The Academy Award-winning songwriters behind Disney’s Frozen announced recently that they are working on Universal Pictures’ movie musical adaptation of The Prince and the Dressmaker, Jen Wang’s award-winning graphic novel about a genderqueer prince. And 20th Century Fox is adapting the Goldie Vance comic series, which stars a queer protagonist, into a film—making this a good time to assess the state of LGBTQ representation in children’s film and television.
Children’s Movies
Much queer representation in children’s film and television has felt like too little, too late. The new Disney Pixar film Onward, about two teenage elf brothers on a quest to magically reunite with their dead father, includes the studio’s first clearly queer character who speaks: cyclops Police Officer Specter. She appears only in one scene, though, pulling over a driver who complains about his girlfriend’s children. She comments, “My girlfriend’s daughter got me pulling my hair out.”
Because the character has a name and dialog, though, her depiction is a step up from the brief moments in Disney Pixar’s 2019 Toy Story 4 when a background character is dropped off at school by two moms, then picked up and hugged by them. (Some have also argued that the studio’s Finding Dory briefly showed a two-mom couple, but the filmmakers refused to confirm it, and lead voice actor Ellen Degeneres, who should know these things, has denied it.)
Dreamworks’ 2019 How to Train Your Dragon 3 did a little better. Blacksmith Gobber, a secondary but important character, clearly admired another male character’s physique in a couple of scenes. The 2014 How to Train Your Dragon 2 had also hinted at his sexuality with a vague reference to a “reason” he hadn’t married, though that line makes less sense after marriage equality.
The first clear instance of an LGBTQ character in a mainstream children’s film, however, was Universal Pictures’ 2012 ParaNorman. Right before the end, we learn that the older brother of the protagonist’s best friend is gay. The point may have been that his gayness didn’t matter as much as the rest of his character, and that’s valid—but it felt like it was played for the surprise factor.
Similarly, Disney’s 2014 live-action feature film Beauty and the Beast, which director Bill Condon said would have an “exclusively gay moment,” saved that moment until the very end, when villain LeFou dances with a man for a couple of seconds, in what could also be read as an accidental stumble on the dance floor.
Children’s Television
A number of television shows for elementary and middle-grade children, too, have shown same-sex relationships only in the last season or even last episode, including Gravity Falls (Disney XD), Good Luck Charlie (Disney Channel), My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (Discovery Family), Adventure Time (Cartoon Network), Dawn of the Croods (Netflix), and Star vs. the Forces of Evil (Hulu). And in Legend of Korra (Nickelodeon), the revelation of a same-sex relationship in the very last scene of the series was so vague that the creators issued a statement to confirm it.
Netflix’s Voltron: Legendary Defender showed a main character, Shiro, with a male fiancée in the penultimate season, but the fiancée died shortly thereafter. Many fans complained that this exemplified the “bury your gays” trope, and that the series never authentically developed Shiro’s identity. They weren’t assuaged when Shiro married another man in the series’ very last episode.
Other shows for this age group, however, have shown more LGBTQ inclusion across the spectrum and with ongoing characters. They include Steven Universe (Cartoon Network); She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (Netflix); Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts (Netflix); The Dragon Prince (Netflix); Twelve Forever (Netflix); OK K.O.! Let’s Be Heroes (Cartoon Network); Craig of the Creek (Cartoon Network); The Loud House (Nickelodeon); Danger & Eggs (Amazon); Andi Mack (Disney); Clarence (Cartoon Network); and Rocko’s Modern Life: Static Cling (Nickelodeon). [Updated 8/2020 to add: The Owl House (Disney) has announced that its lead character is bisexual.]
For the Youngest
Shows for preschoolers, too, are slowly becoming more inclusive. Chip and Potato (Netflix), Pete the Cat (Amazon), Bug Diaries (Amazon), and the recent reboot of Clifford the Big Red Dog (Amazon and PBS Kids) all have ongoing characters with same-sex parents, and the rainbow-themed school on Chip and Potato has all-gender restrooms. A few others have had queer characters in single episodes, starting with the 2005 Postcards from Buster episode “Sugartime” (PBS), which showed a two-mom family. This episode was denounced by President George W. Bush’s Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, who asked the producers to return all federal funding. More recently, the 2017 Doc McStuffins episode “The Emergency Plan” (Disney Channel) featured a two-mom family, the 2018 “Arty’s Holiday Masterpiece” episode of Creative Galaxy (Amazon) briefly depicts a girl showing a craft project to her two dads, and the 2019 Arthur episode, “Mr. Ratburn and the Special Someone” (PBS), showed Arthur’s teacher marrying a husband.
The venerable Sesame Street has given a few mentions to two-mom and two-dad families in recent years and showed Muppet Grover in a dress in the 2017 song “Anyone Can Play,” about breaking down gender roles. And actor Billy Porter (Kinky Boots, Pose) will appear as a guest in the upcoming 51st season, wearing a black tuxedo dress, per photos that the show posted to social media. This will be the first season where episodes will debut on the streaming service HBO Max before airing on PBS Kids. Given the Postcards from Buster hullabaloo and the current federal administration, that may unfortunately be the only way the show can both survive and produce queer-inclusive content.
The first and only mainstream television series for very young children that focuses primarily on a family with queer members, however, is Hulu’s The Bravest Knight, about a girl learning to be a knight with the help of her two dads. The first season premiered last year; a second has not yet been confirmed. Hulu is owned by Disney.
Reaching Out
As I wrote the other day, however, even though the new Clifford series dropped several months ago, it took until just a few days ago for word to break in the LGBTQ community about its inclusion of same-sex parents—and it was One Million Moms, part of the American Family Association, a hate group, who did us this favor. Similarly, Netflix’s Chip and Potato dropped last November, but it wasn’t until I posted about it at the end of January (after I happened to hear another mom mention it privately) that its queer inclusion became widespread knowledge. Amazon has also quietly shown characters with same-sex parents on its shows for young children, Pete the Cat and Bug Diaries.
Granted, simply including an LGBTQ character shouldn’t always be Big News, especially when the inclusion is a only brief depiction of a secondary character or family. (Hulu’s The Bravest Knight, which centers on an LGBTQ family, did do outreach to the LGBTQ community.) Yet one of the most common questions I hear from other LGBTQ parents is “Where can I find LGBTQ-inclusive media for my kids?” We’re desperate for this stuff (even as we recognize that LGBTQ-inclusive television is for all children, who should see LGBTQ people as part of their world).
Perhaps the networks are afraid of backlash. As One Million Moms has shown, however, the backlash will happen whether the networks reach out to the LGBTQ community or not. All the networks are doing is missing the opportunity to establish a fervent early fan base that can help counter the detractors. How many more studies of LGBTQ consumer brand loyalty do we need?
Television producers and marketing executives: When you have any LGBTQ characters in your shows, call GLAAD. Call Family Equality. Call me. If your show’s any good (because we do have standards besides mere inclusion), we’ll help give you a set of loyal viewers who will joyously spread the word about your show and also stand as a firewall against One Million Moms and other hate groups. We’ll also happily suggest ways to include more of us with authentic, fun, and relevant storylines. We’re delighted you’re taking steps to make shows for all children that reflect their families and their world, and we’ll help you make them even bigger and better. Just please let us know about them.
We need more LGBTQ characters in children’s media for all ages, both as minor characters who are simply part of the world and, more importantly, as protagonists or parents of protagonists, so that viewers can engage with them more fully. Studios should come up with original stories or, like Universal and 20th Century Fox, look to some of the many excellent LGBTQ-inclusive children’s books for ideas. All children will benefit from seeing themselves, their families, and their world more completely and accurately represented.