The thing you’ve gotta understand about the whole Beauty and the Beast controversy is that Lefou was always a homophobic joke.

The sad, flamboyantly creepy little man hopelessly pining for the towering caricature of heterosexual masculinity (and tolerating incredible amounts of verbal and physical abuse in the process) is one of the classic homophobic gag roles - it shows up quite a bit in older media.

Few people were inclined to make a big deal of it up until now because a. it’s an old-school stereotype that doesn’t get much play in contemporary media, and b. Lefou is a relatively mild example of the type in any case, but that doesn’t mean it ever stopped being a thing.

All Disney has accomplished by declaring that Lefou is canonically gay is to transform an implicitly homophobic joke into an explicitly homophobic joke - which is kind of a slap in the face for what’s being proudly trumpeted as their first gay character in a major role.



Now, it’s totally possible that the live-action remake is going to reinvent the character to the point that it’s no longer an issue, but nobody’s obliged to give them that benefit of the doubt.

