Disney’s live action “Beauty and the Beast,” was overall fantastic. No one could complain of a favorite scene being cut, and there were nice additions to the story as well.
Myself and others worried before the premiere that Disney’s “first gay character” might perpetuate negative tropes. After seeing the film, however I can say that for the most part I was pleasantly surprised.
There were dangerous places to tread with a gay LeFou. There's the unavoidable issue of him liking the unattainable embodiment of toxic masculinity and possibly perpetuating a troupe of gay men having the hots for their straight male friends. There's the fact that LeFou's representation was being adapted from a clownish sidekick. There was also the potential issue of his crush being played up for laughs.
That last one was done recently by Disney on television.
I’m looking at you Starfan13.
This character on “Star Vs. The Forces of Evil” admitted she had a crush on her friend Star Butterfly. Sounds like representation, but she admires Star to the point of obsession. Plus she doesn’t have a real name, so she's not exactly a positive queer character to identify with, but I digress.
From what I gathered with one viewing, any troupes from LeFou could have been a lot worse. Honestly, any gay aspects of the performance were so subtle it's hard to say they'll have a negative impact. Some aspects of LeFou were done pretty well actually.
In a Screen Rant interview Josh Gad told of how his character would be more fleshed out than the original animated version. He said his LeFou "is sort of not what he seems in terms of his intelligence and he’s, I think, a little bit smarter, a little bit wiser, and also, he doesn’t just blindly follow."
Gad's LeFou has dimensions to him, was at times a voice of reason, and yes, didn't blindly follow. He was definitely a step up from the cartoon-like villain, and one of the best characters for it. Don't worry, he's not pushed around for slapstick humor.
Our sidekick's crush wasn't really the butt of jokes either, as far as I could tell. Except for maybe one instance if you squint, but again this is off of one viewing. LeFou was the comic relief because he was rightfully funny… and played by Josh Gad.
But oh my goodness, did Gaston and LeFou have chemistry.
Maybe it was just me reading into it because I knew about LeFou’s feelings, but whenever those two were close or touching I got second hand butterflies. Thank goodness movie theaters are dark; I was possibly blushing but definitely smiling like an idiot.
(Side note, gay character or not, the Gaston song and bar scene were phenomenal and well-worth your entire ticket purchase.)
Yes, Gaston manipulates LeFou's affection, and any mistreatment of the few LGBT-representing characters is tricky waters. Yet this had more to do with Gaston as a villain than anything. Plus LeFou made up for this with one particular conversation.
Because glory and behold (and spoilers for this and the next paragraph,) but LeFou actually got redeemed?! In the final battle scene LeFou saves Mrs. Potts from being shattered, and starts fighting along with the furniture. When asked about it LeFlou, admits he may have picked the wrong side with Gaston and that their relationship was in a rough spot. Bam! Redemption. Redemption and more subtleties pointing towards his sexuality.
This is important in the grand scheme of Disney not perpetuating negative troupes around gay characters. A sidekick villain being gay? This officially does not make you irredeemably evil in Disney's world of black-and-white moral characters. Also, he doesn’t die? Still seems revolutionary for this to happen to a queer character, sadly.
As soon as I heard that there was an "exclusively gay moment," I predicted that it would be so subtle it wasn't worth bragging about. I was also anticipating that at the end of the film he might get a new love interest to flirt with.
I was picturing a moment similar to Bartok's, the white bat and sidekick to Rasputin in “Anastasia.” At the very end of the film, a female bat appears out of nowhere and this happens:
I was picturing this for LeFou and a new/background character, though much more subtly. With only a few words or a glance, we’d get the same message of “oh look the villain’s sidekick got himself a cute new love interest to tie things up before the credits.”
And wow, Disney you actually delivered my prediction. Sort of... okay, I feel really nitpicky saying this but... ah, maybe you could have given us just a few more seconds?
Like, seriously LeFou dances with a woman in the final scene for a while... then a man steps up and—
That's it.
That's all we get.
We basically just get to see that a man was about to dance with LeFou. To see them actually dance? Or for that pair to be seen with the bird's eye view as the audience leaves the dance floor? Ha! Not a chance.
I don't mean to sound petty, but seriously, Disney? This was the absolute minimum even possible to count as a "gay moment." If you were looking at your popcorn, or taking an extra-long blink you would have missed it.
Honestly, just a few more seconds, please.
There were plenty of other more satisfying ways to convey an "exclusively gay moment." If you're going for subtle, why couldn't a man have said hello to him and they'd make sparkly eye contact for instance?
There's also the complaint that LeFou doesn't make a good first official gay character. I can see the argument here, and yes I'd rather have the first official Disney gay representation from an insanely adorable couple. Or from a character who's more overtly gay and is portrayed super positively.
It's a lot of pressure to be first, but in the long run, I don't think it will matter much. Do we care that Snow White was the first Disney princess? No, because there were tons of better princesses that came after her. The same is going to happen with gay characters.
But Disney? Why, oh why did you have to say anything about LeFou beforehand?
Do you know how great it would have been to just watch the movie and not know anything “official” about LeFou’s sexuality? Just to have audiences see the LeFou and Gaston scenes and think, “Wait a second… oh?” And then see the second-long dance and look to whoever you took to the movies, a hand over your mouth covering an amazed and giddy smile? It would have been fantastic.
Because, listen, Disney. If other movies have taught us anything it’s that it’s much better to have a more blatantly gay character and not say a peep confirming it, than to have a gay character pointed to with jazz hands and then made to be super subtle.
Look at Holtzmann from Ghostbusters 2016. Many of us Ghostbusters fans got a ton out of her character.
Not being “confirmed” as gay didn’t matter as much because she was unarguably gay on screen and was played by an openly gay actress. While it was upsetting that Kate McKinnon couldn’t talk about her character’s sexuality in interviews, at least the movie didn’t get bannedanywhere.
About those jazz hands pointing to Gad’s character as gay? That stirred up a lot of unnecessary drama. Now you have the movie possibly banned in Malaysia, banned in an Alabama theater, adult ratings in Russia, and people wanting to boycott it.
Homophobia is obviously stupid, problematic, and harmful, but also was just so unnecessary to bring to this film when the gay implications were so subtle.
Thankfully, though, the boycotts didn't have much effect.
Because it would be horrible for Disney to be able to shrug and say, “See? We tried it, but people just weren’t ready. Disney is a business first, so we have to keep our audiences in mind so we won’t lose profit.” This is why it's okay that Disney didn't start with a gay protagonist first. That may have actually affected profits, though mostly abroad.
Overall LeFou was not as terrible for representation as he could have been. With or without serving as a gay character I really enjoyed Josh Gad's performance.
Let's just hope that the "first official gay character" won't be the "only official gay character" for too long. Let's hope that his title as "first" will even be forgotten when he's the first of many increasingly better examples.
