By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Private Policy and Terms of Use.
Billy Eichner Calls for More Explicitly Gay Characters in Family Films
"I don’t care if Bert and Ernie are gay. I want to see actual gay people that are not a mystery."
Comedian and The Lion King star Billy Eichner wants more openly gay characters in family films.
In a recent interview with BuzzFeed News, Eichner was asked about Scar being coded as gay in the original 1994 film.
"People are always trying to find the gay character in animated movies," he said. "I think the way to correct that is to actually put gay characters in animated movies. I’m actually in the very early days of working on a project like that. One of the last frontiers for LGBT representation is animated family films. Didn’t some rat just get married on something? Arthur or something like that?"
Earlier this year, Arthur and the gang went to Mr. Ratburn's wedding on the iconic PBS cartoon and were shocked to discover his male partner.
Eichner continued: "Gay people always had to sort of search for the closeted gay character, because there were no openly gay characters, and we were so thirsty for them. I would love to see a world where we don’t have to argue about, you know, whether what’s his name in Beauty and the Beast is gay or not. I don’t want it to be subtle or a question mark. It just should be gay."
"I’m not saying that character’s gay, but in the new movies that are made, there should just be existing openly LGBT characters so that we don’t have to keep arguing about Bert and Ernie. I don’t care if Bert and Ernie are gay. I want to see actual gay people that are not a mystery. The way to move on from all those debates is to just create openly gay characters in children’s programming and family entertainment. I think we’re on the verge of that. You’re starting to see it happening."
Timon's sexuality might be unclear and overall irrelevant to the story, but Eichner was excited to take over the role of Timon from another openly gay actor, Nathan Lane. He says he's "glad that Jon Favreau kept the tradition of Timon being played by a gay actor, with a certain type of comedic sensibility, alive."
"There was an initial thought I had of, 'How am I ever going to top what Nathan Lane did?' It’s not only iconic for the world, but for me, personally. Nathan is a god, really. But you can’t do your job if you’re constantly thinking about what a genius Nathan Lane is."
Eichner as Timon and Seth Rogan as Pumbaa are considered two of the highlights of the film, stealing scenes throughout the last half of the movie.
"One thing that really helped is that Jon Favreau had Seth Rogen and I improvise a lot, and a remarkable amount of the improv ended up in the movie. Once you’re improvising, you have to be in the moment, you can’t be thinking about Nathan Lane and the original and all of that. And I think that really helped us tap into our version of who the characters were going to be."
The Lion King hits theaters this weekend. Watch the trailer below.
Taylor Henderson is a PRIDE.com contributor. This proud Texas Bama studied Media Production/Studies and Sociology at The University of Texas at Austin, where he developed his passions for pop culture, writing, and videography. He's absolutely obsessed with Beyoncé, mangoes, and cheesy YA novels that allow him to vicariously experience the teen years he spent in the closet. He's also writing one!
Taylor Henderson is a PRIDE.com contributor. This proud Texas Bama studied Media Production/Studies and Sociology at The University of Texas at Austin, where he developed his passions for pop culture, writing, and videography. He's absolutely obsessed with Beyoncé, mangoes, and cheesy YA novels that allow him to vicariously experience the teen years he spent in the closet. He's also writing one!
