‘Beauty and the Beast’ Will Have Disney’s First Openly Gay Movie Character

The new live-action “Beauty and the Beast” is coming to theaters on March 17, and it looks like I am not the only person in the world who is Team Gaston, because director Bill Condon says Gaston’s buddy, LeFou, is totally hot for that burly, barge-sized paragon of machismo. (Nobody tell the guy who is thinks Lego Batman is pro-gay propaganda. He should find out for himself.)

Condon says LeFou is not going to be interested in Gaston in that vague, “Well, it could be romantic if you tilt your head and squint, but they’re probably just really good friends” sort of way that characterizes non-heterosexual relationships in a lot of media, especially media intended for younger audiences. In an interview with Attitude, Condon clarifies that while LeFou is just coming around to his feelings for Gaston, those feelings are not platonic, and that’s going to be very clear.

”LeFou is somebody who on one day wants to be Gaston and on another day wants to kiss Gaston,” Condon told Attitude. ”He’s confused about what he wants. It’s somebody who’s just realising that he has these feelings. And Josh makes something really subtle and delicious out of it. And that’s what has its payoff at the end, which I don’t want to give away. But it is a nice, exclusively gay moment in a Disney movie.”

Condon did not specify what that nice moment might be, but if he means that instead of killing Gaston, Condon just has him ride off into the sunset with LeFou, I am there for that.

In the live-action version of Beauty and the Beast, LeFou is played by Broadway star Josh Gad, who gets to sing the best song in the whole movie: “Gaston.” Sure, “Beauty and the Beast” is heartwarming and “Be Our Guest” is a bop, but “Gaston” is the only one that ties performative masculinity to the number of eggs a person can eat in a day. A clip of Gad’s song has already been released, and it looks like he had a lot of fun filming it.

[youtube=https://youtu.be/1JG6f5_37tg]

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