(LifeSiteNews) – One of the writers of 2022’s Lightyear is doubling down on the decision to put a lesbian kiss in the Disney-Pixar animated film amid conflicting reports about whether or not rap icon Snoop Dogg apologized for his comments critical of LGBT content in children’s media.
Lightyear, a failed Toy Story spinoff purporting to present the “real” movie on which Tim Allen’s iconic Buzz Lightyear was based (voiced in the 2022 film by Chris Evans), drew flak from family groups for featuring an on-screen kiss between two female “married” characters. The display of LGBT “representation” was largely relegated to just one of Disney’s woes until last month, when Snoop Dogg (real name Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr.) shared in a recent interview that watching the film with his grandson put him in an unexpected awkward position.
“They just said she and she had a baby. They both women. How does she have a baby?” he relayed his grandson asking. “It threw me for a loop. I’m like what part of the movie was this? These are kids that we have to show that at this age like, they’re going to ask questions. They are going to ask. I don’t have an answer. And I was just there to go to sleep and watch the movie.”
Entertainment Weekly reported that, in social media comments which appear to have since been deleted, Lightyear co-writer Lauren Gunderson said of Snoop Dogg, “He sucks” and that his disapproval left her “bummed.”
“Snoop was great during the Olympics,” Gunderson added. “Hopefully he joins the side of Love :).”
“So. I created the Lightyear lesbians,” she said in an expanded comment. “In 2018, I was a writer at Pixar – such a cool place, grateful to work there, learned a ton from kind and impressive creatives. As we wrote early versions of what became Lightyear, a key character needed a partner, and it was so natural to write ‘she’ instead of ‘he.’ As small as that detail is in the film, I knew the representational effect it could have. Small line, big deal. I was elated that they kept it. I’m proud of it. To infinity. Love is love.”
It was subsequently reported that Snoop apologized in an Instagram comment, writing, “I was just caught off guard and had no answer for my grandsons. All my gay friends (know) what’s up. They been calling me with love. My bad for not knowing the answers for a 6-year-old. Teach me how to learn. I’m not perfect.”
However, Deadline further reported that “neither the hip-hop artist or anyone from his team wrote the comment. ‘It is a fake,’ a source close to Snoop Dogg tells us.” No apology or further comment on the matter appears on any of the rapper’s other social media accounts.
Once a unifying cultural institution, over the past decade especially Disney has steadily infused left-wing politics into the army of entertainment properties it owns, such as appeasing LGBT “representation” demands in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, normalizing transgenderism and same-sex unions in animation aimed at younger audiences, selling LGBT “pride” merchandise, using films such as its failed Snow White remake as vehicles for feminism, and more.
In recent months, there has been speculation about Disney finally backtracking from its woke turn, between the removal of a planned transgender storyline from its upcoming Pixar animated series Win or Lose, rumors of reshoots removing political content from February’s Captain America: Brave New World, and the conspicuous omission of two diversity initiatives from its latest U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings.
While much has been made of the financial toll taken by Disney’s “woke” approach to Star Wars and Marvel not resonating with fans, its failed battle with Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, and public lip service by CEO Bob Iger about toning down the company’s role in the culture war, shareholders rejected a bid last April by investor Nelson Peltz and former Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter to take over the board and shift the company back to its roots.
This summer, several more developments suggested woke activists may be in retreat within Disney: executive intervention to remove “queer-coded” subtext from the Pixar animated feature Elio; the long-awaited Fantastic Four: First Steps using Marvel’s original superhero family as an affirmation of motherhood and the intrinsic value of children, complete with a scene in which Sue “Invisible Woman” Storm uses her invisibility powers to view her preborn son Franklin in the womb; and a settlement of conservative Star Wars actress Gina Carano’s wrongful termination lawsuit that opened the door to rehiring her in the future.
