When Howard Ashman, the lyricist who worked on songs for hits like The Little Mermaid and Aladdin, won a posthumous Academy Award for Beauty and the Beast in 1992 after dying from complications related to HIV/AIDS, his partner, Bill Lauch, accepted the honor on his behalf.īut despite having queer talent behind the scenes, the Mouse House has struggled with paying respect to those influences in its films. Queer people were instrumental to the studio’s resurgence in the ’80s and ’90s: Elton John won an Oscar for composing and writing “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” for The Lion King soundtrack, which sold 18 million copies worldwide. Disney did not immediately respond to TIME’s request for comment.ĭisney’s relationship with the LGBTQ+ community has long been a complicated one-both onscreen and off.
face an unprecedented assault on their rights. The company has sought to court queer dollars without alienating conservatives opposed to equality, but that strategy is simply no longer viable as LGBTQ+ people across the U.S. To critics, this controversy showcases Disney’s longstanding attempt to have it both ways on LGBTQ+ representation. The letter alleged that Disney executives “shaved down” Pixar’s intended LGBTQ+ storylines “to crumbs of what they once were,” although the anonymous authors declined to name specific examples. Pixar employees wrote their own letter last week, accusing its parent company of gutting “nearly every moment of overtly gay affection” from its films. While Chapek has since apologized and vowed to pause all donations to elected officials across the U.S., a public reckoning regarding Disney’s treatment of its LGBTQ+ employees and fans has been years in the making. Some employees are reportedly planning walkouts in protest of the company’s mishandling of the controversy. Numerous Disney employees publicly criticized Chapek, in addition to Walt Disney’s grand-niece, Abigail Disney. The media watchdog group GLAAD announced on Thursday that it would begin grading film studios on political donations in its annual LGBTQ+ inclusion reports. The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the largest LGBTQ+ advocacy group in the U.S., said it would no longer accept money from Disney until it took “meaningful action” to stop the “Don’t Say Gay” bill from becoming law. The fallout from Chapek’s letter was swift. He also said that “the best way for our company to bring about lasting change is through the inspiring content we produce.” In an email to employees on March 7, Chapek said that Disney has “contributed to both Republican and Democrat legislators who have subsequently taken positions on both sides of the legislation” and did not commit to halting donations to anti-LGBTQ+ lawmakers.
Ron DeSantis, who is expected to sign it. After passing both houses of the state legislature, the bill is headed to the desk of Republican Gov. If signed into law, the legislation would ban discussions of sexual orientation or gender identity in K-3 classrooms. The investment LGBTQ+ fans feel in Disney was tested earlier this month when the company’s CEO, Bob Chapek, defended its reported $250,000 in donations to backers of Florida’s controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill. “Seeing cartoons that show you that there’s somebody else who feels that way and then seeing a happy ending at the end is really powerful.” “Eventually what it is that makes them feel like an outsider ends up being the thing that is valued about them,” Griffin, the author of Tinker Belles and Evil Queens: The Walt Disney Company from the Inside Out, says of Disney’s protagonists. Before many LGBTQ+ youth even think about their sexual orientation or gender identity, he says that movies like Beauty and the Beast and Frozen tell stories “about characters who feel like they’re misfits.” It helps these kids feel seen and like their stories matter, which is one of the many reasons Disney has developed such a devoted LGBTQ+ fanbase over its nearly 100-year history. Disney films hold a particular resonance for “proto-queer kids” like the child he used to be, Griffin tells TIME.