Beauty and the Beast Review Addendum: The Objective Necessity of Gays

I want to expand upon my comment in my Beauty and the Beast review regarding LeFou being transformed into a gay. Because some people might make the mistake of thinking I objected to this because I was offended.

First, you should know just how difficult it is to offend me. There are certainly things in the world I don't like. There are plenty of opinions with which I disagree. And it's true that I am occasionally (okay, maybe a little more frequent than that) fairly vocal about my disagreement with those opinions. 

But offense is a whole different thing. To be offended by something, one must transition from "I don't care for that," or "I don't agree with that," to "that shouldn't allowed to exist" or at the very least, "that shouldn't be allowed to exist in my presence." That kind of thinking is a great way to develop an ulcer before you reach middle age! If you're going to get by in a world populated by billions of different people, you gotta' accept that your position on this issue or that issue may be challenged once in a while.

Second, if you were to tell anyone who knows me that you think I’m “anti-gay,” that person would laugh uproariously and possibly have a cognitive-dissonance stroke (don’t laugh – I bet they happen a lot more often than you know).

Third, go back and read what I said again. You will find that I did not, in fact, say say that gays are "unnecessary."

Although, when you get right down to it, gays are neither necessary nor unnecessary.

Being gay is a preference, like preferring mint chip over rocky road. One is like, “Mmmmm, I could sure go for some of that in a big sugar cone,” and the other is more like, “Eeeuw. I don’t like marshmallows. I’ll pass.” Neither of these preferences is necessary or unnecessary. Necessity is unrelated to this particular set of data.

What I said was that it was unnecessary for the Beauty and the Beast remake screenwriters to turn the character LeFou into a gay. I said that decision was unnecessary.

When I talk about a choice made by a screenwriter, I’m talking about story. I’m talking about narrative structure, entertainment value, satisfying resolutions, character arcs ... you know – screenwriting stuff. The stuff that forms the foundation of a movie.

In Beauty and the Beast, both the 1991 version and the 2017 version, LeFou is a secondary character whose purpose is to provide insight into the mind of Gaston. Obviously we cannot know what’s going on in Gaston’s mind – what motivates him to make the choices he does – unless he has someone on-screen to talk to. That person is LeFou.

Had this been a spin-off feature about Gaston, rather than Belle and the Beast, LeFou’s sexual preference might have been key to the story. It might have impacted decisions Gaston made. It might have given LeFou a character arc that was tied to the overall narrative.

But this movie wasn’t about Gaston and LeFou. There was no narrative reason for LeFou to be flamboyantly gay.

And keep in mind, the writers didn’t just make him gay (a character trait that is invisible). This LeFou was GAY with glitter fireworks.

And as a lover of films, a writer, and an analyzer of both, I have to ask why.

Sure, it was entertaining. Josh Gad’s performance was lively and humorous. But not necessarily in a flattering way.

It was humorous in an “OMG, look how ridiculously GAY that guy is!” way.

In a movie that tried so hard to upgrade Belle to some kind of an 18th century feminist, how did laughing at a gay dude get a pass?

Honestly, if anything was to be interpreted as offensive, it wasn't the fact that LeFou was gay, it was the fact that we were supposed to laugh at him because he was gay.

Personally, I don’t care if LeFou is gay or not. But I do care that the screenwriters spent more effort gaying him up than they did making sure the core story remained entertaining.

In order of importance, maintaining the delightful, fresh beauty of the original should have been at the top of the list. Bathing secondary characters in gay should have been a, “Hey, we’ve got a super tight script here. Now let’s see where we can insert some extra character development to make it that much stronger,” decision.

That is what I meant when I said turning LeFou into a gay was unnecessary.

-Kristin