Reports: Pixar Bosses Wanted Queer Hints Stripped from 'Inside Out 2,' Blamed Gay Kiss for Failure of 'Lightyear'
Those still looking for substantive representation in Pixar movies might want to look elsewhere; reports say that higher-ups at the company stomped out any queer sparks in the film "Inside Out 2."
Moreover, company insiders say, Pixar execs made a scapegoat of the queer kiss in "Lightyear" that excited controversy when it was lopped out, then restored when an outcry broke out. Overlooking the obvious flaws in "Lightyear," Pixar suits reportedly laid the blame for audiences staying away on that fleeting moment.
It made for a handy rationale, an IGN article indicated, when "continuous notes" rained down on Pixar workers from above, instructing them to tweak the look and editing of the animated "Inside Out 2" in order "to make Riley, the main character of both 'Inside Out' movies, come across as 'less gay.'"
Added IGN: "Sources describe rumors that there was special care put into making the relationship between Riley and Val, a supporting character introduced in 'Inside Out 2,' seem as platonic as possible, even requiring edits to the lighting and tone of certain scenes to remove any trace of 'romantic chemistry.'"
"One source describes it as 'just doing a lot of extra work to make sure that no one would potentially see them as not straight.'"
The same IGN article relayed that, according to sources, Pixar employees were subjected to an intense "crunch" around getting the film finished and into theaters... only for 175 employees (a whopping 14% of the company's work force) to end up being axed before they could share in bonus money once the film outstripped records for profits made by an animated film.
Pixar needed a huge hit in the wake of the ravages of COVID and partially overlapping Hollywood strikes that hit the entertainment industry where it hurt, IGN noted. One of the company's failures was the "Toy Story" spinoff "Lightyear," which, confusingly, had nothing to do with the "Toy Story" movies other than supposedly being the movie from which one toy, Buzz Lightyear, resulted.
"This was a movie that our critic Alison Willmore wrote 'languishes in an awkward netherland,'" Vulture noted, "and 'a project that feels born out of notes to make something broader, less weird, and overtly engineered to appeal to boys.'"
In other words, the fleeting kiss between two female married "Lightyear" characters seems a less likely reason for the film having flopped than the film's own merits around story and execution. Or, as a source told IGN, "That's not the reason the movie failed."
And yet, the source said, "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.'"
Screen Rant ascribed the failure of "Lightyear" to a different, but no less palpable, cause.
"The biggest issue with Lightyear was its poor marketing that made the movie's relationship to the previous 'Toy Story' movies needlessly convoluted," Screen Rant posited.
"'Inside Out 2,' a movie about a teen girl obsessing over an older female hockey player with a pink streak, is the biggest animated movie of all time," Vulture pointed out. "That's gay no matter the lighting."
A source told IGN that "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."
Meanwhile, "Another source calls some leadership 'uncomfortable' with queer themes at large, and the insistence on keeping those themes out of Inside Out 2 was 'a big thing throughout' development."
IGN wrote that "It's worth noting that Pixar released a short in 2015 that followed Riley's first date with a boy. Still, many fans online started to call out queer-coding in 'Inside Out 2' from the moment the first trailer arrived."
"The movie also teased a 'Deep Dark Secret' that Riley was harboring throughout," IGN added, going on to report that "Many fans... thought the reveal would be that Riley was actually grappling with her sexuality, and even felt 'baited' over what it actually was."
Pixar is not likely to evolve into a fount of significant LGBTQ+ representation any time soon, IGN suggested, noting that after a few more "experimental" years, Chief Creative Officer Pete Docter "largely uses the language of making 'universal stories,' which to him means 'something that's very homogenous that anyone can relate to,' one source says."
Watch the trailer for "Inside Out 2" below.