In a recent profile in the Wall Street Journal, Pixar CEO Pete Docter opened up about a gay storyline that had long been rumored to have been cut from the studio’s Oscar-nominated film “Elio.” Early versions of the film showed a future Elio raising a son who develops a male crush. Explaining the change, Docter told the outlet, “We’re making a movie, not hundreds of millions of dollars of therapy.”
According to the WSJ, this cut storyline reflected the personal experience of film’s original director Adrian Molina, who was eventually replaced by Domee Shi and Madeline Sharafian. This anecdote was part of the profile’s overall thrust about how Docter’s thinking has evolved since replacing the studio’s co-founder John Lasseter as Pixar’s Chief Creative Officer in 2018.
In the profile, Docter, who came up as director himself — having made Pixar’s hit “Up” (2009) and Oscar-winner “Soul” (2020) — made clear he was moving the studio away from semi-autobiographical, more auteur-driven narratives and toward more “universal” stories that had strong sequel potential.
“As time’s gone on, I realized my job is to make sure the films appeal to everybody,” said Docter.
Considering Pixar’s struggle at the box office under Docter, both a course change and the need to announce it to frustrated Disney stockholders (there’s a reason this was a Wall Street Journal profile) is to be expected. That Docter chose to single out the axeing of a minor LGBTQ storyline and use it as an example of Pixar’s therapy-esque narratives — which Docter, as a storyteller himself, is most closely associated with — has rubbed many the wrong way.
To fully understand why these comments would be perceived as, at best, insensitive, it’s important to see them in the context of the studio’s up-and-down history with LGBTQ representation over the last decade.
“Finding Dory,” “Toy Story 4,” and “Onward”
In Pixar’s first two decades, there were no unambiguous LGBTQ characters in its first 16 feature films, which is why in 2016, the internet went crazy when the “Finding Dory” trailer showed two women pushing a stroller, in what many speculated was a lesbian couple.
In the final film, the stroller scene itself is not much longer than the snippet in the trailer. The film’s director Andrew Stanton refused to confirm or deny the couple’s sexual orientation, while the film’s star and noted LGBTQ pioneer Ellen DeGeneres poked fun at the internet frenzy over one of the two women having short hair, “Apparently, if you have short hair you’re a lesbian, which I didn’t realize was the rule.”
In 2019, there was another blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, as two moms give their child a hug when dropping them off at school in “Toy Story 4.”
In 2020, the studio took a slightly bigger step with the one-eyed cop Specter, voiced by Lena Waithe, who makes reference to her same-sex partner with the line, “It’s not easy being a new parent — my girlfriend’s daughter got me pulling my hair out, OK?”
That line of dialogue got the film banned in the Middle Eastern countries of Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, while Pixar changed “girlfriend” to “partner” for the Russian release.
Breakthrough: “Out”
Pixar came all the way “Out” with its Disney+ short film with the protagonist Greg, who is nervous about coming out to his parents, as he swaps lives with his dog. The 9-minute film, directed by Steven Clay Hunter, was part of Pixar’s “SparkShorts,” and was celebrated as part of Pixar’s more inclusive storytelling efforts.
Not So Progressive? “Don’t Say Gay”
In 2022, not everyone inside Pixar saw the studio as making progress in regards to LGBTQ representation. When Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill into law, many within Pixar were frustrated by new CEO Bob Chapek’s failure to take a stronger stance, especially considering the company’s massive economic presence in the state with Disney World.
In a letter voicing that frustration, Pixar employees revealed Disney had been preventing LGBTQ storylines and characters:
“We at Pixar have personally witnessed beautiful stories, full of diverse characters, come back from Disney corporate reviews shaved down to crumbs of what they once were. 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.”
At the time of the letter, Variety’s reporting also revealed that LGBTQ representation had also been pulled from the background and sets of “Soul” and “Inside Out 2,” which take place in the gay-friendly cities of New York and San Francisco. According to Pixar employees, “signifiers of LGBTQ populations,” such as pride flags, were removed for being “deemed too distracting.”
No matter how lukewarm Pixar employees found Chapek’s stance on the Florida legislation, it was enough to fire up those on the right, who pushed back that the bill wasn’t anti-gay, but anti-groomer.
“They have a sexual agenda for six-year-old children,” said Tucker Carlson about Disney on his former Fox News show. “You’d think that’s illegal in some way. It’s certainly immoral. It’s creepy as hell. And yet they are the country’s leading purveyor of children’s programming. That’s a problem, no?”
In retaliation, DeSantis launched a legal battle against Disney over its control of a 40-square-mile district that’s home to the company’s Orlando theme parks — a legal battle that wasn’t settled until 2024.
“Lightyear”: A Costly Kiss
The Pixar employees’ letter over Chapek‘s handling of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill set the table for another costly battle with the 2022 “Toy Story” prequel, “Lightyear.”
Hawthorne, voiced by Uzo Aduba, is one of the film’s most significant characters, and part of the film’s story is how she has a meaningful marriage to Kiko over her lifetime while Buzz (Chris Evans) is off on repeated missions. Pixar employees successfully pushed back on Disney executives to restore the couple’s brief kiss from the movie.
It’s a kiss that cost the film to not be shown in China, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
Also in 2022, Disney Animation made a similar stand with its film “Strangeworld,” refusing to make cuts to the gay storyline of the film’s protagonist and skip 20 international markets where “Encanto” had grossed $25 million the year before.
Iger and Trump Are Back
The troubled Chapek tenure mercifully came to an end in November 2022, with the return of former CEO Robert Iger. While more politically savvy than Chapek, it was clear Iger would have the company on its heels in response to the anti-woke and anti-DEI pushback sweeping through the United States, most notably with a transgender storyline being cut from Disney’s animated series, “Win or Lose.”
Although not a Pixar program, it was clear that Disney leadership was responsive to the political environment, as Iger’s comments mirror Docter’s to the Journal this weekend.
“When I came back, what I’ve really tried to do is to return to our roots — which is, remember, we have to entertain first: It’s not about messages,” said Iger.
You could write off Docter’s comments as poorly phrased, optically the worst example possible of the larger shift happening at Pixar. But, taken in the context of the last 10 years, it is hard to not see it as part of the greater shifts at Pixar and the world at large — as a progressive Northern California studio started to embrace LGBTQ representation when it was en vogue, but now throwing it under the bus when the political winds change and the economics have CEO’s scared straight.
