On March 9, LGBTQ employees and allies at Pixar Animation Studios sent a joint statement to Walt Disney Company leadership in which they made a claim that Disney executives had actively censored “overtly gay affection” in its feature films. The most overtly LGBTQ project in Pixar’s canon is a 2020 short film, ‘Out’, about a gay man struggling with coming out to his parents – which the studio released on Disney Plus as part of its SparkShorts program. And 2016’s ‘Finding Dory’ features a brief shot of what appears to be a lesbian couple, though the movie’s filmmakers were coy about defining them that way at the time. The 2019 film ‘ Toy Story 4′ shows two moms hugging their child goodbye at kindergarten. These include the 2020 release ‘Onward’, which tells the story of a one-eyed cop played by Lena Waithe, who appears in a few scenes, and mentions her girlfriend. In Pixar’s 27-year history, there have been just a small handful of unambiguous LGBTQ characters of any kind. The decision marks a possible major turning point for LGBTQ representation not just in Pixar films, but in feature animation in general, which has remained steadfastly circumspect about depicting same-sex affection in any meaningful light.
