What Josh Gad Regrets About His LeFou Character In Beauty And The Beast

Knowledge

Josh Gad believes that Disney 'didn't go far enough' with Beauty and the Beast's LeFou and Disney's first gay character.

Summary

  • LeFou's portrayal as a gay character in Beauty and the Beast was not explicitly clear, leading to criticism and accusations of queerbaiting.
  • Actor Josh Gad, who played LeFou, expressed regret that the film did not go further in depicting a gay character in a Disney movie.
  • Critics and Gad believe that if LeFou was intended to be Disney's first openly gay character, it should have been made more explicit and handled better in the film.

LeFou is a secondary antagonist in 2017's Beauty and the Beast, and several changes are made to him from the original animated feature - however, Josh Gad has some regrets about the final character in the film. Beauty and the Beast is a live-action remake of the classic Disney animation of the same name, telling the story of the beautiful Belle (Emma Watson) and the hideous cursed Beast (Dan Stevens) that she falls in love with. The film includes magically cursed household objects that sing and dance, and of course, the villainous Gaston (Luke Evans) and his sidekick LeFou (Josh Gad).

Like many of Disney's live-action adaptations, there were many changes made to the original Beauty and the Beast. Belle becomes more of an inventor, creating a proto-washing-machine while still living in town, as well as teaching younger girls to read. There are new songs included, as well as new backstory for Belle's mother, and an added scene where Belle attempts to escape her tower when first captured. However, one of the changes that created the most buzz was the report that LeFou would become a gay character in the film.

Related
6 Reasons The Beauty And The Beast Live Action Is The Best (& 4 Reasons It's The Original)
The most successful Disney live-action remake is clearly Beauty and the Beast. However, is it better than the original?

Is LeFou Gay In Beauty And The Beast?

In the live-action Beauty and the Beast, several scenes suggest that LeFou is gay, and in love with Gaston. Throughout the film, it is suggested that his sidekick status is down to his unspoken love for the villain, as he constantly compliments him and talks him up, even paying other villagers to join him. He also spends a fair bit of time gazing longingly at him, although this isn't made explicit. However, in an interview, director Bill Condon explicitly describes the relationship as one where LeFou is definitely in love with him. "LeFou is somebody who on one day wants to be Gaston and on another day wants to kiss Gaston" He continued with a mention of "a nice, exclusively gay moment in a Disney movie.” to come.

a nice, exclusively gay moment in a Disney movie.

This was big news for Disney, but the on-screen payoff didn't quite live up to the expectations this interview set. The final film includes a conversation that LeFou has with Mrs Potts (Emma Thompson) where he talks about the two 'not being in a good place' and both agree that LeFou is 'too good for' Gaston, anyway. This can be interpreted romantically, but it's explicit. Finally, LeFou is seen dancing with Stanley at the very end of the movie, however, he is also seen dancing with one of the Bimbettes, and nothing beyond a dance is shown on-screen.

Josh Gad Regrets That "We didn’t go far enough" With LeFou In Beauty And The Beast

As a result of the very ambiguous ending for LeFou, the film received backlash for queerbaiting, with the promise of that 'exclusively gay moment' and Disney's first openly gay character going unfulfilled. Actor Josh Gad, who played LeFou, spoke to The Independent about the situation in 2022, revealing that he didn't think that the movie did enough for the character.

We didn’t go far enough to warrant accolades. We didn’t go far enough to say, ‘Look how brave we are.’ My regret in what happened is that it became ‘Disney’s first explicitly gay moment’ and it was never intended to be that. It was never intended to be a moment that we should laud ourselves for, because frankly, I don’t think we did justice to what a real gay character in a Disney film should be. That was not LeFou. If we’re going to pat ourselves on the back, then damn it we should have gone further with that. Everybody deserves an opportunity to see themselves on screen, and I don’t think we’ve done enough – and I certainly haven’t done enough to do that.

It's clear that Gad's issue with the way the character was handled is simply that if he were to truly become the 'first openly gay Disney character', that should not have been subtly hinted, but made explicitly clear. This is very much in line with what critics of the movie had to say - that having LeFou as a gay character works for the film, but that it was simply not well handled.

Beauty and the Beast

This live-action remake of a classic Disney fairy tale tells the love story of two outcasts. When Belle agrees to live in a monstrous prince's enchanted castle in exchange for her father's release, she is at first wary of the Beast, but romance blooms between them.

Release Date March 17, 2017 Director Bill Condon Runtime 129 minutes Related Topics About The Author

Rose Graceling-Moore has been writing about film, TV and comics since 2013, when she began writing for a local print magazine in Vancouver, BC. Since then, Rose has written for Horror Honeys, Moviepilot and Quirkbooks as well as Screenrant, increasingly focusing on comic books and live-action comic adaptations, as well as diversity and representation on screen. Rose also co-hosted the DC Movies Podcast, and has guested on other nerd and entertainment podcasts over the past five years. Rose’s love of comics began all the way back in the early ‘90s, when she discovered the X-Men while living in Africa (where there wasn’t a whole lot to do but read!), and since then has had an on-again, off-again love affair with not just Marvel, but DC and indie comics as well. You can follow her on Twitter: RoseMooreWrites for tweets about comics, movies, and more.

Recommended Articles

ncG1vNJzZmirk6eyprrRmqWtZpOkunC4xJ%2BmrmWSmq62wNhmmKecXam1pnnBnpisrF2fvLS0jKCYnWWimrSzsdOsZJygkaeupMDEq2Y%3D