Variety‘s Rebecca Rubin is reporting that Disney’s Strange World, an animated, family-friendly feature that opened on 11.23, is expected to lose $100 million in its theatrical run — a total wipeout.
In paragraph #3 Rubin calls Strange World‘s opening weekend tally “one of Disney’s worst in modern times.”
She also mentions possible reasons for the film’s wretched performance — pandemic concerns, so-so reviews, minimal buzz. But Rubin doesn’t even allude to a possibility that certain homophobic parents might have felt a tiny bit antsy about a main character — Jaboukie Young-White‘s “Ethan Clade”, the 16 year-old son of Jake Gyllenhaal‘s “Searcher Clade” — being gay.
It was suggested last June that the under-performing of Disney’s Lightyear may have been at least partly due to parental pushback again a no-big-deal lesbian kiss scene. It is suspected that parents in flyover regions are generally squeamish about Disney animated features feeding liberal, comme ci comme ca, “whatever floats your boat” propaganda to family audiences.
Rubin does mention that the gay son was a factor in Disney not submitting Strange World to regions in the Middle East, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Rubin: “Films with LGBTQ references have been regularly targeted by censors in those territories, and Disney wasn’t willing to cut out parts of the movie to comply with their guidelines.”
So why didn’t Rubin at least mention the possibility that homophobic parents in this country might have decided against taking their kids to Strange World because of Ethan’s sexual persuasion?
I’ll tell you what I suspect. I suspect that Variety‘s editors felt that acknowledging the existence of homophobia in some regions of this country could, in Variety‘s apparent view, be construed as some kind of vague or tacit acceptance of homophobia as a problematic marketing issue.
