A Lightyear away from ‘95
"There’s been this generalized attitude in the conservative movement, as long as I’ve been alive, and well before it, suggesting that to what you think on a moral level and to say it with confidence is somehow some sort of imposition on somebody else, it's an act of violence, it’s something cruel and if somebody gets offended it is probably because you did something that was worthy of offending them. And when people start to get up on their hindlegs and say ‘you know what just no, the answer is no - then that doesn’t just have an impact in terms of this content we’re putting out. It also means that when the Left pushes their content it fails, so the key example of this from the past month is Lightyear. Disney decides that they’re going to put a lesbian kiss in a film that is designed for small children. And all people who were Conservative said is, “You might want to consider whether or not you want your kids to see this.” I tweeted that – the left went insane. Maybe it is not impolite for me to live out my values the way I wish to live out my values. so Lightyear is the biggest failure Pixar has ever had bar none, not even close.” - Ben Shapiro
Disney/Pixar’s adventure flick Lightyear is an odd production from many angles. The most controversial angle; however, is the studios’ decision to include a lesbian character. This decision breaches the film’s premise.
Disney and Pixar have each made decisions over the last several years to make their content more inclusive towards lgbtq+ people groups, beginning with Beauty and the Beast in 2017 and Finding Dory in 2016. This inclusivity seems shallow at most – ornamental at least. The respective scenes have been described as “blink and you’ll miss it,” since they are brief and unimportant to the plots and main characters. That discussion warrants its own article.
Lightyear’s attempt at inclusivity is also shallow. It is mentioned once in conversation and depicted on-screen in a sympathetic and mute montage. Its inclusion is as inoffensive as any confident articulation of values by any party would be. Though its inclusion at all betrays the film’s fundamental idea.
Lightyear is more than protagonist Buzz Lightyear’s origin story. The movie claims in its first scene that its story is canon to the Toy Story franchise insofar as it received a theatrical release in-universe. Andy, the boy who owns the cast of toys (between Toy Story films I - III,) viewed Lightyear in theaters when it first released in 1995 – according to the movie’s opening scene. This fundamental idea connects it to the franchise as we know it otherwise
Director Angus Maclane has been involved in the franchise’ production since the first film. He adds to the concept, “I’d always wondered, what was the show or the movie that Buzz Lightyear came from. That was always something clicking in the back of my head.” (Beyond Infinity).
Both Maclane’s vision and the movie’s claim correspond with the theatrical release of the first Toy Story movie: it graced our theaters in 1995. This correspondence alludes that the world of Toy Story is similar to ours; different insofar as toys are animate in that world but inanimate in our own world, and that the Lightyear film was released in that canon when Toy Story was released in real-world 1995.
This is Lightyear’s fundamental idea. Toy Story fans’ stake in the movie is its affect on Andy and the world he lives in. The Lightyear movie seems to have produced a cultural phenomenon in Toy Story I and II: video games, mass manufactured toy lines, and mania follow its release in 1995. Therefore it would be important for Toy Story fans.
If Lightyear were released in 1995 in our reality, it would not have seen such success and mania.
Lightyear would have been criticized by audiences across political affiliations were it released today. ‘The Left which pushes this content’ (Shapiro) is unrecognizable from the Democratic party in 1995. The Democratic Party Platform today claims “Democrats applaud last year’s decision by the Supreme Court that recognized that LGBT people—like other Americans—have the right to marry the person they love. But there is still much work to be done” (Democrats.org).
The platform employs the term ‘lbtq+’ 30 times over 41,396 word length. The Democratic Party Platform in 1996; however, references the terms ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ once respectively over its 18,098 word length. It omits discussion around legalizing gay marriage. Such a statement would have been a nonstarter at the time since 68% of the American public opposed gay marriage (Washington Blade). Gay marriage became legal for the first time in America (exclusively in Massachusetts) in 2004: eight years after the Democratic Party Platform publication, and nine years after both the real release of Toy Story and the fictional release of Lightyear in the world of Toy Story.
This is a roundabout way of showing how most Americans were either indifferent or opposed to lgbtq+ advocacy in the time when Toy Story was released. It is reasonable to conclude that Americans would be more indifferent or opposed toward content directed at children while depicting lgbtq+ oriented themes directed toward child audiences – which is Shapiro’s primary gripe with the film.
It should be reasonable, though perhaps odd, to conclude that political inclinations would be similar in Toy Story’s 1995 as to the real 1995. No movie directing lgbtq+ oriented content toward children would usher a cultural phenomenon the way Lightyear did in the world of Toy Story, given that the world of Toy Story is like our own.
So the world of Toy Story is not like our own.
That world was more inclusive toward both lgbtq+ people groups and more receptive toward content which appeals to those groups in 1995 compared to our world in 1995. Lightyear produced a cultural phenomenon because that world was primed to receive it with its inclusive content. That could be; but isn’t true.
If it were so, that inclusivity would likely have been alluded to at any point between Toy Story films I-III and the content surrounding them. That theming is missing from those but present in Toy Story IV because Disney and Pixar themselves were not prepared to display those ideas in their content until the time between Toy Story III (2010) and Toy Story IV’s (2019) releases.
The appeal to LGBTQ+ is only present in Lightyear because Disney and Pixar believe it benefits themselves to signal popular virtues. They are not predicated on any real values or sympathies.
Disney and Pixar are not the stalwart includers nor passionate storytellers for people who identify with lgbtq+. They have revealed their heartless tendencies to pursue what is popular, because popular pays.
Either the Toy Story World has been secretly gay-inclusive since 1995 unlike real America, with less than a hint of such theming occurring between 1996 and 2007, or Pixar failed to consider that they would undermine history by pandering politically in their most successful property's prequel.
Lightyear’s fundamental idea is a loose skin, thrown over Disney and Pixar’s most recent effort to appeal to as many groups as possible, to make as much money from them as possible, without any real consideration.