March 1, 2017

First Openly Gay Disney Character in Beauty and the Beast

Disney and Hollywood are celebrating the recently outed fact that Josh Gad's LeFou is Disney's first gay character. 

Newsflash to Disney: We fans of the animated Beauty and the Beast had no doubt about it already. But this time, Disney's taking it a step further. In the new film, director Bill Condon in Attitude magazine says:

“LeFou is somebody who on one day wants to be Gaston and on another day wants to kiss Gaston. He’s confused about what he wants. It’s somebody who’s just realizing that he has these feelings. And Josh makes something really subtle and delicious out of it. And that’s what has its payoff at the end, which I don’t want to give away. But it is a nice, exclusively gay moment in a Disney movie.”

Given that this movie will be seen by young children, parents and grandparents need to be prepared for the discussions that should happen after the film. And they need to happen- but not forced upon them by Disney or anyone else. Yet, it is the world in which we live- it's a world where the media forms news versus reporting it and all too often personal values and rights are forced upon others instead of gently discussed when appropriate. 

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