Dear Disney: Gays Are NOT Selling Points!

Just a few days ago, it was announced in the upcoming Disney Pixar film, "Onward", the film will feature a lesbian character --Disney's "first"-- named Spector voiced by Out actress and filmmaker Lena Waithe.

I've seen people get so excited for this and with the character reveal it seemed like she would definitely play a huge part in the movie right?

WRONG!

Apparently Officer Spector is in only one scene in the film (and this is the scene that reveals she's a lesbian to the audience.)

According to multiple sources, this is the synopsis of the only scene Officer Spector is in, she pulls over a driver and a conversation ensues when the Officer says, “My girlfriend’s daughter got me pulling my hair out.”

I think it's amazing that Disney is openly including LGBTQ+ characters (Remember Sea Witch Ursula was inspired by Drag Queen Divine) but to what purpose do these characters serve in the story and most importantly, why are these minor characters selling point for Disney?

{Update: There is talk that the film's producer loved the backstory Waithe wrote for her character so much, that they might do a spin off in the future.}

What do I mean by 'selling point'? Well, think of it like this: a friend of yours tells you to try out a new ice cream shop because "the vanilla soft serve ice cream is creamy and it will make you feel as if you're floating on air." The selling point in this example would be the ice cream.

Now imagine people weren't going to see Onward but they read the announcement: "The First Openly Gay Character Will Debut in Onward"! The selling point in this example (although it's strange how they're not relying on Chris Pratt and Tom Holland who voice the main characters to sell this film) would be this first new Out Lesbian character. But once you dive in deeper on how long her screen time is, it makes you wonder if this announcement was necessary to promote a film that isn't even out yet.

I'd understand if movie bloggers and film critics first talk about this scene but for Disney themselves to break this news to the public sounds like a very severe case of Queer Baiting. To bait LGBTQ+ people to watch a film for representation only for that scene to fly right by the audience in a quick instant, is as mean as Disney making us believe Prince Charming didn't have a foot fetish.

I can't say this is the first time this has happened from Disney because these were the same people that said "Avengers: Endgame will feature their first openly Gay character!" The excitement I've seen on Twitter for that announcement was crazy!

But as the film was watched by many, those flames of excitement were snuffed out. Most people assumed the Gay character will be a hero who lost his/her/their lover but alas, it was just a John Doe (played by the co director of the film, Joe Russo) and it was such a short scene that if you blinked or coughed, you probably missed it.

This caused a huge uproar and people didn't understand why this was such a big deal to many. If this wasn't their selling point--did they really need a selling point?-- then there wouldn't be such a huge backfire.

It was just last year when Disney announced there will be a first openly Gay live action character in their upcoming film, starring The Rock, titled "Jungle Cruise" played by Jack Whitehall (a straight actor).

Call me crazy-seriously I dare you- but if you're a successful company and you want to break ground by adding an openly Gay character (the first as they continually say) wouldn't you want to cast an actor who is openly Gay and does something positive for the community?

It seems that Disney wants to cater to the LGBTQ+ community (let's be real here, a majority of Disney fans are and will always be LGBTQ+ people) but they don't know how to go about it.

You had the live action Beauty & The Beast which revealed that LeFou was openly Gay (who didn't know that? Like seriously, who watched the original cartoon and thought a man who admired Gaston and followed him everywhere was straight?) and his "Gay moment" was just him dancing with another man for a few seconds. This received backlash from anti LGBTQ people --which is funny since Luke Evans who plays Gaston is openly Gay in real life.

But again, was LeFou's sexuality a part of the bigger plot in the story? No, but yet this was announced a week before the film's cinematic release.

The film ParaNorman is a stop motion dark comedy film released from Focus Features and no one knew *SPOILERS AHEAD*...(ready?)...(hurry and look away if you haven't seen it)...the high school Jock who the sister had a huge crush on, was Gay! This was revealed toward the end of the film when the protagonist's sister invited the Jock to see a movie (as in a date) and he replied: "That sounds great, Kathy! Y’know, you’re gonna love my boyfriend! He’s like a total chick-flick nut!".

This film didn't advertise that part at all and it was received with mixed praise (mostly positive ones and ofcourse the negative comments were from the Ten Moms One Million Moms club) but it was done in a way that gave insight into this Jock and not at all used to promote the film.

I applaud Disney for wanting to represent LGBTQ+ people but they're going about it all wrong. We shouldn't be the selling point of the film, just include us, stop ruining our only scene in the movie to get people to watch the film.

But I also wish Disney can get some ideas on how to create LGBTQ+ friendly programs, it was announced earlier that the show Love Simon based on the book and film, was set to be a Disney+ show, but it has now been cancelled on the streaming service and will instead air on Hulu as Love Victor.

The suites in charge cited the show has some alcohol consumption while the main character is trying to explore his identity and it's not 'family friendly'. Interesting how the movie was the same thing -it was a hit- and it was a hardcore PG-13 rating.

Disney can do better, I just hope they learn from this.