Literally the only thing I know about this movie is that the main character is gay, Disney really tried to make that a selling point.
He’s not even the main character, he’s a sidekick and not even the most prominent of the sidekicks really. (Despite the fact that he appears first in many character lists for the movie, the protagonist is Searcher)
Naturally, because if it was like Nimona, then the character can’t be edited out for regressive countries
Idk you’re really underselling Ethan’s role in the story. If anything him being gay is such a side plot it doesn’t even matter. But I wouldn’t say he is a “sidekick” lol
This post is the first time I’ve heard of the movie.
Apparently we’re not missing much.
Which is a shame, since this movie is really good and the message is great.
It’s a solarpunk-y movie about the dangers of fossil fuel and living with your environment.
Disney claiming to be inclusive and still managing an incredible amount of gender stereotyping
They want both the queer dollars and the conservative family values dollars. They produce what they believe will be the most marketable to the most people.
They should just abstain from controversial shit and just make good movies.
I don’t remember any of their prior movies needing to push agendas for anything in particular.
I don’t remember any of their prior movies needing to push agendas for anything in particular.
Then you aren’t paying attention.
Gender-normative, male dominant relationships were the agenda. Since then, we’ve had an era of strong and independant - or at least stronger and more independant - female characters. Now we’re entering an era of deconstructing heteronormativity.
Things have been one way for so long that you perceive it as normal, and anything else as a divergenance meant to push an agenda. Every piece of media you’ve ever consumed has had an agenda and actively, consciously played to the stereotypes that would bring in the greatest viewership and reinforce the most commonly held stereotypes and opinions. This is no different; you just got used to one agenda in particular.
So what you’re saying is good content is good because it appeals to the audience and we are now purposefully not appealing to the vast, overwhelming majority of human beings which is why Disney and other companies that chase that temporary trend are failing in droves.
Got it.
So only one specific agenda is correct. All the rest must be silenced.
I mean they very obviously aren’t failing in droves, Disney for instance has been increasing their profit every year except 2020 for the last while.
People aren’t watching what they put out. Their sustainment is heavily reliant on their parks. They destroyed Marvel and Star Wars chasing something other than what the respective core demographic wanted. This is clearly majorly impacting them or else:
https://insidethemagic.net/2023/08/disney-ends-woke-agenda-casting-ad1/
It’s not looking good for the “narrative”, I’ll tell you that.
Okay, but you’re grossly missing the point. There was and will always be an agenda. Being upset that it isn’t your agenda and presenting this opinion under the guise of wanting it depoliticized is at best ignorant and misinformed, at worst dishonest, and regardless attempts to reinforce and legitimize hate for those who do not conform to historical norms.
I’d propose that your argument about the “woke agenda” failing Disney’s pocket book is in itself a cherry picked argument which ignores the massive technological and cultural shifts in the way we consume and monitize media. But it doesn’t matter, because that has nothing to do with what we’re talking about. Disney has always sold a lifestyle and pandered to an agenda. There is a reason Disneyland was such a prominent point of Baudrillard’s work; Disney’s ability to conjure and sell an imaginative reality has been historically unparalleled. Now that it’s selling a fantasy that makes the privledged uncomfortable, ignorant, invalid commentary, such as your original comment, shows up perpetuating false premisis’ about media suddenly pushing an agenda, as though this is new. It is not.
You can choose to try and understand that, you can dig in and veil your choice of ignorance and hate, or you can simply accept that you won’t understand everything and bow out. Just don’t be surprised when you face the consequences of your choices.
That’s a good idea, but what if some random person complains on twitter? Time to change it entire corporate strategy.
Inclusion and representation isn’t controversial unless you’re a bigot.
Theres been inclusion and representation in movies and TV since the 90s. I’m confused. What are you referring to specifically?
I don’t think you understand what makes for good entertainment. Hint: you tend to need a conflict in a story. I wonder if “controversial shit” might be a place to find interesting conflict for your stories?
Also inclusion is not the same thing as pushing an agenda. Gay people are just people. They’re allowed to exist in a story without it necessarily having to mean something.
Gay people have been in film and television since the 90s, what point are you trying to make?
You’re an idiot.
Now now we can’t make the boomers feel left out, there has to be something for ol’ pops to laugh about and explain at the retirement home lunch.
Funfact to tell the haters(since I assume few if any are here): The gays are not doing this to Disney. Disney is doing this to the gays, they make 17 first openly this or that kind of queerness because they want the gay peoples money.
Would anyone like to run a statistical analysis of the number of gay characters that have been present in Disney movies, or really movies in general?
They’re forcing gay characters on us! Help I’m being oppressed! Chill the Fuck out and watch literally 99 percent of all movies that have ever been made if you’re worried about being underrepresented.
