Toy Story 4 has been dominating the summer box office for a few weeks, but now it is making headlines for a controversial reason.
A conservative group is calling for a boycott of the film because of a short scene that they say is “dangerous” for how it normalizes same-sex couples.
“Toy Story 4” has become one of the top-grossing films of the year.
The highly anticipated conclusion to the Pixar series landed in theaters on June 21 and has been praised by critics and fans alike.
Ahead of the movie’s release, there were rumors that Woody would be portrayed as bisexual.
These rumors proved to be untrue, and the movie reunited Woody with his previous love interest, Bo Peep.
However, a small background detail in one of the film’s scenes that seems to address the LGTBQ community was included.
There is a brief scene where parents are dropping their children off at kindergarten. In the background, there appears to be a same-sex couple dropping off their child.
They are shown again in the film picking their child up from school.
The characters have no dialogue and are only seen in these brief moments.
On Twitter, people praised Pixar for including this subtle detail.
Many thought it was a great way to normalize same-sex families and add diversity to the film.
This was seen by many as another move by Disney and Pixar to make their films more inclusive.
The studios have expanded their casts to include more diversity. Disney recently announced that Halle Bailey, a black actress, would be portraying Ariel in the live-action Little Mermaid .
Others pointed out that there was also a child depicted with a cochlear implant.
Diversity comes in many forms and many feel it’s important to see minorities of all backgrounds represented in films.
However, not everyone was happy with the inclusion of these characters.
A conservative group called One Million Moms has called for a boycott of the film.
They went on to say that the scene was subtle to “desensitize” children.
“Toy Story 4 is the last place parents would expect their children to be confronted with content regarding sexual orientation. Issues of this nature are being introduced too early and too soon. It is extremely common yet unnecessary,” the group said.
Online, others have expressed their anger over the scene as well.
Quite a few people Tweeted their anger over the scene.
The group criticized filmmakers for including the characters, even though they were “insignificant” to the story.
“Toy Story 4 has just hit cinemas, but one thing we did not expect to see was LGBTQ characters. No matter how insignificant to the overall story they were, Disney still felt it was necessary to include them,” the group said in a statement on their website.
Others have said they themselves didn’t even notice the characters.
Considering they were in the background, it would have been easy to miss.
Many people made jokes about how they totally missed the couple.
Pixar loves adding the tiniest details, so it can take multiple viewings to really take in their films.
Some Twitter users pointed out that the film was simply depicting reality.
Same-sex families exist and many thought that the studio was recreating a realistic classroom dynamic.
So far, their petition has over 12,000 signatures.
This isn’t the first time One Million Moms has launched a boycott. They have also protested shows like The Powerpuff Girls , Steven Universe , and Arthur for including LGBTQ characters in the past.
Online, some believe the petition and boycott are an overreaction to the film.
This blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene has caused a lot of controversy.
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Interestingly, this actually isn’t the first time Pixar has included a same-sex couple.
In Finding Dory , there is a brief scene showing two women approaching a stroller, only to find that their baby has been replaced by Hank the octopus.
Similar to Toy Story 4 , the studio never explicitly confirmed if the women were a same-sex couple, but many viewers interpreted them as one.