Beauty & protest
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Christians outraged by classic remake
Audiences are raving over how Disney’s real-life remake of “Beauty and the Beast” mimics the original animated picture released in 1991. However, Hollywood made sure that audiences were aware of one difference.
A Deutsche Welle (DW) article entitled “Disney to feature first gay character in Beauty and the Beast,” was published in early February before the film was released March 16, sparking severe controversy among Disney fans.
According to DW.com, the new film would portray Josh Gad’s character, Gaston’s sidekick LeFou, as gay.
“Beauty and the Beast” is a romantic classic centered on a heterosexual love story, but its upcoming remake will be breaking new ground by featuring Disney’s first “exclusively gay moment,” the movie’s director Bill Condon said in an interview with the magazine “Attitude.”
After this statement was released by Condon, the Christian community became vocal with pledges to boycott the film.
As a Christian who has been captivated by the enchanting story of Beauty and the Beast ever since I could remember, the news that LeFou would be portrayed as gay honestly upset me.
Walking into the theater to see it, I was full of excitement, but also fear that I would walk out of the theater in anger and regret.
After all of the talk and publicity over this gay character, I watched the movie waiting for a scene that would heavily display homosexual behavior and found myself waiting a long time.
What I did notice was that within the last minute of the movie, LeFou was shown dancing with a man. Though it did bother me that Condon had to throw that into the last minute, I did not see this as nearly as big of a deal as people were making it.
To be completely honest, had I not seen the last scene nor known that LeFou was supposed to be in love with Gaston, I probably would not have noticed that he was gay.
From my understanding of the original movie, LeFou is supposed to be obsessed with Gaston simply because he looks up to him.
In making a big deal, I overused believe that people ended up drawing attention to the fact that the character was supposed to be portrayed as gay. People were making it sound as if the whole entire movie glorified the act of homosexuality, but I found that not to be the case.
I think it is important for Christians to recognize and call out sin for what it is, but be careful not to exaggerate.
Through the exaggeration, I honestly believe that in this situation people gave this gay character the exact attention and publicity that Condon wanted all along.
I am not disregarding the fact that we live in a society that tries to make it easy for Christians to become numb to sin. I fully believe that becoming numb to sin is one of the most destructive and dangerous positions for a Christian.
Christians are to be prepared, cautious and wise in the culture that God has placed us.
Drogan is an opinion writer.