- LeFou was pretty gay in the original 2D animated feature.
- There was no uproar about Elsa possibly being gay.
- Who the hell even cares anymore?
Let's address this bottom to top. Who cares whether LeFou is gay or not? Don't claim it's "pushing an agenda" because it's not. It's broadening children's minds, it's helping them to understand that it's ok to be gay. If they grew up without this sort of thing and their parents never taught them it was ok, these kids could either become extremely sexually repressed or intolerant to other people and the way they go about their lives. As I'm writing this I'm reading the comments on the Change.Org petition to "Remove Exclusively gay moment from Beauty and the Beast before it hits theaters." Some of them make sense to me, such as "I DON'T want to see a timeless classic be rendered just to appease any specific group of persons. LEAVE IT THE WAY IT WAS ORIGINALLY MADE!" I understand where this person is coming from, I really do. Beauty & The Beast was one of my absolute favourite films when I was a kid and when I first heard this was being remade I thought...I might not be all that down for it because there are gonna be things that won't capture the magic the original did, however, I'm still going to give it a chance, if it's shit it's shit, if not then...great. The problem is, there are comments like "Normalizing sexual perversion for children and pushing political agenda on children, and "hiding" it in a children's movie is just wrong." Now I respect this person's opinion, it's how they feel and I'm not gonna tell them they're wrong for what they're feeling. What I am going to do is bullet point what's wrong with that statement.
- "Normalizing sexual perversion". That's not what's going on, LeFou is described as "Explore(ing) his sexuality after developing feelings for macho leading man Gaston." Meaning this is most likely going to be done visually, through facial expression and atmosphere. I highly doubt Josh Gad, who will be playing Lefou, is going to start whipping out baby Jesus butt plugs and Orca dildo's (both of which are very real things) out at a hardcore gay bar where everybody in is a leather gimp suit and tied to the ceiling. I just don't see that happening.
- "Political agenda" It just isn't. I'm not bisexual because of politics, I'm bisexual because that's who I am. I genuinely have never heard of anybody being a certain sexuality because of politics, just a daft thing to say. There is no such thing as a gay agenda unless I'm not in on it because I'm not totally gay. (Note to self, talk to the gay people you know about whether there is a gay agenda, they might not let you in on it but at least you tried.)
- "Hiding it in a children's movie" And where the hell were you when there were theories about the penis in The Little Mermaid VHS cover and a few DVD covers? What about the word SEX being written in the stars in The Lion King? Hell, what about the topless lady in The Rescuers? No calls for banning those. I mean there was about that last one but it's honestly amazing someone even found that in the first place. LeFou's gayness, for lack of a better word, is fairly open, nothing is being hidden with that.
Another comment I saw was "It is up to parents to introduce their kids to alternative lifestyles, not anyone else." Which again, I understand, but to them I ask, what about the parents that don't talk to their children about this sort of thing. My parents never did and if they did it would be partly homophobic, I just accepted that as just the language they used to talk about things like this. For example; one year we went to Torquay (highly recommend it, by the way, gorgeous place) and we went shopping during the day, I saw a men's pink shirt and suggested it to my dad, his response was "you're never gonna get me in a posing puff pink pully like that." Which at the time I thought was some funny alliteration, still do for an on the spot remark, but I do see how it can be problematic for other people. If I wasn't more of an independent thinker I'd probably have grown up with homophobic tendencies. If parents don't talk about this sort of thing they're either gonna learn it from their friends, schools or even the media. This film is a form of media and it's promoting positivity. I haven't yet seen the film, I definitely will be going to see it because...I got nothing to do with my life now really until September so...why not.
The final comment I'll mention will be "I do not support non traditional marriage". This has almost nothing to do with what's going on here. What's happening is a fictional character exploring his sexuality at a point in his life. As far as I know, he isn't the one who'll be getting married. If there's a plot twist where Gaston realises he was just trying to impress everyone by being so macho and ends up kissing LeFou at the end and an after credits scene in which the two marry then your comment will have some sort of validation. To my knowledge from the original, that most likely will not be the case but...you never know.
