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

Contents:

• IS LU PIXAR’S FIRST GAY MOVIE? MAYBE
• HOW GAY IS PIXAR’S LU?
• SORRY, FOLKS, PIXAR’S LU ISN’T GAY
• DO DISNEY’S ‘LU’ HAVE A GAY CHARACTER?
• 'LU' DIRECTOR ADMS THEY 'TALKED ABOUT' MAKG THE LEADS GAY BUT CID TO FOC ON A 'PRE-ROMANCE' IENDSHIP
• ‘LU’ DIRECTOR “TALKED ABOUT” THE FILM BEG A GAY LOVE STORY
• ‘LU’ DIRECTOR “TALKED ABOUT” THE FILM BEG A GAY LOVE STORY
• LU MAY NOT BE A GAY NARRATIVE, BUT ’S ABSOLUTELY A QUEER ONE
• WA A SEC — ARE THE MA CHARACTERS PIXAR’S ‘LU’ GAY?
• IS PIXAR’S LUCA GAY? FILMMAKERS ANSWER THE BURNG LGBTQ+ QUTN
• LU DIRECTOR SAYS DISNEY FILM NEARLY FEATURED GAY ROMANCE BETWEEN MA CHARACTERS: ‘WE TALKED ABOUT ’
• PIXAR REPORTEDLY SCRAPPED GAY ‘LU’ STORYLE: ‘HOW DO WE DO THIS WHOUT A LOVE INTERT?’
• 'PASSAG' DIRECTOR NOUNC 'DANGERO' NC-17 RATG ON A FILM PICTG A GAY LOVE STORY

IS LU PIXAR’S FIRST GAY MOVIE? MAYBE

That outle holds an obv potential for queer allegory, and ed many Pixar fans trackg the film’s velopment quickly labeled Lu as the stud’s “gay movie”—a g-out story to be placed on Pixar’s mantle alongsi s medatns on grief, artistic exprsn, lonels, Ayn Rand-ian objectivism, and parentg. ” That suggts a limed unrstandg of gay growg up, particularly of when our feelgs of affectn and special closens and difference n first velop. That character, played tartly but briefly by John McCrea, is slightly ls of a scrap than the embarrassgly ballyhooed “exclively gay moment” 2017’s Bety and the Beast—but Artie still barely registered amid Cella’s cynil clamor.

Last year, Disney punted Love, Victor—a seri spoff of the feature film Love, Simon, the first stud film about a gay kid g out—om Disney+ to Hulu, clarg the young adult show a better f for that more grownup streamg service. Greg Gayne/HuluThe first season of Love, Victor very much felt like a show tend for Disney+ that somehow wound up alongsi Handmaid’s Tale. Love, Victor season two admirably exam life post-g out, as Victor (Michael Cimo) navigat his nascent relatnship wh barista Benji (Gee Sear) and tri to get his mother, Isabel (Ana Ortiz, queen of playg TV moms of gay kids), to fully accept his inty.

Victor and Benji grapple wh tra-gay nflicts jt as much as they do wh the wary nsiratns of the straight world. 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.

HOW GAY IS PIXAR’S LU?

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. 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.

SORRY, FOLKS, PIXAR’S LU ISN’T GAY

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? ” “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).

DO DISNEY’S ‘LU’ HAVE A GAY CHARACTER?

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.

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

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.

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

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.

‘LU’ DIRECTOR “TALKED ABOUT” THE FILM BEG A GAY LOVE STORY

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. Jt a ltle over halfway through Pri Month, we are seeg people flock to Twter to prent their theori on why and how the lead duo Disney and Pixar’s latt g-of-age animated feature film, Lu, is, fact, gay.

So do Lu have a gay character after all, or is this jt a se of fans creatg a headnon that’s gag tractn and onle clout? Do Lu have a gay character?

‘LU’ DIRECTOR “TALKED ABOUT” THE FILM BEG A GAY LOVE STORY

While Disney has not e on the rerd sayg that Lu and Alberto are gay, we (and many a Twter er!

) believe that the great mds at Pixar may have meant for the movie’s plot to be an overall metaphor for gayns and acceptance. I KNOW #Lu isn’t an explicly gay movie. So while no character Lu has been intified by Disney outright as gay, we n very well read the subtext, metaphors, and straight-up visual evince (all of those nocent touch!

Watchg the close relatnship the ma characters Lu and Alberto have, many even went and clared the animated versn of the gay g-of-age 2017 drama, "Call Me by Your Name, " starrg Timothée Chalamet and Armie "Lu" director Enri Casarosa has always said while dog prs that the story is based on his straight relatnship wh his bt iend growg up Italy, a recent terview wh The Wrap he did adm that for a moment while velopg the story they wonred if Lu and Alberto should be more than jt iends.

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

"It's a shame that this cisn has e when a gay romance uld have so easily and naturally be explored, " he wrote.

WA A SEC — ARE THE MA CHARACTERS PIXAR’S ‘LU’ GAY?

"Makg Lu and Alberto explicly gay or queer wouldn't have felt ntrived, would have been a meangful nfirmatn of what is already a story rich gay subtext.

IS PIXAR’S LUCA GAY? FILMMAKERS ANSWER THE BURNG LGBTQ+ QUTN

Unfortunately, none of the tangible romantic chemistry between Lu and Alberto was ever ma official, and Lu director Enri Casarosa explaed that while makg the film's two lead characters gay was fely a possibily, he end up wantg to make the film about a "pre-romance" part of many children's liv. "The news of Giulia almost beg queer Lu on the heels of The Walt Disney Company beg hot water wh a lot of s LGBTQ+ fans for fundg and supportg legislators Florida who support the state's ntroversial "Don't Say Gay" bill.

In the same Variety report mentned earlier, was also revealed that Pixar animators jt rtored a same-sex between two characters the upg Lightyear movie after a group of ncerned employe released a statement earlier March claimg executiv at Disney had censored all attempts to portray stanc of "overtly gay affectn" om storyl var Pixar is streamg on Disney+. When Pixar first released the trailer for animated film Lu, LGBTQ viewers were quick to note more than a few siari wh Osr-wng gay drama Call Me by Your Name.

So strong was the gay reactn to Lu that the film’s director, Enri Casarosa, was forced to go on rerd last year and say that was about iendship, not romance.

LU DIRECTOR SAYS DISNEY FILM NEARLY FEATURED GAY ROMANCE BETWEEN MA CHARACTERS: ‘WE TALKED ABOUT ’

Viewers noted siari between Lu (left), and gay drama Call Me By Your Name. Enri Casarosa, the director of Disney and Pixar's beloved 2021 animated film Lu, went on the rerd a recent terview wh The Wrap, openg up about how there were discsns about possibly makg the film's two lead characters -- the tular sea monster Lu and his fellow aquatic btie Alberto -- gay.

PIXAR REPORTEDLY SCRAPPED GAY ‘LU’ STORYLE: ‘HOW DO WE DO THIS WHOUT A LOVE INTERT?’

Unfortunately, none of the tangible romantic chemistry between Lu and Alberto was ever ma official the film, and Casarosa is now talkg about why that was, even though makg the characters gay was reportedly a possibily. 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.

'PASSAG' DIRECTOR NOUNC 'DANGERO' NC-17 RATG ON A FILM PICTG A GAY LOVE STORY

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