Against "Beauty and the Beast"

This whole thing is all so predictable. Disney recently announced that its new live action revival of the film Beauty and the Beast will include a gay character, and both the Russian government and the Poor Oppressed Christians completely freaked. This is despite the fact that the freakiness of the Beauty and the Beast storyline goes way that of a character who is merely gay.

Beauty and the Beast creators have prompted uproar after it was revealed that the live-action remake would feature an exclusively gay moment for 'the first time in Disney history'. LeFou, the sidekick to antagonist Gaston, is set to come to terms with his sexual feelings for Belle's suitor throughout the course of the film, director Bill Condon revealed.

Since his announcement, Russian MPs and Christian-run cinemas in America have threatened to boycott the film because of its inclusion of a gay character. Christian owners of a cinema in rural Alabama said they would only show "family-orientated films" so its customers were "free to come watch wholesome movies without worrying about sex, nudity, homosexuality and foul language".

Meanwhile Russian culture minister Vladimir Medinsky is facing mounting pressure to assess whether the film violates the country's controversial 'gay propaganda' law which prohibits children from material "advocating for a denial of traditional family values". One thing that seems to have been overlooked by critics of the film's gay sub-plot, however, is the films main storyline that sees Belle, the protagonist, fall in love with a buffalo.

One of the absolute truths I have seen with respect to the Internet is this. If a news story gets posted about, say, a guy having sex with a dog, one of the earliest comments on that thread will be "was it a boy dog or a girl dog?" The implication is obvious. There are a whole lot of folks out there who are just fine with bestiality as long as it's not gay bestiality.

Which frankly, strikes me as totally bizarre. But I wonder if the deal is that the Poor Oppressed Christians have spent so much time and energy trying to portray the only real sins in the world as homosexuality and abortion, nobody remembers that bestiality is on that list too if you actually read the Bible - which, I realize, too few of the Poor Oppressed really do.

I won't be seeing the movie because I don't personally much care for Beauty and the Beast as a story, but it has nothing to do with a character being gay. As I see it, people should be able to be with any consenting adult they fall in love with. But I draw a line at buffalo.