Coming Out at the Oscars
A selection of queer characters found within the nominations for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
The Oscars are coming up incredibly soon, right now! So I thought I would examine some animated films with canonically queer animated characters that have been nominated (or won) an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. This is not an exhaustive list of all the queer characters, moments, or even queer readings1 - for Oscar nominated animated films, but more of a selection I wanted to briefly touch upon. I am considering doing a part two, so please let me know if you’d like another one of these!
Some quick history, the Best Animated Feature is a relatively new category for the Oscars created in 2001. Films that receive a nomination are typically PG and major studios such as Disney and Dreamworks are frequently picked among the nominations. While there are some exceptions, the nominated films are more likely to skew more child friendly and are from bigger (and sometimes more conservative) studios, which impacts what type of queer representation the audience shall see in the finale product2:
~Shrek (Adamson and Jenson, 2001) and Shrek 2 (Adamson, Asbury, and Vernon, 2004) Okay, I have to be a little honest, out of all the ones I have included for this post this is the most ambiguous, but I still wanted to examine it given the age of these films and the lack of online buzz I’ve seen about queer representation found in Shrek. While the Big Bad Wolf does not have much screen time in Shrek, at the end during Shrek and Fiona’s wedding you’ll see them3 getting a bit affectionate with a knight (see below video). The knight is tearing up during the ceremony and the wolf reacts by patting him on the shoulder and rests a paw on his arm. Later, the two are seen dancing together. An interesting note (and I do admit may be a bit of a stretch), but the pairing of the wolf and knight’s design wise fits quite well as the knight’s design also sports a bit of androgyny due to the “skirt” shape of his armor. A part of me also wonders if the decision to keep the knight’s face obscured further allowed him and the Big Bad Wolf’s interactions to slip past any critical eye, as the knight is just one of two characters with a hidden face who attends the wedding.
Unfortunately, in the sequel any clarification or explicit reference concerning the Big Bad Wolf’s sexuality is minimized and the knight has vanished. The gender identity of the Big Bad Wolf is also kept ambiguous. In Shrek 2 he continues to wear Grandmother’s nightgown and cap (something which they appear in repeatedly after Shrek 2) and besides a joke where they are described as “gender confused” by the Fairy Godmother, there is still much left to examine for the character and their identity in later appearances.
~Coraline (Selick, 2009) Neil Gaiman has confirmed on his Tumblr and Twitter that Miss Spink and Miss Forcible are a couple. I only learned about this one last year during my research for canon queer mainstream characters, and these two predate Laika’s more known officially canon gay character, Mitch (see below). During my research for this article, I did not find Gaiman or another crew member mention if they wanted to make the relationship more overt, but censorship or other factors prevented the relationship from being made as obvious4. If that is mentioned somewhere, please let me know! I do feel the repeated asks from fans does demonstrate how subtle the relationship can read for viewers; while this isn’t necessarily negative (queer characters should be allowed to be represented in a variety of ways) it does bring into question queer visibility and when is subtle portrayals too subtle. On a side note, as Gaiman answers in an ask, the musical does confirm their relationship as well with a bit of fun word play with the lyric:
"Elderly thespians fallen from grace--"
"We never married so we're undivorceable--"
~ParaNorman (Fell and Butler, 2012) Another Laika feature but this time with a confirmed gay lead character! Mitch’s sexuality is not revealed until near the very end of the film, and serves almost as a twist since previously another character, Courtney, had a crush on him and wanted to ask him out. Mitch fits neatly into the jock archetype which differentiates from the stereotypes typically associated with gay male portrayals such as effeminate, a willowy build, lisping, and occasionally bitchy. While one wishes Mitch’s sexuality was more explored and fleshed out (such as his boyfriend’s name), his character is still a fantastic difference from previous portrayals and demonstrates how one gay characters do not have to fall into decades long stereotypes. In retrospect, Mitch’s sexuality reveal is one of the earliest models for how many other studios and networks producing media aimed for children would follow for a decade if the show included queer representation:
If it’s explicit, it’s better if it is short and sweet
More often happens near the end of the film or show
Appears in an easily editable format5
~Zootopia (Howard, Moore, and co-director Bush, 2016) I was going to add more Disney blink and you’ll miss it moments that followed the Mitch reveal, but noticed how long this article already was and decided to just focus on Zootopia. In the film, Bucky and Pronk live together with yelling at each other seemingly their only personality trait. They do not appear much in the film, and in the end credits their relationship is made clearer as they share the same surname. This is another queer couple I only learned about last year, and the relationship was confirmed by Bush (who voiced Pronk) through social media several months after the films release. With a Zootopia sequel officially announced earlier this year, hopefully the couple (or another queer character) will be given a larger role within the film and more clearly confirmed during the films runtime.
