Following the release of Pixar’s Lightyear, many homophobic viewers complained about the same-sex kiss and its presence in a kids’ movie. A theater in Oklahoma even went as far as to censor the kiss to appease said customers but has since decided to not go through with it.
Lightyear, a spinoff of the Toy Story series, follows the story of a fictional astronaut, Buzz Lightyear, upon which the toy was based.
The movie has so far faced a disappointing run in theaters, and has not fared well at the box office as Jurassic World: Dominion beats its earnings. But one thing about the animated film has made headlines—the controversy surrounding a kiss shared between two women.
Only taking up a few seconds of screentime, the kiss was shared between Alisha Hawthorne (voiced by Uzo Aduba) and her wife.
The scene was originally removed from the film but made the final cut as Disney’s decisive response to Florida’s Don’t Say Gay Bill after Pixar had called out Disney for avoiding depicting scenes with homosexual content.
Overbearing parents have wrongly risen against the reinstatement of the kiss for the supposed sake of their kids, claiming it’s not right to show scenes such as this.
According to CNN, an Oklahoma-based theater had put up a sign to inform viewers that the scene will be fast-forwarded. But Barry Reid, one of the theater owners, later notified the news website that the sign had been removed and they had not followed through with it.
“It was an internal mistake and it’s been corrected. It won’t happen again.“
Barry Reid
The same-sex kiss has been the reason behind Lightyear’s banning in fourteen film markets so far.
Buzz Lightyear’s voice actor, Chris Evans, has said that the kiss’ inclusion was a step forward in LGBTQ+ representation and he was disappointed that it had received this amount of backlash.
While this controversy may have been a factor in Lightyear’s discouraging performance at the box office, Disney will have to make changes after this lesson when dealing with such matters. Question is, will they take the right step or wrongly support this backward thinking?
About Lightyear
Lightyear is an animated film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Pictures. It serves as a spin-off of Pixar’s Toy Story series. It will depict the origin story of the fictional human character Buzz Lightyear, who inspired the action figure of the same name.
This film will be Angus MacLane’s solo directorial debut and stars Chris Evans as the voice of Buzz Lightyear.
Source: Edition
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