Lena Waithe to voice Disney’s first openly LGBTQ animated character in the upcoming Onward film
Disney is making history within its film catalog.
Lena Waithe will voice the studio’s first openly gay animated character in the upcoming film Onward, releasing in March.
The character is a self-identified lesbian Cyclops cop, Officer Specter.
A first: Lena Waithe will voice Disney’s first openly gay animated character in the upcoming film Onward, releasing in March
The Pixar film is set in a fantasy world and follows two brothers, voiced by Tom Holland and Chris Pratt as they try to bring their father back for 24 hours with magic.
Kori Rae, a producer of the film, told Yahoo Entertainment that Officer Specter’s LGBTQ identity came about organically.
In the film she also references an off-screen girlfriend, though she is never seen, as Specter is only in one scene of the film.
The character: The character is a self-identified lesbian Cyclops cop, Officer Specter (pictured on the top right)
‘It just kind of happened,’ Rae said. ‘The scene, when we wrote it, was kind of fitting and it opens up the world a little bit, and that’s what we wanted.’
Dan Scanlon added: ‘It’s a modern fantasy world and we want to represent the modern world.’
The character, though brief, is a big step for Pixar and Disney.
The storyline: The Pixar film is set in a fantasy world and follows two brothers, voiced by Tom Holland and Chris Pratt as they try to bring their father back for 24 hours with magic
In recent years, Disney has had similar brief appearances of LGBTQ characters and couples.
Star Wars: Rise of the Skywalker featured the first same-sex kiss in the history of Star Wars, one character in Avengers: Endgame referenced his lost male partner and the recent Toy Story 4 featured what appeared to be a same-sex couple in the background of a scene.
Officer Specter makes the first direct reference to an LGBTQ identity ever in a Pixar film and is another in a line of similar references across Disney’s studios.
Representation on and off screen: Waithe is an openly gay screen writer and producer, fans online praised the off to on-screen representation
Disney plans to continue showing LGTBQ characters on screen with their upcoming blockbuster The Eternals, that will feature Marvel’s first on-screen same-sex couple and first same-sex kiss.
Waithe is an openly gay screen writer and producer, fans online praised the off to on-screen representation.
She was the first black woman to win an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series, for an episode based on her own coming out story.
