LAS VEGAS – “Light-year” is taking queer representation to infinity and beyond.
On Wednesday, cinemacon Attendees got a sneak peek of the first 30 minutes of Disney/Pixar’s “Toy Story” spin-off series (in theaters June 17), which centers on cocky but affectionate space ranger Buzz Lightyear (voiced by by Chris Evans, replacing Tim Allen from the start). four “Toy Story” films).
A title card at the beginning of the film tells us that in 1995, little boy Andy received a Buzz toy: “It was from his favorite movie. This is that movie.”
But in the first images shown to theater owners at CinemaCon, it was a new lesbian character named Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba) who stole the show.
Plus:The CEO of Disney finally speaks about ‘Don’t Say Gay’. But where is Disney’s gay fairy tale?
The film opens with Buzz and his fellow ranger Alisha crash-landing on an alien planet, where they are confronted by winged aliens and an octopus-like creature. But a crash landing and damaged ship derail their mission, forcing Buzz to find a new way to get his crew safely to Earth.
Time passes and Alisha soon becomes engaged to a woman on the mission’s science team.
“It’s funny, I wouldn’t have met her if we hadn’t been stranded,” Alisha tells Buzz as she shows off her engagement ring.
An emotional montage shows flashes of Alisha and her partner form a family together, at one point they greet each other with a kiss on the lips.
Same-sex kissing first made headlines last month, when Pixar animators spoke out against Disney. in an open letter obtained by Variety, saying that corporate executives had demanded cuts “from nearly every moment of openly gay affection.”
According SlashFilm“Lightyear” producer Galyn Susman confirmed that Alisha’s kiss was initially cut from the film. But it was later restored in light of Disney’s “Don’t Say Gay” controversy, when it was revealed that the company had donated approximately $200,000 to Republican politicians who supported the bill, which bans discussions of sexual orientation in classrooms primary schools.
Despite student walkouts and criticism from Hollywood, the White House, and many members of the LGBTQ+ community across the country, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the bill into law last month, with more than a dozen states introducing similar legislation.
Alisha is not the first queer character in a Disney/Pixar film, although she is certainly the most significant. In recent years, the Mouse House has drawn criticism for its weak attempts at LGBTQ+ representation: a lesbian cop in Pixar’s “Onward” briefly mentioning his wife, and a lesbian couple hanging out together in “Finding Dory.”
Other live-action Disney movies have relegated queer characters to the background, like a kiss between two women in “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” where you blink and miss it, or the “gay-only moment”. Josh Gad’s LeFou dancing with another man in “Beauty and the Beast.”
“Being able to postpone the kiss again was important to us,” Susman told reporters at a “Lightyear” Q&A panel earlier this month. “It’s a moving moment” and “we’re very excited about it.”
Reference-www.usatoday.com