Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast

Disney Animation

Released: 1991

Directors: Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise

Writer: Linda Woolverton

Starring: Paige O’Hara, Robby Benson, Richard White, Jerry Orbach, David Ogden Stiers, Angela Lansbury

Music & Lyrics: Alan Menken

Rating: G

Grade: 2.5/5

Going back to the classics today. I always felt an affinity with Belle. I was a huge bookworm when I was little and I seriously connected to her love of literature. She’s probably the only female Disney character I saw myself in as a kid. So let’s get to the queering!

wheeeeee!!!

First we should talk about the opening sequence. One of the best beginnings of a movie, in my humble opinion. And it’s got some cool feminist/queer undertones. Not only does it establish the Prince, the ultimate patriarchal symbol, as a spoiled brat, he gets punished for being mean to a witch/hag (read: lesbian)! Yup! The whole plot of the movie gets kick started with a lesbian cultural symbol cursing a patriarchal cultural symbol. How ‘bout them apples?

You'll take my rose and you'll like it goddamnit!

On to Belle: she’s a total outsider. The entire first song that establishes the world of the film is all about how much of a weirdo she is. She’s a queer nerd, despite her normative beauty. She gives zero fucks. She couldn’t care less what everyone thinks. Especially Gaston.

Let’s talk about Gaston. Honestly, I think he’s the most interesting character in the whole movie. Sounds strange coming from me? You might be thinking: “Lindsay, what are you talking about? He’s Disney’s most obvious patriarchal symbol.” Yessssss, but there’s a twist! I think he’s actually performing masculinity. 

Werk it girl

Gaston is projecting a patriarchal persona and he’s overcompensating so hard. In his performance of masculinity he’s actually criticizing its tropes. The “Gaston” song hits so many stereotypes in a single verse. High Disney camp at its best. And Gaston clearly doesn’t want to marry Belle because he loves her. He wants to marry her because he thinks they would look good together and fulfil heteronormative societal expectations of him and his manliness and her and her beauty. I’m pretty sure that Belle is his dream beard. Also, since Gaston is the villain, the movie essentially sets the patriarchy as the villainous obstacle to true love. I’m down with that.

I want to take a moment and talk about the scene where Gaston goes into Belle’s house to get her to marry him. 

Leave room for Jesus

This scene is really disturbing on a number of levels. First, that it’s super rapey. Second, that the only way that Belle can get out of this dangerous situation with Gaston is by using her sexuality as a weapon to lure him toward the door so she can boot him out. That’s a pretty fucked up thing to teach kids in a Disney movie: That men don’t respect women’s consent at all and the only thing women can do to help themselves is to use their looks, cause that’s all that women are good for, right? Uuuuuuuugh. Ok, rant over.  

The movie does redeem itself somewhat in its overall message of inner beauty over outer beauty and that’s definitely a queer message battling normative ideas, but then the Beast turns back to a pretty prince and kinda ruins the whole thing…

There’s also Cogsworth. He’s definitely got some queerness going on in those gears of his. I’m pretty sure he’s been pining over Lumiere for a while now.

Would you light my caaaaaaaandle

MVQ: Maurice! (Belle’s dad). He did a damn good job raising Belle in such a narrow minded little town.

OTP: Gaston and LeFeu. Oh yeah, that’s definitely happening.

Favorite Moment: Belle’s reprise of the opening song. “I want so much more than they’ve got planned.” I totally looked up to Belle’s ambition as a kid and this is a really liberating moment for her.

Toy Story

Toy Story

Pixar Animation Studios

Released: 1995

Director: John Lasseter

Story: John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, Joe Ranft

Writers: Joss Whedon, Andrew Stanton, Joel Cohen, Alec Sokolow

Starring: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen

Music & Lyrics: Randy Newman

Rating: G

Grade: 4/5

Oh man. This movie. This is THE animated movie. It launched Pixar’s epic reputation. It convinced me that my toys led double lives. It’s. Just. Incredible. Genius. Beautiful. Heart warming. All the things!

Let’s see if it’s queer.

