Is Disney Really Making Movies and Shows “Less Gay”?
As far as the world of film is concerned, Disney is one of the best-known and major companies of all time. It started out as an animation company but has since expanded and is now one of the most important players in the entertainment business, with many claiming that Disney is the dominant trendsetter in the world of cinema.
And it cannot be denied that Disney initiated a lot of changes and many of the company’s ideas have lived and withstood the test of time, setting standards for filmmakers all around the world. Audiences also love Disney’s works, but in recent years, the popularity of the company has been declining.
While there are numerous social, political, and ideological reasons for this, one major issue that many fans have with Disney now is that they are pushing “the message” in front of the content.
It cannot be denied that Disney is advocating “the message,” but have they gone too far with it? Recently, if you’ve been following our reports, news broke that Disney is changing its internal policies to make their projects “less gay,” as it was stated. Is that really true? We shall analyze that in this article.
If we go back in time, Disney’s and Pixar’s animated movies were mostly about the stories. Sure, each animated movie has to send a message, one or another, but it is a general moral message that appeals to everyone. Recently though, after numerous societal shifts and movements (#MeeToo, BlackLivesMatter, woke), Disney has been changing its messages and is now focusing on “The Message” in general.
“The Message” is nothing bad, let us be clear on that. It is an amalgam of all these movements, most notably the woke movement, that advocates equal rights for everyone, regardless of their gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, etc.
It stipulates that each person is individual in their rights and that others have to respect that without having to push their agenda and force people to adhere to it. Such a message definitely cannot be bad, regardless of what some might say.
Of course, some people have a problem with that. Some people don’t want to see female lead characters in movies; some people don’t want to see LGBTQ+ characters in their series; some people don’t want Black or Asian characters as main characters.
They want straight, white males on top and that is also a view that has to be respected, however discriminating it is. But, the issue is that these so-called “fans” are vocal and they go online and create massive hate campaigns against shows they don’t like.
For example, The Acolyte. The show has been a victim of an unseen hate campaign simply because it had female characters, LGBTQ+ characters, and characters of different ethnicities.
The critics praised the show, but the fans bombed it; and while The Acolyte was a flawed show in itself, these issues had nothing to do with the characters – the issues The Acolyte had are related to the story and the show destroying the canon, and that is not related to the woke culture.
And when the fan scores were bad, the “fans” agreed that the critics were paid to give good reviews. Now, take a look at Agatha All Along. The show is openly advocating LGBTQ+ content and it is doing that in a brilliant way.
The early critic’s reviews were worse than the fan reviews, and guess what – the “fans” were still not satisfied. The positive fan reviews are now bots that Disney paid to make the show look better.
So, when The Acolyte gets bad fan scores, it’s great and that is true; it is not a hate campaign and review-bombing. But when Agatha All Along gets good fan scores, then it’s bots and rigged numbers, because a show with women and LGBTQ+ characters cannot be good. As Wanda would say, “That doesn’t seem fair to me…”.
And, of course, we’ve already said in our earlier text that these so-called “fans” don’t shape modern TV and that shows get canceled based on whether they are good or bad, not because some people dislike the woke content.
But, it is a fact that Disney has been having issues with “The Message,” not because of “The Message” itself, but rather because the content was bad.
Most of Disney’s recent projects were subpar simply because the writers tried too hard to push an agenda rather than the story. It’s not a problem if “The Message” is there, but it has to be natural and it has to fit with the story. You have to adapt “The Message” to make it fit into the story, and not the other way around. In light of that, news broke that Disney is making its movies and shows “less gay.”
Supposedly, this is why Riley in Inside Out 2 was not openly in love with her female friend, and Beau DeMayo also stated that the X-Men ’97 idea he had about a gay romance for Professor X also ended up being rejected. At the same time, we had one big LGBTQ+ moment in that same series, so DeMayo’s claims might be a bit too much.
Also, as fans could see, Agatha All Along is openly advocating LGBTQ+ content and there doesn’t seem to be an issue with that.
We don’t know what the future holds, but as things stand now, Disney is changing its policy, but only a bit, which could actually work out. If they put the stories in the forefront once again, then the content will be better, and “The Message” they so strongly adhere to will also feel more natural in that aspect, which means that the fans will get to enjoy it.
Of course, there will always be “fans” and haters, but more true fans will get to enjoy shows and movies that actually make more sense narratively, while also sending a strong message. We hope it works out as planned!
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