‘It’s a recruiting video, I think’: Yes, a Newsmax host insists that ‘Agatha All Along’ wants to turn your kids gay

If there’s one thing that conservative news stations love to talk about it’s “the kids,” and how progressive media is “targeting” and “corrupting” them. The latest obsession? Marvel’s newest series on Disney Plus, Agatha All Along.

In typical exaggerated fashion, a panel of reporters on Newsmax recently took a minute to discuss the MCU’s latest project, and their observations were as homophobic as expected. One member called the new series a “recruiting video” for gay folk, while another bemoaned Disney’s “obsession with sexuality and sex.” So is Agatha All Along gay? Well, Aubrey Plaza thinks so, but it’s definitely not going to “turn your kids gay.”

Agatha All Along is the latest obsession in alleged LGBTQ+ “recruitment”

The Newsmax panel’s take on Marvel’s Agatha All Along was as weird as you’d expect, using the tagline “Woke Witches” on the banner at the bottom of the screen. The group spoke against the actors for discussing the queerness of their on-screen characters. Chris Plante, the panel’s host, even went as far as saying that the show was “targeting the kids.”

After co-host Mercedes Schlapp criticized Disney for its “obsession with sexuality and sex,” and for “putting that in front of the children” she begged Disney to “go back to storytelling,” and revert to, “the innocence of children.”

All of this is a very common type of fear-mongering and exaggerated language that conservatives like to use to frame blatant bigotry as concern. For starters, while the cast of Agatha All Along has spoken about the incorporation of queerness in the show, they have also made it a point to talk about how the characters’ sexualities are not what the show is about, but just another element that makes up their personalities. 

Take Joe Locke for example, who plays the character of Teen. He said in an interview with Variety that Agatha All Along has “many layers, and gay is one of them… Teen is a queer guy on the show, but it’s not the driving force, which I think is really great.” If Mercedes Schlapp had taken a moment to find out what the show was really about, or even watch the trailer, perhaps she would have seen that the show is full of all that storytelling she thinks Disney has strayed away from. 

What is Agatha All Along really about?

Altogether, Agatha All Along features a diverse cast of characters and is a story about found family, acceptance, and, yes, some witchy hijinks. The bottom line is that LGBTQ+ people aren’t “recruited” from anywhere, and showing characters who identify as anything but straight in the media won’t “turn the kids gay.” Fears like that only continue to perpetuate a culture of homophobia and bigotry, and all the panelists involved at Newsmax should be ashamed of themselves. 

The spin-off show will see Agatha (Kathryn Hahn) trying to regain her powers (which she lost in WandaVision) by journeying down a dangerous magical path called the Witches Road. From the trailer, we see that she forms a new coven comprising a goth teenage boy only known as Teen (Joe Locke), and a ragtag group of outcast witches played by Sasheer Zamata, Ali Ahn, Pattie LuPone, Aubrey Plaza, and Debra Jo Rupp.

Agatha All Along premieres Wednesday, Sept. 18 on Disney Plus.