As much as it seriously pains me to write anything resembling a negative comment about this movie, I have to acknowledge that there are only two female characters in the whole movie (according to my very diligent watching). Bo Peep (ugh, not very feminist) and Andy’s Mom (whose name we never even learn). Major deductions for lack of diversity. Pixar generally needs to get better at gender representation.

Moving on.

The norm versus queer thing is a bit weird in this one. Pixar has lots of fun when it establishes norms in worlds that are primarily non-human. To figure out the norm here, we have to look at our position as viewers. The norm here is our world’s norm: the human perspective. Even though humans are not our primary characters, they still control the world of the toys and everything is dictated by their reality. Toys are a vulnerable population, their fates determined by human whim. Even though the toys make up the primary characters of the story, they hold a queer position in the human world. Their aliveness is an interruption, a deviation. In the normative world that we know, inanimate objects do not walk, talk, think, let alone feel love. So the idea of toys being alive: totally queer.

Let’s talk about Buzz. His character arc is real queer. He arrives in Andy’s room believing he is an actual astronaut. He believes in this fiction with his whole being. The fiction here is not only that he believes he is a real astronaut, but the nuance that he believes he is a real human astronaut. His ignorance is bliss. He believes he can fly. He believes he can touch the sky. For most of the movie he lives in his happy, bubbly normative world. Then reality finally hits when he sees his commercial and the bold letters, “THIS IS NOT A FLYING TOY.” I well up every time he tries to fly through the window and smashes to the ground. 

:(

Poor Buzz. This realization is Buzz’s queer Ah Ha! moment (I talked about this in my Prince of Egypt post). In this moment he realizes his queerness. He realizes he is not a real (human) astronaut. He is a toy. He is a queer toy. And in this he realizes the hierarchy of queer versus norm and that being just a toy is lesser than being a real astronaut.

But what’s great about this story is the message the movie drives home: THEY ARE NOT JUST TOYS. Being a toy, being someone’s toy is an incredible thing to be. Being queer is an incredible thing to be. Flying is not as cool as falling with style.

I'm the king of the world!

Don’t believe me? Let’s look a bit closer at the Woody versus Buzz tug of war over Andy. Bear with me on this one. I want to liken kids’ relationships with their toys to romantic relationships. Think about it. You love them and they love you unconditionally, even if they are alive. You take them everywhere. You sleep with them (not like that, get your head out of the gutter).  Andy even plasters his walls with posters of them and tons of merch. I’ll confess: my relationship with my Teddy bear is the most stable romantic relationship of my life. Yes, I am a grown woman who still sleeps with her childhood teddy bear. And now the internet knows way too much about me. When Buzz replaces Woody as Andy’s favorite toy, the storytelling treats it like a break up. There’s a whole montage of Woody’s heartbreak. Woody tosses Buzz out the window because he’s the jealous ex. 

Who THOT?

Rewatch the movie and try to tell me its not structured like a classic rom-com love triangle.

Linking the queerness of toys to the toys’ romantic relationship with their kids shows us that queer relationships are no less important than norm relationships. The story flips the queer versus norm hierarchy on its head prioritizing queerness and queer relationships. That being someone’s toy is a special thing to be. “Being a toy is a lot better than being a space ranger.” Cool, right? Is the ending secretly pro-polyamory? I’ll let you be the judge of that one.

I also want to mention Sid’s toys. 

We come in peace!

A queer subplot? I think so. At first they seem weird and totally terrifying, but they end up being really nice! They fix Buzz! Their story hits home the toy versus human, queerness versus norm. Sid’s toys are totally an oppressed population. No contest. Interesting to note that this Toy Story movie is the only one in the trilogy (soon to be 4-parter!) where toys reveal their aliveness to humans. Not sure what that means. Just thought I’d point it out.

Something I had never noticed before my recent rewatch is that the movie represents alternative family models and it’s totally NBD. There’s never any sort of mention of Andy’s dad, or lack thereof. Andy’s Mom is a single mom raising two kids and it needs no explanation. I’ve watched this movie many times and this is the only time I have ever noticed it. What a cool queer discovery!

AND finally, Rex is a total sissy. But I think that’s probably the most obvious queerness in the movie. I just love that this supposedly terrifying carnivorous dinosaur is the least ferocious character ever.

TINY T-REX ARMS!