Let’s sit down and watch all of the movies that feature a white savior ‘knowing what’s best’ for poor and minority characters. Look at their unbridled altruism! They don’t have to associate with those pesky poors but they choose to do it on account of their saintliness! Get the fuck outta here.
According to out.com there are 17 and most of them have the representation of either it being a backhanded reference to them being queer or being on screen for all of 3 seconds. Oh lawd jesus. So oppressive.
Just a bunch of whiny people who are so incredibly insecure with their own sexuality that they think someone else could turn them gay. Probably because they spend more time than they want to admit fantasizing about sucking cock.
Sorry. As a gay dude I am just so phenomenally tired of hearing the most represented group on the planet whine about being “under-represented” or having to be “forced to watch gay people, THINK OF THE KIDS” when shit like Boss Baby is created where you have a literal infant lusting over women.
Just do a deep dive on all the super Fucking uncomfortable 80s and 90s tv shows and movies where it’s totally acceptable for an adult to have a sexual encounter with a child. It’s sold as a gag or the adult ‘ struggles with their urges’ or whatever. Totally normal, haha funny.
Imagine if there were a movie like Leon the professional that featured a gay man or a transgender. The world would lose its mind and string up the director for child abuse.
I’m in full support of lgbt characters that are ‘normalized’ and treated like everyone else. It’s such a non issue it’s crazy to me that it’s even a concern in anyone’s mind.
Even from a conservative perspective it’s fucking stupid. Your job as a parent is to help your kid learn how to navigate the real world, which SURPRISE has gay people in it.
My sister had a little meltdown on Facebook about the beauty and the beast remake when it came out, because gasp it has two guys dancing in it for all of 2 seconds, at the very end of the movie.
She literally said “how am I supposed to explain that to my kids?” and apparently “with words, if they bother asking” wasn’t the answer she wanted.
I have far more knowledge of her activities in highschool and college than she thought. I could easily get 7 ex-girlfriends of hers to answer on her social media page so everyone she’s pandering to can have an answer from an openly gay person how to address openly gay people. (hint: normal. You treat them normally.)
My problem is the stereotypes. Have a strong women she’s a lesbian, a girl who likes sports a lesbian. Gay man is over the top flamboyant. They might be representing but it still seems stereotyped.
A transgender person*
Just saying “a transgender” is weird
That’s fair
Thanks o7
The world would lose its mind and string up the director for child abuse.
The director of Leon the Professional should’ve unironically been strung up for child abuse.
I don’t get it either. My brother-in-law is like this. And he refused to take his kids to see Buzz Lightyear because of its “political” nature. I was a dumbfounded when I heard that. To think that representation is just some nebulous political aim.
At this rate, we should just consider any media with a kiss in it “political media.”
And I even grew up with this dude in the early 2000s. He didn’t seem like this before.
I try to forget about the guy, but it’s kind of hard because he won’t let me see the nieces because I’m too “liberal”.
When morons say something about a “political nature”, it’s just code for briefly mentioning (and then not instantly condemning) anything about a character that doesn’t fit into:
Straight white cis Christian household with the oldest male the sole breadwinner and the oldest female barefoot and pregnant and tending to their (at least 2) kids’ needs, and keeping house while still doing her “wifely duties” for him, all while being in the kitchen.
They hate immigrants and anyone different from them in any way. They tolerate them if they stay where they came from.
Anything else they disagree with is a political issue, because an extreme version of their religion is their political party, do anything they disagree with means God hates it, and their party will vote against it, and the normal people will vote for it, thereby making it a political issue in an ass backwards way.
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also it’s still a disney movie they aren’t going to show gay porn or anything
cowards
Nothing like the heroes who write the uncut fast and furious movies.
Not with that attitude. Normalize gay pornography in Disney movies!
2032: “Disneys first openly gay sex worker character gets 2 seconds of screentime in the new movie!”
“iTs JuSt So FoRcEd”
China has gay people in movies. Where do you people even get these dumb ideas from
Where do you people even get these dumb ideas from
B-but the goverment of the USA told me that China is evil!
-20 social credit
+20 US credit score. Congrats, you now qualify for an exploitive student loan that you won’t ever be able to repay!
Look at you being all critical of the US and not getting arrested or killed for it. You must really love Western freedom huh?
That only happened because Bernie is a pinko commie who is pro China, so he runs his office like China. In fact Bernie’s office is actually inside of a Chinese embassy, which means that it’s actually part of China. We know this because nobody would EVER be arrested for protesting in the White Free Western world, so the only logical explanation is that it must be China.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Must have been another country
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Funny that you think I haven’t been arrested for protesting, because I have. So no, not really. The smell of tear gas in my neighborhood doesn’t smell very freeing to me.
