Tom Hiddleston Couldn't Say Loki's Rudest Line In The Avengers Without Giggling

Before Chris Pratt and James Gunn managed to sneak an F-bomb past Kevin Feige and the censors in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3," Marvel directors had to be a little more subtle about their profanity. Pratt's delivery of the line in the third "Guardians" movie marked the first time the F-word had made it into a Marvel movie, signaling a truly seismic shift in cinematic history that will no doubt one day be mentioned in the same breath as the advent of technicolor or indeed the invention of film itself.

But Star-Lord snapping at Nebula is arguably not the most offensive thing to have happened in the Marvel Cinematic Universe — and no, we're not talking about the CGI in "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania." No, the most dubious line yet delivered came all the way back in 2012.

"The Avengers" saw Feige unite the various heroes he'd introduced in previous solo movies, demonstrating how to do a shared cinematic universe right and heralding the true arrival of the monolith we all now know as the all-too prevalent MCU. It also signaled the moment Tom Hiddleston said the phrase "mewling quim," which is one of those things that gets less funny and more gross the more you think about it. Evidently, Hiddleston himself found it hilarious in the moment, and couldn't keep a straight face.

The "mewling quim" line (that's the last time I'm typing that, I swear) has attained a kind of cult reverence among some MCU fans, simply because it's just an arcane and outdated way of calling someone a C-word. To be specific, it's actually a way of referring to someone as emitting a feeble cry whilst being the C-word in question. Funny stuff.

Anyway, Tom Hiddleston's Loki directs the insult at Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow after he's captured and held captive on a Helicarrier. And it seems those two words sent the actors into hysterics. As "Loki" season 2 approaches and the WGA/SAG strike continues, Total Film collated interviews with Hiddleston, one of which included this tidbit from the actor:

"The scene between Black Widow and Loki in the cell on the Helicarrier, Scarlett [Johansson] and I had an amazing time playing it. We shot on a Monday, and we had spent all weekend running it at her house. Whenever I got to 'mewling quim,' I couldn't say it because we would collapse into a fit of giggles. And I wondered if I was going to be able to say it and look her in the face without laughing. It just so happens I did."

This moment isn't the finest in MCU history. Thankfully, Loki as a character has evolved quite a bit since then.

Loki's archaic insult hasn't really aged all that well in the years following the "The Avengers." For one thing, writer/director Joss Whedon described this moment as his "greatest achievement" in the movie, which takes on a fairly sinister aura given the various allegations about Whedon running a toxic set on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and his conduct on "Justice League." More disturbingly, as laid out by the Washington Post, Whedon seemingly has a history of being particularly verbally abusive to women on sets. All of which kind of makes the line, growled so aggressively as it was by Loki, from "The Avengers" even less funny than it already was.

In fairness, the director may have just been amused by his ability to sneak some Shakespearean-style vulgarity into the film, but it still just kind of seems like something a 13-year-old might snicker at. Thankfully, Loki has undergone a drastic transformation in the years since, and will apparently be a much more heroic version of himself in "Loki" season 2. He's already left much of the vitriolic villainy behind since becoming a fan-favorite character, and that's hopefully an indication that the MCU as a whole has transformed somewhat since the days of Joss Whedon smuggling in archaic insults. Now we get Star-Lord F-bombs, which is a start, at least.

"Loki" season 2 premieres October 5, 2023, at 6pm PST on Disney+.