Let's talk about another Disney character that sparked a conversation about homosexuality in Disney films. Elsa. Where was the backlash against fans just wanting her to be a lesbian? As far as I know, and please correct me if I'm wrong, there was little to no negative reaction to it. Elsa's voice actor Idina Menzel is even in favour of Elsa being gay. There's even a petition in support of giving Elsa a girlfriend in the Frozen sequel. So why is it, that Elsa gets mass public support yet LeFou gets massively condemned. Is this a form of sexism pushed by the media? Is it algorithms only showing what's popular rather than what's important? Is it political? I don't know, personally, it seems like a lot of people just complaining because they don't want to talk about anything important. My biggest problem with this is that Meridia, the Scottish princess from Brave never got consideration for being gay. She never chose a suitor and in fact decided to marry when she wanted, if she even wanted to marry at all. I don't remember her ever specifying deciding to marry a man if and when she wanted to. Is that because the film didn't do that well? Is it because nobody cares about Scotland? Or is it because nobody cares in general?
Last bullet point I'm gonna talk about before I start wrapping this up; LeFou was already pretty gay. I mean, did you ever see the way he looked at Gaston? Did you see his disdain toward the Bimbettes whenever they fawned over Gaston? The way he sang of Gaston's perfection in the tavern? Even the way that he just sucks up to Gaston, trying to get his attention from Belle? This guy was always clearly besotted with the manly man Gaston. Nobody noticed it because it was subtle story telling. LeFou was a side character, he had no character arc and rarely had a direct impact on the story itself. Personally, I always kinda liked this character and in giving him an arc, it could mean we get to see more of him which is a pretty good thing.
I'm gonna wrap this up now because it's 02:25 and I'm just exhausted. I'm going to leave this post with this though, whether you think this is wrong for religious reasons, personal reasons, political reasons I just want to say that I respect your opinion and your right to have it, but if you don't like the idea of an openly gay character in a Disney film because Disney is a "family friendly" company, then I would ask you to take a look back at some of the films that Disney has produced over its entire life span. Those floating heads in the Tim Burton reimagining of Alice In Wonderland aren't very family friendly, are they? I wouldn't say that The Hunchback Of Notre Dame with its creepy imagery and sexual themes is very family friendly either, come to think of it, neither is Jungle 2 Jungle with the animal abuse. Hell, what about Chicken Little with its disgusting portrayal of a father/town? Why aren't you kicking off because those aren't family friendly? For the sake of argument, people argue that Stockholm Syndrome is a key theme in Beauty & The Beast so why aren't there calls to scrap the film because of that?
I'd like to think that people think about what they're watching and I would hope that they realise that these things are done, not to promote a specific agenda, but to educate anyone that sees them. We can't go around catering to sensitivities, education is important in all areas. I'm always down for a conversation about why someone likes or dislikes something but as soon as they start spouting "I don't like this so it has to go" that's when I just tune out. If you don't agree with something, such as a film, where it's message isn't harmful to anybody and a character's story arc intends to educate something then just accept it and don't go to see the film or support it in any way. It's as simple as that. If you want to talk about something and make a difference then talk about lesser known health conditions, mental and physical, get involved in politics because the world is kind of a mess right now, but please, don't waste your time complaining about something that, in the long run, is going to be forgotten about within days of the film's release. Similar to the Ghost Busters remake.
I can't tell people to go and see this film because...I don't know what this is going to be like. I can't tell you why you should or shouldn't go and see this, other than go and see it if you want to. When it comes out I'll be talking about it and if they gay thing is a big deal like everyone is making it out to be then I'll talk about it more, if not then...who cares? Nobody is gonna remember this once this thing is out in cinemas.
Damn, 03:00, I should get to bed...'Night...Or...Good morning I guess...
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