LGBTQ+ People Are More Than Just Your Background Characters

Pixar’s latest hit film is ‘Onward’ and because of circumstances, I haven’t got to see it yet but I’m hoping it makes its way Disney+ in the UK soon because I’m desperate to see it. It was announced that ‘Onward’ was to feature Pixar’s ‘first openly gay character’ and when this announcement broke – I felt excited because I know what representation means to not just me, but to a lot of people. The character is Officer Specter, voiced by Lena Waithe. By the sounds of it, Waithe’s character makes a fleeting appearance in the film and mentions in passing that she has a girlfriend. I love that a character can be placed in a film and can talk about their girlfriend like a heterosexual couple would be able to – thus showing kids how normal LGBTQ+ relationships are. However, the fact that the first and only openly LGBTQ+ character in a Pixar film is a minor character is still not enough.

Having an LGBTQ+ character in your movie is not something that should be done for ‘woke points’ or to try and seem inclusive because if you’re doing it for the wrong reasons, then you’re not really grasping the point of inclusivity. From LeFou being sold as gay in the live action ‘Beauty and the Beast’ – which was actually just him dancing with another man in the last moments of the film to the possibly, but not confirmed, queer couple in ‘Finding Dory’, LGBTQ+ characters are, at this point, used to being sidelined as a minor characters and that’s all. People often argue that ‘oh but they’re still including you in films and therefore normalising being gay’ but having a gay or a possibly gay character in a film for five seconds or less isn’t really being inclusive, is it? To keep just having LGBTQ+ characters that are minor characters just feeds into the homophobic rhetoric that queer people aren’t worthy or can’t possibly be at the forefront of a film.

For nineteen years of my life, I battled with internal homophobia. I hid who I was for the longest time and supressed that from my closest friends and even myself. Many other people aren’t able to or can’t come out for a lot longer than that. It’s the society we live in. It’s the everyday homophobia that’s embedded into society. So yes, by constantly sidelining queer people as minor characters and not respecting us enough to give us bigger roles in films – it’s enforcing the idea that we are still not viewed as equals to heterosexual people.

It’s not enough to just have us make brief appearances in your films to help you sleep at night because you’ve been “inclusive”. Its time big companies realised that LGBTQ+ people are real people, and we deserve to be in the spotlight. Young kids, teenagers, adults – anyone of any age – deserves to see themselves represented as a main character in the new film releases. We’re not just there to be props in your attempt to be woke and we’re not just supporting characters. We all deserve a chance to shine and for a chance to be seen. So please let us have that. Thank you for the inclusivity but next time – let us know you’re truly on our side and give us the leading role.