DISNEY AND INCLUSIVITY

 

 

Hi, everyone! Today I want to talk about the new and inclusive movie of Disney Company: Strange World. Why is it so important? It is the first Disney movies with a gay main character.

The movie tells the story of the Clade family, the father  Jaeger, his son Searcher, his daughter-in-law Meridian and his grandson Ethan. In the movie, Ethan has a strange behaviour when he meets one of his friends, Diazo. They have something more than a friendship. He reveals that he is falling in love with this guy and his family supports him and tells him to follow his heart. Ethan Clade is one of the first LGBTQIA+ characters who openly declares his feelings and shows his sexual orientation on a Disney animated movie.

 

At the beginning of the year, Karey Burke, the president of Disney’s Entertainment Content, in a Zoom company call announced that at the end of the year  50% of characters, which they would bring on TV, had to be part of all the groups that are underrepresented in the Disney’s world, like ethnic minority and the LGBTQIA+ community. The call was published on Twitter and was part of the campaign “Reimagine Tomorrow”.  Karey Burke told that she wasn’t  there only as a director, but also as a mother of two kids that are part of the LGBTQIA+ community: one is transgender and the other one in pansexual. Other important initiatives were involved by the Disney company about the politically correct, like the warnings at the beginning of the classic animation movies and the no-use of the pronoun in their theme parks to be more inclusive.

 

Last year there was a big discussion about the representation of a lesbian couple in Lightyear, the spin-off of Toy Story’s saga, which tells the story of Buzz. One of Buzz’s colleagues, Alisha Hawthorne, is a lesbian and she says that she meets her girlfriend on the spaceship. There were moments in the movie when we saw Alisha and her partner make a family and kiss each other as a greeting. At first the kissing scene was removed because of business managers who told Pixar animators to remove “every moment of openly gay affection”. Fortunately,  this kiss was reinserted in the animation movie, thanks to Pixar animators, who went against that decision and the Company. It was an important step forward for inclusivity.

Another discussion going on is about a draft law in Florida. On the 9 March 2022, LGBTQIA+ activists went against the Disney Company because, in their opinion, it didn’t do enough against the draft law in Florida which prohibits discussions in primary schools about sexual orientation or gender identity. After three weeks, the Company went against the Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis. The Disney Company promised to fight for its abrogation. DeSantis said that the Company “crossed the line” criticizing the law, now  renamed “Don’t say gay”.

Other LGBTQIA+ characters are a lesbian policewoman in the Pixar animated movie Onward, in which the character tells that she and her partner have a daughter, and a lesbian couple that walk together in the animated film, Finding Dory.  On Disney+  there are other contents like short film about self-awareness and sexuality.  An example is “Out”, a short film that tells the story of Greg, who lives with his partner, Manuel, but hasn’t yet  come out with his family.

All these examples of LGBTQIA+ representations in Disney world are very important for children and their families, because they teach to respect everyone’s rights and choices, to support them, to be clear about who they are and what they feel and that in this world there are different types and forms  of love that must be accepted and respected.

GIORGIA M., 4sc