Daniella Pineda Confirms Her Jurassic World Character Was De-Gayed

The de-gaying of Hollywood blockbusters continues with Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom in which a scene that reveals Daniella Pineda's scientist character is a lesbian was cut from the final film, according to Yahoo.

New to the Jurassic World universe, Pineda plays Dr. Zia Rodriguez, a paleo-veterinarian who joins Chris Pratt's Owen and Bryce Dallas Howard's Claire in saving what's left of the dinosaurs from the dino-themed amusement park that was trampled and destroyed in the last film.

While Zia's lesbianism was not integral to moving the plot forward, she told Build Series Studio in an interview that she was disappointed to learn that the scene that reveals her character's queerness was left on the cutting room floor.

Pineda describes the scene, in which she and Pratt's Owen are riding in a military vehicle en route to a rescue mission. At one point Zia glances at Owen and sizes up his looks. "I look at Chris and I'm like, 'Yeah, square jaw, good bone structure, tall, muscles,'" Pineda said, describing the scene. "I don't date men, but if I did, it would be you. It would gross me out, but I'd do it.'"

"I love that I'm looking at Chris Pratt, the hottest guy in the world, and I'm like, It would gross me out, but I guess I would do it! It was also cool because it was a little insight into my character," she said. "But they cut it."

Director J.A. Bayona and co-writer/producer Colin Trevorrow were behind adding a line to reveal something about Zia's sexuality before eventually choosing to cut it for time, Pineda recalled. The line wasn't "relevant to the story, but it was a little glimmer into who she is," Pineda said.

But the omission of a queer character's sexuality is glaring since Owen and Claire's heterosexual love story is so front and center; it's also relevant to the wider issue of blockbusters de-queering movies.

The most recent example of the de-queering of a character in a major popcorn movie was the bi-erasure of Tessa Thompson's character Valkyrie in Thor: Ragnarok. Thompson confirmed the existence of a cut scene in which a woman is seen exiting Valkyrie's bedroom. Before knowing the scene was cut, Thompson said she leaned into the character's bisexuality even if it wasn't overt. At the time, Thompson said of her portrayal of Valkyrie that, "There were things that we talked about that we allowed to exist in the characterization, but maybe not be explicit in the film."

Last summer, the big screen adaptation of Wonder Woman, which drew raves and big box office, failed in terms of portraying its titular character as bisexual as she's depicted in the comics. But Wonder Woman wasn't even the first female superhero whose bisexuality was erased for the big screen. Mystique, played by Rebecca Romijn and Jennifer Lawrence in the X-Men franchise, has also been completely de-queered in film versions.