What neighborhood the Midwest was tear gassed?
we literally have the highest per capita rate of prisoners on the planet??? you can literally look at a member of the government legal enforcement force wrong and get imprisoned??
people literally say in response to police beatings that you should just obey the police. How are you free if at any moment you may be stopped and ordered to perform abitrary tasks under threat of violence
plus americans can’t even legally walk on the street
But, yeah… ACAB.
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I’ve been arrested for protesting before. I can say all I want until I try doing something about it. That’s when the cops come out.
Life is tough in their parents basement
Interesting comment, just as more student loan debt is being wiped off the books.
absolutely innovative and pioneering humor. A stroke of genius. One of the most unique and original jokes I’ve heard in ages. You are truly a visionary.
Good bot
Bloop
This is stupid even in the world of social credit score jokes that were fresh a decade ago. Praising China (here, just saying something accurate) would increase your credit score, you dolt.
-600 FICO score no home for you
Now guess which one is more real
How did you post with the great firewall? That’s illegal.
Reality.
Reality.bourgeois hegemony
This post is about a movie from a year ago. Was the whole point to do some kind of weird roundabout “China bad” post?
Went from a valid criticism of rainbow capitalism to straight up sinophobia immediatly.
China censors those movies though. Its the truth. It is deeply homophobic. xenophobic and commits human rights abuses. Hexbears just dont want to see it.
Where’s the “valid criticism of rainbow capitalism”? I think you’re projecting.
Several movies being “the first one with an openly gay character” when there’s maybe a minor reference to it while donating to republicans until an especially stupid one decided to wage a personal campaign against them.
What do you think projecting means? Are you saying I’m doing rainbow capitalism lmao
“This post is about a movie from a year ago. Was the whole point to do some kind of weird roundabout “China bad” post?”
That’s the orignal comment we’re talking about. Where are you getting any of that shit out of this comment?
No need for that. China is bad. Everyone with a brain knows their genocides and suppression of their people is bad.
Dude looks like Mario shaved off his stache and put on a rastafari wig
Bruh its an animation style. Its like calling a table and a chair the same thing because you bought them both from ikea so they both have that middle-class swedish furniture style.
There are LGBTQ movies from China so this makes no sense. One of my favorites is Lan Yu (藍宇) from 2001. Most of the characters are gay men and the plot is even critical of how the army handled the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident.
Did y’all learn about what China is like from Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons or what
The wiki explains that most of the crew from this movie is from mainland China, however it was made by a Hong Kong director and was filmed without permission from the government.
It explicitly states
at the time, no mainland Chinese publisher would have published it, nor would the author be safe from government reprisals. Hence, its anonymous publication on the Internet.
The film did had a brief showing run in December 2001, at Peking University, where interest by Chinese citizens was quite high, selling out the showings.
Peking University
In Beijing
Sounds like the oppressive Chinese government allowed them to show the movie.
From the Beijing film festival wiki
The Festival originated from Peking University, and is considered to be “the only community-based non-governmental film festival in China with a special focus on gender and sexuality”
Didnt say it was a government event. Said the governemnt would implicitly have had to allowed it to happen, or it wouldn’t have. Or at least, thats what people who think the Chinese government is an all powerful oppressive force would say. Which is my point.
ETA: Like the fact that a festival like that exists AT ALL, in the nation’s capital, proves that the government isnt an evil opressive anti-queer regime that people paint it as.
The movie was filmed without permission, what makes you think it couldn’t have been shown without permission?
Good Chinese folk can find ways around unjust restrictions just like any other country in the world. The first "festival"was held in a library in the University, probably not the type of festival you are imagining.
They didn’t get explicit permission, but they also didnt get shut down.
Also, the “filmed without permission” is weird phrasing anyway. Does every indy movie in other countries get explicit permission from the government to be filmed? A Wiki article for, say, an Australian indy movie about queer people that covers Australian oppression of the indigenous wouldn’t go out of its way to mention “the government didn’t give permission for it to be filmed” because why would it? The government doesn’t need to approve such project. Including the “government didnt give permission” feels like editorializing to make things sound more sinister then they are.
They operated for less than a month, could have gone unnoticed?
And no I don’t think it’s weird phrasing. It’s absolutely common practice to get permits to film in public places and historic sites: https://www.thefilmfund.co/how-to-get-film-permits-and-location-releases/
If you’re filming on private property your supposed to get they owners permission too.
If a Australian film did some guerilla filming I’m sure that would be mentioned in it’s wiki because it can serve to promote the movie.
Edit: try googling “movies made without permission” https://www.dailyhindnews.com/top-10-movie-scenes-shot-without-permission-its-all-illegal/
Since this work contained positive depictions of gay men, explicit (by Chinese standards) gay sex scenes, and resurrected the ghost of Tiananmen Square, at the time, no mainland Chinese publisher would have published it, nor would the author be safe from government reprisals. Hence, its anonymous publication on the Internet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lan_Yu_(film)
Ah, such a free and progressive society!
so much better than america, where it just wouldn’t be made in the first place
Nothing would ever satisfy you people lmao
What a comprehensive rebuttal to his counterpoint lol
You guys really have no idea what to say once you run out of prescripted talking points, huh?
