Elemental Is Another Bad Example Of Pixar’s Poor LGBTQ+ Track Record
Elemental follows various Pixar traditions, and unfortunately, it also continues the studio's terrible LGBTQ+ track record with two characters.
Warning: minor spoilers for Elemental.
Elemental is the latest project from Pixar, and while it follows some of Pixar’s traditions, it, unfortunately, continues the studio’s poor LGBTQ+ track record. After going back to the Toy Story saga with the spinoff Lightyear, Pixar is going back to original stories with Elemental, directed by Peter Sohn. Set in a world where all four elements (fire, water, land, and air) coexist, named Element City, Elemental introduces fiery young woman Ember Lumen (voiced by Leah Lewis) and go-with-the-flow guy Wade Ripple (Mamoudou Athie), a fire element and a water one, respectively.
Although all the elements reside in Element City, they are not supposed to mix, but when Ember and Wade meet, they end up going on an adventure together across the city. Elemental has the most defining characteristics of a Pixar movie, such as its characters going on a big adventure in which they learn more about themselves and other, more fun traditional elements like references to other Pixar movies. Unfortunately, Elemental also continues a bad Pixar record when it comes to LGBTQ+ representation, once more having LGBTQ+ characters that are mostly left in the background.
Elemental Has Two Very Minor LGBTQ+ Characters
Elemental has two LGBTQ+ characters, but they are very, very minor characters. When Ember and Wade start to fall in love, Wade invites her to meet his family, which is quite an experience given that their apartment is flowing with water everywhere. There, Ember and the audience meet Wade’s sibling, Lake (who in Elemental – The Junior Novelization is introduced as non-binary and uses they/them pronouns) and their girlfriend, Ghibli (a clear reference to the beloved Studio Ghibli), and they are the only two LGBTQ+ characters in Elemental.
Although the presence of Lake and Ghibli is still important, both characters have no dialogue and they only appear once, and briefly. Unfortunately, Pixar has a terrible track record with LGBTQ+ representation, as it continues to leave its LGBTQ+ characters as minor or background presences. Lightyear had a lesbian couple thanks to Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba) and her wife Kiko, but even though Alisha was an important presence in the first part of the story, she was only briefly seen with Kiko a couple of times in a sequence showing the passage of time. Onward had Pixar’s first (confirmed) LGTBQ+ character thanks to Specter (Lena Waithe), a cyclops cop, but she was also a minor character.
While it hasn’t been confirmed by Pixar but it has been supported by the movie’s cinematographer, Turning Red seems to have an LGBTQ+ character, too: Priya, one of Mei’s best friends. Priya would be Pixar’s second LGBTQ+ character, and unlike Specter and Alisha, she had a bigger role in Turning Red as one of the protagonist’s best friends, and her big moment was exchanging smiles with Goth Girl at a party and later dancing with her after Panda Mei brought them together.
Elemental’s Release Makes Its LGBTQ+ Disservice Even Worse
Sadly, Elemental continues Pixar's terrible LGBTQ+ track record by making its LGBTQ+ characters very minor ones who don’t even say a word, and who will, ultimately, be forgettable. What makes this issue even worse is Elemental’s release date, as it came out during Pride Month. However, Pride Month or not as the release month for Elemental, Pixar needs to pay attention to its diversity and representation of LGBTQ+ characters and learn from its own mistakes. At the time of writing, it's unknown if Pixar’s next movie, Elio, has LGBTQ+ characters, but if it does, hopefully they won’t repeat Pixar’s past mistakes.
