Pixar’s First Movie With an Actual Leading Gay Character Will Be Inside Out 47

In Inside Out, Pixar taught us the universal lesson that the five emotions inside an eleven-year-old girl’s mind – Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust – are all equally important and necessary to embrace as humans, despite how whiney and unhelpful they can be (I’m looking at you, Sadness). So, it’s pretty interesting that in its sequel, Inside Out 2, where we follow the same girl as she now navigates puberty and the horrors of being a teenager, only a few seem to really stick out; that is, anger, sadness, disgust, and embarrassment.

Now, let me be clear. I loved Inside Out 2 and thought it clearly had multiple moments for which all the cliché terminology in positive film reviews could be applied (e.g., “a real tearjerker,” “heartwarming coming-of-age,” and “fun for the whole family”). Many sequels usually fail to meet the expectations set by their originals, but I’d say that Inside Out 2 did an impressive job of extending the storyline and the skill presented in Inside Out. But when it comes to the diversity of its characters in regards to sexuality, the film severely fell short. Not only did Pixar fail to include any representation in the movie for queer communities but it also exhibited flagrant homophobia during its creation of the film. So, while saying that Inside Out 2 strongly evoked those negative emotions might entirely contradict Pixar’s intended message about the equal necessity of all feelings, what other feelings are there to be felt when the production of the movie so blatantly disregards and disrespects the LGBTQ+ community?

For context, near the beginning of the movie, the main character Riley stumbles into Valentina Ortiz, the confident (and intimidatingly hot) captain of the varsity hockey team. Upon meeting Val, Riley – and her new emotions – goes to extreme lengths to impress her, even ditching her friends and essentially changing everything about her personality so she seems cool and likable. From the trailer alone, it seemed the entire film was hinting at Riley’s crush on Val. It sure convinced fans. Before the film was even released in the summer of 2024, members and allies of the LGBTQ+ community were eager for what was coined as “Valey,” the ship between Val and Riley. Edits were made. Fanfictions were written. You know the drill.

But it was later established that, as an incoming freshman, Riley is 13 in the film, while Val is 17. So, while the “Valey” ship is completely inappropriate, the idea that Riley finds some sort of awakening with her idolization of Val is far from unreasonable. The movie even hinted at some “deep dark secret” that Riley was keeping hidden, which further added to the anticipation that her sexuality might be a topic of discussion.

So, naturally, Pixar did everything in its power to make sure that was not the case.

From the anticlimactic post-credits scene revealing that Riley’s “deep dark secret” was completely unrelated to her sexuality to the smallest of edits in scenes between Riley and Val, Pixar ensured that there would be no confusion about the absence of queerness in Inside Out 2. For context, Pixar released a film in 2022 called Lightyear that featured a same-sex kiss for approximately one second. Coincidentally, it bombed at the box office for having a confusing premise, an ill-received recasting of Buzz Lightyear’s voice, and an all-around boring storyline that left viewers snoring in their seats. However, according to several former Pixar employees, the company placed almost all the blame for Lightyear’s financial failures on the same-sex kiss. As a result, Pixar wanted to avoid themes of homosexuality or other forms of queerness in Inside Out 2. More sources working at Pixar explained that heavy efforts were made to “make sure that no one would potentially see [Riley and Val] as not straight.” Even further, multiple sources reported receiving several notes to make Riley appear “less gay,” and many of the upper-level leaders at Pixar seemed uneasy at the idea of having anything related to LGBTQ+ in the movie.

These comments are reflected in the final production of Inside Out 2, where the revised approach to Riley and Val’s relationship is seen on screen. A lot of viewers argue that Riley is undoubtedly heterosexual and only holds a platonic admiration for Val, but that might be because everything that hinted to the realm of romance was edited out. For instance, employees reported that they were even ordered to edit the lighting of scenes with Riley and Val to remove any signs of “romantic chemistry” between the two girls. One source mentioned, “In the film that you saw, nothing about Riley says that she is gay, but…” Their use of “you” suggests that there might be another version of the film. Maybe one where the lighting hasn’t been edited, or perhaps there were even a few additional scenes or lines of dialogue between the two characters that unfortunately never made it to the silver screen.

And, as if the movie’s interactions with topics of LGBTQ+ wasn’t problematic enough, the aforementioned post-credits scene exposing Riley’s “deep dark secret” was all but disappointing. It wasn’t her coming out, as many had suspected, but some random confession about her burning a hole in a rug. This suggests Pixar’s participation in queerbaiting, which raises even more questions about its controversial relationship to approaching LGBTQ+ characters in its films. It’s likely that the company purposely sprinkles in the right amount of queer-presenting clips in the trailers just enough to attract liberal-leaning younger audiences to the box office and raise its profits, and then keeps the actual movie untouched by LGBTQ+ themes to play it safe so that its characters represent the larger portion of its audience, the nonqueer viewers.

Pete Docter, the current chief creative officer of Pixar, explained the strategy of playing on mass appeal, “The studio’s movies should… speak to a commonality of experience.” It’s particularly ironic that Docter uses the term “commonality” when his company is essentially demanding employees to cut out the gay. Is that really the right choice if Pixar wants its films to have that universal relatability factor? Other companies that produce animations for similar demographics, such as Nickelodeon, DreamWorks, and Cartoon Network, have featured LGBTQ+ characters and emphasized the importance of pride for queer communities to its younger audiences. By sheer contrast, Pixar’s lack of interest in accepting the presence of LGBTQ+ becomes even more apparent. The LGBTQ+ community isn’t invisible, and it isn’t going to remain silent about what now stands as a notably long history of Pixar’s association of queerness with discomfort and disgust.

As I said before, I thought Inside Out 2 was absolutely touching and served as an outstanding sequel to Inside Out. The new emotions were exciting, the animations were flawless, and the storyline was truly heartwarming. But it would’ve been nice if we had finally gotten an unambiguously queer-representing leading character in a movie from a company that so largely dominates the film industry. However, I have hope that Pixar will soon realize its mistake in excluding LGBTQ+ characters and themes from its screens.

Or maybe we’ll just have to wait for Inside Out 47.