The director of Disney’s upcoming “Beauty and the Beast” live-action remake has revealed that one of the film’s characters is portrayed as homosexual and will therefore include a “gay moment.”
Director Bill Condon, who is also an open homosexual, told the outlet “Attitude” that the character LeFou, who serves as the sidekick to Gaston, will have a subplot surrounding his attraction to Gaston. Luke Evans, an open homosexual, was cast as Gaston, and Josh Gad plays LeFou.
“LeFou is somebody who on one day wants to be Gaston and on another day wants to kiss Gaston,” Condon told the publication.
“He’s confused about what he wants. It’s somebody who’s just realizing that he has these feelings,” he continued. “And Josh makes something really subtle and delicious out of it. And that’s what has its payoff at the end, which I don’t want to give away. But it is a nice, exclusively gay moment in a Disney movie.”
On Tuesday, Gad Tweeted that he was “beyond proud” to be cast in the role after a fan asked him to confirm news of the homosexual subplot in the film.
Condon also told Attitude that homosexuals have had a history with “The Beauty and the Beast” as the man who wrote the lyrics for the animated version of the film, released in 1991, had been fighting AIDS while working on the project. Howard Ashman died before the movie was released in theaters.
“It was his idea, not only to make it into a musical but also to make Beast one of the two central characters,” Condon outlined. “Until then, it had mostly been Belle’s story that they had been telling.”
“Specifically for him, it was a metaphor for AIDS,” he said. “He was cursed, and this curse had brought sorrow on all those people who loved him, and maybe there was a chance for a miracle—and a way for the curse to be lifted. It was a very concrete thing that he was doing.”
Producer Don Hahn made similar comments to “Dan the Geek” in 2010.
“Howard was struggling with AIDS at the same time. The ‘Kill The Beast’ song was almost a metaphor for that,” he explained. “[I]f you study the man, and his struggles, and then look at his lyrics, you understand what he was going through.”
While the upcoming dramatic remake of the magic-filled story, scheduled to hit theaters on March 17, is set to feature “subtle” themes of homosexuality and feminism, it is not the first time that homosexuality has been included in a Disney production. The group One Million Moms recently decried an episode of Disney’s “Star vs. the Forces of Evil,” which included a depiction of same-sex partners kissing during a concert.
“This is the last place parents would expect their children to be confronted with content regarding sexual orientation,” one Million Moms writes on their website. “Issues of this nature are being introduced too early and too soon, and it is becoming extremely common and unnecessary.”
“Disney has decided to be politically correct versus providing family-friendly entertainment. Disney should stick to entertaining instead of pushing an agenda,” it states.
The group is calling on parents to sign a pledge not to support Disney until it stops pushing the homosexual agenda. There were over 12,000 signees as of press time.
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