Here Are Actors, Directors, And Writers Who Advocated For Better Queer Representation, And What Scenes Ended Up In The Final Cut As A Result

"I had to threaten to quit because they basically wouldn’t let us have the characters kiss."

Ahead of the premiere of the new Disney-Pixar film Lightyear, it was announced that a scene involving a kiss between two women had originally been cut from the film due to pushback. However, after receiving pressure on their censorship of gay content (including an open letter from Pixar employees), Disney made the decision to restore the scene, making Lightyear Pixar’s first animated feature film to include a same-gender kiss.

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

In light of this, here are more actors and crew members, from writers and directors to producers and storyboard artists, who have advocated for queer representation in their work:

1. Heath Ledger refused to partake in a homophobic "bit" about Brokeback Mountain during the Academy Awards, according to Jake Gyllenhaal. Released in 2005, Brokeback Mountain stars Ledger and Gyllenhaal as American cowboys in a complicated love story. Subsequently, many interviews for the film included homophobic jokes and banter about gay cowboys. Gyllenhaal recalled, "I remember they wanted to do an opening for the Academy Awards that year that was sort of joking about it, and Heath refused. I was sort of at the time, 'Oh, okay...whatever.' I'm always like: It's all in good fun. And Heath said, 'It's not a joke to me — I don't want to make any jokes about it.'" Retrospectively, Gyllenhaal commented that it was smart of Ledger to refuse to do so.

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2. Greg Berlanti, the director of Love, Simon (2018) — the first film by a major Hollywood studio to feature a gay teen romance — once threatened to quit as a writer for edgy teen drama Dawson's Creek (1998-2003) due to pushback for writing a kiss for Jack McPhee, a gay character introduced in Season 2 by Berlanti and show creator Kevin Williamson. "I had to threaten to quit basically because they wouldn't let us have the characters kiss. In 2000, Jack and Ethan's kiss became the first romantic kiss between gay men on primetime TV."

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Berlanti revealed, "At the time…there were shows that were fine to show lots of violence in network, but they wouldn't allow a kiss between two gay characters. They asked me to run the show that year, and part of my agreement with them was that they would allow the character, Jack, to have a kiss. There was a lot of negotiation about that kiss." Jack also went on to become one of the most groundbreaking gay characters on TV. 

Berlanti further explained, "There hadn’t been a gay kiss that was romantic on primetime TV. There had been joke kisses, but there was never a romantic kiss between two characters, let alone two high-schoolers." 

Even after he negotiated the kiss between Jack and Ethan, the WB had specific stipulations about what the scene could show. "The network said they wanted it filmed across the street from a very, very wide shot," Gina Fattore, a writer for Berlanti, shared. "I was the one who was on set to produce it. Greg said to me, 'I want this to be a great kiss. I want there to be closeups, and I want it to feel romantic.'"

Berlanti continued, "Gina was calling with spy updates, telling me, 'OK, I think I've got them 10 feet away from each other, and I was like, 'That’s nothing! They need to be closer!' But we got our kiss."

3. Stephanie Beatriz, who played Rosa Diaz in the sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2013-2021), pushed to positively represent bisexuality due to her own experiences after coming out. In 2016, Beatriz came out publicly by retweeting a quote by Aubrey Plaza ("I fall in love with girls and guys. I can’t help it.") from a BUST Magazine interview, adding, "Yup." Not long after, Brooklyn Nine-Nine co-creator Daniel Goor asked if she'd be comfortable giving Rose a bi storyline.

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As a result, they created a two-episode arc for Rosa, making sure it was authentic to both the character and queer audiences — and part of that authenticity included actually using the word 'bisexual' to combat bi erasure. "It was important to me that ‘bisexual’ was said," Beatriz revealed, "because I grew up in a time where it wasn’t heard often." 

She further expanded, "Many times in media, we are presented stories that are about queer characters that automatically connect with dramatic events or sometimes traumatic events, and just one way of seeing people is not all that they are. As someone who is bisexual and grew up with not that much varied bisexual representation in film and television and media, what I thought of as bisexual was, 'Oh, no.' I had this idea that, 'I can’t possibly be this, because this is over-sexualized, hyper-sexualized, villainous, duplicitous. I'm none of those things, and yet, I feel that I am and identify as bisexual, and yet, the characters that are presented to me in the media that I’m consuming reflects back to me that I'm bad. That somehow, at my core, there’s something wrong with me."

