Disney puts ‘gay scene’ in Beauty and the Beast: Character of LeFou set to explore his sexuality and feelings for leading man Gaston in new film

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NormalBeliever said:
What are your thoughts on Gravity Falls?
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I really enjoyed the series from beginning to end. And yeah, I found out about the two cops being gay after the finale. Personally, I didn’t notice they were in a relationship at all, and I’m sure most didn’t either. It seemed at least ambiguous and played for laughs. I think the creators did that to get back at Disney for not allowing them to have a cameo of an elderly lesbian couple in one episode, “Love God” to be exact. A few years later, it’s apparently fine to show those things now since Star vs. has done it, albeit in the background.
 
BornCatholic97 said:
I really enjoyed the series from beginning to end. And yeah, I found out about the two cops being gay after the finale. Personally, I didn’t notice they were in a relationship at all, and I’m sure most didn’t either. It seemed at least ambiguous and played for laughs. I think the creators did that to get back at Disney for not allowing them to have a cameo of an elderly lesbian couple in one episode, “Love God” to be exact. A few years later, it’s apparently fine to show those things now since Star vs. has done it, albeit in the background.
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And what are your thoughts on Regular Show, which ended recently?
 
jtav said:
FWIW I am a celibate bisexual and all my other LGBT friends are livid because LeFou is a joke who is complicit in Gaston’s attempt at a forced marriage/rape because of his crush. This is not the kind of representation they or I want. Disney is pleasing nobody here.
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I came in late to this thread so I just now saw your comment, but yeah I had questioned whether very many gay people were happy about it.

It would be like gay people being happy that Milo Y was invited to speak at CPAC.
 
BornCatholic97 said:
I really enjoyed the series from beginning to end. And yeah, I found out about the two cops being gay after the finale. Personally, I didn’t notice they were in a relationship at all, and I’m sure most didn’t either. It seemed at least ambiguous and played for laughs. I think the creators did that to get back at Disney for not allowing them to have a cameo of an elderly lesbian couple in one episode, “Love God” to be exact. A few years later, it’s apparently fine to show those things now since Star vs. has done it, albeit in the background.
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Really? My DH watches with my kids. I’m not sure he noticed any gay sub plot in gravity falls.

I did like when Abuelita wanted Sus to get married before she went to heaven to live with the angels. Sus then said, “And Grandpa”. To which Abuelita said, “No. He is not there.” Poor Abuelita.
 
Maxirad said:
On the Facebook page for Decent Films, Steven D. Greydanus has written the following:
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Regarding BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and its “exclusively gay moment,” a Facebook friend who is a Christian and a smart cinephile writes:​

Is it possible that…
  1. Disney & company knows/knew that Beauty & Beast remake sucked? (Trailers look awful.), and
  2. Leaked/promoted the openly gay character on purpose,
  3. Knowing full well that the usual suspects (Franklin Graham et al) would respond in the usual way (boycott!!!), prompting
  4. Anti-homophobic rhetoric (better not give this a bad review or people will think I’m with the fundies) and identity politics decisions a la affaire Chick-fil-A (I must go see this movie or the Religious alt-Right wins!), and
  5. Hey, if the movie does tank, Disney now has a built in excuse?
Think before you freak out and call for boycotts.
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Crazy old Franklin, he’s always good for a laugh.
 
The director has said in the past that he wishes he could “rip pages out of the Bible”, so this doesn’t surprise me.
 
jtav said:
FWIW I am a celibate bisexual and all my other LGBT friends are livid because LeFou is a joke who is complicit in Gaston’s attempt at a forced marriage/rape because of his crush. This is not the kind of representation they or I want. Disney is pleasing nobody here.
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Also, this whole idea that “man-crush” = “gay” is needlessly reductive.
The Simpsons’ *Smithers had a “man-crush” on his boss for decades before he was canonically outed as gay, but while I’m sure many interpreted the character as gay anyway, his actions made sense even before his gayness was confirmed.

Then there’s Harry Potter’s Peter Pettigrew, who “hero-worshipped” James Potter and is even the subject of a mildly homophobic taunt from Sirius in one of the books. He’s oohing and aahing over James’s skill with catching a “snitch” (ball enchanted to fly away) and Sirius tells James to put the snitch away “before Wormtail wets himself” and I don’t think he was referring to urine.

