In a recent interview with The Independent, Josh Gad, most famously known as the voice of Olaf in “Frozen,” believes Disney could have done a lot more for his gay character, LeFou, in the live action film, “Beauty and the Beast.”
Gad made history as LeFou being Disney’s first “exclusively gay moment,” as director, Bill Condon, put it.
But instead of this big “moment,” LeFou was only shown dancing with another man for about two seconds.
Gad said, “We didn’t go far enough to warrant accolades. We didn’t go far enough to say, ‘Look how brave we are.’ My regret in what happened is that it became ‘Disney’s first explicitly gay moment’ and it was never intended to be that. It was never intended to be a moment that we should laud ourselves for, because frankly, I don’t think we did justice to what a real gay character in a Disney film should be. That was not LeFou. If we’re going to pat ourselves on the back, then damn it we should have gone further with that. Everybody deserves an opportunity to see themselves on screen, and I don’t think we’ve done enough – and I certainly haven’t done enough to do that.”
Click here to read the full interview.
Source: The Independent
Well hopefully should the TV show’s production gets back on track we might see more.
Well hopefully should the TV show’s production gets back on track we might see more. Someone should ask him about that.
Thanks Josh this is about 5 years too late
How is the supposed sexual orientation of a (very) secondary character even relevant to the story or film itself? (Answer: It’s not.) Why must every character have sexual identity? (Answer: They don’t have to.) Another woke ideology to appease the culture by Disney. Pathetic.
Bingo! More useless virtue signaling by Disney.
Regarding your first question, you’ve essentially helped to make Josh Gad’s point for him. Let’s stop relegating gay characters as secondary. As for sexual identity, every Disney character from every Disney movie going back to 1928 (if not earlier) has sexual identity, but it’s usually the same kind. At the very least, heterosexuality is consistently implied. There’s nothing wrong with a push to change that, whether it serves the narrative or not. We know the sexual identity of Mickey Mouse because of his affection for Minnie, but that fact isn’t always relevant to the narrative at hand; it’s simply part of who he is. The same should be true for gay characters. Let them be represented for who they are, even as they’re being portrayed as everyday protagonists dealing with everyday life stress – like Goofy stuck in traffic or Donald shoveling snow – regardless of whether that sexual identity serves the larger story. In this case, representation trumps relevance.
Josh, sweetie, the story was not about Lefou. He should be happy they gave Lefou more dimension lol.
Upon re-reading the article, I see that Josh Gad was referring to the original film, not the planned series that was recently cancelled/postponed. Even so, I agree with his overall point: Feel free to show any character’s truth onscreen, be they primary, secondary or even tertiary characters, but don’t call more attention to it than it deserves. Simply present it like the perfectly normal thing it is without raising a celebratory ruckus about it.