DON'T READ IF YA DON'T WANT SPOILERS
Alright so, you remember how a few weeks ago people were kicking off about LeFou, the absolute main icon of Disney's wholesome values that cannot ever be touched, was going to be a gay character? Of course you do. Do you remember my last post about this where I was saying that it doesn't even matter unless it damages the film itself? No? Go read it then come back here.
https://somegirltalksaboutmovies.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/disney-gay-agenda.html
(Also go look at my review for the film https://somegirltalksaboutmovies.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/beauty-beast-2017.html )
You read it? Good, we can continue. You wanna know how changing the very core of Disney from a straight man to a gay man went? It barely fucking did anything. LeFou (Josh Gad) showed the same blatant signs of attraction that the cartoon did but in a different and very slightly more obvious way. There were scenes in which LeFou quite literally copied Gaston (Luke Evans) and it's in a way cute, in another way funny and in another kinda creepy. But you know what those lists say; if you want your crush to notice you, copy some of the little things they do to get their attention. This, of course, didn't work for poor little LeFou, then he sticks up for Gaston in the bar when Maurice (Kevin Klein) accuses him of attempted murder. LeFou then breaks into well-known song Gaston and yes, that is the name of the song, I looked it up on about 4 different sites. During this song, LeFou shows his affection toward Gaston and this is the biggest clue that this character is probably in the closet, and this is probably the start of the whole "LEFOU IS GAY LIGHT THE PITCHFORKS" thing. The rest of his scenes essentially follow the original story.
However, during the fight scene at the end, he gets flattened by a table, it's not the lovely dog/footstool table, it's just a coffee table that comes out for the fight. He pleads Gaston for help but, Gaston being the dick he always was, leaves him in pursuit of the Beast. Later during the fight, Mrs Potts sees Mr Potts, a man I never knew existed in the original movie. I guess he had to exist in some way for Chip to be born but, it's just weird to see him. Back to the point, though. Mrs Potts sees her estranged husband and falls, as she's falling, you almost think she's going to smash into pieces on the floor, but you see her get caught. Who catches her? Your favourite french fool, LeFou. Mrs Potts asks why he caught her and isn't he on the other side? He replies that he and Gaston are going through a rough patch like someone would say if they're in a fight with their partner. Mrs Potts then goes on to say something along the lines of either "You don't need him love" or "you can do better love" or maybe both, it's been 2 days since I watched it and I can't remember every line spoken. Sue me. Also, during this fight scene, Madame Garderobe (Audra McDonald) clothes three men, I'm not even joking she showers them in clothes and they come out fully done up, makeup and wigs and gorgeous dresses. Two of these men scream in terror and run out but one of them just smiles and looks so happy and just walks away. It's a cute moment and at the time it looks like a silly throwaway joke or something but it goes somewhere.
Now then, you'll notice there's nothing particularly gay about any of this. I've described a pretty camp character and crossdresser. That can't be it, right? There was such a build-up, where's the butt plugs? The anal beads? The dildo-headed, leather gimp suits? Where's even the tiniest gay moment? You wanna know where it is? Right at the very end and lasts less than a second. Literally. After everyone gets returned to their human form there's the final reprise of Tale as old as time and everyone is having fun in the ballroom dancing, and loving life. There's a shot of LeFou dancing with a young woman and it cuts away to someone else dancing or Emma Thompson singing. Again I'm not sure, I barely remember the details shot by shot. It then cuts back to LeFou dancing with this woman, he then pushes her aside and starts dancing with the man from earlier who was happy in the dress. There's your gay moment guys. LeFou dances with a guy. We're off to hell guys, we watched the gayest thing two men can do together. Dance.
I'm not even joking, that was the "exclusively gay moment". So...did it matter? No. Why was there such a hype over it to the point where I was expecting anal beads and dildo-headed gimp suits? Personally, I think the creators knew that controversy sells and that they didn't have enough confidence in their product. This was simply a marketing ploy and a cheap one at that. I can't lie, I'm hurt by this. Why couldn't the creators go balls to the wall and have him actually explore his sexuality rather than be overly affectionate toward Gaston. Seeing a character just explore who they are would be nice at least but this whole thing just seemed like such a last minute thing that you wonder what even triggered the need to put it in.
Personally, I think it was the desperate need for representation of everyone that some people have these days. People want more women, gay people, trans people and ethnic people represented in film, and that's understandable, but why put these characters in these films just for the sake of representation? If you're just throwing these characters in without thought, for a controversy storm to start up and bring in an audience that...considering that this is A) a Disney product B) a remake of a perfect piece of film and C) a big thing because of the cast they managed to get, there really is no need to create such a storm. This really does show the confidence the makers had in this film. They knew that no matter what, this was going to be a bad film compared to this first one and they had to do whatever they could to get butts into seats. Like I said, this is an iconic property and the film would have been the exact same without it.
I really don't know what else to say about it, there was no need to put in an "exclusively gay moment" that didn't even exist. I'm offended because they had a great shot at a character exploring their sexuality to normalise it for kids and they bitched out of it. It would have been nice to have this little side plot with LeFou rather than filling our time with 4 pointless songs that stopped the film or the unnecessary exposition with Belle's mother dying of plague (don't come at me, you had a spoiler warning). This could have at least made the film it's own thing. In that respect, the Cinderella remake was better because at least it tried to be its own thing. It made the product worse in doing so but at least they tried. With this? It's a shot for shot remake of the cartoon with more exposition that just stops the film. That doesn't change my opinion on it, I do still like the film, I went in with low expectations and they were met, that's all I asked for with this remake.
I know that this is all over the place and honestly...this whole thing was kind of all over the place, there was no need for a petition to be made before anybody saw it. There was no need for anyone to ban this from their theatre before they even saw it. There was no need to cause a media storm over nothing. I hope someone from Disney or someone in film at least, sees this and the many other peoples complaints about there not being a gay moment and I hope they take it on board and think about what they're going to do and why they're going to do it. I'm so sick of thing just being shoehorned into films just for the sake of advertisement. Do it because the story needs it or you feel it's something that needs to be talked about. All it says about you is that you're not confident in your work if you have to either shoehorn something in *cough cough female ghostbusters* or just flat out lie to your audience.
I'm pissy about this, peace out and have a good day guys.
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