MVQ: Buzz gets the queer struggle.

OTP: Woody and Buzz, obvi.

ummmmm....

Favorite Moment: When Buzz and Woody fly. I have so much nostalgia for the first time I ever watched that scene. Incredible storytelling/animation moment.

Epic

Epic

Blue Sky Studios

Released: 2013

Director: Chris Wedge

Starring: Amanda Seyfried, Josh Hutcherson, Beyoncé Knowles, Aziz Ansari, Christoph Waltz

Writers: James V. Hart, William Joyce, Daniel Shere, Tom J. Astle, and Matt Ember

Inspired by William Joyce’s book The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs

Rating: PG

Grade: 3/5

TODAY IS EARTH DAY! Happy Earth Day everyone!

In honor of Earth Day I’m gonna take a queer look at Epic!

This movie kinda slipped through the cracks. It’s by the same studio that did Ice Age and they’re gonna come out with the new Peanuts movie soon which is crazy exciting. Keep an eye on them.

I wanted to do this particular movie on Earth Day because THERE’S SO MUCH PRETTY ANIMATED NATURE! Seriously. The animation is gorgeous. If this review-ish blog posty thing doesn’t convince you to watch it, I hope the pictures do.

It’s difficult to distinguish what is norm versus queer in this movie. We are dealing with two worlds: human and forest. But the two worlds aren’t really juxtaposed as queer versus norm because they aren’t in conflict with each other. The main conflict sits within the forest world and the human world comes into play when the Leafmen need help to defeat their enemies, the Boggans. Buuuuuut there are definitely specific characters we can talk about.

First, let’s look at the characters in the human world: MK and her dad. 

Exposition for their situation is that MK is moving back in with her dad since her mom died. He lives with his three-legged dog in a house in the middle of the forest and all he does is look for these tiny forest people he believes exist, despite essentially losing everyone in his life because of his obsession. I’ve got some questions about dad.  The whole thing about alienating people in his life because of his weird obsession, I think he’s a gay dad who came out later in life and that’s the real reason mom and dad separated. I like what this interpretation does to the movie. It makes the father/daughter story much more complex, making their arc entirely about MK coming to terms with her father’s queerness now that her mother is gone and accepting him and his weird forest people obsession.

On to the forest people! BEYONCÉ PLAYS A QUEEN! 

Beyoncé is literally the queen. All hail Queen Bey. Which is cool for a number of reasons. 1) Beyoncé. 2) Beyoncé has magical nature powers that are fly as fuck. And 3) She’s a female political leader with magical powers AND 4) She’s a POC (person of color). Look at all that intersectionality!

We are also introduced to the Leafmen and this world of forest creatures. In the big crowd scene we see all different types of forest people, from little daisies, to slugs, to those stick insect things. Loads of diversity in the forest population, which is really cool representation, even if it’s just of fictional species.

A few other forest people characters to mention: the snail and the slug who take care of the magical pod. They fit into the Timon and Pumba trope of gay male parental figures.

Also, Nim Galoo. He’s mostly just a big hippie, but I’m sure he went through an experimental phase in forest college.

The movie as a whole isn’t super queer. But it’s super Earth Day-y! The whole conflict is all about growth versus decay and beauty versus rot. It’s pretty straight up evil versus good without a ton of nuance. But I guess you could talk about how nature is good and pretty and how being queer is a natural thing and is therefore beautiful…IDK, this one is a stretch. But I stand by my gay dad theory.

MVQ: Beyoncé. Always Beyoncé.

OTP: MK and Queen Tara. Because Beyoncé.

Favorite Moment: When Queen Tara uses her awesome nature magical powers. BeyoncéBeyoncéBeyoncé.

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Nickelodeon

2005-2008

Creators: Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko

Starring: Zach Tyler, Mae Whitman, Jack De Sena, Dante Basco, Jessie Flower, and Mako

Rating: TV-Y7

Grade: 4.5/5

Water, Earth, Fire, Air. Long ago the four nations lived in harmony, then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Dun dun duuuuuuuuun.

Let’s queer a TV show!

