Buzz Lightyear branded an LGBTQ+ ally after slaying Disney parade: ‘We knew Buzz could serve’
Everyone’s favourite Disney space toy, Buzz Lightyear, has been branded an LGBTQ+ ally after gagging onlookers at a Disney parade while dancing with a rainbow Pride fan.
Disney’s road to LGBTQ+ acceptance and inclusion has been long, winding, and incredibly rocky.
For years, the entertainment giant promised to introduce LGBTQ+ characters into their biggest films. The results, though, have often been blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments depicting two same-sex people who were supposedly queer, yet whose identity was not explicitly unmentioned.
Take 2016’s Finding Dory, which included one ten second scene of two women looking into a pram together. Many assumed the pair were lesbians, yet co-director Andrew Stanton said at the time: “They can be whatever you want them to be.”
Also released in 2016, Zootopia featured Disney’s first ‘explicitly’ queer couple – though the word “explicit” is doing a lot of heavy lifting. As the credits roll on the film, two male antelopes that feature in it are listed as having the same surname, fuelling speculation that the pair are married.
However, the tide has changed in recent years, albeit very slowly. Last year, Disney boss Karey Burke promised “many, many, many LGBTQIA” characters in Disney stories going forward.
Disney favourites including Raven’s Home and 2022 film Strange World, which included Disney’s first openly gay teen romance, have led the charge in making Disney more LGBTQ+ friendly.
Most recently, new Disney film Elemental features non-binary character Lake, played by non-binary actor Ava Kai Hause.
First non-binary character Lake in Elemental. (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
It appears there’s also now plenty of room for LGBTQ+ allies in Disney’s magic kingdom too, if a new viral TikTok is to be taken at face value.
Earlier this week (26 June), TikTok user BrittBrattCattt uploaded a short yet telling clip of Toy Story’s masc space king Buzz Lightyear at one of the Walt Disney World Resort park parades, in which he asserts his support for the queers.
Grabbing a rainbow-coloured Pride fan from an onlooker, Buzz struts his stuff and werks the floor, before ‘thworping’ the fan and carrying on with his day.
The TikTok user uploaded the clip, with Lady Gaga’s LGBTQ+ anthem “Born This Way” playing over the top, alongside the caption: “Buzz is an ALLY (now canon).”
[CITE: https://www.tiktok.com/@brittbrattcattt/video/7248604990741286186]
@brittbrattcattt