‘Disney is such a joke’: Pixar being forced to make the biggest movie of the year ‘less gay’ is leaving fans furious, inside and out

The critical and commercial success that Inside Out 2 experienced is the kind of success animated features have been striving for in recent years, but it came at a cost.

Similar to Spider-Man: Beyond the Universe’s production issues, IGN reported that the creative team behind Inside Out 2 had conflicts behind the scenes. Layoffs became so bad in an attempt to finish the film that one anonymous source said: “I would venture that at least 95% of the people that got laid off are financially f**ked right now.”

Bad enough as that is, these layoffs were only a portion of the issues that corrupted the film. Sure, representation has experienced a boom in Hollywood, but that boom hasn’t been distributed evenly throughout the industry. In many ways, but especially in terms of LGBTQ+ representation, Disney is still living in the dark ages. That was made apparent yet again upon the discovery of a particular “concern” Disney had about the final cut of Inside Out 2.

Inside Out 2 was asked to tone down LGBTQ+ themes

An exclusive profile from IGN revealed many disturbing revelations about Inside Out 2. The primary one is the fear revolving around Riley’s (voiced by Kensington Tallman) coming of age. Anyone who watches the trailer can assume that her relationship with the new character, Val (Lilimar), is coded to be a crush. But the film only portrays them platonically, to the disappointment of many who felt misled. Evidently, this decision came about due to the failure of another film, one which tanked horribly at the box office a couple of years back.

Creatives were asked not to lean into the romantic tension between Riley and Val, specifically because of the 2022 film, Lightyear, as one source noted.

“It is, as far as I know, still a thing, where leadership, they’ll bring up Lightyear specifically and say, ‘Oh, Lightyear was a financial failure because it had a queer kiss in it.’”

Another source admitted there was a lot of backpedaling implemented during the production process. Any signs of even potentially referring to the fact that Riley may be queer had to be erased.

“In the film, what you saw, nothing about Riley says that she is gay, but it is kind of inferred based on certain contexts. And so that is something that they tried to play down at multiple points.”

Inside Out 2 was a success, but many who worked on the film agree that has nothing to do with the sexual orientation of the main character. With every subsequent decision, executives continue to prove that they have no idea what fans actually yearn for. Social media responses to this news are quite telling about where fans are standing on this issue.

One user on X regrettably hit the nail right on the head with their analysis of the situation.

As with many examples in entertainment, it’s possible that the studio will see the final results of Lightyear and Inside Out 2 and come up with the wrong conclusion. For instance, Barbie wasn’t a massive success because it was an IP. Greta Gerwig’s tender film about personhood and gender roles was appealing because of its universal themes. Inside Out 2 follows its predecessor’s steps in demonstrating the sharp realities of growing up. Instead, it’s possible Disney may gather to stop trying to implement LBGTQ+ stories because one film failed while the other did not. It is just another example of why creatives should be given the space to create instead of adhering to strict metrics.