Eight years on from the release of Disney’s live-action adaptation of Beauty And The Beast, actor Josh Gad is reflecting on the controversy surrounding the film’s so-called “exclusively gay moment”.
In his memoir In Gad We Trust, Josh brushed off the implication that the 2017 film was intended to feature Disney’s “first-ever gay character” despite a brief scene in which his character, LeFou, was seen dancing with another man.
“I, for one, certainly didn’t exactly feel like LeFou was who the queer community had been wistfully waiting for,” the actor wrote in an excerpt of the book published in Entertainment Weekly.
He continued: “I can’t quite imagine a Pride celebration in honor of the ‘cinematic watershed moment’ involving a quasi-villainous Disney sidekick dancing with a man for half a second. I mean, if I were gay, I’m sure I’d be pissed.”
Josh also noted that he “never once discussed” LeFou’s sexuality with the movie’s creative team, and described the much-buzzed-about dancing scene as “harmless” and “a fun blink-and-you’ll-miss-it little beat”.
“It was both too little and not enough to be anything more than it was,” he wrote.
The discourse surrounding LeFou’s sexuality can be traced to director Bill Condon, who suggested in a 2017 interview that the character had more-than-platonic feelings for the film’s lead antagonist, Gaston (played by Luke Evans).
“LeFou is somebody who on one day wants to be Gaston and on another day wants to kiss Gaston. He’s confused about what he wants,” Condon told Attitude magazine at the time, before noting that the film concludes with “a nice, exclusively gay moment”.
After news of the subplot made headlines, Beauty And The Beast was even banned in several countries and drew boycotts in the U.S.
Still, the film was a box office smash, raking in a reported $1.2 billion worldwide.
Noting that the director “felt awful” about his remarks, Josh said he believes LeFou’s flirtation with a male suitor might have been better received if viewers had been permitted to discover it for themselves.
“Had the audience defined it as a sweet exclusively gay moment, I would have been delighted! But the second we pointed it out and seemingly congratulated ourselves, we had invited hell and fury,” he wrote.
A Tony Award nominee for The Book Of Mormon, Josh continues to have a professional relationship with Disney, having endeared himself to a generation of viewers as the voice of Olaf in the Frozen films.
As for Disney’s depiction of the LGBTQ+ community in its films and television series, however, it has remained spotty in recent years.
The company drew backlash in 2020 when it announced Love, Victor, a queer-inclusive teen series developed for Disney+, would instead debut on Hulu in the US after producers reportedly concluded its subject matter wasn’t family-friendly. The show was later made available on both of the Disney-owned streaming platforms.
In December, Disney confirmed that a storyline involving a transgender character had been removed from the forthcoming Pixar series Win Or Lose.
“When it comes to animated content for a younger audience,” a company spokesperson said in a statement, “we recognise that many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects with their children on their own terms and timeline”.