Disney has been in the hot seat these past weeks, as they remain embarrassingly silent on the hateful, homophobic Don’t Say Gay bill that is dangerously close to becoming law in Florida. (Disney Orlando is one of the major employers in the Sunshine State, not to mention the thousands and thousands of school children that visit the Magic Kingdom each year on school-sponsored field trips.)
Now Beauty and the Beast actor Josh Gad is speaking out about his disappointment in how Mickey Mouse and company handled the character of LeFou in the 2017 live-action film starring Emma Watson. According to Indie Wire,
“Five years after Gad took on the role of LeFou in Disney’s live-action remake, the “Wolf Like Me” actor is slamming the hype around the “exclusively gay moment” onscreen, as director Bill Condon categorized it in 2017. The aforementioned moment is Gad’s character, LeFou, dancing in a crowd with Gaston (Luke Evans), which presumably implied LeFou was in love with his boss.”
Related: Luke Evans posts thirst trap photo – and WE ARE HERE FOR IT!
The Frozen actor, 41, has every reason to be a little miffed. After decades and decades of Disney films with ZERO gay characters, LeFou was touted to be the first openly gay character in a live-action Disney film. Well, that moment came and went. Speaking to The Independent Gad explained,
“My regret in what happened is that it became ‘Disney’s first explicitly gay moment’ and it was never intended to be that. It was never intended to be a moment that should laud ourselves for because frankly, I don’t think we did justice to what a real gay character in a Disney film should be.”
The Wolf Like Me actor did not stop there saying,
“There was nothing in the script that said ‘LeFou is gay.’ That was not LeFou. If we’re going to pat ourselves on the back, then damn it we should have gone further with that. We didn’t go far enough to warrant accolades. We didn’t go far enough to say, ‘Look how brave we are.’”
Since Beauty and the Beast history HAS been made, FINALLY, with not one, but two openly gay characters in live-action Disney films. Both Cruella and Jungle Cruise have featured openly gay characters.
Gad finished the interview saying,
“Everybody deserves an opportunity to see themselves on screen, and I don’t think we’ve done enough — and I certainly haven’t done enough to do that.”
Sources: Indie Wire, The Independent
