Disney’s Gayest Kids Movie Yet, Released at the Wildest Time

Everything we can't stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.

Manage newsletters View in browser with Kevin Fallon Everything we can't stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. This week:  Can't make up the timing of Disney's new gay-positive movie. Elle Fanning making me begrudgingly love another true-crime series. When will the Oscars hot takes end? Another celebrity home tour for the history books.  The one perfect thing to happen this week. What a Time for a Super-Gay Disney Kids' Film… I don't want to shock anyone, but I was really into musical theater as a kid. I'll give you a moment to process this earth-shattering information.   Being a 12-year-old boy who would stage one-man productions of Grease in his bedroom, belt "Adelaide's Lament" from Guys and Dolls in the shower, and was off-book for years should he be asked in a pinch to step in and perform the role of Anna Leonowens in a production of The King and I, was a joyous thing.    How could it not be? Have you seen a musical? People make funny jokes, do a little dance, fall in love, and constantly burst into song in the middle of it all. What a glorious escape!   Escape is exactly what it was, too, because being a 12-year-old boy obsessed with musicals was also a very isolating thing—something repressed and kept secret. To not would mean snickering. And whispering. And the worst thing of all: not being "normal" like the other guys. Listen, I'm not breaking any news here about what it was like to grow up not even closeted, but questioning or unsure of your sexuality in [year redacted]. This isn't the unique, heartbreaking saga of one young man named Kevin. Millions of kids went through this, and many of us worked through it and have since thrived. We all remember that whole "It Gets Better," I don't know how to describe it… campaign? Movement? Delusion?    That latter description has been on my mind lately.   All these feelings and memories were dug up this week because I had a chance to watch the new Disney+ film Better Nate Than Ever, which just may be the most gay-positive and encouraging youth programming that Disney has ever released. And it is coming out at the most bizarre time.   Considering everything that's been in the news about Disney, Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill, and the disturbing escalation of unapologetically anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric diseminated by GOP politicians, it could be argued that it's the best time for a movie like this to come out. It's certainly the strangest.   The film, in the most beautiful sign of progress and the greatest compliment I can give, is something I desperately wish I had when I was growing up. It's a love letter to kids—to theater kids, and most specifically theater kids who were made to feel shy or ashamed about who they were and how they acted, and who probably, almost 100 percent of the time, grew up to be gay.    Tim Federle, who wrote and directed Better Nate Than Ever based on his Nate book series, is one of those people, even making a pitstop as a Broadway performer on his way to making TV and movies. (He's also behind the popular—and similarly queer-accepting—High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.)   Nate (Rueby Wood) is a 13-year-old suburban kid who lives and breathes musicals; it's barely minutes into the film that the 2004 Tony Awards battle between Avenue Q and Wicked is referenced, while he describes his mom's relationship to his aunt as having "antagonistic Glinda vs. Elphaba in Act One energy."    He is devastated when he doesn't land the lead role in his school's production of Lincoln: The Unauthorized Rock Musical. To cheer him up, his best friend, Aria Brooks' Libby, plans a runaway bus trip for the two of them to New York City, where an open call audition is happening for a new Lilo & Stitch production.   Hijinks ensue, as they do when 13-year-olds with no chaperones run loose through New York. In this case, many of them are daydream sequences involving large-scale musical production numbers. They run into Nate's aunt, a struggling actress played by Lisa Kudrow who has been ostracized by her family because of her pursuit of a career on stage. In spite of the odds, Nate's auditions actually go well, and for one clear reason: He finally feels free to be himself and embrace all the parts of him that make him special. It turns out, those things he used to quiet are exactly what make him great.    He auditions with a monologue that Dixie Carter delivers in an episode of Designing Women. I have never felt more represented on screen.    There are hints that Nate is likely going to realize he is gay one day, which is obvious to everyone, though that label is never articulated. Not everyone at age 13 is capable of processing or understanding that about themselves; I certainly was not. But it is a film about how cool that could be for him. It is a film about following your dreams, finding your tribe, and learning that there are people out there who will be ecstatic to love you for who you are, as you are. It is a film about the gorgeous, unbreakable bond between a gay boy and his single aunt.    