 Luke Evans stars as Gaston and Josh Gad as Le Fou in Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast.”(Laurie Sparham/Walt Disney Studios) As the entertainment industry trade press has converged with mainstream coverage of pop culture, it sometimes seems like every new trailer, plot development and casting decision merits its own item. And whenever it seems like a movie, television show or graphic novel is doing even the tiniest thing to break with the conventions of the past, an item can become a full-fledged story and subject of discussion. Sometimes, these breakthroughs are genuine. But sometimes they seem like we ought to set the bar for political progress in entertainment a little bit higher. Pixar’s first gay characters? They turned out to be a lesbian couple seen so fleetingly in “Finding Dory” that they straddled the line between “characters” and whatever the animated equivalent of extras is. In the forthcoming live action remake of “Beauty and the Beast,” LeFou (Josh Gad) is now apparently gay and crushing on Gaston (Luke Evans); I’m all for seeing what the payoff to this change, which appears to stem from some very heartfelt convictions, turns out to be, but turning a foolish, marginal sidekick into your “first” has risks, too. When “Billions” conceived a character who ultimately was written as someone who didn’t identify with a binary gender, at least the showrunners were thinking first of larger plot mechanics. I’m all for pop culture, which represents the world at its most fantastical, making alignments so that it represents the basic mix of humanity that actually exists, from lesbian moms to the gay bros on “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.” It certainly seems less-than-observant to present a world without people of color, or people with disabilities, or LGBT people in it. But there’s a difference between playing catch-up and genuinely forging ahead into new territory. Productions seeking headlines — and credit for breaking barriers — should be clear about the difference. |
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