What Disney’s queer ‘inspiring content’ really amounts to

polygon.com:

When news outlets reported that The Walt Disney Company donated money to legislators who supported Florida’s controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill, Disney CEO Bob Chapek sent an internal memo to the company saying Disney would still “unequivocally” support its LGBTQ employees.

“I believe the best way for our company to bring about lasting change is through the inspiring content we produce, the welcoming culture we create, and the diverse community organizations we support,” Chapek wrote in the memo.

But while Chapek’s words might imply that Disney has a productive history of creating “inspiring” queer content, a group of Pixar employees penned a letter in response to Chapek’s statements, and specifically called out that line.

“We at Pixar have personally witnessed beautiful stories, full of diverse characters, come back from Disney corporate reviews shaved down to crumbs of what they once were,” the letter reads. “Even if creating LGBTQIA+ content was the answer to fixing the discriminatory legislation in the world, we are being barred from creating it.”

Viewers have certainly come up with their own queer readings of Disney and Pixar stories alike, but it’s debatable whether the studio has delivered the “inspiring” content Chapek seems to think it’s using to help change the world. Below, we’ve laid out the milestones in Disney’s history of queer content.

When Frozen came out, many viewers pointed to the brief moment where burly shopkeeper Oaken says hello to his family, revealing what appears to be a hunky blonde man and four other figures in a sauna. There have been no official statements from the filmmakers about this scene, however, so the character’s sexuality is unconfirmed.

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