Wish star Harvey Guillén ‘optimistic’ Disney could introduce a queer princess
Fans of Disney’s Frozen have long called for Elsa to be made explicitly queer. (Disney)
Wish star Harvey Guillén says it’s possible Disney could introduce a queer protagonist in the near future.
The queer actor, best known for playing gay human-familiar Guillermo de la Cruz in 2019 vampire mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows, spoke to Comic Book about LGBTQ+ presentation in Disney productions.
Over the decades, Disney has produced several queer-coded characters, such as drag-inspired Ursula in The Little Mermaid, the The Lion King’s villainous Scar, to Frozen‘s ‘conceal, don’t feel’ queen, Elsa.
However, the company’s LGBTQ+ representation remains limited, with its first attempt at queer inclusion in 2016 animation Zootopia being so minor that many viewers didn’t even notice until weeks or months later. But Guillén, whose voices Gabo in the 2023 Disney movie Wish, remains hopeful of more overt LGBTQ+ characters.
“They’re making strides in the right direction,” he said. ”I think it’s hard to rebuild a wheel that’s been in motion for a while, and it’s hard to think of a new direction, especially where we’re at with the world. But they’re putting their best foot forward.
“Sometimes those things take time and I’m optimistic. And if a queer princess comes along, that’d be fantastic. I think we are in the lifespan of that potentially happening.
“Representation has taken so long just in film in general with every studio and every company. It’s taken us this long to come this far, but look how far we’ve gotten.”
On the heels of Disney Pixar’s first non-binary character in Elemental, PinkNews complied a top 10 of confirmed LGBTQ+ character in Walt Disney Studios films, from a lesbian couple in Finding Dory to Artie in Cruella.
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