5 reasons Alex Russo HAS to be bisexual in the 'Wizards of Waverly Place' revival
A Disney channel favorite is getting a new life—Wizards of Waverly Place might be headed back to TV.
It was announced Thursday that a pilot is underway for a revival series called Wizards, centered around David Henrie’s character, Justin Russo, as he takes a young wizard under his tutelage after previously giving up the world of magic to start a family and live a normal human life.
“The Russo’s are excited to become a part of your family, once again, but we’ve grown,” the actor wrote on Instagram. “2024. the year magic comes back!”
The original show ran from 2007 to 2012, and followed Alex (Selena Gomez), Justin, and Max Russo (Jake T. Austin) as they adjusted to being young wizards in New York City. The show also starred Jennifer Stone as Alex’s best friend, Harper, and Maria Canals-Barrera and David DeLuise as the Russo parents.
One particularly surprising piece of news accompanying the announcement is that Gomez will be reprising her role as well, at least in a guest starring capacity—for now. No other original cast members have been announced to return as of yet, likely as the series appears to still be in fairly early stages.
But already, we’re hoping that Wizards gives the show a chance to do one thing the original show wasn’t able to at the time—make Alex bisexual. Allow us to explain.
1. The original showrunner wanted Alex to be bi.
Disney
Last year, Wizards of Waverly Place showrunner Peter Murrieta admitted during a conversation with Stone and DeLuise on their rewatch podcast that the writer’s room desperately wanted to follow through on the blatant chemistry between Alex and Stevie (Hayley Kiyoko) in season three, but it just wasn't something that was able to be done on the Disney Channel at the time.
“We got as close as we could,” he said. “It was pretty close.”
He also added that “it was pretty clear to all of us what that relationship was.”
Now, considering the Disney Channel has, in fact, included queer characters in their series, there’s basically no reason not to have Alex pop in with a girlfriend, or at very least, make some reference that canonizes her sexuality in the new series, if they insist on having her still be with Mason (Gregg Sulkin).
2. Well, 'Raven’s Home' didn’t do it.
Disney
There was initially speculation that another Disney revival, Raven’s Home, would give us a queer lead, but star Raven-Symoné shot that down, despite it seeming like Disney would have been on board.
“I think Disney wanted her to be queer in the beginning, and I just didn’t feel comfortable doing that,” she previously told them. Apparently, the thought process was that because Raven-Symoné herself is gay, her revived character should be as well—something she felt was a “bad, bad reason.”
“Raven Baxter never exhibited any type of sexual identity situation in the priors,” she continued. “I’m not being myself on this show; I’m being a character.”
She’s not wrong, and that actually makes it even more apparent why Alex is a great candidate for having explored her sexuality in the years between the original show and the revival, because Alex did come across as queer in Wizards of Waverly Place.
It doesn’t hurt that the Raven’s Home creators also wrote the Wizards pilot, so maybe that means they’re open to the idea here. And while Disney is slowly becoming more queer-inclusive, both on the Disney Channel and elsewhere, they could stand to move at a slightly less glacial pace.
3. Selena Gomez seems like she would be down.
Hulu
Although Gomez hasn’t said anything specifically about what’s going on with Alex in the revival—yet—we know that she has absolutely zero qualms playing queer characters. Season two of Only Murders in the Building featured pal Cara Delevingne as her character’s love interest, and it was absolutely delightful.
Moreover, while it’s hard to guess just how frequently Gomez may or may not appear in Wizards if it goes to series, she and Henrie are both set to executive produce, so one would assume she gets at least a little creative input about the direction Alex’s life has taken.
4. It’s a great excuse to bring back Hayley Kiyoko.
Ben Houdijk/Shutterstock
Yes, Kiyoko is living her best life as a successful singer and Sapphic dreamboat ever since turning to focus more on music, but fans would die to see her reprise her role as Stevie, even for a hot second.
Lesbian Jesus herself even previously weighed in on Murietta’s revelation that the writing team basically headcanoned Stevie and Alex as more than gal pals, admitting, “When I rewatched the episodes, I see that. The lesbian energy was really thriving at that moment.”
5. We just deserve nice things!
— (@)
Honestly, does there really need to be a justification for queering up a beloved character after their teen years? A lot of people don’t come out until later in life, and as much as we still need the kind of representation shows like Andi Mack gave us, Hollywood also needs to get better about remembering that a character doesn’t have to be explicitly queer from the very beginning of their story in order to follow that path down the line.
And considering how the aughts were still so lacking in explicit queer rep in media, leaving us to our headcanons even more than we often are now, it sure would be nice to have a little bit of vindication (within the canon narrative) that something so many viewers saw was, in fact, exactly what we knew it to be.
