1. rondiolson says:

    Your Point #6 is what had me upset. LeFou, of all characters? I suppose I will withhold judgment until I see the movie, but unless they do something to make LeFou a more sympathetic character, this is nothing more than the stereotypical effeminate villain. Not a step forward. Now, if they’d made Lumiere and Cogsworth gay, that would at least have been believable. They had a serious bromance going on, and great chemistry. But that would be too daring, wouldn’t it? They want to have their cake and eat it, too. #hypocrites

  2. Sparks of Ember says:

    That’s a shame about Supergirl. We liked the first season but haven’t gotten around to the second season. As for Beauty & the Beast – these things always blow over as fast as they came up. Most people are going to completely ignore the hoolpa. I remember when people were having hysterics about certain side characters in the Lion King…

  3. Julie D says:

    Stupid five-second events that get blown way out of proportion. Like, that whole Finding Dory thing? Two woman who don’t even pass the benchel test.

  4. Michael Blaylock says:

    What baffled me is how hearsay-y it sounded. Like someone took something and made it way bigger than it was. Also, if LeFou wants to kiss Gaston one minute and be him another, that sounds less like homosexuality and more like LeFou idolizing Gaston as “perfect, a pure paragon.” Or like homosexuality is just one piece of the equation, not a revolution that divides people.

    • notleia says:

      It would be interesting if the idea they were playing with was homoeroticism (implicit or otherwise, this case being an “otherwise”) in male power fantasies. Like, not *** ~~ gaaaa-aaaay ~~ ***, but GAY. Like comic Captain America, who is too ‘roided up to really be attractive to women, but is still attractive for men for maybe not THOSE reasons but maybe also too THOSE reasons. Or He-Man.
      But I don’t actually know if that’s where they’re going with this LaFou. Or it could be both about male power fantasies and that LeFou is also gay with bad taste in men.

  5. Krystine says:

    I didn’t want or need to know that about LeFou (however aptly named he is). I don’t particularly think I’d be sinning if I watched the movie, but–watching him allude to his emotional confusion and lust onscreen–I do think could be legitimately seen as questionable and normalizing sinful behavior. Why go there?

    And why bring that into my child’s life by letting her watch it either? There are some instances where I think it’s just a no-brainer not to go there.

    If Hollyweird wants access to our entertainment dollars, then they can find a way not to offend us with their unnecessary additions to classic story lines that were already great, or their warped and twisted marketing efforts.

    I don’t think of it so much as a boycott as “I’ve got better things to do. I will now go do them instead.” Their loss…

    • ionaofavalon says:

      Very much so, since BATB is such a wonderful story and the original is one of the greatest animated films of all time.

  6. ionaofavalon says:

    My first response was in this order: “Oh brother, not again! Well, I hope they don’t make a big hairy (pun totally intended) deal out of it. But wait a minute *who cares* about LeFou!?” Annoying, yes, not cool absolutely, but not a big step forward for anyone. The story will suffer now, because of that stain on it. BATB is about loving the unlovable and seeing the best in people, and now that wonderful message will be sullied by this nonsense. Also, too bad about Supergirl. We’ll give it a chance when we get it, but if it’s as bad as all that… Sorry Kara and J’onn. For the record, I wasn’t going to see BATB in theaters because I wasn’t going to give the Mouse House the satisfaction.

  7. notleia says:

    Also, on stylistic grounds, I get you’re trying to make a point, Burnett, but you’re taking this gay-as-religion metaphor into more logical-fallacy territory (tho I can’t decide if it’s equivocation or false equivalence or false analogy or some other one the Wiki isn’t linking me to (I do like to be specific in my criticisms)).

    • Once you’ve identified the “fallacy,” do share. 🙂 But the fallacy behind most criticisms like this is the unspoken and assumed belief that there are such things as “nonreligious” beliefs. Not so. The human being is inherently a religious being.

