JennH said: "MrsSallyAdams said: "I am torn by the Conden's mention of LeFou's homosexuality.
On one hand I'm all for openly gay characters in popular entertainment and unrequited gay affection is indeed "tale as old as time."
On the other hand the animated LeFou was a loathesome character and his subtextual attraction for Gaston has long been treated as a dirty joke. If Josh makes something "subtle and delicious out of it" fine. But Josh Gad has played a lot of creeps (Book of Mormon, Spelling Bee). The "pay-off at the end" could come across as a harmful stereotype. Time will tell.
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I was more or less thinking the same. My other issue is, is that it possibly is creating something that didn't exist in the first place. LeFou was created to be the usual villains' silly sidekick. Thats it. It's almost like this is being pulled out of thin air for no reason EXCEPT for LGBTQ rep. Like everyone here, rep is perfectly fine, but to add it to an already established character is...questionable at best. It's like the "Make Elsa lesbian" in the that frozen sequel. It literally mkes no sense to add this trait to an already well established character, especially when the sole reason for wanting it is that "She didn't end up with a man so she must be lesbian"...she didn't end up with ANYONE so who's to say either way? And think about WHY she didn't end up with her own L.I. It's because romance wasn't made to be part of her arc, is all. Her arc was about conquering herself and her own fears. And to suddenly say she's lesbian would be merely pulling the rug from under us for no good reason, akin to that awful "Hans is the actual villain" twist. It's a terrible way to go about a story. Again LGBTQ rep is fine, but if Disney is going to to this and do it properly, they've got to start from scratch, new story, new character, etc.
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On one hand, I agree with this; however, if something new isn't being done with the material, and new directions are not being taken, what is the point of a remake? In a way, this is its own new entity, and we should be expecting to see new things and a fresh take here.
A lot of us are having trouble separating this from its animated counterpart. Having that mindset does a disservice to both the original Disney incarnation as well as this new vision. I don't just want to see a shot for shot remake of a previous movie. We had that with Van Sant's Psycho, and it was pointless and uninspired. I want to see something new, whether it be in character development, or in the plot itself.