Gayscape #11: Disney is the Most Gay Friendly Congolmerate Out There
Being gay, and a geek, growing up, it was difficult to find other gay people who were passionate about the same things I was – namely sci-fi ,fantasy, horror and comic books. Nowadays, it’s much easier to find gay people with similar interests, but back in the day? It seemed no other gay people loved the same things I did. Except the one thing almost all gay people will geek out over: Disney.
On the one hand, it might seem kind of shocking to some; after all, The Walt Disney Company is THE most All-American brand in the world. I mean, there’s Norman Rockwell, and then there’s Disney. And yet, Disney has played to gay sensibilities and employed more openly gay people than any other entertainment corporation ever known. More than once, they’ve gotten a lot of heat over it, like when a large conglomeration of Baptists and Born Again Christians launched a decade wide boycott of all things Disney in the mid 90’s. Disney’s stock did drop during all this, and I’m sure more than one Disney Store outlet in the south closed because of it, but Disney knew they had to stick by their gay employees. Because they had to know that the Gay Community was Disney’s Secret Weapon.
In The Beginning
Ok, as far as I can tell, Walt Disney himself wasn’t actually gay. I mean sure, I’ve heard a rumor here and there, but nothing substantial. After all, if one is to believe every rumor about Old Walt, then one also has to believe he was a big Nazi who secretly ran the government and is now frozen in a time capsule under the Pirates ride at Disneyland. So, since he was a married family man I’ll just err on the side of caution and say Uncle Walt was actually straight. But boy, he must have employed a serious amount of queers, based and the incredible musical scores, as well as the iconic and bitchy villainesses created during his time (not to mention Tinkerbell, still a term for gay men that your grandfather uses). Still, if there were any gay people employed by Walt during his time, It’s HIGHLY unlikely it was something that was common knowledge. Back then, the closet was more or less your only option. So whether or not any gay people were part of Walt’s inner circle, I’d say the early years of the Disney legacy speaks for itself.
The Curious Case of Tommy Kirk
There is only one known case of an openly gay person being involved in one of Disney Studio’s projects during Walt’s time, and let’s just say say that it didn’t go so smoothly. Well, I’m not sure if he was openly gay or if he just got caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
In the 1950’s, TV’s The Mickey Mouse Club was the pop culture equivalent to the current Disney Channel’s Hannah Montana or High School Musical. Child star Tommy Kirk was not only a player on that show, but he later went on to star in such iconic Disney live action hits as Old Yeller, The Swiss Family Robinson, The Shaggy Dog, The Absent Minded Professor and it’s sequel. Also, among his hits for Disney was his starring role in The Misadventures of Merlin Jones, about a nutty teen inventor (what else?) Despite all of these successes, in 1963 Disney chose not to renew Kirk’s contract upon discovering Kirk had been having a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old boy. And it was Walt himself who reportedly fired Kirk. Yet in a bow to audience wishes, the studio re-hired him for the Merlin Jones sequel, The Monkey’s Uncle.
In Walt’s defense, The Disney Studio always had an iron clad “Morality Clause” in all their star’s contracts, meaning they could never be caught doing anything that would be considered immoral by the masses. That meant no married star could be caught cheating on their spouses, no one could be caught doing drugs or anything of the sort without getting their walking papers. And let’s face it, a 22 year old having sex with a 15 year old is pretty damn sketchy, even by today’s standards. Still, I can’t help but wonder if their attitude would have been different had the 15 year old in question been a girl and not a boy, as this was not a public scandal, yet only something known to the Disney higher ups. In later years, Kirk would describe the situation himself, saying “even more than MGM, Disney was the most conservative studio in town…the studio executives were beginning to suspect my homosexuality. Certain people were growing less and less friendly. In 1963 Disney let me go. But Walt asked me to return for the final Merlin Jones movie, ‘The Monkey’s Uncle,’ because the Jones films had been moneymakers for the studio.” I guess even in for ole’ Walt, money proved thicker than morality.
The Death of Walt, The Disney Decline, and The Mouse Resurrection – And how a Queer or two Helped
Walt Disney died in 1966 after a long fight with lung cancer. While the Disney Theme Parks continued to be profitable after his death, the studio itself was in bad shape. Their live action family films weren’t really making money anymore, and their animated fare like The Aristocats and Robin Hood were seen as far lesser efforts than the animated classics from Walt’s day. By the 80’s, people like Steven Spielberg were seen as the new Walt, and Disney themselves were just churning out more or less forgettable cutesy animal stories like Oliver & Co. By 1984, new CEO Michael Eisner had re-charged the live action unit of Disney by creating Touchstone Pictures and making PG and R rated films for the first time (somewhere, Walt was spinning in his frozen crypt). Next, they turned their sites to making their animated films great again; and by doing so, they turned to a couple of queers.
When Disney decided to do The Little Mermaid as their return to fairy tale musicals, they chose composer Alan Menken (who is straight, just for the record) and openly gay lyricist Howard Ashman. Together, this duo was for Disney Animation what John Lennon and Paul McCartney were for Rock music. Not only did they create the iconic score for Mermaid, but also for Beauty and the Beast and most of Aladdin as well. Sadly, Howard Ashman died of AIDS before Beauty and the Beast was released, never getting to see yet another iconic creation brought to life. Although I don’t intend to mitigate his talent, without Ashman it just wasn’t the same for Alan Menken. He continued to score Disney films, but ask yourself: when was the last time you found yourself humming anything from Hercules, Pocahontas or Home on the Range? Who has even seen Home on the Range??? Aside from the three Menken/Ashman films, Disney’s biggest hit of their second Golden Age was The Lion King, scored by none other than the most well known out gay man in music, Sir Elton John himself.
One more tidbit about The Little Mermaid that amuses me to no end is something that few people know; one of Howard Ashman’s old friends was none other than gay cult director John Waters and his main star, the legendary drag queen Divine. Per his suggestion, the Sea Witch Ursula’s look was actually based on Divine. The notion that a drag queen actor, most famous for eating dog shit and cannibalizing police officers in Water’s Pink Flamingos (not to mention a dozen other perversions), is forever branded on kid’s toys and lunch boxes brings me no small measure of joy.
Today, The Disney Company is more than well aware of how crucial their homo employees and fans really are. Former Disney president Michael Eisner is quoted as saying he thinks 40% of Disney’s 63,000 employees are homosexual. Disney has the largest gay and lesbian employee organization in the entertainment industry. In fact, they helped underwrite the 1993 Hollywood benefit for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. At Both Disneyland and Disneyworld, there have been organized “Gay Days” going on for years now, although not officially sponsored by the parks, they certainly haven’t stopped it – despite many protests from anti gay groups over the years. There is even a gay guide to the Disney parks called “Queens in the Kingdom“, which offers “fairy facts” like the fact that both Mickey and Minnie are almost always played by women, meaning when you come across some Mouse love in front of the castle, it’s probably some girl on girl action going on.
If anything proves how much Disney currently appreciates their gay clientle, (and especially their gay clientle’s wallets) Disney has chosen to allow gay couples to buy the company’s high-end Fairy Tale Wedding package that allows them to exchange vows at Disney’s theme parks and aboard its cruise ships, starting about $4,000 per wedding. While I’m not exactly sure how Uncle Walt would have felt about two Prince Charmings in Cinderella’s wedding carriage, it’s nice to see that the company he built is currently more progressive than our own government. It is because of this fact (despite the horrorible annoyingness of the current Disney Channel pop stars), and the incredible body of work the studio has provided for nearly a century, that Disney will own a special piece of the hearts of many a queer person forever.