      In this case, Sexualityism is based on such religious tropes that it can be classified as a religion. It has everything: ontological certainty, sin, salvation, works, “holiness,” good versus evil, appointed leaders, institutions, calls to save-the-world and promises of present and future consequences and paradise/condemnation, and a modern tendency to hijack art for its own “greater” ends.

      • notleia says:

        Except there is a technical definition to religion, and it’s not “certainty, sin, salvation, ‘holiness,’ good versus evil,” etc. Religion involves those things, but they aren’t exclusive to religion. Culture =/= religion. There aren’t actually any rites of gayness (brunch on Tuesdays?), or sacred texts of gayness. Popular =/= sacred.
        I guess that makes this equivocation, because you’re using the word “religion” redrawn for a specific rhetorical function — hyperbole, really, to capture the audience’s attention — and then acting as if the word used in that specific context is the exact same as the word generally used. You also tend to use the word “sin” in this way, which because of it’s history as a word with a specific theological context is not a perfect synonym for “wrongdoing.” But that bugs me less than the “religion” one.

        So do I get validation for my mislike of your argument now that I’ve been specific? I’m not so unreasonable as to expect you to agree with me, but I want some acknowledgement that my concerns are legit.

        • notleia says:

          Also, I know you don’t want to give up a slick-sounding argument, but it’s ignorant at best and disingenuous the rest of the time, which will come back to bite anyone who uses it sooner or later.

  8. Travis Perry says:

    I disagree with you about Disney’s reasons a bit. I think the reasons have to do with how the story is perceived by modern people–what is really going on is our culture has become so sexually obsessed it cannot imagine someone being fixated on another person in a non-sexual way as LeFous was shown to be in the cartoon. No, if you are interested in someone, it MUST be sexual. No, it is not possible to deeply admire someone and want to be like him or her. Some part of you MUST want to “do” that person. It is not possible to love or admire without sex! SEX SEX SEX.

    That’s what the LeFous change is really about. Not about being PC or being “first.”

    • Lisa says:

      I tend to agree with you in your wider comment, although I’m not sure that in this case it fits. I feel that Disney IS actually trying to be PC with this move. But the whole obsessed with sex thing is very true. I was thinking this last night as hubby and I are finally watching Vikings. A British priest is taken as a slave from Lindisfarne to serve the “hero” (the Viking Ragnar) and is shown struggling with how to reconcile his faith with these dire happenings. Fair enough. But the first night he is with Ragnar and his wife he is invited into a three-some, which he refuses because of his faith (yay for the good guys). But you get the sense that he is gradually losing his faith and is admiring the Viking culture more and more until finally he goes to Upsala with the family and, under the influence of drink and magic mushrooms, finally gives in and joins the orgy that’s going on that is part of their worship of the gods (not sure this is historically accurate but I will have to reserve judgement on that as I don’t really know). So….it’s all about sex, in other words. There are myriads of other ways they could have portrayed his journey, but that is the marker they choose to portray his fall from faith. I suppose in a sense it’s an easy way to do it but still, it is telling this is the way they choose to do it.

    • ionaofavalon says:

      Totally agree. I have a friend who spent time in Asia, (China/Japan/Korea) and over there, they don’t have this issue. You can have people that you love and it’s not sexual. I just watched my very first anime (Glitter Force aka Smile! PreCure) and I knew right off the bat that sexualization was going to happen because the girls held hands and hugged…. you know, things that real, perfectly normal, 12 year old girls do. In Japan, that’s seen as perfectly normal! Nothing sexual, just five girls being friends. I can’t bear the fact that friendships can’t be seen as what they are in this culture, and it’s obnoxious.

    • Kerry Nietz says:

      That fixation is definitely becoming the norm among some groups, Travis. Check out this article about the recent Lego Batman. (I saw the movie with my kids, and would not have reached this author’s conclusions in a million years. Perspective is everything.)

      http://www.theroot.com/the-lego-batman-movie-is-the-brokeback-batman-we-ve-alw-1792203215

What do you think?