In Pixar’s latest animated movie, ‘Lightyear’ which is said to be the putative real-life inspiration for ‘Buzz Lightyear’ of ‘Toy Story’, Pixar has finally put the deleted kissing scene between two female characters back.
Earlier there were reports that the kissing scene had been cut, which led to a furor among Pixar employees. On March 9, LGBTQ allies and employees at Pixar Animation Studios made a join statement and sent it across to Walt Disney Company Leadership in which they claimed that Disney executives were actively censoring ‘overtly gay affection’ in their animated feature films.
This shocking allegation became part of a larger protest over the company’s non-response to the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill.
The statement which was accessed by ‘Variety’, read, “Nearly every moment of overtly gay affection is cut at Disney’s behest, regardless of when there is protest from both the creative teams and executive leadership at Pixar. Even if creating LGBTQIA+ content was the answer to fixing the discriminatory legislation in the world, we are being barred from creating it.”
That said, none of the sources could quote first-hand knowledge of Disney executives actually cutting LGBTQ content from Pixar films.
As for the scene in the movie, the Chris Evans starrer film originally included a kiss scene between a significant character in the movie called Hawthorne, (who is voiced by Uzo Aduba) and the woman she is in a relationship with. Apparently, the studio had no trouble with the relationship, but they did cut the kissing scene.
Following the furor from the employees and the backlash over the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill Pixar has reinstated that scene. This decision has been considered a turning point for LGBTQ representation not just in Pixar films but animated films in general.
In Pixar’s 27-year history, there have only been a handful of vague LGBTQ characters or their references in Pixar movies.