Satisfied with positive lgbt portayals being illegal to broadcast are you?
You decided to go out on a limb to defend the Chinese government, make a false implication about it, and when you’re called on it, your answer is “Nothing would ever satisfy you people”.
What did you expect when you lied?
Do you concede the below statement that you replied to? I’ll re-paste it to confirm:
Since this work contained positive depictions of gay men, explicit (by Chinese standards) gay sex scenes, and resurrected the ghost of Tiananmen Square, at the time, no mainland Chinese publisher would have published it, nor would the author be safe from government reprisals. Hence, its anonymous publication on the Internet.
Do you accept that is true?
Wikipedia article speculation cited as fact on lemmy dot net.
Western propaganda is a series of clowns honking each other’s noses all the way down.
Well you see wikipedia.org is actauly against china and its all fake made up by americans. /s
It’s heavily astroturfed by the US government, so your sarcastic comment was accidentally correct
It is not all fake, but your comment is basically true.
Try fixing that section, which is entirely speculation, and see how quickly it gets reverted and by whom. You’ll quickly run into either a power user with reactionary politics that should’ve been banned ages ago per Wikipedia’s own policies or a series of FirstWordLastWord962578 accounts making reversions with no explanation.
The latter is what lazy government behavior looks like. The former is the larger social structures built around the acceptability and empowerments of reactionary thought and narratives that is inherently anticommunist.
But really, go do it. Remove the section as speculation and show/tell us what happens.
There’s literally a law banning same sex relationships from being shown on tv and in cinemas, what the fuck are you talking about??
Also Tienanmen square wasn’t “an incident”. It was a massacre.
Yes, I was worried about the square. Thank God most of the massacre happened on the streets around Tienanmen
The point is that the western sequence of events is incorrect on the face of it.
“I was lied to about an obvious, easily verifiable fact, but I’m sure the people who lied to me are otherwise being honest”
What? I was just watching a show the other day with a trans hostess on Chinese national TV. Her name is Jin Xing and she’s very well known and her show draws 100 million viewers regularly
I mean yeah I wish representation were better. Too many regional representatives are boomers stuck in the past. I was in Shenzhen in 2019 though and met a bunch of cool queer folks though.
Americans call the Boston massacre and only 6 people died, just saying that on the level of supposedly horrific state violence that should never be forgotten, so you have any idea how many massacres of the same and larger scale the United States has perpetrated just in the last 30 years?
According to the Chinese Communist Party around 200-300 civilians died, and several thousands were injured. According to most other agencies, the numbers are around 10 times higher, with 1000 to 3000 dead. Either way, it’s a very high number of dead.
Or is this not a massacre? By the way, two wrongs don’t make a right
You don’t give a fuck about the wrongdoings of any country but the ones you were told are “enemies”
Cops in the US murder thousands of people every year, bet you don’t even spare a thought for it, is my point
State violence only bad when it’s not my state
*State violence is only bad when my ruling class tells me it is
I do care about wrongdoings of any country. The issues with police violence, racial discrimination and gun violence in the US are not a secret. You are not the first one talking about that. Everyone in the west talks about that, it’s now the first thing most people think of when talking about the US in the west.
That being said, I don’t understand why, when anyone even tries to say “China bad” the answer is always “but America is also bad”. Why does that make it right?
because we’re in a contrived thread that twists over backwards to shit on china, not a thread about the legitimate issues with china. Its frustrating to see, even when I agree that china is pretty bad in a lot of ways, seeing that drumbeat of “enemy state bad” as an army of mindless brainwashed western redditors marches by throwing out half truths and outright lies (its almost never real criticisms, like with north korea its just miles long lists of shit westerners were taught to think like its illegal to not have the kim haircut) it just makes my head pop
All the organizers, though, are living cushy rich lives in Taiwan and the USA now
Wonder whose head those deaths are on? It’s not like you can legally go around impaling soldiers to buses and stealing apcs and tanks in any country
It was a massacre.
I suppose those police officers just set themselves on fire then?
Dear Tankie,
Please fuck yourself with broken glass
Signed,
The rest of the worldRemoved by mod
What exactly did any of his reply have to do with white people? Or are you defending the persecution of gay people and blaming white people for homosexuality?
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Parent comment literally explains that LGBT+ is not persecuted in China.
Dishonestly, and they were called on it. Yes. With facts directly related to the movie in question.
Above reply starts with “dear tankie fuck yourself with broken glass”,
While I’ve had some bad run-ins with tankies, that’s more extreme than I would normally have said myself… But
even going on to talk on behalf of “rest of the world”, that aligns with China instead of Anglosphere.
