At the time of its release in March, “Beauty and the Beast” sparked controversy over the inclusion of what is effectively Disney’s first gay character, but no matter what side of the issue they’re on, viewers are bound to be disappointed by the brief moment everyone thought would be so important.
After much deliberation, Russia released the film with a 16+ rating, though ruling party MP Vitaly Milonov called the movie "obvious, barefaced, unscrupulous propaganda of sin and perverted sexual relations" and called for a countrywide ban.
In addition, a drive-in theater in Alabama flat-out refused to screen it, and Malaysian censors locked horns with Disney after the film company refused to edit out the scene for their audiences.
And yet the character in question, Gaston’s soft-spoken manservant Lefou, does little more than trail after Gaston and giving him longing looks. Aside from one point in a musical number when he twirls into Gaston’s arms and swoons a little, anything gay about the character remains only hinted at until a small, incredibly insignificant moment at the end.
In an interview with Attitude magazine, director Bill Condon described Lefou as “somebody who on one day wants to be Gaston and on another day wants to kiss Gaston, He’s confused about what he wants. It’s somebody who’s just realizing that he has these feelings,” but said all this build-up “has its payoff at the end, which I don’t want to give away. But it is a nice, exclusively gay moment in a Disney movie.”
The Payoff? There’s a ball in which all the characters dance one of those renaissance dances where they change partners. Whether intentionally or by accident, a male background character twirls into Lefou’s arms and...they sort of smile at each other. And that’s it.
Condon has since expressed regret that this little moment blew up the way it did, but the whole thing almost felt like Disney tooting its own horn. With themes of not fitting in and of self-discovery throughout their movies, and songs like “Reflection” and “Let it Go,” these movies have always resonated with an LGBT+ audience. They’ve arguably gotten close to real representation with characters like The Lion King’s Timone and Pumba, Aladin’s Jafar, and Hercules’s Hades, but these are all explained away with “they’re just friends,” or “he’s just weird.” LGBT+ audiences have not made it a secret that they want more.
This proves problematic for a company like Disney, because much of their fan base also consists of conservative viewers who watch Disney movies because they teach wholesome family values. It’s this demographic that doesn’t want their children to see positive representations of gay people in media.
Disney’s solution was apparently one of compromise. They gave the LGBT+ audience the representation they asked for, but only in the form of a brief moment at the end and a sniveling, spineless character who ends up reinforcing more negative stereotypes than he breaks down.
Perhaps that’s unfair to say--Lefou does get a nice little redemption arc, and the little moment during the dance seems to indicate that he was afforded a happy ending. Though he’s a little stereotypical he still seems very human, very genuine, and very sympathetic. And hey, they could have made him evil. Lefou’s villainy stems less from malice and more from insecurity, as the only thing he’s guilty of is not stopping Gaston from trying to kill people--but it’s not as though he had any sway over Gaston’s actions anyway. Gaston is a dangerous, violent man. Perhaps he’s right to be afraid.
But that’s the biggest take away. Lefou is non-threatening, his femininity is played for laughs, and though he switches sides at the end, he never actually affects the plot one way or another. He might as well have not been there. If Disney really wants to appease their LGBT+ audience, they simply have to do more. Though the backlash over this character didn't seem to make a dent in the film's revenue (it still made over $1 billion worldwide), let's hope it wasn't enough to scare Disney away from trying something like this again.
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