That Better Nate Than Ever is targeted at a youth demographic should make this a watershed moment for Disney. After all, it's not that long ago that it was rumored the company shuffled Love, Victor to Hulu from Disney+ over concerns that its themes weren't going to fly with all Disney-loving families. So how then to square this with everything else going on?   The disappointing revelation that Disney had backed the Florida representatives who voted for the "Don't Say Gay" bill—read more about its viciousness here—and initially chose not to condemn it surfaced a slew of upsetting news and facts about the company. Pixar employees claimed that displays of queer affection were cut by corporate executives. Reminders abounded that there still hasn't been a lead LGBTQ+ character in a studio theatrical release. Its awkward embrace of Pride was brought up again.    This week, as the controversial bill was officially signed into law, the company released a statement contradicting its initial remarks, which said that the company shouldn't weigh in on politics and, laughably, speak with its content instead. The new statement said the law "should never have passed" and that its goal as a company is "for this law to be repealed."    That's… nice? The sentiment, though about several weeks and hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations too late, is appreciated. But you can't save a child who is going to be subjected to irreparable harm because of this legislation with some sentiment. At the moment, it is about as valuable as me sending out a tweet saying I vow that the conflict in Ukraine must end. Federle was asked about all of this. It's a near-impossible position to be in: a creator behind something that represents such progress on a platform where that progress is legitimately meaningful, but for a company whose actions hinder that progress and meaning.   "In my several years with the company now, I was heartened to see we won the GLAAD award, we had the first-ever same gender kiss. And what I wanted to bring to this was a slightly younger POV of a middle-schooler discovering. For me, who didn't grow up with a movie like this, I know this movie would have made me feel seen and a lot less alone," he told Variety.   "Ultimately, good representation does not cancel out bad legislation. And what I'm hopeful for is that these first steps Disney's taking now are only the first steps towards making the world a truly safer and more inclusive space."   I certainly don't have answers to any of this, other than to be so gleefully heartened and moved that Better Nate Than Ever exists, and still so horrified and angry over Disney's involvement in this legislation passing.  We're all never going to stop consuming Disney projects or watching Disney+. Cynical as that may be, at least there's Better Nate Than Ever to make us feel hopeful again. My Former Nemesis Is Killing It  I blame Law & Order for this.    For so long, we have been titillated by their cheeky, ripped-from-the-headlines crime stories that we were perhaps too distracted to notice what was happening around us. Those one-off episodes loosely inspired by real scandal birthed its own genre of TV content—one that has been, of late, absolutely inescapable.    If you slip up and blink too hard, when you open your eyes you'll find 14 new limited series across broadcast, cable, and, especially, streaming services casting A-list actors and enlisting prestige screenwriters and directors to dramatize outrageous, news-making sagas. The more disturbing the murder, upsetting the trial, or unbelievable the scam, the better.    It's to the point where I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Hulu's begun putting hits out on people or Netflix producers have concocted their own massive fraud scheme just to keep the content mill churning.  So when The Girl From Plainville hit Hulu this week, I was exhausted by the genre. I was ready to dismiss it with the same exasperation as last month's WeCrashed. Plus, the details of the case it's sourced from are so upsetting: the so-called "texting-suicide" trial, in which 17-year-old Michelle Carter was tried for involuntary manslaughter following her boyfriend, Conrad Roy, taking his own life after receiving text messages from Carter that seemed to pressure him to commit the act.   I begrudgingly checked out the first three episodes on Hulu, as due diligence for… I don't know, at least pretending that as a critic I'm attempting to watch everything? In any case, I was none too pleased to discover that it is good. Or, rather, that Elle Fanning as Carter is good. Very good. So good, in fact, I have now signed myself up to watch the whole thing.   Fanning, who I must admit was a celebrity nemesis of mine for years—an arbitrary sworn enemy in my mind only because I found her an annoying presence in a handful of projects—has been on a roll, between this and her award-worthy work in The Great. She's making some really unexpected acting choices in The Girl From Plainville, and all of them work.    Especially in these first episodes, you have a hard time gauging her. Is she performing over-the-top emotion over Conrad's death because she wants the attention? (Crucial detail: Most people in their lives didn't even know they were dating.) Is she legitimately heartbroken? Does she feel guilty? Is she overcompensating because she knows she's in trouble, or is the gravity of everything too overwhelming for her teenage self to process?    