So you are defining “white” as anyone of every ethnicity that isn’t Chinese AND living in China? Seems an odd way to put that word.
He is the whitey perpetrating Sinophobia
The first racist comment in this thread… and it came from you. Do you just hate everyone who isn’t Chinese?
which I point out as being typical white person nonsense
Again. I know Chinese expats who feel this way about China, and black- and brown-skinned people who agree. Are they all “white” by your definition?
And all of you repliers are the defenders of anti-China bigotry.
Ahh yes. Respond by classifying everyone as “you people”. Would you put “you people” up against the wall? How about our children? Would you put a toddler up against the wall? Tell me, do you think everyone who isn’t Chinese or pro-China is less than human and have an opinion that doesn’t matter? That’s about 80% of the world.
How about you fuck off with the racism?
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Oh, our ancestors were fucking awful humans, and our current ruling class is even worse, but don’t lump us common folk in with them, ya fuckin’ racist.
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::sigh:: Again, you’re making it about race, when we hate the rich assholes who did and do that shit just as much as you do. So yeah, that is racism. Ya damn fool.
Yeah, okay buddy. Not like there aren’t already three other comments here calling that initial comment as the bullshit that it is.
Anyone ever told you that you have the reading comprehension of a carrot? Of course, that assumes you actually care about what you’re reading, rather than just blindly supporting totalitarianism and espousing racially-motivated attacks.
Have they maybe said that you’re just genuinely fucking insane? I know that everyone is already telling you how racist you are, so I don’t have to ask that one.
Oh, and btw, if you’re using easily disproven half-truths to (durr this movie even talks about Tiananmen Square!!) to try and lessen the reality of such heinous events, you can fuck yourself with broken glass, regardless of your skin color, you racist prick.
Edit: Oh, you’re that Tankie piece of shit mod from the tech board that’s been recorded deleting everything you can that so much as implies China has ever done anything wrong! People like you don’t deserve even the smallest shadow of power, you fucking scumbag, and I hope your racist rant comes back to bite you.
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"We, the enlightened and human rights respecting West, did an about face on LGBT people having rights about 10 years ago after many centuries of violent persecution and suppression.
Now you, the country who’s main ethnic group derives it’s demonym from a dynast of bisexual emperors, and which has never had large scale and systematic persecution or suppression of gay people, must depict gay people in media exactly as we do.
If you do not, we will call you barbarians."
Can gay people get married in China?
Can a gay kid who is kicked out of their home find housing in the US?
“What about the US” aka the mating call of the hexbear
At a practical level, is there any country you think is doing a good job in general?
Ooh, answering questions with a question! He’s good.
Not being threatened with homelessmess would have helped me infinitely more than the right to be married.
I’m gay and housing is just as hard to find for me as it is for my straight friends. Housing in the United States is prohibitively expensive, even/especially for renters depending on the area. This comparison was flawed to begin with, but that’s not surprising considering it’s the argumentative equivalent of a “no u”. Die on a better hill.
Wouldn’t that also apply to a gay kid in china? I somehow doubt they just give away free housing to people.
China is not perfect on the matter of right-to-housing, but it is very good. Everyone has a right to have some kind of housing unit, though they don’t necessarily (and in fact, I think usually don’t) “own” it and family homes are counted if the kid isn’t formally disowned. A very large number of the homeless population in China are “itinerant homeless,” those who do have a family home but have moved elsewhere and aren’t paying rent for an apartment (usually due to poverty, and therefore may live on the street) in order to try to get a job in the city with which to support themselves and possibly the rest of their family, who are usually back home in some rural area. This is very different from what homelessness typically looks like in the US, though it happens here too.
If a child is not formally disowned but is nonetheless forced out by their family, then it’s effectively a matter of child abuse to be handled by the appropriate government organization once it is discovered/reported, and either the family recants or they formally disown the child. If they are formally disowned, they are entitled to shelter.
Though not the same system by any means, I think the DPRK’s law on this subject is similar, though it’s much easier for poor families (and kids therein) to fall through the cracks, meaning that you are more likely* to find a homeless queer kid there as a consequence.
*on a per-capita level
Can gay people exist in America without their sexual identities being the subject of endless culture war bullshit?
I’m all for China legalizing gay marriage and full protections for LGBT people. That process requires Chinese society to have its own conversation, which is what’s happening right now. Copy pasting American culture war bullshit verbatim isn’t going to do gay people any good, and a gay character in a kids movie certainly isn’t going to do jack shit.
the newer generations in china have been leading the way in terms of a public opinion shift towards acceptance of LGBTQ people. on social media and in city centers you can find a lot of LGBTQ youth freely expressing themselves from what i’ve seen.
There are even laws against hate speech towards LGBT people in the Chinese national media. That will literally never happen in America
Then why change the movies? Why not just not release them if Chinese society isn’t ready to have that conversation yet?
