New Disney Film Features First Openly Gay Character

February 23, 2020 Patrick London

The new Disney/Pixar animated film Onward will feature the studios’ first openly LGBTQ character.

The film, which opens March 6, tells the story of two elf brothers (Tom Holland and Chris Pratt) who set out on a magical quest to spend one day with their dead father. We covered the first trailer for the film last May. You can click here to read our coverage.

The film, however, also features a character named Officer Specter, a cyclops cop played Lena Waithe, a lesbian actor.

The Onward gay character appears in just one scene, when another character complains about their kids, Specter says “My girlfriend’s daughter got me pulling my hair out.”

Waithe is an Emmy-winning writer for her work on the Netflix show “Master of None.” She created the Showtime series “The Chi” and wrote the film Queen and Slim. She also actively works to recruit queer actors for Hollywood projects.

Waithe has called her family were “lazy Christians” and once claimed “I’m a huge believer in God, and Jesus Christ, and that God made me and all those things. And I try to just be a good person. I think that is the base of my religion, is to be good, is to be honest.”

In recent years, after pressure from LGBTQ groups, Disney had begun inserting minor references to possible gay characters in its films. Both Toy Story 4 and Finding Dory appeared to feature lesbian couples, but they were relegated to background characters and most viewers did not notice.

In addition, the latest Star Wars film from Disney-owned Lucasfilm The Rise of Skywalker featured a lesbian couple kissing, but they were in the background of a crowd scene.

Kori Rae, a producer of Onward, told Yahoo about the creation of the scne featuring the lesbian character. “It kind of just happened. The scene, when we wrote it, was kind of fitting and it opens up the world a little bit, and that’s what we wanted.”

Rae is also hoping to do a spinoff movie featuring the lesbian character, and says Waithe provided the possible story. “I want to make a whole new movie about Officer Specter, we already have the material. (Waithe) basically wrote it all and gave us a backstory,” she said.

Director Dan Scanlon also celebrated the inclusion of the gay character. “It’s a modern fantasy world and we want to represent the modern world,” he said.

Onward also stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Octavia Spencer, Ali Wong, and Mel Rodriguez.

Here is the trailer.