After what felt like endless, torturously smug hype-building, the irreverent comic-book comedy Deadpool was finally released in February – to surprise box-office success. The surprise was not that a Marvel-based caper attracted a massive audience, but rather that a proudly adult-centric, R-rated one did quite so well (in the US, it out-grossed bigger-budget PG-13 offerings Guardians of the Galaxy and Batman v Superman).

It was even more of a shock that, before its release, the film’s director, Tim Miller, and its star, Ryan Reynolds, revealed that the character’s pansexuality would survive the journey from page to screen. However, as anyone who has ever been to the cinema could have predicted, Fox’s action-adventure offered up an entirely heterosexual experience, bar a few minor, throwaway gags. In a way, the film acted as a precursor for the summer to follow. To quote the tagline of another neutered 2016 blockbuster, Independence Day: Resurgence, we were warned.

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While LGBT characters have maintained some form of visibility within independent cinema, they have been parodied, stereotyped and used for tiresome gay-panic humour in their rare appearances in studio films. They’re usually relegated to comedies, in which they sassily befriend the female lead or scare the hunky, straight protagonist at the gym. And they’re kept far away from the blockbusters that are relied upon for most of the industry’s income.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ryan Reynolds as the pansexual Deadpool – but the film offered an entirely heterosexual experience. Photograph: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock

But in the past few months, there has been a sea change. In June, gay director Roland Emmerich included a same-sex couple in his aforementioned alien invasion sequel, while last month we saw John Cho’s rebooted Sulu gain a husband in Star Trek Beyond and Kate McKinnon play cinema’s first lesbian ghostbuster in Paul Feig’s bro-baiting redo.

“Insofar as these characters are being recognised as LGBTQ by audience and critics alike, you can say that is some progress,” says Ray Bradford, director of programs for entertainment media at Glaad (formerly known as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation). “But looking closer at each of these movies illustrates yet again that film still lags far behind television and online streaming content in providing platforms for queer voices that are not marginalised.”

Because, alongside the smell of popcorn, there’s a strong whiff of studio cowardice at the multiplex this summer with film-makers holding back when they should have been letting go. Rather than being offered some much-needed diversity, we’ve been given a stale reminder of the tiresome heteronormativity that continues to stifle change within blockbusters.

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In Star Trek Beyond, Sulu returns from months away on the Enterprise to his daughter and male partner. However, we’re left to assume that’s who he is – the clue is that they touch each other’s lower backs (Independence Day: Resurgence’s couple were allowed to hold hands). Cho revealed, in an interview with the website Vulture, that a kiss was originally part of the scene, but was ultimately removed. Similarly, gay SNL star McKinnon’s Ghostbusters character is never explicitly outed, but a few lines hint at her sexuality, while director Feig gave a “grinning, silent nod” in an interview with the Daily Beast when asked if she was gay, prefacing it with the comment: “When you’re dealing with the studios ...” And even the flashy reboot of Tarzan was set to have a kiss between Christoph Waltz’s flamboyant villain and an unconscious buffed-up Alexander Skarsgård, but it was chopped after test audiences were said to be left perplexed by it. Less sea change then, more drop in the ocean.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Brent Spiner as Dr Brackish Okun in Independence Day: Resurgence. Photograph: Moviestore/Rex/Shutterstock

Why, in 2016, are we treating homosexuality with kid gloves? Why are we conforming to a Hays Code sensibility when violence and straight sex are up on screen for all to see? When same-sex marriage has been legalised in most of the western world, should a gay character really be seen as problematic?

“I think we’re finally at a place in culture where a character being gay or lesbian isn’t taboo, especially for teenagers – the target audience for a lot of these summer blockbusters,” says screenwriter Graham Moore, who won an Oscar for the Alan Turing biopic The Imitation Game. “I think that if you tell most teenagers that a character is gay or lesbian, it doesn’t seem scintillating to them – it seems totally commonplace. They’re like, “Yes, and ...?”

But this might not be the case for all demographics. A recent survey carried out by the Pew Research Centre found that 31% of Americans still believe homosexuality should be discouraged. With studios ever eager to lure potential customers away from their many streaming platforms, films with inflated budgets need to appeal to the broadest audience. In the US, 37% of all tickets are bought by the 50-plus audience and, importantly, they’re the most habitual moviegoers. But studies have shown that acceptance of same-sex marriage is just 47% for people between 50 and 64, compared with 73% for those aged 18 to 29.

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The need for a mass audience is why the PG-13/12A certificate remains so popular in the summer months, and it’s also why the female-fronted $144m (£108m) Ghostbusters reboot has delivered such underwhelming box office. With a 73% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and strong brand awareness from the much-loved original, the film should have been a slam-dunk, but the angry male outrage over the gender-flipped casting dragged its commercial potential down, giving Sony and the rest of the industry a depressing lesson in what happens when you deviate from the set formula.

“When it comes to greenlighting a film, the ‘comp’ is king – that is, the comparison to other, similar films, which studios use for box office projections and determining a budget,” says Kyle Buchanan, senior editor at Vulture. “That cautious approach to moviemaking ensures that a studio film with a gay lead character won’t be made any time soon because it hasn’t been made any time recently. Film-makers with clout could circumvent the system, but when most directors are straight, white men making films about straight, white men, we don’t tend to get a very diverse lineup of films.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing in The Imitation Game. Photograph: Black Bear Pictures/Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar

Blockbusters are also now more dependent on international box office, with China in particular proving to be vital territory. In 2015, Chinese attendance was up an unprecedented 49% from the previous year, and blockbusters such as Independence Day: Resurgence, Now You See Me 2, Iron Man 3 and Transformers 4 have included scenes in China or with Chinese actors to improve their appeal overseas. Homosexuality was only made legal in China in 1997 and taken off the list of recognised mental illnesses in 2001. Censorship is still an issue. LGBT characters were banned from television earlier this year, and conservative views continue to be reflected in the films that get released.

As CGI-heavy films about aliens and ghosts have bailed on genuine change, it has been left to comedies to lead the way. Last year was a regressive one for LGBT characters in the genre with Get Hard and The Wedding Ringer both relying on lazy gay-panic humour, but Bad Neighbours 2 emerged in May as a surprisingly progressive example. In one of the first scenes, Dave Franco’s ex-frat boy gets engaged to his boyfriend, to the joy of his fellow bros. They’re not ridiculed or made the focus of any overly sexualised humour, and the film culminates in their wedding. Most importantly, they kiss, a pretty innocuous gesture that has been banned from blockbusters.

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Recent Twitter petitions to include gay characters in the Star Wars, Marvel and Disney universes might just seem like wishful thinking but they reflect an audience in need of progress. “If studios know that demand is there and the audience is ready, we could see real, albeit incremental, change,” says Buchanan.

The importance of inclusion shouldn’t be underestimated. In the US, the LGBT community remains the most likely minority group to suffer hate crime and, as recent horrible events have shown in Orlando, homophobia can still be a life-threatening form of ignorance.

“For most people who don’t know someone who is LGBTQ, seeing them in film or on TV is often the only way they find out who we are, what our lives are about and how we can live together,” says Bradford. “Opening up LGBTQ stories and giving them the potential of being shown across the world in major blockbuster films creates opportunities for audiences to see themselves and the world around them for the first time in a venue that validates their existence and integration in the worldwide community.

“What this image says to those already feeling disenfranchised in a world that often portrays them as the ‘other’ is powerful stuff.”