We’ve come a long way since Disney first “exclusive gay moment” when the studio made a big deal about LeFou in his live-action Beauty and the Beast—most of a depressing big ol’ roundnow we’re back at the Mouse House cutting across LGBTQ+ storylines from its media to appeal to conservative parents again. But now nearly eight years later, the star at the center of the veiled cruelty has spoken of how shocked he was to see Disney blow it out of proportion.

“I for one certainly didn’t feel that LeFou was what the queer community was waiting for,” Josh Gad said of his role as LeFou in the film, writing in his new memoir. In Gad We Trust (through Fun every week). “I can’t imagine a Pride celebration honoring the ‘cinematic watershed moment’ involving a bad Disney sidekick dancing with a guy for half a second. I mean, if I was gay, I would definitely be angry.”

And yet, that’s what Disney is trying to do in 2017, when Beauty and the BeastDirector Bill Condon teased the moment—where LeFou dances with a male partner during a climactic celebratory sequence in the film—into a major step for Disney’s on-screen LGBTQ+ efforts, describes it (now bad) as an “exclusively gay moment” in an interview with attitude. But according to Gad, the moment was barely mentioned on set as a clear intentional moment, and was never meant to be seen as more than a quiet nod.

“Because I’m a side character, I don’t want to suddenly throw the weight of sexuality on this character that in any way drives the film,” Gad wrote. “But the moment (as described to me) seems harmless – a fun blink-and-you’ll-miss-it little beat.”

However, Condon’s framing of the moment turned it into a media firestorm, with bigots outraged at the thought of two men dancing together (something that has certainly never happened in a Disney movie before ago) and the studio itself is eager to capitalize on having. a small speck of queer representation on the big screen. This is not the first time even in the next few years, because Disney seems to be able to regurgitate that it has created its “first openly gay character” for several press cycles, even as the studio and the its major subsidiaries. almost no step with the strange characters and their presence in the foreground these disposable identifications.

“If the audience had interpreted it as a sweet gay moment, I would have been happy,” Gad concluded, “but the second we pointed it out and seemed to congratulate ourselves, we invited hell and anger.”

The more things change, the more they stay the same—even though now Disney is inviting hell and fury for own cowardiceabove all.

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