According to new info, Disney/Pixar's latest movie "Elio" was supposed to have the lead character, an 11-year-old boy, have heavy homosexual connotations.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, main protagonist "Elio" was to be based on the original director for the film, Adrian Molina, an openly gay filmmaker. Molina said his story wasn't originally going to be a coming out tale, given the character's age, but his gayness was to be heavily implied:
According to multiple insiders who spoke to The Hollywood Reporter, Elio was initially portrayed as a queer-coded character, reflecting original director Adrian Molina’s identity as an openly gay filmmaker. Other sources say that Molina did not intend the film to be a coming out story, as the character is 11. But either way, this characterization gradually faded away throughout the production process as Elio became more masculine following feedback from leadership.
THR reported that Elio would have a heavy interest in fashion and sport pictures of "male crushes" in his bedroom:
Gone were not only such direct examples of his passion for environmentalism and fashion, but also a scene in Elio’s bedroom with pictures suggesting a male crush. Hints at the trash fashion remain in the released film, with the boy wearing a cape decorated with discarded cutlery and soda can tabs, although without any explanation for the unusual attire.
As THR reported, the film was not very popular from the get-go, even failing to impress test audiences who unanimously noted they wouldn't see the movie in theaters. When Molina showed the movie to Pixar's leadership, they were likewise unimpressed, and Molina would soon exit the project. The film would then undergo heavy rewrites, and Pixar's LGBT advocates seemed very disappointed by the changes:
“I was deeply saddened and aggrieved by the changes that were made,” says former Pixar assistant editor Sarah Ligatich, who provided feedback during Elio production as a member of the company’s internal LGBTQ group PixPRIDE.
An interesting fact that THR states is that many people left the project after the first screening of the film after the changes. This tells you that Pixar is infected with activists to a large degree. Once they began "sanding down" the moments that showed the child's sexuality, Pixar employees were apparently angry.
As I reported last week, Elio had the worst opening in Pixar history, opening to a $21 million domestic and $14 million foreign box office. With a production cost of $150 million, this is a massive blow to both Pixar and Disney.
The film had many issues up front, such as abandoning known filmmaking standards like the rule of thirds, and utilizing animation and art styles that are unoriginal and usually reserved for children's television shows. It reeks of inexperience and originality, which only makes it clear that Pixar's talent pool dried up when Disney put emphasis on DEI standards.
The more we learn about his film, the more it's clear that it deserved to bomb. While it's great that Disney's executives destroyed its queer-centric approach to character development, it's Disney that set the stage for this kind of disaster to happen in the first place.
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