Also is it just me or do their scenes give off the same energy as this scene from Mission Hill.
~Flee (Rasmussen, 2021) Out of all the films I have mentioned so far, this one is the most explicit in terms of queer representation. While the others I have discussed vary in representation, such as containing only very brief scenes or needing confirmation from creatives, Flee has a gay main character (Amin) and the film shows his partner, Kasper who is a main character and has multiple lines6! The film even includes a scene where Amin goes to a gay club alone for the first time. This film in general is a heavier movie, as it is a documentary that focuses on the life of a refugee. So as expected, this film has a higher rating than the other films examined here AND IS classified as PG-13 by the MPAA.
~The Mitchells vs. the Machines (Rianda, 2021) This film features a lead queer character, Katie, voiced by a queer actress Abbi Jacobson. The movie was also worked on by queer animator Lizzie Nichols and other queer crew members7. While I am very glad that mainstream can show a character where their queerness is nuanced (in fact I consider this one of the better portrayals), I personally wish Sony had allowed the filmmakers to be even more overt. This could include showing a clip of Katie’s proposal video, or at the end when Katie and Jade are interacting, one of them gives the other a kiss on the cheek or display another obvious sign of romantic affection. We have seen so many heterosexual relationships on screen, why can’t queer affection in a mainstream film be given the same treatment? People do not need to be content with queer representation making up only around a minute or so maximum of screen time.
To me, the issue is that Netflix’s behind the scenes video (see below) praises itself for queer representation, but a behind the scenes video shouldn’t be longer than the actual times her queer identity is addressed or hinted on screen. And I’m sorry, while having a character wear a rainbow pride pin for nearly the entire extent of the film’s runtime is great, it can still be improved.
Not shown in the above video are the films Katie has made:
Some of Katie’s works reference queer films such as Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Céline Sciamma, 2019) and The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky, 2012). Additionally, there’s a video she made asking a girl, Chloe, to prom.
That’s all I wanted to focus on for now, as I’m still getting accustomed to having a writing schedule. While I develop the website, I may be a bit irregular during these upcoming months, but I have some more topics in mind I want to write about!
Luca (Enrico Casarosa, 2021) has a slew of articles and YouTube essays concerning how the film allows for a queer reading, and if you want to examine much further -before the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature was even created- the Oscar nominated film for Best Picture Beauty and the Beast (Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, 1991) the Beast and his arc has been interpreted as a metaphor for AIDS.
Disney is infamous at this point for their brief inclusions of queer characters and recorded behind the scene controversies concerning their animated queer representation, especially within the last decade. Perhaps this may be another article of interest? Please comment if so!
The pronouns of the Big Bad Wolf are kept more ambiguous rather than specified. In at least one of the video games released after the film masculine pronouns are used, while the musical implies a more trans feminine identity. Although the musical appeared several years after the first two movies, and the Big Bad Wolf’s pronouns are not specified, I shall be using he/they for the character.
Update (3/13/23)! I found a Twitter thread from 2019 where Gaiman mentions “I wanted the readers to have the same experience I did with the couple that Spink and Forcible were based on.” Which thankfully means no censorship for the couple occurred during production and the nuance was an active decision from the beginning! Additionally, in the thread, Gaiman mentioned he’s been confirming the relationship since the book’s release and also linked an article from 2009, “Director Henry Selick Crafts Romantically Macabre World In‘Coraline’”(San Francisco Foghorn) to demonstrate that reviewers from the film’s initial release were interpreting the two women as a couple.
This pattern can also be seen in animated television such as The Legend of Korra (2012- 2014) and Adventure Time (2010 -2018).
Yes, the bar is really that low when it comes to mainstream queer animated cinema.