However, the author (who has been happy to clarify the sexual nature of both the Dumbledore → Grindelwald and Bellatrix → Voldemort relationships) has never stated Pettigrew was actually gay.

JKR also portrays strong male-male friendships (Harry-Ron and James-Sirius among them) that have no gay connotations at all.

And Judge Harry had a “man-crush” on Mel Torme that was played for laughs many times on the Night Court TV show, but that didn’t make him gay.

I even recall a running gag on the “Mike and Mike” sports radio talk show about Mike Greenberg’s “man-crush” on Chad Pennington, back when Pennington was QB of the Jets football team. They would play a clip from the song “I Will Always Love You” every time he mentioned Pennington.

There’s also been a long-standing friendly “conflict” between Mike Greenberg’s “metrosexuality” as compared to Mike Golic’s “dumb grunting jock” shtick, but I doubt anyone would actually get the impression that Greenberg is actually gay. Even if he didn’t mention his wife frequently.
 
ToeInTheWater said:
Also, this whole idea that “man-crush” = “gay” is needlessly reductive.
The Simpsons’ *Smithers had a “man-crush” on his boss for decades before he was canonically outed as gay, but while I’m sure many interpreted the character as gay anyway, his actions made sense even before his gayness was confirmed.

Then there’s Harry Potter’s Peter Pettigrew, who “hero-worshipped” James Potter and is even the subject of a mildly homophobic taunt from Sirius in one of the books. He’s oohing and aahing over James’s skill with catching a “snitch” (ball enchanted to fly away) and Sirius tells James to put the snitch away “before Wormtail wets himself” and I don’t think he was referring to urine.

However, the author (who has been happy to clarify the sexual nature of both the Dumbledore → Grindelwald and Bellatrix → Voldemort relationships) has never stated Pettigrew was actually gay.

JKR also portrays strong male-male friendships (Harry-Ron and James-Sirius among them) that have no gay connotations at all.

And Judge Harry had a “man-crush” on Mel Torme that was played for laughs many times on the Night Court TV show, but that didn’t make him gay.

I even recall a running gag on the “Mike and Mike” sports radio talk show about Mike Greenberg’s “man-crush” on Chad Pennington, back when Pennington was QB of the Jets football team. They would play a clip from the song “I Will Always Love You” every time he mentioned Pennington.

There’s also been a long-standing friendly “conflict” between Mike Greenberg’s “metrosexuality” as compared to Mike Golic’s “dumb grunting jock” shtick, but I doubt anyone would actually get the impression that Greenberg is actually gay. Even if he didn’t mention his wife frequently.
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That I think is a product of our society in general sexualizes everything. We apparently cannot allow deep intimate feelings to mean anything else other than one wants to sleep with another person apparently. I mean look at many tv shows which if two guy friends are close and express any kind of affectionate feelings towards one another and the running gag is to joke about the two being a gay people (the TV scrubs did that with the lead and his best friend and the show Big Bang Theory did it was Raj and Howard).

We are at a point in a society where we can’t seem to accept friendship can have any kind of emotional or physical intimacy and instead see everything through the lens of something sexual. I mean just look at some of the photos from the early 1900s of guy friends and most hear would think they were couples because of the amount of touching and affection which certainly wasn’t sexual.
 
The negative reactions to this are hysterical. People freaking out due to a “gay” scene in the movie. Hardly even noticeable unless your looking for it, not to mention the fact that if you didn’t think he was gay from day one, your deceiving yourselves.

So tell me. How does this bother you so much and yet your OK with Belle falling in love with “a beast”? A gay character you have issue with, but not subliminal bestiality? LOL.
 
at9009 said:
That I think is a product of our society in general sexualizes everything. We apparently cannot allow deep intimate feelings to mean anything else other than one wants to sleep with another person apparently. I mean look at many tv shows which if two guy friends are close and express any kind of affectionate feelings towards one another and the running gag is to joke about the two being a gay people (the TV scrubs did that with the lead and his best friend and the show Big Bang Theory did it was Raj and Howard).

