The Hollywood Reporter‘s review of the film warned, “Rabid red-state homophobes may be incandescent with fury to see how things end up for him in the finale.” Actually, the character from Disney’s new live-action Beauty and The Beast, LeFou, is questioning his feelings about Gaston at one point in the film.
“LeFou is somebody who on one day wants to be Gaston and on another day wants to kiss Gaston,” director Bill Condon said last week. “He’s confused about what he wants. It’s somebody who’s just realizing that he has these feelings. And Josh makes something really subtle and delicious out of it. And that’s what has its payoff at the end, which I don’t want to give away. But it is a nice, exclusively gay moment in a Disney movie.”
Some conservative Christians found that part of the movie inappropriate. For example, evangelist Franklin Graham said it was part of the “LGBT agenda” and called for a boycott of Disney. There’s even an online petition for Disney to stop its “harmful sexual political agenda.” The petition further declares, “Send a strong message to Disney that children's entertainment is no place to promote a harmful sexual political agenda.”
The Henagar Drive-In Theater’s shift away from Beauty and the Beast was decided by the business’ new owners who took over in December. “If we cannot take our 11 year old granddaughter and 8 year old grandson to see a movie we have no business watching it. If I can’t sit through a movie with God or Jesus sitting by me then we have no business showing it,” the business said in a statement on Facebook.
The problem isn’t about respecting family values but in setting the wrong foundations for them. The drive-in-theater doesn’t refuse to screen movies that show violence but they are against gay scenes; that can only be defined as hypocrisy.
“A Christian parent might be able to prohibit their children from viewing a movie, but they will still encounter LGBT people elsewhere. Avoiding the subject of homosexuality will not prepare kids for a world where it is almost totally accepted,” according to a Christian writer Jonathan Merritt.
Is there a good reason to protect kids from LGBT people rather than protecting them from violence? Adoption of children by same-sex married couples is legal nationwide since June 2015, so the introduction of a gay character in children’s movie shouldn’t make so much trouble. In fact, those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
Photo Credits: Moviepilot
