This will be a pretty short write-up. Matteusz is the last major character from Class that I want to cover, but he’s definitely the least prominent one in the group, more a rider for Charlie than his own full character (a few Matteusz-related spoilers.)
Matteusz’s job on the show, first and foremost, is to be Charlie’s boyfriend. He’s there to be asked to the prom by Charlie, to deal with the fact that the boy he’s into is an alien, to make Charlie reflect on his decisions, and to occasionally be threatened by the baddies in order to keep Charlie in line. He’s more of a function than a character, much more about Charlie’s character development than his own. He’s someone for Charlie to worry over, whether he’s expressing horror at the Cabinet of Souls (a Rhodian artifact that could be used as a weapon of genocide) or admitting under psychic inducement that he both loves and is afraid of Charlie. But he’s a positive force in Charlie’s life too – it’s due to his influence that Charlie doesn’t use the Cabinet of Souls, and he gets a rather swoony moment of assuring that Charlie that, if Charlie ever loses himself, Matteusz will find him again.
But that’s all mainly about Charlie, not Matteusz. His own storyline, what little there is of it, falls along sad gay lines, getting kicked out of the house by his conservative immigrant parents over his relationship with Charlie. Rather than really exploring Matteusz’s relationship with his family and what this experience means for him, though, it’s used more as a vehicle to get Matteusz to move in with Charlie and Quill.
This can be a tricky thing about having LGBTQ characters in ensemble shows. Often, there’s only one major gay/queer character in an ensemble, so while straight regulars can get into relationships with one another, the queer character needs to have a love interest brought in especially for them. This can relegate their relationship more to the margins, because we just don’t know the love interest as well or care about them as much as the regulars.
Matteusz isn’t quite in that situation, since he is a regular, but he’s the one who gets the least attention, dimension, and screentime. There’s certainly a sense that, if the show didn’t need someone to be Charlie’s boyfriend, there wouldn’t necessarily be a fifth student in the group. I haven’t checked out any of the ancillary stories for Class, the novels and the audiobooks, so I don’t know if he’s able to come more into his own there, but on the show, he tends to be the afterthought of the ensemble.
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I’ve watched a handful of Shang-Chi press videos and have found a few good Tony Leung Chiu-wai-related nuggets. Asked to describe Shang-Chi in one word, Simu Liu calls it “groundbreaking,” for multiple reasons, one of which is that it's Leung’s English-language debut. Also, both Liu and Fala Chen, who plays Jiang Li in the film, talk about the power of acting opposite Leung’s eyes, giving the impression that both are in awe of and at least slightly in love in him. In Chen’s interview, I really like what she says about Leung’s acting process and working collaboratively to create the fullest characters/relationships possible.
That’s one thing I really appreciate. Among arthouse cinema fans, there’s a feeling that Marvel is beneath Leung and that he basically just collected a fat paycheck for this movie. (First of all, I would point out that Leung was in Come Fly the Dragon and Fantasy Romance, so it’s not like he’s only a highly-decorated dramatic actor – there's no need to be so precious.) But between the reviews and the comments of people who’ve worked on the film, it sounds like Leung put his usual level of care and craft into this role. And by all accounts, we’re in for a real treat.
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