Disney introduces its first ever openly gay teenage character
Topics: News, Film and TV, Disney, LGBTQ
Charisa Bossinakis
Featured Image Credit: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Topics: News, Film and TV, Disney, LGBTQ
Disney’s upcoming movie Strange World will feature it’s first openly gay teenage character.
According to Movie Web, the Disney flick is set to follow the Clades - a legendary family of explorers.
However, unlike the rest of his family, Searcher Clade has different interests from his family and desires to lead a quiet life as a farmer.
Despite Searcher wanting nothing to do with his notorious family’s dangerous expeditions, things take a turn when he and his family stumble into uncharted territory, swiftly pulling them into the adventure.
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While the epic computer-animated science adventure film will have a ‘slew of ravenous creatures’ and mysterious worlds, it will also feature a gay teen romance, which apparently is a first for Disney.
Ethan Clade, voiced by Jaboukie Young-White, is Searcher's 16-year-old gay son, who longs for adventure beyond his father's farm while navigating a school crush.
Young-White, who is openly queer, admitted in a recent interview with Yahoo Entertainment that he wished a film like this would have been around while he was a child.
He told the outlet: “I thought that was pretty cool.
"It was a beautiful thing to be a part of, and something I wish I could have seen when I was that age."
As all three Clade elders supported their son’s sexuality, Young-White said that he admires that this film isn’t a ‘coming out story’.
He added: “It's not him looking for acceptance of his identity.
"That's just who he is, and it's not underlined or made to be a big deal. It's an aspect of Ethan and one of the many things that makes him who he is. I thought that was amazing."
However, aside from including a queer narrative, Disney is also making history, with the Clades being a biracial family.
Co-director and writer Qui Nguyen told Variety: “I have a biracial family, so it was something that was easily relatable to me to [have] two people with very different backgrounds fall in love.
“And now my kid walks both those lines of us — fully Asian, fully Jewish — and that was something I understood inherently.”
Gabrielle Union, who voices Meridian Clade, also told the outlet the film isn’t trying to ‘normalize’ diversity - it merely exists, which is reflected in Strange World.
She said: “You got to see a loving family that was incredibly supportive of their child’s identity, and their version of trying to steer him to safety or steer him is more in terms of his occupation — and the route he’s gonna go in life.”