Some pretty uptight and likely uninformed folks (including some theater owners) lost their collective minds when Beauty and The Beast director Bill Condon mentioned to Attitude magazine that Gaston’s sidekick LeFou (played by Josh Gad) would be seen in “an exclusively gay moment.” He has since tried to clarify, saying that his statement was “overblown” and that LeFou’s subplot is really only a small part of the film. In an interview with Sirius XM, star Emma Watson had this to say about the controversy:
“I think that what’s so fantastic about Josh’s performance is that it’s so subtle. It’s always like, does he idolize Gaston? Is he in love with Gaston? What’s the relationship there? And I think it’s incredibly subtle, to be perfectly honest. I don’t want people going into this movie thinking that there’s like a huge narrative there. There really isn’t. It’s incredibly subtle, and it’s kind of a play on having the audience go, ‘Is it, or is it not?’ I think it’s fun. I love the ambiguity there.”
That same ambiguity is there in the original film as well, so we’re not sure why people are getting in an uproar about this (no pun intended). Nor are we sure why the same people were OK that a young girl falls in love with a part lion, part wildebeest, part whatever. Apparently two guys crushing is a no-no, but beastiality is A-OK.