Kunze further noted that Albert Tavares, a gay man, oversaw casting on The Little Mermaid. He also pointed out that Ashman was supported by Jeffrey Katzenberg after coming out as HIV-Positive, with the company even creating a production unit near his home so he could receive treatment in New York City rather than traveling to Burbank, California, before his death in 1991, with Beauty and the Beast dedicated to him. Kunze argued that Ashman was recruited by Disney from Broadway, saying that while working with Alan Menken, he crafted songs in The Little Mermaid (1989), “Beauty and the Beast” and “Aladdin.” Kunze noted that Ashman and animators on The Little Mermaid were inspired by gay culture and gay icons. In 2011, Deja told Disney would have a "family that has two dads or two mums" if they find the "right kind of story with that kind of concept." However, other critics criticized such queer-coded villains as contributing to "homophobic discourse" and equating queerness with evil itself.
Rebecca Sugar argued that it is "really heavy" for a kid to only exist "as a villain or a joke" in an animated series. This queer coding had its disadvantages, with networks not wanting to show overt representation. The Advocate noted that even if there aren't any openly gay or lesbian characters in the film, there is "sensitivity" to LGBTQ issues in the "upper echelon" of Disney. He noted that he brought his partner, Matt White, to an annual company beach party and long company retreats and that while some executives were "uncomfortable" with Schumacher bringing his partner, higher executives didn't give him any "trouble." Schumacher also said that while he regretted handing over reins of the film to Don Hahn, he was proud of songs by Tom Rice, a lyricist, and Elton John in the film. In a June 1994 article in The Advocate, an executive producer of The Lion King, Thomas Schumacher, a gay man, argued that there were "a lot of gay people at every level" of Disney, and called it a "very supportive environment". The fact that Deja had also worked on Scar in The Lion King and the titular character in Hercules, for example, has been discussed as an influence on the development of some Disney characters. Deja supervised animation for those characters, with some noting the campy value of these characters. Gaston and LeFou in the 1991 film Beauty and the Beast and Jafar from the 1992 film Aladdin were created by an openly gay animator named Andreas Deja, and sang music by Howard Ashman, who was also openly gay. Continuing from the late 1980s, villains in Disney films which were queer coded began to appear. Gender has always been a component of animation, with scholars Harry Benshoff and Sean Griffin writing that animation has always "hint at the performative nature of gender." Some argued that the Walt Disney Company played with gender stereotypes in the past, featuring effeminate or " sissy" characters, or those coded as gay, which occurred while the characters were comedic and kept at arms length. LGBT stereotypes, queer coding, and censorship
In later years, there were efforts to ameliorate this, with series like The Owl House which featured a bisexual protagonist, Luz Noceda and various other LGBTQ characters.
Some reviewers have argued that when Disney and Cartoon Network are compared in terms of such representation, it is "easy to see who actually cares about LGBT representation." Some creators have also criticized Disney studio executives of cutting LGBTQ scenes from their shows in the past, or criticized that their shows were not seen as part of the "Disney brand."
The Disney Channel, which launched in 1983, Disney XD, which began in 2009, Disney Junior, which launched in 2011, and shows on Disney+, along with the short-lived Toon Disney, have all occasionally featured lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender ( LGBT) characters in their programming.įrom 1983 onward, Disney struggled with LGBTQ representation in their animated series, and their content often included LGBT stereotypes, like queer-coded characters in the films Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Mulan or the content was censored in series such as Blazing Dragons.