Pixar Exec Hit With Backlash After Callously Explaining Why LGBTQ+ Content Was Cut From 'Elio'

The Wall Street Journal, part of a media conglomerate controlled by Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch, recently profiled Pete Docter of Pixar. The director of such hits as Monsters, Inc., Up, and Inside Out, Docter has served as the chief creative officer (CCO) at Pixar since 2018 and has won three Academy Awards for his directing.

In the article, Docter—who has emphasized how his Christian faith guides his decisions—stated:

"As time’s gone on, I realized my job is to make sure the films appeal to everybody."

But the quote that's drawing backlash was Docter’s comment about changes he ordered in the film Elio. Docter defended the removal of the LGBTQ+ storyline from Elio, including a reported scene where the main character imagined living with his male crush.

Docter told the WSJ:

"We're making a movie, not hundreds of millions of dollars in therapy."

Docter backed his choice to eliminate LGBTQ+ characters and storylines from Pixar products because he had found that "certain parents" did not want entertainment to pressure them into having conversations they were not ready to have with their children.

People found Docter’s capitulation to "certain parents," or the insertion of his own homophobia, disheartening.

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Despite the changes Docter ordered, Elio was a financial flop.

Because of his concern for "certain parents," Docter demanded extensive changes to Elio by new directors Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi after the animation was mostly complete. The move led to backlash among Pixar staff members.

Elio was conceived by openly gay animator, storyboard artist, screenwriter, and director Adrian Molina as a story about childhood and social isolation, and Molina—who was the screenwriter and codirector of Pixar hit Coco—was slated to direct.

He parted with the project over demands to remove any queer coding from the film—the male crush, a pink bike, turning trash he’d collected into a pink tank top—despite leaving in the plot point that lead character Elio would be sent to Camp Carver, a military-themed summer camp, so he could learn to be more masculine/disciplined.

At no point in the original version of the film did Elio or any other character identify his sexuality, but the mere suggestion of a boy liking pink and having a crush on another male—something most children experience whether straight or LGBTQ+—was deemed too traumatizing for "certain parents."

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that while he had Elio reworked to appease "certain parents," Docter also ordered the removal of a transgender storyline from the Pixar TV series Win or Lose.