Disney and The Gay Agenda - Part 2

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.

Beauty & The Beast (2017)

If it's not Baroque, don't fix it - Cogsworth (1991)

Director: Bill Condon
Writers: Stephen Chbosky 
                Evan Spiliotopoulos


To start off, I kinda didn't want to even watch this...well actually I was in two minds as to whether I wanted to or not because growing up, Beauty & The Beast was one of my absolute favourite films. I identified with Belle way more than I did any other princess because Belle was a dedicated reader and I was too at the time. Anytime I felt like I was starting to lose interest in reading I'd end up watching it and I'd be inspired.

Fast forward to somewhere in 2016 and I find a cast list for a live-action version of one of my favourite films and the cast looked damn good, Emma Watson as Belle? Ideal casting. I was excited and worried at the same time, I'd seen the live-action Cinderella and Jungle Book and in updating these films they, in some ways, made them worse. They were good don't get me wrong...one more than the other but that's a different conversation. The point is, I'd seen how these had gone down and my hopes for Beauty & The Beast were still high but...I was ready to be disappointed.

Then came the trailers, they mimicked the original trailer which of course was a good idea. Bring in the older crowd by showing them what they remember from the original, and bringing in the newer crowd that probably have never seen a 2D animated feature before, and of course with the title Beauty & The Beast...first full-length animated feature film to be nominated for best picture at the Academy Awards plus the nostalgia factor PLUS they're also pulling in the Harry Potter crowd because Hermione Granger is in this. Goldmine really, can't see why they didn't do it sooner. So I saw that trailer and thought, y'know what, this looks pretty good, and obviously the film itself would have changes, but this is a good start. Then came the trailers with Emma singing, the reveal of The Beast, melding some of the original scenes with some new scenes and I just lost more and more faith in this.

Thinking about it really, this could be the first live-action film to be nominated for best animated picture, what with the amount of CG in it. The CGI looks...very CGI. I mean it's not the worst but...I'm just not a big fan of CGI, I've seen it too much and it's gotten to the point where whenever I see it, it automatically takes me out of what I'm watching because I know what I'm seeing isn't really there. If it was blended better or there were more practical effects used like...for example hairy beast makeup for Dan Stevens. Kind of like what they did for Jim Carrey in The Grinch but not as heavy y'know? And then use CG in places where it's needed. I honestly don't understand why CGI gets used for almost everything. It seems lazy and I don't understand why there isn't all that much effort put into it. Again, conversation for another day. Although I will say, the Be Our Guest number looks so beautiful I got goosebumps, this is probably the one place I'll say this version did it better than the original.

So the first thing I noticed about this was that the colour blue was...everywhere. Which is an odd thing to pick up on its own but if you think back to the animated film, the only two people to wear that colour is Belle and The Beast (the prince's name is Adam by the way, not sure why that's such a hidden thing, just a quick Google search away). The reason for this was to distinguish these characters from the rest of the cast. The colour blue is to make a connection between the two "outsider" characters making it easier for us to see them together. I feel like here, it's a featured colour because it was somebodies favourite. Can't blame them, blue is a gorgeous colour and it also happens to be mine so...But yeah, I'm not entirely sure why this even bothers me because it really shouldn't, it's an artistic choice and it works but...nostalgic bias wins I guess.

The story, for the most part, is pretty good. I mean, they follow the original tale in some places, with Maurice (Kevin Kline) going to the market and Belle (Emma Watson) asking him to bring her a rose. In other places. the film follows the animated film almost perfectly and in other places the story just fucking stops for some unnecessary exposition about Belle's and The Beasts mothers, like...who needs to know that? Film is a visual medium, y'know, show don't tell. If we get the characters emotions across in this part of their lives and enough exposition about getting to this point in the story is given then, who even cares? I always just assumed that Belle's mother was banished just like the rest of the Disney mothers but...nope, you find out what happened to her in a completely bullshit way.

The music? Mostly pretty good, almost everyone here does a good job at what they're doing, Emma sounds like she could have needed a couple more sessions with a vocal coach but she does well enough. Not like I'm one to talk about someone's singing voice when I sound like an Elephant Seal getting sodomised and mutilated at the same time but...take it or leave it like. There were songs in this that weren't in the original such as Forever More which is a lovely enough song and would be great in a broadway play but seems fairly out of place here for some reason. I mean it's beautifully shot and genuinely moved me but I just felt like the film had a more...powerful moment in place of the song. In fact, about 3 songs could have been cut from this and put into a broadway adaptation and it would have been better there. I will say again, the Be Our Guest section was so fucking good, I was dreading it but they put all of their effort and more into that number and fuck it pays off. However, there are lyrics changed but that's to better suit the story rather than change the song. All that's changed is from "10 years we've been rusting" to "Too long we've been rusting" and honestly, considering all I do is bitch, this was actually something I cannot bitch about.

So how did I feel about this? Well, if I had to give it a number out of 10, I'd give it a 5/10. That's nothing to do with the film being bad or anything because it's not. It's actually the best live-action Disney remake. I mean I'd give Cinderella a 1/10 and the Jungle Book a 3/10 but...this was easily the best one and it's the only one where I would consider buying it and letting my (soon-to-be-niece/Goddaughter even though I'm not even related but I've known my bestie for so long and we have gone through so much together that...we've adopted each other at this point) best friends kid watch it and enjoy it with her rather than just putting on a kids film that's crap but harmless because she likes it. Hell, I even encourage you guys to go out and see it. Go on, off ya go. Get your tickets booked. You're still reading this, stop it.
.......
Ohhh I know why you're still reading, you know about that shit about LeFou and my last post regarding Disney and their gay agenda. Well, you wanna know what that was all about? Fucking nothing. There was so much fucking build up for something so tiny and honestly, I might write about it but it's gonna take a couple days to get my thoughts together on it and I really don't want to mess up while talking about it. That could mean going to see the film again but whatever y'know, I'd pay to see this again and so should you if you like it. Now go, leave me be and watch this movie, or even the original, or read another of my posts, or do whatever you like really because I can't control shit....

Ok I promise I'm done this time.  ̶G̶o̶ ̶s̶e̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶f̶i̶l̶m̶ ̶t̶h̶o̶

This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film then please go and support its creators by buying the books, buying a ticket to see the film and when the time comes, buy the DVD or Bluray.

Disney & The Gay Agenda.

Fuck right off with this, honestly, I thought this was a joke when I first saw it but...apparently it's a real thing. Disney are now pushing a gay agenda now due to the fact there is a gay character in the upcoming Beauty & The Beast film, which is, of course, ridiculous for the following reasons:

1. LeFou was pretty gay in the original 2D animated feature.
2. There was no uproar about Elsa possibly being gay.
3. 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. 

My point is, you're entitled to your opinion, but when you say that you want something banned because it's pushing its agenda on people, aren't you doing the same thing?

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...