Lena Waithe to Voice Lesbian Character in Disney-Pixar's “Onward”
The upcoming film Onward is set to include the first-ever animated LGBTQ character within the Disney-Pixar universe, People reports.
Onward tells the story of two elf brothers (voiced by Tom Holland and Chris Pratt) who embark on a magical quest together. During one scene, viewers will get to know Officer Specter, a cyclops police officer voiced by Lena Waithe, who casually mentions that she has a girlfriend. As noted by Slate, the moment isn’t the overall point of the scene, making her sexuality simply part of her identity and not all of it.
In an interview with Yahoo! Entertainment, producer Kori Rae explained that Officer Specter’s character development “just kind of happened,” adding: “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.” Onward’s director, Dan Scanlon, also noted: “It’s a modern fantasy world, and we want to represent the modern world.”
On social media, some fans are underwhelmed, noting that Lena’s character only appears in one scene, and wishing that a LGBTQ character could have a larger presence in a story. Others are comparing the scene to LeFou’s “exclusively gay moment” in the live-action Beauty and the Beast, emphasizing that bigger steps would be much more preferable than baby ones.
Lena herself has weighed in on the news, sharing a screenshot of a news story about her character and adding a rainbow emoji for emphasis.
According to GLAAD’s 2019 Studio Responsibility Index, LGBTQ representation in film has been improving, but there’s still so much room for growth. Of the 110 major studio films evaluated in 2018, GLAAD found that 18.2% of them included LGBTQ characters: a 5.4% increase from the previous year. The study showed that there was equal representation of gay and lesbian characters, but only three films portrayed characters identifying as bisexual, and none offered transgender representation. GLAAD also reported that 58% of the LGBTQ characters were white, reflecting a drop in racial diversity from the year before.
Ultimately, every bit of representation counts, and it’s especially valuable when a movie aimed at young audiences is inclusive of different identities. That said, there’s obviously much more that could be done to promote equality on screen. Here’s hoping that Disney — and all Hollywood studios — will continue moving “onward” and upward.
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