‘The new Disney Cruella with Emma Stone just ruined my childhood with an openly flamboyant gay in the movie,’ an American politician complained over the weekend. I say ‘politician’: his record is not strong. Omar Navarro is currently standing for Congress in the state of California for the fourth time, which suggests that potential voters don’t exactly see him as a viable option. I can understand why. He does not exactly exhibit a sense of proportion, his tweet adding his rage that ‘Disney persist [in] shoving the LGBT agenda down our throat.’ His issue? The fact that the film, starring Emma Stone as the iconic villain, has a character who appears to be gay.
Is this person spotted in a same-sex embrace? Has Disney gone R-Rated? Of course not. He’s just coded as queer in that vague, cliched way. But that’s enough to put Omar off his popcorn.
It’s June. It’s Pride Month. Disney has done the absolute bare minimum in including a could-be-gay man in a film set in the fashion world. And yet it’s still causing a furore in small pockets of the community. So to be completely explicit, in a different way to what the God-fearing folk like Omar may be worried about, if seeing a gay character in a film or TV programme in 2021 makes you feel uncomfortable, or angry, then you are a homophobe. It really is that simple.
It’s not as if the person in question – Artie, played by John McCrea – has a montage in which he goes cruising on Hampstead Heath, leaving Cruella to smoke a cigarette on a tree stump while he gets his end away. He simply dares to run a clothes shop. ‘In one of the original scripts he was a drag queen, so I think he was always intended to be queer-representing I suppose,’ John said in an interview. ‘Or somehow a member of the LGBTQ community. I imagine that was always the case.’
Omar is, actually, a little bit obsessed. Pink News reports that he had a similar reaction in 2019, to a Disney Channel programme called The Owl House. ‘I don’t agree with this crap being pushed down our throats,’ he wrote online. ‘What people do at home is there [sic] business but publicly I shouldn’t have to be forced. Will Christians please stand up?’ Is Omar under the impression that he is, actually, being ‘forced’ to watch a children’s programme? Has a gay Californian tied him to a chair in front of The Owl House? Or is he seeking out controversy for Twitter likes?
Cruella, in case you need reminding, is an evil woman who seeks to steal, kill and skin 101 spotty dogs in order to make a single coat. Her name is literally a pun on Cruel Devil. She is the most famously anti-PETA person in the world, and she doesn’t even exist. If you can put her murderous ways aside for the sake of escapism and nostalgic fun – it’s not real, guys – but can’t handle the fact that her mate might kiss a boy at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern once in a while, then your bigotry is clear. It’s a villainy that is, in some ways, worse than that exhibited by Cruella herself. At least the nature of her evil is interesting.
A gay character does not have the power to ruin your childhood unless you are actively seeking to be angry. Omar’s homophobia is akin to the racism many Brits are currently displaying in mocking the casting of Jodie Turner-Smith, a talented Black woman, as Anne Boleyn. If Cruella, Anne Boleyn or any other similar instance is upsetting or angering you, then it’s time to realise that these actors and those who cast them are absolutely not the problem. Your prejudice is showing, and it’s not pretty.
Happy Pride Month, Omar. Love is love.
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