” he wrote. “Yes, it was a life-threatening illness, but more specifically it was AIDS. From having gay sex with men. Do Better.”

He added: “I feel what the trailer is doing is queer-erasure. If they were out and proud with his bi-sexuality they would have indicated he was bi-sexual. Showing him romantic with a woman, but not a man (3 frames don’t count) is not a celebration of bi-sexual identity. It’s hiding it.”

Bohemian Rhapsody is scheduled to release worldwide on 2 November.