Pixar’s animated film Lu may not be a gay narrative, but ’s a queer one - Polygon

Contents:

• HOW GAY IS PIXAR’S LU?
• LU MAY NOT BE A GAY NARRATIVE, BUT ’S ABSOLUTELY A QUEER ONE
• SORRY, FOLKS, PIXAR’S LU ISN’T GAY
• IS LU PIXAR’S FIRST GAY MOVIE? MAYBE
• 'LU' DIRECTOR ADMS THEY 'TALKED ABOUT' MAKG THE LEADS GAY BUT CID TO FOC ON A 'PRE-ROMANCE' IENDSHIP
• IS LU A GAY METAPHOR?

HOW GAY IS PIXAR’S LU?

Lu is marketed as a "metaphor for anythg" but the sea monster setup is a perfect allegory for a gay story, and LGBTQ viewers n read that way. Lu has arrived on Disney+ and, spe what Pixar says, the movie prents a strong allegory for growg up gay and fdg a nnectn wh other LGBTQ people. This elis the fact that beg gay, queer, or LGBTQ+ is not simply a matter of partners or relatnships or sex.

LU MAY NOT BE A GAY NARRATIVE, BUT ’S ABSOLUTELY A QUEER ONE

Young gay people often feel very different om others before such feelgs velop, which n occur squarely the age bracket the story plac Lu and Alberto. In the ments, Casarosa is enuragg such terpretatn, meang that, if you see there, Lu is a gay story, Pixar's first feature film wh LGBTQ+ leads. The parallels of the boys secretly beg sea monsters and gay and LGBTQ+ people beg forced to hi their inti cuts closer than other mory groups, ratnalizg a queer readg of the movie.

So while Pixar ni Lu is a gay story due to s settg and the age of s characters, viewers should read the LGBTQ+ narrative for what is. When director Enri Casarosa says he didn’t tend to make Lu a gay romance, I believe him. OK, but isn’t still a ltle b gay?

Still, there have been so many siar discsns about queer inty Disney movi that you n almost predict the disurse ahead of time: “They’re gay! ” “But why do they have to be gay?

SORRY, FOLKS, PIXAR’S LU ISN’T GAY

” “But why n’t they be gay? For both live-actn and animated movi, the stud has overhyped what have bee known as “exclively gay moments, ” ty morsels of reprentatn that are eher so subtle you hardly notice them (a kiss between two women the background of a Star Wars movie) or so plot-irrelevant that they n be easily chopped or overlooked by ternatnal censors (here’s lookg at you, Endgame’s unnamed Grievg Man).

Meanwhile, while Disney has ngratulated self and claimed to blaze new trails, plenty of other animatn studs have been ahead of them: Laika’s ParaNorman, for example, featured an openly gay character way back 2012. Ironilly, the Disney movie that gave the term “exclively gay moment” the first place took a different tack: The live-actn Bety and the Beast’s LeFou is more the spir of the stud’s long-standg tradn of strongly queer-d, if not explicly gay, villas.

Fans have sce picked up on homoerotic unrton Raya and the Last Dragon and the live-actn Mulan, but the movi rema rabow Rorschach tts, wh dienc havg to read between the l or project their own meangs to fd queer reprentatn.

IS LU PIXAR’S FIRST GAY MOVIE? MAYBE

How gay is ? Whatever the director’s stated tent, the answer seems to be: as gay as you want to be.

\u201cCryg joyful gay tears for all the nfed LGBTQ+ kids who will watch Pixar's LUCA and have their ner world validated. \u201d — ClassicMovieGay (@ClassicMovieGay). In rponse to viewers who reacted to trailers by hopg the film might be a childhood gay romance, Lu director Enri Casarosa rapidly shut the notn down, sayg “I was really keen to talk about a iendship before girliends and boyiends e to plite thgs.

The Deep is portrayed as horrible place of self-nial, but they’re willg to make him suffer to keep him away om what they see as immoral, a clear parallel to the nversn therapy or wilrns therapy that so many young LGBTQ+ people are subjected to by homophobic muni. His rponse was simple: “I’d say is meant to be terpreted by the viewer […] If you thk Le is gay, of urse he is.

'LU' DIRECTOR ADMS THEY 'TALKED ABOUT' MAKG THE LEADS GAY BUT CID TO FOC ON A 'PRE-ROMANCE' IENDSHIP

” Hal regnized that some people benefted om readg the character as gay, and acknowledged that there isn’t a sgle rrect terpretatn of Le.

IS LU A GAY METAPHOR?

When Pixar first revealed the plot synopsis of s upg movie Lu — a tale of two sea-monster boys named Lu and Alberto, and an “unfettable” summer on the Italian Rivera — many people quickly pared to Call Me By Your Name, the 2017 gay romance that also took place durg an unfettable summer Italy. But 2020, Pixar released “Out” through s SparkShorts program, which centered around a gay uple. Eager for reprentatn, many fans have clung to the possibily that Lu might give them openly gay ma characters, and not jt one-note si characters.

I will not speculate as to the sexuali of any of the filmmakers, but this feels like a very purposeful translatn of lived experienc to allegory, if not those of the wrers, then of people to whom the wrers listened and why, exactly, aren’t Lu and Alberto gay characters? ParaNorman, the first Amerin theatril animated film to have a nonilly gay character, is nearly a old by now. From embracg s of queerdg s villas as a sort of mp sub-brand marketed to the gays who intified wh them growg up, to the -long cycle of breathls news stori about how Disney has fally clud a gay character one of their films—only to have a sgle effemate man receive a blk-and-you-miss- nfirmatn that they might have a male partner—Disney lov to play to a queer dience wh the nvictn that we will be satisfied wh scraps of subtlety.

Disney risks tarnishg their fay-iendly brand wh the Evangelil dience, not to mentn the possibily of losg the abily to show the film ternatnally markets that forbid homosexual ntent, so abandong their abily to plsibly ny the queerns of their properti is a strategy meant to ensure that they lose as few potential ctomers as possible while still ostensibly "makg stris" for a generally more acceptg culture. The New York Tim their review of Lu, saw the queer allegory plaly, offerg the cheeky alternate tle of Calamari By Your Name — a reference to Call Me By Your Name (2017), the Amy Award-wng gay g-of-age film starrg Timothee Chalamet and Armie Hammer. Related: Anthony Mackie Com Unr Fire For Homosexualy Comments.