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Willow's Queer Romance 'Organic,' Received 'No Pushback' From Disney
The Disney+ show is giving us the queer princess and her knight story we deserve.
The streaming series sequel to the cult classic 1988 fantasy movie Willow has arrived on Disney+ — and actually includes a queer romance.
Willow the series sees Warwick Davis return as the titular character, and follows a group of “unlikely heroes” on a quest to save the world. Two of the new characters involved in this series are Princess Kit (Ruby Cruz) and Jade (Erin Kellyman), an orphaned aspiring knight.
Kit and Jade are friends when the show begins, and it soon becomes clear that their feelings for one another may go deeper than that, even if they haven’t realized it just yet. It’s a twist on the familiar pairing of a knight and a princess that seems tailor-made for queer female fans, and fans are already excited to see where it goes after the first two episodes that are currently available for viewing.
Already, knowing that a budding queer romance is being woven into the forefront of a Disney series is a little surprising. It’s not unheard of when it comes to their TV shows, but the company’s continued reluctance to include the LGBTQ+ community in their films (or promote them when they do), has left many fans constantly bracing for disappointment when it comes to Disney.
Alas, Willow showrunner Jonathan Kasdan recently told Polygon that there was “no pushback” over including a queer relationship in the show.
“What’s interesting is — I hope and believe we’re at a moment where you’re going to see a paradigm shift in that,” he said. “And hopefully, the way that it’s gonna happen is that these kinds of [queer] stories, particularly like this one, that were just organic to the narrative we were telling, find their way in, and it becomes less of a surprising and unusual thing to see.”
Many shows that have been inclusive of queer characters over the years have followed the formula of having one of the main characters come out, and then bringing in completely new love interests for them, while the heterosexual characters in the cast get to have flings and serious relationships with a variety of characters that have been around the whole time. It’s better than nothing, but frequently becomes a point of frustration among fans who note chemistry between same-sex characters and get brushed aside.
What it sounds like Kasdan is getting at is a willingness to look at existing characters, see that a romantic relationship would make sense between them, and follow through with that in the narrative — regardless of their gender or initially perceived orientation.
“As we enter 2022, the world has changed, in the way we’re absorbing entertainment, and the faces we’re reflecting in entertainment have expanded enormously, and we hope the show can be growing as the world grows,” he added.
The first two episodes of Willow are currently available on Disney+, with new episodes dropping on Wednesdays.
Yes, it picks up years after the events of the film.
The Willow series follows "an unlikely group of heroes set off on a dangerous quest to places far beyond their home, where they must face their inner demons and come together to save their world," per Disney.
Both the movie and the series are currently streaming on Disney+.
Rachel Kiley is presumably a writer and definitely not a terminator. She can usually be found crying over queerbaiting in the Pitch Perfect franchise or on Twitter, if not both.
Rachel Kiley is presumably a writer and definitely not a terminator. She can usually be found crying over queerbaiting in the Pitch Perfect franchise or on Twitter, if not both.
