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Movies

Death on the Nile Has a Surprising Gay Moment With These Comedy Icons

'Death on the Nile' Has Surprising Gay Moment With These Comedy Icons

These characters weren't lesbian lovers in the book!

Rachel Kiley

Rachel Kiley is presumably a writer and definitely not a terminator. She can usually be found crying over queerbaiting in the Pitch Perfect franchise or on Twitter, if not both.

Read Full Bio

Rachel Kiley

rachelkiley

February 17 2022 12:14 PM EST

May 31 2023 2:36 PM EST

Major Hollywood movies still aren’t great when it comes to including LGBTQ characters in films that aren’t mining the community for our tragedies, but every so often, a little bit of representation seems to show up when we’re not even expecting it.

That’s what happened with the recently released Death on the Nile, the latest Kenneth Branagh adaptation of Agatha Christie’s classic Hercule Poirot stories. The production has been riddled with controversy after the accusations against Armie Hammer and Letitia Wright’s concerning views on COVID vaccines.

But it turns out there was at least one bright spot through it all. Long-time collaborators Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French joined the film as an American socialite and her nurse, respectively, but with a delightful alteration absent from the book — they’re lovers.

\u201cjennifer saunders and dawn french as lesbians let's goooooooooooooooo #DeathOnTheNile\u201d
— oliwia\ud83c\udf19 (@oliwia\ud83c\udf19) 1645041761

Saunders and French have worked together creating British comedy for decades, including the career-launching French and Saunders and the brilliant Absolutely Fabulous. And their fans enjoyed seeing them steal scenes together once again, with a queer twist.

\u201cWhen Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French first appeared together in #DeathOnTheNile I leaned over to movie buddy @DarlingChristie and whispered, "I bet those two are going to be Absolutely Fabulous."\n\nHer reaction was priceless. Turns out she was thinking the exact same thing.\u201d
— Nate Anderson \ud83c\udff3\ufe0f\u200d\ud83c\udf08\ud83d\udc99\ud83d\udc9b (@Nate Anderson \ud83c\udff3\ufe0f\u200d\ud83c\udf08\ud83d\udc99\ud83d\udc9b) 1644798970

\u201cjennifer saunders playing a lesbian in death in the nile no i can\u2019t believe it my dream has been fulfilled\u201d
— madeline :) (@madeline :)) 1644625658

\u201cDEATH ON THE NILE features Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders as secret lesbian lovers so yeah I liked it\u201d
— kyle amato (@kyle amato) 1644286701

We won’t spoil the plot of the film itself — the changes or the majority of the story that’s been around since 1937 — but it should come as no surprise that this inclusivity isn’t an incredibly prominent part of the movie, likely due to both it being a deviation from the book and big studios still being hesitant to alienate their conservative audiences.

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\u201cLook, I can forgive Death on the Nile for a lot, but having a Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders lesbian story line without a single kiss is unconscionable.\u201d
— Julia Sirmons (@Julia Sirmons) 1644958996

But it’s still a small step in the right direction, and one that came along quietly, without fanfare touting LGBTQ representation only for us to discover a blink-and-you-miss-it scene.

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