They’re having the conversation right now. Like there was a recent incident where LGBTQ stuff was banned off Weibo (Chinese social media) and there was a public outcry that reversed the decision. It’s up to China to decide how they’ll progress and I’m optimistic about it.
China’s censorship laws are mostly designed for protectionist reasons, like they don’t want their domestic film industry overrun by Disney or Sony. They’d rather have an internal market that’s not bound to international businesses. That said, their censorship board is, for better or worse, operated by a bunch of stick in the mud boomers. Hopefully it’ll get better with increasing awareness among younger people and changing trends. That said, the idea that China needs its government overthrown because it censors movies or that the state isn’t as progressive as it could be? That’s absurd and not helping anything.
I should also mention that homosexuality was mostly seen as normal or ignored throughout Chinese history up until the 19th century. It was a theme at the time that Britain or some other western power would start involving themselves within an Asian country and rewrite local laws, including restrictions on homosexuality.
I’ve never said they need to be overthrown? That’s literally not what I’m saying at all.
Ok sorry I was responding to people in my head
Well, I’d say sorry on his behalf, considering you seem to ask the question in good faith…
Most of the useful conversation to be had is not from the west demanding they just adopt western culture. I don’t support censoring movies on homophobic grounds, but I think gay media produced and shown domestically (which absolutely does exist) is much more productive and important.
Because giving the impressing that LGBT issues are an imposition on Chinese society by the West in general and America specifically is going to distort the issue at best and at worst give the conservatives ammo to say that LGBT is an American plot to blah blah blah. Especially in the context of a Disney movie, aimed at kids, which adds in a “they’re coming for our children” factor.
It would do incalculable damage to the advancement of LGBT rights in China for such rights to be tied to America or the West, so on balance the censors probably did the LGBT community a solid here.
Plus, that’s assuming that this is the censors in China and not Disney self censoring because Disney thinks the Chinese censors care.
I don’t see how a story about a gay character could possibly do such damage to an entire movement regardless of its country of origin.
I’m really not trying to be obtuse I actually don’t understand.
Well for one, China and much of the global south have been struggling against the political, economic, and cultural hegemony of the West for centuries now and there’s a pretty visceral aversion to doing whatever the west is perceived to be telling us to do. Especially so on a cultural and societal level where Westerners have zero idea of who we are and how we do things but just constantly tell us how we should think and behave.
In this specific context, there well recognized scholars who posit that homophobia was spread in China by Westerners during the late Qing and Republican era. In addition to being rightfully wary of Western social and cultural meddling, there is also a strong rejection of the hypocrisy of the West causing this problem in the first place and now judging us for not immediately following their model in solving it.
For another, Western media just recently demonstrated how willing it is to politicize Disney movies by accusing China and Occupied Korea of being racist because of poor ticket sales of The Little Mermaid. If Westoid media makes a big song and dance about how a billion and a half Chinese people are homophobes because we didn’t turn up to see a Disney movie, that’s going to taint the whole movement with an association to hysterical Western political media.
Nope! And thats bad. But marriage equality is not the only measure of queer rights. Queer people in China are largely left alone and not hate crimed and speaking as a queer I’d rather get to be alive than get married.
China absolutely needs to work on its legal rights for queer people. I’m not saying otherwise. But you are still looking at the issue through a very western lense, and a hypocritical one considering how recently queer rights have even been begun to be accepted in the west. And how fast we are moving backwards on them in America especially. And how bad issues like homeless queer youth still are.
Why is it hypocritical? I’ve supported the LGBT movement for literally as long as I can remember. It’s somehow my fault that other people haven’t realized that gay people are still people?
Have you ever criticized someone for looking at the issue through a very eastern lense or is that reserved for people you deem as western-enough?
I’m not a Christian, but one of the things I’ve always felt Jesus was really on point on was when he said “take the beam out of your own eye before taking the speck of dust from your neighbors”.
I think this can be applied to geopolitics very well, even if you think the other country has the beam and you have the speck of dust, its still advisable to focus on your own countries problems. Its hypocritical not on a personal level, but on a national level. To use a non Christian phrase, its throwing stones in a glass house. Idk what specific country you’re from, but unless its China you can’t do much about China’s issues with queer rights, so why focus on them? Focus on wherever you’re from.
Like literally the only thing a Westerner can “do about” Chinese queer rights issues is encourage war/regime change, which you should know does not have a good record of working out for the effected country. And thats the problem we communists have when people start talking about China’s problem. We know our countries want regime change in China, so we see this shit as supporting of that. Its basically a threat.
Have you ever criticized someone for looking at the issue through a very eastern lense or is that reserved for people you deem as western-enough?
No, I haven’t, because I’m a westerner lol. Like I said, I focus my criticisms at home.
