It was announced not long ago that the upcoming Toy Story spin-off film, Lightyear, would be including a same-sex kiss scene that had previously been cut during production, and now the film’s producer is talking about why that’s so important.
The decision to add the kiss back into the movie came in the midst of the controversy surrounding Disney’s initial failure to oppose Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, and CEO Bob Chapek’s underwhelming comments suggesting the company’s “inspiring content” — very little of which involves LGBTQ+ characters — somehow makes up for it.
During that time, employees of Pixar Animation Studios penned a letter accusing Disney of, among other things, routinely removing “overtly gay affection” from their films, “regardless of when there is protest from both the creative teams and executive leadership at Pixar.”
Hearing a mysterious cut kiss had been added back into Lightyear during all this conflict seemed to back up Pixar employees’ claims, and people were curious to see how the kiss fit in to ascertain why it might have been cut.
Well, it turns out it’s an integral part of the story, at least according to producer Galyn Susman, who spoke about the moment after a recent Lightyear press screening.
“We’ve always had the lesbian couple. They’ve always been a part of the film. Being able to put back the kiss was important to us. It’s a touching moment,” she said, according to /Film.
She further explained that the moment Buzz sees his fellow astronaut, Hawthorne, kissing her partner, it prompts him to reassess his own priorities in a major way.
“It’s the life that’s being lived in front of him by his best friend that he’s not having,” she continued. “He doesn’t have those kinds of relationships. He doesn’t have a child. He doesn’t have what she has. And so it was important for us to get that back in there.”
Nothing about token representation, nothing that sounds like it would have simply been cut for time because it wasn’t important — the same-sex kiss in Lightyear sounds like a pivotal moment that would never have been touched had it been between a man and a woman.
We’re glad to have it back in, too, but it sure makes you wonder about all the other moments in Disney and Pixar movies that might have been similarly censored over the years.
