A Brief Timele of Disney's 17 'First Gay Characters'

Contents:

• 17 GAY AND LGBTQ DISNEY CHARACTERS – OM D TO NON TO TASTROPHE
• DISNEY'S 8 'FIRST OPENLY GAY' CHARACTERS, RANKED (BY HOW EMBARRASSED DISNEY SHOULD FEEL)

17 GAY AND LGBTQ DISNEY CHARACTERS – OM D TO NON TO TASTROPHE

As one cric said at the time of “closeted gay fashnista” Ken: “Pairg homophobia wh misogyny, the jok about Ken suggt that the worst thgs a boy n be are eher a girl or a homosexual. Disney faced more flak 2018 when Jack Whehall, a straight man, was revealed as playg the “hugely effete, very mp” gay man McGregor Jungle Cise.

But when the gay actor playg Artie (John McCrea) took ownership of the character (tellg Attu an terview “to me ’s official: he’s queer“) the cricism didn’t really stick. It’s logil to assume the character is queer-d, for the film rri the DNA of the late lyricist Howard Ashman, who was gay, and whose magil songs, cludg A Whole New World, were creded wh reversg Disney’s wang fortun the 80s/90s. Bety and the Beast director Bill Condon nfirmed Disney’s first “exclively gay moment” a 2017 Attu terview, generatg global headl.

Still, the film brgs reprentatn other ways, om out gay actor Le Evans’ stg as Gaston to Sir Ian McKellen as a Vic-que Cogsworth. Disney, wh s famo reticence toward pictg openly gay characters almost certaly didn’t tend to produce an overtly gay narrative Mulan. As Sean Griff’s book Tker Bells and Evil Queens not, Disney has long targeted gay dienc — and partly bee queer dienc are experts at -optg ostensibly straight narrativ for themselv.

DISNEY'S 8 'FIRST OPENLY GAY' CHARACTERS, RANKED (BY HOW EMBARRASSED DISNEY SHOULD FEEL)

“Historil evince dit that lbians and gay men have read Disney artifacts om a non-heterosexual viewpot throughout the pany’s history...