By Kayleigh Donaldson | Celebrity | July 16, 2020 |
By Kayleigh Donaldson | Celebrity | July 16, 2020 |
Dakota Johnson is many things. 3rd generation Hollywood royalty. That woman who is clearly too good for Chris Martin. The queen who totally bodied Ellen Degeneres on her own show. Lover of limes. An actress of such skill that she single-handedly almost made the 50 Shades trilogy a teensy bit bearable. Now, Twitter seems ready to claim her as our latest bisexual queen.
Johnson’s name trended on social media yesterday with the usual glut of fandom squee and near-indecipherable assertions that seemed to have no real source of origin. This time, a hell of a lot of people had concluded that Dakota was bisexual and they reacted accordingly.
yall: dakota johnson and aubrey plaza
— 🕊 (@ursuloIita) July 15, 2020
me: two openly bisexual icons pic.twitter.com/g2WNUal4Ed
lili reinhart and dakota johnson coming out as bisexual this year? maybe 2020 isn't that bad pic.twitter.com/RAafw7507w
— nicole ミ☆ (@ohtopaz) July 16, 2020
DAKOTA JOHNSON IS BISEXUAL? WE LITERALLY NEVER LOSE DO WE pic.twitter.com/3vi5YocLUV
— â· (@raplineIover) July 16, 2020
no one does it like dakota johnson and now she’s a bi icon, a win pic.twitter.com/Irgeoi9rbb
— sara𓆙 (@softmvlfoy) July 16, 2020
i knew dakota johnson couldn’t be straight when i saw this kitchen pic.twitter.com/nag916wACM
— ᶜᵒâ¿Ë¢áµ—ᵃâ¿áµ—â±â¿áµ‰ (@greenIight) July 15, 2020
Seems cool, right? We could always use more LGBTQ+ representation in Hollywood and Dakota is certainly welcome in the bi treehouse. But is it actually true? Well, that’s up for debate.
Johnson started trending because of a resurfaced 2017 interview in Vogue, where she said this:
‘I’ve been in a phase of my life where I’m fascinated by young women coming to terms with their sexuality. I guess, by proxy, I have been experiencing that in my own life, and it’s very interesting to me.[…]
‘I think I’m a little bit heartbroken all the time, even when I’m in a happy relationship. I don’t do casual very well, and my feelings, even the good ones, get so intense that they hurt.’ For the present, Johnson is on her own. Enough said. ‘Can we make things really juicy? Can we say that I’m taking this time to explore my bisexuality? Or that I have given myself to the Lord following the release of my sexually explicit trifecta of films?’
This interview raised some questions at the time as to whether Johnson was actually coming out as bi but it didn’t take off in the way it did this week on Twitter. It’s interesting because the quote about exploring her bisexuality seems more jokey in the context of the interview. She’s finally done promoting a trilogy of movies defined solely by their erotic content and she’s kidding around about making the interview more salacious either by playing up the sexy angle or making a U-turn and becoming born again.
Personally, I wouldn’t read it as confirmation of her sexuality, but it also speaks volumes as to how a heteronormative society still expects LGBTQ+ people, particularly those in the limelight, to make a lavish announcement of sorts, because otherwise, it’s still a secret, albeit an open one. Think about how many times we saw Kristen Stewart with her girlfriends and the press wrote them off as ‘galpals.’
It’s also an extremely good-faith reading of the interview that I’m not sure everyone would be given the benefit of the doubt on. Can you imagine, say, Jennifer Lawrence or Amy Schumer giving an interview like this and making those same comments? They’d be accused of queerbaiting or turning bisexuality into some sort of joke that invalidates its existence, as so many bisexuals are dishearteningly used to dealing with. Johnson has a much drier sense of humor and it comes across in the full interview.
Whatever the case, just let Dakota live her life, and please give her plenty more opportunities to ruin Ellen’s on daytime TV!