Would Disney’s latest flop, “Elio,” have been saved if the company made the film “lame and gay” instead of just lame? Some of its creators seem to think so.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, “Elio” was originally conceived as a story about a lonely, bullied 11-year-old gay boy who gets whisked away by spacefaring aliens to represent humanity in the “Communiverse” — an intergalactic version of the United Nations. In the original version, Elio’s ability to empathize with outsiders, shaped by his own struggles as a bullied homosexual, helps him save the universe from hostile invaders.
If ‘Elio’ teaches Disney anything, it’s this: Wokeness isn’t a narrative. It’s a trend. And it’s over.
But that version never saw the light of day.
After disappointing test screenings and intervention from Pixar’s chief creative officer Pete Docter — the force behind hits like “Toy Story,” “Up,” and “Inside Out” — the studio sidelined the film’s openly gay director, Adrian Molina, and toned down the “queer-coding.” According to one Pixar artist, “Studio leaders were constantly sanding down these moments in the film that alluded to Elio’s sexuality.”
Gone was the scene where Elio designs clothes from pink trash and holds “trash-ion shows” for crabs. The male crush poster? Removed. The environmentalist bent? Dialed back. What’s left is a generic misfit who rises to the occasion — not by discovering his sexual identity but by finding courage and strength.
Predictably, the movie tanked. Despite a rumored $250 million budget, “Elio” grossed just $21 million in its opening weekend. Critics panned the film as derivative and dull. Pixar, once hailed for original storytelling and cross-generational appeal, recycled old tropes and slapped them onto a limp narrative.
As Federalist writer Gage Klipper put it: “Elio, crushed under the weight of its derivative storytelling and animation, might as well have been an umpteenth sequel. The viewer walks in and, within moments, already knows he’s seen this film a thousand times.”
So would making Elio “lame and gay” instead of just lame have saved the movie?
Of course not. A more flamboyantly queer lead might have offered marginal character development — but at the cost of turning yet another kids’ movie into a vehicle for ideological affirmation. And audiences have already seen that show. Multiple times.
Just look at “Lightyear” (2022) and “Onward” (2020). Both featured brief LGBTQ references — a kiss in one, a lesbian reference in the other. These scenes had zero impact on plot or character. They were token gestures meant to signal virtue. But even that was enough to stigmatize both films as woke propaganda, unfit for children and alienating to mainstream audiences.
Executives at Disney and Pixar likely concluded that “Lightyear” and “Onward” flopped because of the gay content. That’s why they stripped it from “Elio.” But “Elio” failed for the same reason those other films did: weak characters and lousy storytelling.
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Photo by DAVID MCNEW/AFP via Getty Images
Even the queerness in those earlier films seemed less like sincere inclusion and more like a cynical marketing ploy — a way to gin up press during peak woke culture. While it may not have delivered blockbuster numbers, the controversy generated buzz.
That trick doesn’t work anymore.
In 2025, the political moment has passed. The original version of “Elio” would have been as embarrassing as Marvel’s “Ironheart” — the new Disney+ series about a young black woman who builds her own Iron Man suit of armor so she can steal money and become famous. Maybe that premise sounded edgy in 2022, but now it just looks desperate and dumb.
If “Elio” teaches Disney anything, it’s this: Wokeness isn’t a narrative. It’s a trend. And it’s over.
Whatever moral high ground advocates claimed — about representation, equity, and tolerance — was always more about pandering to activists than elevating art. Audiences saw through it then, and they definitely see through it now.
Pixar’s former magic lay in telling universal stories. That’s the vision Pete Docter championed. But his colleagues and subordinates ignored it, instead giving audiences mediocrity wrapped in buzzwords. Unsurprisingly, audiences walked away.
Maybe now, finally, the message will stick.
Opinion & analysis, Disney woke, Disney plus, Elio woke bomb, Pixar woke bomb, Woke hollywood, Elio, Gay agenda, Lame and gay, Ironheart, Wokeness, Lightyear, Onward, Federalist, Lesbians