Because this is a TV show, there’s a lot more material to cover. I’m going to do my best to get to everything, but I’m mostly going to look at the characters. Please add comments with anything I’ve missed. I know there are some rabid Avatar fans out there, so have at it.

Here are the three queer big ones:

Aang. The two-part pilot really gives him a nice queer foundation. 

Not only is he the one and only Avatar, he’s also an Airbender, an essentially extinct population wiped out by a mass genocide led by the fire nation one hundred years ago. He is literally the last of his kind. He is completely unique in this world, which he would be any way if he were just the Avatar, but his Air Nation heritage puts him over the edge for intersectionality. Being the Avatar might not seem like it is a queer position, but it totally is. He’s completely outside of the norm (single-element benders). What’s counter-intuitive here is that his queerness is celebrated, even worshiped because his queerness makes him more powerful than other benders. Aang is essentially this world’s version of a superhero. I have a theory that all superheroes are queer in some way. Superheroes are a utopian version of queerness where, for the most part, their differences and deviations from the norm are widely celebrated because they use those powers (special skills, whatever) to help normative people and better society through their queerness. Cool, right?

Back to Avatar. We also hear Aang say things like, “I never asked to be the Avatar.” Aang just wanted to be a “normal kid” like the other Airbenders he grew up with. Sound familiar? A lot of the first season is dedicated to Aang learning about being an Avatar and embracing his true identity in order to reach his full Avatar potential to take down the Fire Lord and save the world! That’s a queer coming of age story if I’ve ever heard one.

Next there’s Zuko. By far my favorite character. 

His journey throughout the series is a beautifully crafted arc of the redeemed anti-hero with lots of wrong turns and revelations along the way. His backstory is rich and complex. Let’s look at that for a sec. When we meet Zuko, he’s the epitome of the angry young man.  The notorious banished prince wears his public shame one his face in the burn scar he got from the duel (Agni Kai) he lost against his father. Zuko gets exiled with his Uncle Iroh (who also has a ton of queer potential), the sage zen master. 

Who else gets banished for standing up to their parents and losing? That’s right. Queer kids.

Finally, there’s Toph. Her queerness is far more obvious. She’s blind. She’s differently abled. She’s also crazy feminist. She gives zero fucks. And she has SO MUCH AGENCY. Gotta love a girl with agency. I mean, we do meet her as The Blind Bandit in a bender version of a cage fight. She’s seriously so badass. 

Did I even mention that (Spoilers!) she’s the first person to figure out metal bending!?! You go, girl. What’s cool about Toph and her queerness is that her blindness is what makes her better at Earthbending than anyone else. The whole thing where she can see through Earthbending is incredibly empowering. And this is a thing that can actually happen in real life! (Not the Earthbending part, obviously. I wish.) There’s this guy, Daniel Kish (nickname batman) who is a blind man who can ride a bike because he taught himself how to echolocate! Listen to the podcast about him. It is mind-boggling. The podcast talks about this a lot, and I think Avatar was trying to get at this too: blindness and differently-ablednesses are societal constructs. People who are blind can adapt to the world around them and their inability to see but they usually do not because their ability status immediately positions them as lesser than those of us who are able-bodied. We are all conditioned to help a blind person cross the street because we believe that they cannot do so safely without our help. Daniel Kish definitely does not need help crossing the street. And Toph does not need protection (unless she hurts her feet somehow). Avatar provides a fresh take on how we perceive and treat people who are differently-abled. It’s about time.

I also wanted to give a quick shout-out to the Kyoshi Warriors. 

We meet them really early on in the first season and they immediately challenge Sokka’s/the audiences’ preconceived gender roles. Avatar Kyoshi is also pretty cool. I can’t remember if she’s the only female avatar who comes up before Korra. Whatever, female avatars are awesome!

MVQ: Gotta go for a tie between Zuko and Uncle Iroh. They’re the perfect pair.

OTP: I always really wanted Katara and Azula to get together. Kind of a weird one but I’m gonna go with it.

Favorite moment:  Ugh there are so many! I’m gonna say my favourite episode instead. “Zuko Alone,” Book 2, Chapter 7. It’s a really important episode for Zuko’s arc and we learn about his mother and a huge chunk of his backstory. Also, the animation on this one is gorgeous!