PRINCESS POLITICS
Is an openly gay main character in Disney’s near future?
The antelopes next door were gay — maybe.
For viewers of the animated Disney hit Zootopia, it’s been a bit of a guessing game. In an early scene, rookie rabbit police officer Judy moves into her new apartment and meets her new neighbours. Bucky and Pronk are both antelopes and both men, who live together and bicker like a married couple. But … are they?
The answer, available to sharpeyed movie fans, comes in the closing credits: Bucky and Pronk share a last name, Oryx-Antlerson.
While gay and lesbian characters are standard players in movies and TV shows for adults, they remain a fleeting or barely acknowledged presence in children’s entertainment. Recently, a campaign to change this caught fire on Twitter, under the hashtag #GiveElsaAGirlfriend — a plea to Disney to make one half of its beloved princess duo a lesbian in the forthcoming sequel to its 2013 animated blockbuster Frozen.
A kids’ movie may seem like the last place to be talking about sex. But advocates say that in almost every gaudy princess film or actionpacked superhero cartoon, there are relationships — moms and dads, aunts and uncles, princes and princesses — that, thus far, have quietly reinforced a very traditional standard for romantic love.
Yet Disney and other giants of children’s entertainment have evolved over the decades to reflect changing norms — from including characters of many races to ditching the trope of helpless damsels in distress. Could creating a hero with two dads, or giving a princess a girlfriend, be the next step?
Some Disney fans argued on Twitter that it would have been a huge help for them to see gay characters in movies when they were young — that they might have become more sensitive and accepting toward gay peers, or better able to grapple with their own sexuality. Studies have suggested that seeing gay characters in popular entertainment can decrease prejudice toward those groups.
“There is no doubt that kids seeing positively portrayed gay characters could have a significant effect that would contribute to such children’s learning about the world and who is in it,” said Edward Schiappa, a professor of comparative media studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
But doing so is a risk for children’s entertainment companies, who have a financial incentive to make movies as accessible — and therefore as non-controversial — as possible.
“It can be any little thing that will set off a firestorm,” said Lori Pearson, lead critic for Kids-InMind, a non-partisan, non-religious group that warns parents of potentially unsavoury content in movies. “Now, especially with the advent of Twitter and places where information can travel quickly, if a certain group decides something in the content is unacceptable, it will spread, and people will decide based on that information not to go see the movie.
“And that will ultimately affect the box office.”
To date, Disney’s only obvious instance of a same-sex relationship in children’s entertainment came on the small screen. In an episode of Disney Channel’s Good Luck Charlie, one of Charlie’s friends had two moms.
The only explicitly gay character in a kids’ movie came in ParaNorman, an animated film from LAIKA, an independent production company.
The 2012 cartoon, nominated for the best animated feature Oscar, included a scene in which the character voiced by Anna Kendrick asks a bulky bro named Mitch on a date. Mitch responds by telling her, “You’re going to love my boyfriend.”
“I knew it was the first of its kind when I was writing it,” said director Chris Butler, who is gay. Butler drew criticism from some conservative viewers that he had tricked the audience into liking Mitch before revealing he was gay.
He says his intention was to have every character in the film subvert stereotypes: The bully turns out to be weak, the mean cheerleader becomes loving, the jock is revealed as proudly gay. Plus, he noted, the goofy horror story was meant to pay homage to the old Scooby-Doo cartoons. And Mitch was the member of the gang most like ScoobyDoo’s Fred.
“Of course, Fred was gay,” Butler said.
“Anyone who wears white cashmere sweaters and little neckerchiefs is probably not as interested in Daphne as he says he is.”
Pop culture geeks have long swapped theories about cartoonish characters who gave off a gay vibe, including cross-dressing Bugs Bunny, high-pitched-voiced SpongeBob SquarePants and best friends/roommates Ernie and Bert. Sesame Street’s production company was even compelled to put out a statement on the latter topic some years ago: “They are not gay, they are not straight, they are puppets.”
Most of the hinting surrounding gay characters has been subtle, like the scene in Zootopia, or an incredibly brief moment in Frozen: When the character Anna visits a trading post, its owner waves to his family members, sitting in a nearby sauna. There are four young-looking girls and one large blond man, who could be the male owner’s husband. The family is onscreen for less than two seconds.
If Disney seems to be gradually moving toward recognizing diverse sexualities, it’s a natural step in the company’s long history of reflecting changing cultural norms.
In the 1940s, U.S. president Franklin Roosevelt asked Hollywood studios to make their films more appealing to South Americans, to promote U.S. values and combat the growing influence of Nazi politics south of the border. Soon enough, Donald Duck was wearing a sombrero and dancing with a parrot named Jose — absurd stereotypes, perhaps, but a lively bit of multiculturalism for wartime audiences.
But the company hasn’t always kept pace with the times. The studio eventually introduced a black Disney princess, but it wasn’t until 2009, with The Princess and the Frog.
Carmenita Higginbotham, an associate professor at the University of Virginia who teaches a course on Disney, said choosing a non-white lead even then made some viewers less likely to see the movie.
“Whatever good intentions individuals may have toward the identities of these dominant characters within the Disney universe, money will always be a factor,” Higginbotham said. She believes it will be a long time before Elsa or any other animated Disney character will be looking for love within their own gender.
“Until you have a broad audience that will welcome alternative presentations,” she said, “Disney won’t go there.”
Anyonewears cashmere white who sweaters and little neckerchiefs is probably not as interested in Daphne as he says he is.