‘Strange World’ Cast and Creators on the Disney Film’s Biracial, LGBTQ Character: ‘You Don’t Have to Normalize Normal. It Just Is’

While “Strange World” takes audiences on a journey through a fantastical realm filled with enigmatic creatures and unique flora, such as flying fish and ambulating rock columns, the action-adventure film also marks a milestone for Walt Disney Animation Studios: featuring a gay teen romance.

The animated feature introduces Ethan Clade, an openly gay biracial teenager who becomes awkward and tongue-tied in the presence of his crush, Diazo.

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Director Don Hall remarked that the character’s identity was handled organically, without explicitly breaking it down.

Co-director and writer Qui Nguyen shared, “I have a biracial family, so it was something that was easily relatable to me to [have] two people with very different backgrounds fall in love. And now my kid walks both those lines of us — fully Asian, fully Jewish — and that was something I understood inherently.”

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“In our film, his gayness is one part of him. He’s also bold and wildly empathetic, which is why he becomes sort of the conservationist in our film,” added Hall. “Also, he’s impulsive as teenagers kind of are. So to us, he was just a flesh-and-blood, well-rounded character, and I think we can’t wait for the world to embrace him like we did.”

“Strange World” follows the Clades, a family of explorers on a mission into the treacherous and surreal world beneath the land of Avalonia. The voice cast includes Jake Gyllenhaal, Dennis Quaid, Gabrielle Union, Lucy Liu, and Jaboukie Young-White.

“Folks keep using the word ‘normalize,’ and you don’t have to normalize normal. It just is,” explained Union. “You got to see a loving family that was incredibly supportive of their child’s identity, and their version of trying to steer him to safety or steer him is more in terms of his occupation — and the route he’s gonna go in life.”

“I was really glad that the script didn’t point to it,” Quaid said, referring to Ethan’s sexuality. “It wasn’t explained or this or that, or have to go through the coming out thing — and that’s okay. I think we’re well past that as a culture.”

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Young-White, who voices Ethan and comes from a multiracial background, also noted that his character “sort of resembled me.”

“I thought that it was pretty cool, just in the fact that Don and Qui, the creators, really have a commitment to just reflecting what our world looks like and what reality looks like, in a way that isn’t heavy-handed or forced,” he said. “It’s kind of just the way it is.”

Although the cast didn’t record any scenes together, they praised Hall and Nguyen’s dedication to capturing the nuances and chemistry between their characters.

“I was just reading with Don, but Don does a great Jake, does a great Jaboukie,” Union said. “So it was a little different, but I think we were still able to create great chemistry even though we weren’t physically working together.”

Added Gyllenhaal, who voices Ethan’s dorky father, Searcher Clade: “We were shaping the stories in a lot of ways… [Nguyen and Hall] said from the very beginning, we want you to enrich these characters, we want you to bring your own ideas, and if there are things that we feel like are holes, tell us… I think it’s really helpful for deepening the characters and then also making a deeper story.”

Source: https://dominioncinemas.net
Category: MOVIE