Following Disney’s Florida debacle and very public feud with governor Ron DeSantis following the passage of the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, activists have unsurprisingly been keeping a very close eye on the company. The Lightyear scene, featuring the female character Hawthorne and her partner, was cut from the film originally, but that decision caused an online uproar after accusations that Disney was attempting to whitewash depictions of gay affection from its screenplays. The situation illustrates Disney’s increasingly complex position, caught between liberal and conservative sides of a culture war that is both national and international in scope. In the case of Lightyear, the decision to boycott Lightyear apparently comes down to the inclusion of a same-gender kiss in the Toy Story spinoff. Pixar’s Lightyear is the latest film to not make it past Middle Eastern censors, joining a recent string of prominent Disney films that have been banned in countries that include Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
