Last Updated on February 24, 2020
A Disney animated movie will feature its first openly LGBT character, joining the likes of Marvel in making headway blazing a trail in the “heteronormative” film industry.
March 6 will mark the release date of Disney’s Pixar’s first LGBT character with their film “Onward.”
According to The Daily Wire, the character, who will be voiced by Lena Waithe, is a lesbian police officer.
Despite other characters portrayed by the legendary animation firm, such as the implicitly lesbian couple in Finding Dory, Waithe’s cop will be the first explicitly LGBT character.
Slate Magazine publicized the slow-growing revelation after a screenshot was posted to Reddit of the trailer, which appears to contain two depicted females with short hair, stoking some interest.
Slate went onto write, expressing certainty, Pixar’s new picture will contain an explicitly LGBT character who is also a parent:
But we don’t need to speculate about Waithe’s Office Spector. We know because she tells us. When she and her partner, voiced by Ali Wong, pull over a driver who claims he was distracted because his girlfriend’s sons have been acting up, she commiserates, “My girlfriend’s daughter got me pulling my hair out.”
That line isn’t the point of the scene. In fact, it goes by so fast you could barely notice it. But that’s why it works so well. The film doesn’t pause to let it sink in or isolate the moment with a cut for emphasis. It passes unremarked, because in this world, it’s accepted as a fact of life. Some babies have two daddies, and some babies have two mommies, even if those mommies happen to be centaurs or elves.
One gripe from representation-depleted movie fans has been the quietness in delivering the much-awaited LGBT character.
Lena Waithe will voice Disney's first openly-LGBTQ animated character in #Onward — 'It’s a modern fantasy world and we want to represent the modern world'
(via @YahooEnt | https://t.co/vG6O2P7Tjt) pic.twitter.com/uCWswSqOAr
— Fandom (@getFANDOM) February 21, 2020
Despite the so-called “revolutionary” act, the movie has been benefiting from leSs woke hype than expected.
Slate continues:
It’s true that Waithe’s character is, like pretty much every character in every Pixar movie, essentially sexless; her girlfriend never appears on screen, so whatever intimacy the two of them might share happens only in the viewer’s imagination. And there’s a long history of Hollywood movies making neutering the price for LGBTQ characters’ entrance on screen.
Elsewhere, it was revealed that Spiderman could be bisexual in an upcoming representation.
Marvel’s first trans ‘superhero’ was a 12-year-old transgender girl whose hormone therapy was paid for her pastor father’s church insurance.