We are at a point in a society where we can’t seem to accept friendship can have any kind of emotional or physical intimacy and instead see everything through the lens of something sexual. I mean just look at some of the photos from the early 1900s of guy friends and most hear would think they were couples because of the amount of touching and affection which certainly wasn’t sexual.
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I totally agree, and I brought this up on the “you can’t be gay” topic, but speaking of Disney movies, there is even a small but vocal “Elsanna” contigent in the Frozen fandom that insists on interpreting the love between Elsa and Anna, who are not only “best friends” but biological SISTERS, as a lesbian love affair. Apparently, some people can’t even understand why a sister would be willing to sacrifice her life for another sister, unless there was an erotic subtext at work.

I also think this idea of “Spiritual Friendship” as the solution to what gay people are supposed to do with their lives if they’re not allowed to date or marry, does have the danger of normalizing such friendships ONLY for gay people, and maybe that’s all they care about, but it seems that if the SF approach becomes more main stream, this will further stigmatize (for lack of a better word) close same-sex friendship as not being something straight people would benefit from.
 
ToeInTheWater said:
I totally agree, and I brought this up on the “you can’t be gay” topic, but speaking of Disney movies, there is even a small but vocal “Elsanna” contigent in the Frozen fandom that insists on interpreting the love between Elsa and Anna, who are not only “best friends” but biological SISTERS, as a lesbian love affair. Apparently, some people can’t even understand why a sister would be willing to sacrifice her life for another sister, unless there was an erotic subtext at work.

I also think this idea of “Spiritual Friendship” as the solution to what gay people are supposed to do with their lives if they’re not allowed to date or marry, does have the danger of normalizing such friendships ONLY for gay people, and maybe that’s all they care about, but it seems that if the SF approach becomes more main stream, this will further stigmatize (for lack of a better word) close same-sex friendship as not being something straight people would benefit from.
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I actually wasn’t even referring to the whole Spiritual Friendship topic at all to be honest. Just it seems our society in general is so sexualized that it inherently treats an authentic love and intimacy as signs of a sexual romantic relationship. With that perspective, two guy friends fear showing too much intimacy less than be viewed ‘as gay’ (this doesn’t seem to be applied as much to women for some reason). So, people (single, married, straight, ssa or whatever) start to feel starved for genuine connection and non sexual even just emotional intimacy because friendships have been so devalued to just the most superficial of levels.

I don’t think close same sex relationships should be focused based on the something only celibate people can have. A chaste relationship between two people of the same sex is just that… friendship regardless if one is gay/ssa or not (though that at times may provide unique challenges). There isn’t a push to make it seem like gay/ssa people have some special powers for this kind of chaste relationship or anything. It’s just that as people who are called to celibacy and lack the possibility of a romantic relationship, we start to think more about what friendship is, how it is biblically, what it means, etc. It is not a secret thing for gay/ssa people, but rather important in all our lives. So maybe one benefit of openlly celibate gay/ssa people is we can help re-establish marriage as a powerful vocation and re-establish celibacy as a powerful vocation. Both different with different people for various reasons called to them. However, both can be a path to sanctification which thrive most when the opposing vocations are best understood. Our current culture with its idolatry of ‘finding the one’ and viewing marriage as ‘the ultimate path to happiness and solution to loneliness’ ultimately hurts both single and married.

You mentioned Elsa, the powerful message of Frozen was the sacrificial true love seen i love between siblings. Big Hero Six shows how the love and support within friendship can help someone overcome hatred and overcome the death of a loved one. These kind of stories do not take away from the beauty of marriage but enrich friendship which love is different but can be just as profound.
 
rotlex said:
The negative reactions to this are hysterical. People freaking out due to a “gay” scene in the movie. Hardly even noticeable unless your looking for it, not to mention the fact that if you didn’t think he was gay from day one, your deceiving yourselves.
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This will be a bit tangential, but as I read that I suddenly remember an online comment about Chicken Run in 2000 or whatever year that was. The woman posting hadn’t seen it but was wringing her hands and wailing (well, not quite) because a reviewer had mentioned a “sexual innuendo” in the movie. :hmmm:

But seriously I think the thing is that movies a decade from now might make people of the future say “When did we go from good Disney movies like Beauty and the Beast, where gay people were villains, to movies where they are noble and heroic?”
 
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