It's all as fascinating as her Cara Delevigne eyebrows.    But there's one scene that sold me. It's at the end of the first episode. When I realized what was going on, I shrieked.    At first, it looks like Michelle is tearfully rehearsing a speech in the mirror that she plans to give about how much Conrad meant to her, making sure the emotions strike at just the right time to move her audience.  But then you realize she's not rehearsing a speech. She's reciting a speech, the one Lea Michele's character Rachel Berry gives on Glee in the episode paying tribute to Cory Monteith, Michele's former boyfriend who had died. (Michele, at the time, was perhaps unfairly criticized for appearing to seek attention over his death.) When I say this scene sent me, I mean there's a Kevin Fallon-shaped hole in the wall behind my couch that I catapulted myself through in disbelief.  The One and Only Good Oscars Take It is not possible to process, in any unimpeachably correct and definitive way, the Oscars slap. I know this because I have been writing about it, editing stories about it, and reading incessantly about it for every waking hour in the time since, which is to say all of the hours. (I'm quite tired.)    We have been living in a hot-take apocalypse these last few days. A true dystopia of discourse. My own very special hell.    Every time I'm floored that someone really felt like a deranged thought they had about this should be publicly articulated, another tweet flies across my timeline like a flaming meteor of nonsense. By the time the unholy trifecta of Betty White, Judd Apatow, and 9/11 were invoked, I was already on my little rowboat paddling down the Hudson and away from society forever. Folks, O.J. Simpson weighed in on this. More, when his video reaction came across my timeline, I CLICKED ON IT. I watched the whole thing. God save me. God save us all.   The only conclusion to draw is that there are almost no worthwhile takes to be had on this, a hopeless reality that, as we all know, only fuels the world of punditry and makes the talking heads grow even stronger. Which is why I was stunned to stumble across it, the one correct opinion.  I cede the floor to perfect person Daniel Radcliffe: "I'm just so already dramatically bored of hearing people's opinions about it that I just don't want to be another opinion adding to it." A Celebrity Confession to Truly Embrace There is no greater niche internet obsession than the Architectural Digest videos of celebrities giving tours of their houses. It is accidental camp. Unintentional art. The most thrillingly bland entertainment you'll find on YouTube.   The format is simple. An utterly random celebrity, often with no peg to a new project or a reason to be given this spotlight, leads the camera through their sun-drenched Hollywood Hills home, pointing out nonsense trivia about armoires and custom sconces that they had carefully memorized from their designers.    They dutifully play the part of someone who has had a longtime passion for Egyptian lucite candelabras sourced from a vintage shop in Rotterdam, masking the reality that they've just seen these tsotchkes for the very first time that morning, after a frantic call to a designer that Architectural Digest was coming!!!    What blows my mind, as a human who spent his adult life living in one room in various New York City apartments, is that these celebrities have almost never fully finished or decorated their gorgeous homes until the hours before this tour. Meanwhile, I fantasize about what I would do and how I would decorate if my living situation involved the word "rooms" with an 's' on it. Yet I also never related more to the circumstance of starting to move into a place, getting tired of setting it up, and never fully finishing.    That is why this moment from Ashley Tisdale's recent home tour is something I will cherish forever. Our candid, relatable queen: "The bookshelves, I have to be honest, actually did not have books in it until a couple of days ago. I had my husband go to a bookstore and I was like, 'You need to get 400 books.'" He Is Perfect. If you would like to think about something, anything, other than That Moment at the Oscars, I highly recommend that you, as I have, spend 45 minutes a day staring at this photo of Andrew Garfield smoldering into the camera while effortlessly balancing a cheeseburger and a drink in one hand at a party. Jerrod Carmichael: Rothaniel: A surprising, can't-miss stand-up special from an underrated talent. (Fri. on HBO) A Black Lady Sketch Show: The best sketch comedy show on TV—yes, we're including that one that airs "live from New York." (Mon. on HBO) Slow Horses: A Gary Oldman British spy drama, if that's your thing, and it's a lot of people's thing. (Fri. on Apple TV+) Better Nate Than Ever: So adorable and so gay. (Fri. on Disney+) Morbius: "It's not as bad as we thought!" is considered high praise for this one. (Fri. in theaters) The Bubble: A pandemic-set comedy about Hollywood actors, as my waking nightmare portended. (Fri. on Netflix) Advertisement Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here. copyright 2022 The Daily Beast Company LLC I 555 W. 18th Street, New York NY, 10011   Privacy Policy   If you are on a mobile device or cannot view the images in this message, click here to view this email in your browser. 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