Josh Gad says Beauty And The Beast didn’t go “far enough” with LeFou’s implied queerness “to warrant accolades”
"I don’t think we did justice to what a real gay character in a Disney film should be," says the actor
Aux News Beauty and the Beast
Much like when J.K. Rowling decided Dumbledore was gay even though it was never actually mentioned in the Harry Potter books, Disney declared LeFou is gay in the live-action Beauty And The Beast, even though it’s never stated as such in the movie.
The only scenes hinting at LeFou being queer are his apparent infatuation with Gaston during the musical number praising the villain, and a blink-and-you-miss-it dance with a man at the end. The dance in particular was said to be Disney’s first “exclusively gay moment” by the movie’s director Bill Condon, but it barely counted as anything, since there’s no proof onscreen of LeFou being gay. He’s also dancing with a woman right before his male dancing partner steps in.
Looking back at the film in an interview with The Independent, Josh Gad, who played LeFou, thinks Disney could have gone further with its first queer character.
“We didn’t go far enough to warrant accolades” the actor says. “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.”
He adds, “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.”
Since the 2017 movie, there have been Disney characters presented as explicitly queer, including Officer Spector in Onward, whose partner is mentioned briefly in the movie. However, that doesn’t mean Disney isn’t still presenting characters whose queerness is hinted at but never fully explored, like McGregor (played by Jack Whitehall) in Jungle Cruise and Artie in Cruella.
25 Comments
If men dancing together is gay, then Stalag 17 is the gayest movie ever filmed.
In that it didn’t get any, he’s technically correct, which as we know is the best kind of correct. I look forward to what new and exciting way Disney will give us their next first gay character.
Considering how tightly Disney runs their marketing, I have to admire Gad for hid candor here.
i suppose that explains why they canceled the prequel series he was developing.
The actor is apologizing because the movie wasn’t gay enough?Who would have guessed that a decadent abundance of social media would make people so paranoid?
He’s saying the character didn’t go far enough to warrant all the hype around the “first explicitly gay moment”. At the time it was touted as a big deal. He’s saying it WASN’T a big deal, and if Disney was going to hype it up as such, it should have gone further than two guys dancing for a second.
I mean if we’re gonna talk about paranoid, where does people who think actors only want LGBT representation because of “social media” fit in?
The point is that Disney flaunted this tiny bit of gay-hinting as some sort of giant progressive leap for them, and the actor is saying “that was a dumb thing to do.”
She’s not very smart.
I didn’t interpret it as Gad apologizing. He was saying that the scene didn’t deserve the “Disney’s first gay moment” description and that Disney should’ve done more to merit any accolade or back pat.
I could be mistaken, but I think that, to him, it was just a character moment and not an overt statement.
No the actor is apologizing because Disney was extremely self-congratulatory about having included a “gay character” when it amounted to next to nothing onscreen.
I don’t think the lesbian cop in Onward’s romantic partner was ever depicted on screen. Her cop partner, voiced by Ali Wong, was on screen, but not her girlfriend.
And yeah, since her only line on the subject was a toss-off about “My girlfriend” the film was either barred from the more reactionary Middle Eastern countries, or in Russia, just casually changed to “my partner” in translation, which was of course the whole point of of Disney-flavor representation. Easily edited for China and Russia. Dunno if the one second of man on man dancing in B&TB was removed too, but the whole point of it being that short was to make it removable, like putting perforations on a paper towel.
IIRC, that line was improvised by Lena Waithe, because she didn’t feel comfortable saying the word “boyfriend”.
While Disney are certainly cowards, gay men dance with women all the time
I’m pretty sure in regards to McGregor in Jungle Cruise, it’s fairly explicit (unless you’re watching the Chinese version where the scene in which he discusses it is cut).
Glad to hear Gad say something about it. There’s been too much praise for things that are barely (if at all) on screen.
Remember when people were freaking out about Lando being pansexual?
Josh Gad is still around? This is terrible news. He is awful.
Duh.
Beauty and the Beast didn’t even have one goddamned reach around – unless you count whatever slap n’ tickle bullshit that candlestick guy was up to.
“No shit” replies everyone. Film at 11.
It was the worst of both worlds. A weak token gesture that impressed nobody who wanted representation, yet still enough for assholes in Alabama to ban it for being LGBTQ friendly. The movie fucking sucked so anyone fighting for or against it lost.
Ridiculous. Everyone knows Baloo the bear in the animated Jungle Book was Disney’s first gay character.
Excellent move to deflect any hate towards him. Get the vibe from the “always offended” crowd to see which way he should comment to win “favor”. Good PR move Gad.
My thoughts are that Disney is laying the groundwork for a main character to be out and out (ie not just supporting). I think that Elsa is going to have a female partner in Frozen 3. The Internet seems to have already decided and it was lightly implied at the end of Frozen 2.
Much like when J.K. Rowling decided Dumbledore was gay even though it was never actually mentioned in the Harry Potter booksI read the books as they were coming out, and by read I mean I’d nick my younger brother’s copy and read it cover to cover over a single night while he was asleep so maybe my reading comprehension suffered, but to this day I swear that when Rowling was covering his backstory with Grindelwald it was heavily implied to be romantic, and so I’d always thought he had been gay, and that was loooong before Rowling unwisely got herself on twitter.