I want good for all people on this Earth. Like, I wouldn’t ignore verbal abuse just because there’s physical assault still happening, y’know? I’m not a politician or even a particularly smart guy. I know my original post came off bad, sorry.
Well, what happens when the guy doing physical assault wants you on his side vs the verbal abuse guy? Thats the US running propaganda on China.
why is inclusion in an often patriarchal/misogynistic and conservative institution as marriage the end-all-be-all of queer rights? this is such an annoying talking point from liberals. i have heard american conservatives going on national stages and calling for the complete genocide of trans people, but i have not heard of anything like that from chinese politicians.
china has a long road ahead in terms of queer rights, but compared to queer rights (and “rights” like the right to get married, right to die in an imperialist war, etc) backsliding in the west, there’s a pretty big difference.
why is inclusion in an often patriarchal/misogynistic and conservative institution as marriage the end-all-be-all of queer rights?
Kind of reminds me of the space race and how the USSR had all these amazing achievements but America decided that the winner was the first one to land people on the moon.
why is inclusion in an often patriarchal/misogynistic and conservative institution as marriage the end-all-be-all of queer rights?
Legal protections mostly. If you get married, you have a right to see your spouse in the hospital. Otherwise, they’re just another person even if you’ve been living together for 50 years. You also have a right to inheritance, the right to receive pensions and 401k, etc etc. An unmarried partner is essentially left with nothing unless explicitly stated in a will and even then they don’t have all the legal protections.
Imagine living with someone for 20 years and they get into a car wreck, you can’t see them before they die because you’re married. You get kicked out of your home because legally you’re just a roommate and have no right to stay in that house. Then, all the money your partner invested goes to their shithead parents who kicked them out as a child. None of that would happen if you were married.
Marriage is an outdated contract but the functions it provides are still important to society.
Edit: Obviously I support China but marriage isn’t just a “proof of love” or some other sentimental thing.
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I ain’t no fucking lib. It’s a simple standard of acceptance in society (i.e. gay people get to participate in the same governmental institutions as everyone else).
No it isn’t lmao. I care more about housing rates among LGBT people, China and Cuba are high on that list.
Signed: yet another hexbear trans user. Weird how so many trans people on lemmy are hard left 🤔
I ain’t no fucking lib
Yeah man you really got me good I actually pressed x to lie and you really called me out you did such a a good job.
As a transbian, fuck no it isnt, that is liberal bullshit. Marriage is a patriarchal institution.
Okay
I dunno you say a lot of lib things
Must be true if you’re saying it
If that’s the kind of logic that convinces you of things, you should check out all of the other people saying the same thing as me.
Basically your one job as a leftist when it comes to capitalist propaganda is to not unquestioningly repeat it and guess what you’re doing, lib. And it’s in the realm of orientalism to boot. Not exactly distinguishing yourself.
The Mitchells vs the machines did it best. It was a great and entertaining story and I loved all the characters. Perhaps Disney should just make a story that’s worth telling?
What are the other movies?
- Finding Dory: Has a lesbian couple on screen for 3 seconds. Was an ENORMOUS deal at the time. Disney marketed it.
- Beauty and the Beast (2017 Live Action): Disney specifically marketed how Josh Gads character was their first gay character. They also marketed an “exclusive gay moment”. That moment was him dancing with another man in a group scene for like 2 seconds.
- Thor Ragnarok: Wasn’t announced until Love and Thunder but Valkyrie is bisexual.
- Avengers Endgame: Also touted as a “big moment” and the first gay character in the MCU. During the opening grief counseling session that Cap America runs, one dude is talking about how he went on a date with another man. Here’s there for a maximum of 20 seconds.
- Toy Story 4: You can see a lesbian couple for like 1-3 seconds.
- Rise of Skywalker: Also touted as a huge moment for Star Wars, Disney started talking about how it was the first lesbian couple. At the end of the movie there’s a 1 second shot of two women kissing. Disney marketed it as first on screen same sex kiss.
- **Onward:**The cyclops cop is a lesbian. There’s a single line where she says her girlfriend’s daughter did something.
- Jungle Cruise: Disney said that Jack MacGregor was their first “major gay character”. There is a single line in the film hinting towards his sexuality. Dwayne Johnsons character asks why he never got married and Jack says “my interests lie elsewhere”. That’s it. Apparently that counts for being gay.
- Eternals: Disney touted that one as being the ‘First Gay Superhero’. He’s not a major character or anything but you do see a scene with him and his husband/son.
- Cruella: Also marketed by Disney as being their ‘first major gay character’ despite them claiming that twice for Beauty and the Beast and for Jungle Cruise. In this movie, the gay character is the hyper flamboyant, fashion loving villain.
- High School Musical The Series: A Disney+ show. They marketed that one for the ‘First Gay Disney Love Song’.
- Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness: America Chavez is a lesbian and the movie was marketed for having the ‘First Gay Superhero’, apparently ignoring Eternals from previously.
- Lightyear: ‘First Pixar Same-sex Kiss in a Pixar movie’ was claimed for this one. However it was only put back into the movie after news broke that Disney was donating to anti-gay politicians and that they constantly cut LGBTQ content behind the scenes they stuck this scene in. Then it came out that this scene too was originally cut. Shocker.
- Ms. Marvel: Another Disney+ show. They have a same-sex teenage lesbian couple.
- Strange World: The thing in the meme. First Gay Teenage character.
ABC is owned by Disney. ABC owns Scrubs. Therefore the first gay love song from Disney is “Guy Love” sung by JD and Turk and I will die on this hill.
Does that make JD and Turk Disney princesses
Yes, and while I will not die on that hill, I’ll kill others on it.
I would like to join you on this hill
The characters being ancillary and easily edited out/cut is by design so they can still use the movies in foreign markets that are hostile to lgbt rights
If the gay character is only identified as gay in one scene where they say “I’m gay” or kiss for 10 seconds you can just cut that part out and still screen it in Saudi Arabia. Disney doesn’t actually give a shit about lgbt issues, they give a shit about what will sell
Thus a prominent main character who is gay or a movie about a character coming to terms with queer identity is far less likely because that basically means they instantly lose out on much of the lucrative international market
At the end of the movie there’s a 1 second shot of two women kissing.
LOL. First I heard of this. I must’ve blinked and missed it.
It is literally 1 or 2 seconds. It’s an extremely quick flash that’s in the background. Not even given focus from what I remember, although I could be wrong on that. It was just so forgettable.
sigh
Mission hill, a show you’ve likely never heard of, back in 1999 had two characters named Gus and Wally. They were the upstairs neighboors of the main cast though Gus and Wally did have their own episode (the show only ran for 1 season and had 13 episodes) as well as having some side plots in other episodes. Now the very first scene they’re in they are making out.
Let me repeat that, back in fucking 1999 there was an openly gay couple in an animated show who were functionally main characters. They weren’t the perfect couple, they acted like your old married coupke, but the show never once made them being gay a joke, a bad thing, or anything of the sort. They were treated respectfully as flawed humans who loved each other for the show’s entire run.
The episode where Gus comes back from work with a knife stuck in his head and won’t go to the doctor and tries to just act like everything is normal still makes me die laughing, because my (also gay) husband is the same way.
Wow thanks didn’t think there was that many “first gay characters” 😂
I forgot about 1 though I remember hearing about that.
Seems like Disney can’t make up their minds and are trying to make the “perfect” gay character.
They should just do this:
“This is the first gay character”
“This is the first gay character V2”
“This is the first gay character V3”
Etc
I saw some of these movies but the only one that actually contains a somewhat important gay character thats actually gay is eternals.
Holy fuck that is pathetic. Not quite as pathetic as the people crying about “forced diversity” tho.
Buzz Lightyear, Baloo, Peter Pan, the Fairy Godmother, Jafar and King Triton
Why would any of these be considered gay characters
Are you saying you want none of that Peter Bussy?
In onwards there is a police woman/ogre who talks about her girlfriend. I have heard there is queer representation in the movie luca but I did not watch it
Looking back at the list of Disney movies… there actually were none. Unless you count Cuzco.
Well definitely limiting if you go specifically gay teen.
But they made a somewhat big deal about having a Gay Ellen DeGeneres, in finding Dory but didn’t specifically push that the character was gonna show gay representation.
But man they really pushed the narrative that they would have an openly gay character in the live action Beauty & the Best movie which ended up being a 15 seconds site gag about cross dressing and dancing… so that was dumb.
Then they bragged about having gay representation in an Avengers movie which ended up being an unnamed character saying he dated a guy once in a blink and you miss it sad scene at the top of the movie… and Marvel is Disney.
Then I remember them bragging about gay representation in Onward but I actually don’t remember there being any like at all. Seriously, they talked about how they would include representing everyone and then the movie was a mess of just fairytale knockoff representation everywhere and I can point out practically no specifics.
Let’s see then they made a bunch of live action stuff that actually had real gay representation but eternals sucked and cruella it’s definitely just a side character but hey whatever.
Then they bragged about light-year I think which I didn’t watch so who knows how good that was.
And that brings us to “the first openly gay character” which was the only advertising point for this movie I saw after a fantastic trailer giving such a great 1930s vibe and nothing else.
So yeah I guess that’s practically none of you consider how pathetic the early attempts were nothing.
And if you ignore a bunch of the other movies, too.
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What other open gay characters have been in Disney movies?
I feel like part of this is that so many of the “openly gay characters” have been either not so open, extremely in the background, or even debatably gay that each new threshold feels like a “victory” or something.
