Emma Watson Says 'Gay Moment' in Disney's 'Beauty and the Beast' Is 'Fun'
Days before the release of Disney's "Beauty and the Beast," which includes an "exclusively gay moment," actor Emma Watson says she "loves" the scene because it's subtle, calling it "fun."
The scene involves LeFou, played by Josh Gad, flirting with Gaston, played by Luke Evans, and dancing with another male character, but that flirting is "subtle," says Watson, who stars as the bookworm Belle, in a Facebook live interview with Entertainment Weekly.
LeFou is the sidekick to the villain Gaston.
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"I think that what's so fantastic about Josh's performance is that it's so subtle. It's always like, does he idolize Gaston? Is he in love with Gaston? What's the relationship there? And I think it's incredibly subtle, to be perfectly honest," she said.
"I don't want people going into this movie thinking that there's like a huge narrative there," she asserted. "There really isn't. It's incredibly subtle, and it's kind of a play on having the audience go, 'Is it, or is it not?' I think it's fun. I love the ambiguity there."
"Beauty and the Beast" is scheduled for release on March 17.
Gad "breaks new ground when it comes to LGBT visibility" as his character on camera realizes that he has homosexual feelings, BBC reported earlier. The movie's director, Bill Condon, had said Gad "makes something really subtle and delicious out of it. … [I]t is a nice, exclusively gay moment in a Disney movie."
Many Christian leaders are urging parents to boycott the film, and a Christian-owned theater in Alabama has announced it will not screen it.
The Henagar Drive-In Theatre in DeKalb County posted on its Facebook page, "If we cannot take our 11-year-old granddaughter and 8-year-old grandson to see a movie, we have no business watching it."
The post also said, "When companies continually force their views on us we need to take a stand. We all make choices and I am making mine. … I know there will be some that do not agree with this decision. That's fine. We are first and foremost Christians. We will not compromise on what the Bible teaches. We will continue to show family oriented films so you can feel free to come watch wholesome movies without worrying about sex, nudity, homosexuality and foul language."
Evangelist and President of Samaritan's Purse Franklin Graham stated on his Facebook page earlier: "They're trying to push the LGBT agenda into the hearts and minds of your children. Disney has the right to make their cartoons, it's a free country. But as Christians we also have the right not to support their company. I hope Christians everywhere will say no to Disney."
Graham mentioned that he met Walt Disney when he was a child and said he was gracious to him and his father. But today, Disney "would be shocked at what has happened to the company that he started," Graham asserted.
Denny Burk, professor of Biblical Studies at Boyce College, the undergraduate school of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has said he will not be allowing his children to view the film. "The reason is very simple," he explained on his blog. "I am not going to let a movie studio communicate to my children that sexual immorality is 'normal and natural.'"
