Disney is moving “onwards” with its plans to bemore diverse.
The animation giant’s upcoming flickOnwardwill feature the first animated LGBTQ character to exist in the Disney-Pixar universe.
Onwardproducer Kori Rae confirmed the role in an interview published Friday,telling Yahoo Entertainmentthat the inclusion of the character “just kind of happened” when the movie was being written.
“The scene, when we wrote it, was kind of fitting and it opens up the world a little bit, and that’s what we wanted,” she said.
Pixar Animation/Disney. Inset: Getty Images
Director Dan Scanlon added, “It’s a modern fantasy world and we want to represent the modern world.”
Onwardis set in a fantastical universe where mystical creatures like wizards and centaurs have lost their magical roots. StarringChris PrattandTom Holland, the animated flick centers around two elf brothers living in modern day suburbia.
Waithe’s cop character makes a brief appearance in one scene, in which she tells a driver she had pulled over, “My girlfriend’s daughter got me pulling my hair out,”according to Slate.
Lena Waithe.Getty
Previously, there were only speculations of same-sex relationships in the Disney-Pixar universe when viewers spotted what appeared to be a lesbian couple pushing a stroller in 2016’sFinding Dory. However, director Andrew Stanton opted to not specify when the film came out,tellingUSA Today, “They can be whatever you want them to be.”
Last year, eagle-eyed viewers also surmised that a same-sex couple was featured inToy Story 4 —in which two women can be seen dropping off a young girl at kindergarten — though filmmakers did not confirm the theories.
News of Waithe’s LGBTQ character comes just a month after Marvel president and CEOKevin Feigerevealed plans toadd more LGBTQ charactersto the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
“Yes, absolutely. Yes,” he said during New York Film Academy event,according to NBC News. “And very soon. In a movie that we’re shooting right now.”
In 2019, Feige confirmed thatTessa Thompson‘s Valkyrie is thefirst openly LGBTQ superheroin Marvel Cinematic Universe history after theThor: Ragnarokstar said her character needs to “find her queen” in the follow-up,Thor: Love and Thunder, during a San Diego Comic-Con panel.
“The answer is yes,”he told io9of Valkyrie having an LGBTQ storyline. “How that impacts the story remains to be seen with that level of representation you’ll see across our films, not in justThor 4.”
Disney and Pixar’sOnwardhits theaters March 8.
source: people.com
