How’s everyone hanging in? It’s fair if you’re having a hard time keeping up with everything going on in the world right now—it’s a lot!
Thankfully we’ve got you covered on the pop culture front. Every week in “The Buzz,” we catch you up on the latest goings on of queer and trans pop culture, from lesbian kisses in Pixar movies to Lil Nas X’s return to social media.
Here’s what you missed this week in queer and trans pop culture.
→The ongoing saga of Disney’s gay fans and their disappointment has become a recurring topic in this column. Just two weeks ago, I brought up the weird vibes that was Disney touting its “inspiring content” in response to criticism of the company donating to the Florida politicians behind the state’s controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
Now, as controversy mounts, Disney has decided to try to make that content even more inspiring.
Variety reported this week that the upcoming Disney/Pixar film Lightyear—a Toy Story prequel featuring Chris Evans as the voice of Buzz Lightyear—prominently features a queer woman character named Hawthorne, played by Orange Is the New Black’s Uzo Aduba.
A source close to production told the outlet that a kiss between Hawthorne and another female character was cut from the film during production, but reinstated in the wake of the Florida controversy.
According to multiple anonymous former Pixar employees who spoke with Variety, workers have tried for years to add queer and trans characters and stories into the studio’s films only to have those efforts consistently thwarted. A March 9 statement from Disney workers repeated that assertion.
“Nearly every moment of overtly gay affection is cut at Disney’s behest, regardless of when there is protest from both the creative teams and executive leadership at Pixar,” the statement says. “Even if creating LGBTQIA+ content was the answer to fixing the discriminatory legislation in the world, we are being barred from creating it.”
The decsion to reinsert the queer kiss comes as Disney employees stage walkouts in protest of both the company’s support of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill and Disney leadership’s tepid response.
Workers have organized a series of 15-minute daily walkouts over the past week, with a full-day walkout expected on March 22. Among their demands is a call for Disney to end all political donations to anti-LGBTQ2S+ politicians.
“The recent statements and lack of action by the Walt Disney Company leadership regarding the ‘Don’t Say Gay or Trans’ bill have utterly failed to match the magnitude of the threat to LGBTQIA+ safety represented by this legislation,” organizers said in a statement on their website.
“As a community, we have been forced into an impossible and unsustainable position. We must now take action to convince [Disney] to protect employees and their families in the face of such open and unapologetic bigotry.”
While adding the kiss back into Lightyear can be interpreted as a gesture of support, it’s going to take a lot more than that to dig the company’s leadership out of this mess.
→Speaking of Pixar and employees working to integrate queerness: a Pixar cinematographer confirmed that a small moment in the delightful Turning Red was, in fact, an intentional nod to teenage queerness that she herself pushed for.
→Lil Nas X is back! After an extended leave from social media, the superstar returned last week to tease several upcoming tracks with his signature online self-awareness.
→Jonathan Bennet—who millennials likely know as Aaron Samuels from Mean Girls and daytime Food Network aficiandos know as the host of Cake Wars—got gay married this week! We love to see it!
→MUNA, whose break-out hit “Silk Chiffon” dominated sapphic playlists (and former Xtra editor Erica Lenti’s heart) last year, is set to release their self-titled album this summer. Based on the track list, expect many, many gay feelings.
→The Oscars are this weekend! Catch up on all of the queerest films in the running with Xtra’s round up.
→Saturday Night Live and Las Culturistas treasure Bowen Yang is featured in and on the cover of Judd Apatow’s new book of interviews, Sicker in the Head: More Conversations About Life and Comedy. In an excerpt published by Vulture this week, Yang shares his thoughts on comedy, queerness and growing up the child of immigrants.
“All the queer people I know are, in some way, a little damaged from just the process of understanding themselves to be queer,” Yang said. “There’s this bell hooks quote about how it’s not queerness in terms of who I have sex with or what gender I am. It’s queerness in terms of living in a world where things are hostile toward you. And I think that’s it. I think it transcends my weird little relationship with my parents.”
→Mary Lambert covering Melissa Etheridge is the queer tenderness we all need this week.
And yes, Mary, I’ll play it at my wedding too.
→Carl Nassib is getting released from the Las Vegas Raiders. The first openly gay active NFL player, who was more of a role-player than a full-time starter for the Raiders, was cut from the team last week due to salary cap reasons. Nassib is still in his prime and will likely be able to contribute elsewhere, so here’s hoping another team takes a chance on signing a gay player and sending a clear message to the rest of the league.
→In other “ripped men who came out as gay last year” news, there are no plans for a second season of Coming Out Colton, the Netflix docu-series about former Bachelor Colton Underwood’s gay journey.
“I don’t wanna speak in definitives, but I will say right now in the time of my life and in my relationship, having a show revolve around that is not a healthy decision to make for either of us,” Underwood told Us Weekly last week. “So, right now there’s not a Season 2. Right now, we’re not exploring that for our relationships or for my work ventures.”
→Kornbread “The Snack” Jeté will not be back for RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15.
→The complete cast of the new Queer As Folk reboot is here!
→The Big Mouth spin-off Human Resources is here, and openly queer and non-binary actor Brandon Kyle Goodman plays a queer lovebug who helps young people navigate romantic situations.
“I hope that for the younger generation it’s different, but I think so often, many of us don’t get to explore our sexuality and our love until much later on. We don’t get to do it in middle school or high school like our straight counterparts for obvious reasons,” Goodman told Them. “One, is to be gentle with yourself and to give yourself grace and patience as you learn about love and what you want in a relationship. The other thing is to constantly remind yourself that you’re enough.
→Kristen Stewart was almost in Scream 4, and honestly we all missed out.
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