4. Tessa Thompson has long advocated for her character, Valkyrie, to be explicitly bisexual. Thompson confirmed that the character was bisexual in a tweet, and also mentioned that she had convinced director Taika Waititi to shoot a scene of a woman coming out of Valkyrie's room in Thor: Ragnarok, though this scene was later cut due to time. Later, Thompson said, "If you look at the comics in the canon, there are so many queer characters! It’s hard because Taika and I would’ve even liked to go further, but in the context of the movies, there’s only so much we can do."

Null / ©Walt Disney Co./courtesy Everett / Everett Collection

She also added, "Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of time invested in love stories in Marvel movies in general." 

Waititi, however, doesn't seem to be opposed to pursuing this, and said during an interview, "If Tessa wanted to do that, I’m in." 

Thompson herself has said that she is attracted to both men and women, and previously said in an interview that she envisioned Valkyrie mourning her lover in a previous scene in Thor: Ragnarok. She said, "There's a great shot of me falling back from one of my sisters who's just been slain," says Thompson. "In my mind, that was my lover."

5. Fans had long speculated that Adventure Time characters Princess Bubblegum and Marceline were romantically interested in each other, and this belief was cemented in the finale when the two shared a kiss. But did you know that the kiss wasn't in the original outline of the finale? Showrunner Adam Muto later said that it was actually storyboard artist Hanna K. Nyström who added the kiss into the finale's storyboard. Muto recounted, "It didn't say that they kiss. It just said they 'have a moment.' When Hanna boarded that, there was a little note in the margin that said, 'Come on!' with a big exclamation point. That was the only note. I can't argue with that."

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6. The Star Wars fan ship between characters Finn and Poe Dameron, designated FinnPoe, began gaining traction after the release of the first sequel film, The Force Awakens. Actors Oscar Isaac and John Boyega also made it known throughout the sequel series that they were supportive of the ship, and had even hoped that Disney might make it canon. When it became clear during the release of the trilogy's final film, Rise of Skywalker, that the two would not become a couple, Isaac expressed his disappointment and said, "Personally, I kind of hoped and wished that maybe that would’ve been taken further in the other films, but I don’t have control,” Isaac said.

Walt Disney Co. / ©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection

Isaac also said, “It seemed like a natural progression, but sadly enough, it’s a time when people are too afraid, I think, of…I don’t know what. But if they would’ve been boyfriends, that would have been fun."

Boyega also clarified that the characters "are just platonic at the moment," and said, "They’ve always had a quite loving and open relationship in which it wouldn’t be too weird if it went beyond it."

7. The show Schitt's Creek has been commended for its queer representation, specifically with the couple Patrick and David, played by Noah Reid and series creator Dan Levy. In 2020, Comedy Central India posted a clip from an episode of Schitt's Creek, but removed a kiss between characters David and Ted. Levy responded to the decision on Twitter, and said, "This is a show about the power of inclusivity. The censorship of gay intimacy is making a harmful statement against that message."

ITV Studios Global Entertainment

Levy, who is openly gay, had spoken frequently about the representation on the show, and said, "I think that when you're given opportunities, seize the opportunity and do what you can with it. I just tried to tell as authentic of a story as I possibly could, and one that reflected my life." He also added, "How often do we get to see that (a normal queer couple)? Not often. It's either the butt of a joke, or they die. ... We had certain freedoms with this show to tell stories that were normalizing an experience."

8. By the fourth season of Ellen, starring Ellen DeGeneres, the network was reportedly beginning to grow bored with the monotonous nature of the character's life, and had reportedly suggested that Ellen get a puppy in order to increase the show's popularity. However, after DeGeneres came out in 1997, she and her show's producers began fighting for her character to come out as a lesbian as well. Writer-producer Mark Driscoll later said, "It was hard to believe it would ever happen until four weeks before we shot it. ... We thought the studio or network would come in and squelch it."

Buena Vista Television

Surprisingly, once the network agreed to the episode, they actually turned down the original draft of the script because it didn't go far enough. Driscoll added, "[The studio] said, 'If we’re going to do it, let’s do it.' Once he said to go as far as we could, it became great fun to write.” The episode was released in 1998, and while it was the most-watched episode of the show, it was not without backlash, with multiple organizations attempting to prevent the airing of the episode in specific parts of the country. 

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