Very few animation studios manage to make bank at the box office nowadays, and besides Illumination, Disney still manages to be a cultural giant when it comes to animated films.
Though the company is known for pushing a more progressive message to audiences though, some ex-Pixar employees have opened up about how the studio has been very anti-LGBTQ+ behind-the-scenes.
Talking to IGN, some former Pixar employees (who will remain anonymous) have opened up about the poor practices at the animation studio, and one particular anecdote talked about how some Disney leadership were trying to get them to tone down the LGBTQ+ representation in their films.
Lightyear was not the success that the studio was hoping it was going to be, and apparently its financial failure is being attributed by some heads to the same-sex kiss that happens in the film. The scene was briefly removed, but was then returned after an uproar from the internal staff. The source says:
“It is, as far as I know, still a thing, where leadership, they’ll bring up Lightyear specifically and say, ‘Oh, Lightyear was a financial failure because it had a queer kiss in it,’… That’s not the reason the movie failed.”
Inside Out 2 was also a financial success this year at the box office, but behind-the-scenes, a lot of work was said to be done to make the lead character of Riley seem ‘less gay.’ Apparently, there were numerous edits done between the scenes of Riley and new character Val so that they would seem ‘platonic as possible.’ One source had said about the changes that what they were asked to do was “just doing a lot of extra work to make sure that no one would potentially see them as not straight.”
The anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment is just one of the numerous bombshells that these frustrated artists have revealed in the article, and multiple people online are apparently not surprised that a huge company like Disney would like to seem progressive, but is actually working hard to make their products seem as audience friendly as possible. As Gravity Falls creator Alex Hirsch put it:
— Official Chicken Little Movie Account (@RANDOMC_L_EVENT) September 16, 2024
