Disney’s DuckTales Season Three Introduces Gay Couple

The current third season of the rebooted DuckTales animated series that airs on Disney XD and Disney Now introduces a gay male couple.

The first episode of season 3 titled “Challenge of the Senior Junior Woodchucks!” aired on April 4, 2020

It’s in this first episode where the two gay male characters are introduced as the parents of Violet.

The show starts off with an opening monologue that states, “Legacy, passing the torch to a new generation, the knowledge of the old mixes with the discoveries of the new into that flavorful gumbo called tomorrow. You are that gumbo. Welcome to the Calisota Woodchuck Junior Graduation.”

Many members in the audience begin chanting, “Violet! Violet! Violet!” as the camera pans to them. It’s there that you can see the two gay male fathers in the back row wearing shirts that read “I’m with Dad” and arrows pointing towards each other.

The Junior Woodchucks are then tasked with competing in the Junior Woodchuck Wilderness Challenge with the winner claiming the title of Senior Woodchuck. The challenge is between Huey and Violet. Huey ends up losing the challenge and almost loses his life without Violet saving him.

Related: After Promoting LGBT Character, Disney’s ‘Onward’ Has Worst Opening Box Office In Pixar History

After losing the challenge, Huey asks for a failure badge, and is given one of Launchpad’s many failure badges.

Violet is then named a Senior Woodchuck and given a sash with her parents standing behind her.

Related: Marvel’s The Eternals To Feature MCU’s First Gay Kiss Between Brian Tyree Henry’s Phastos And His Husband Played By Haaz Sleiman

DuckTales Story Editor Promises More LGBTQ+ Representation

Co-executive producer and story editor of DuckTales, Frank Angones detailed the characters were going to be shown in the series back in November 2019. Angones wrote on his blog, “Want to be very up front and honest about this: Violet’s dads are present and show up but do not play a huge role in the story thus far.”

He added, “As with all of our characters, we had a lot of conversations about who Violet was and what her background was and came up with this fun notion of her too enthusiastic, overly supportive dads who love being dads.”

He then addressed queer representation, “But I’m well aware that the “queer representation through parents and background characters” trope is an issue, and we’ve sort of stumbled backwards into a lot of heteronormative romances in this show due to legacy characters with pre-existing relationships (Scrooge and Goldie, Donald and Daisy, Fenton and Gandra) and how many specific hoops you have to jump through to make changes to established Disney characters (Again, please read my future book). But that’s really no excuse.”

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He then touted the racial diversity of the show, “We’ve done pretty well on racial diversity and representation of people with limb differences, but we really have not done enough relevant LGBTQ+ rep.”

Angones then promised more LGBTQ+ narratives in the show, “We do have some themes and ideas coming up that address relevant LGBTQ+ narratives. But there’s always opportunity for a lot more; I don’t want a cop out and a cookie for saying “look at this one thing we did!” I know this response is a bit of a bummer, but I didn’t want to lead anyone on.”

He concluded writing, “But please believe, as I’ve said before, I’m dedicated to being better and finding new opportunities for three dimensional representation, on this show and the next and the next.”

These characters follow Disney’s inclusion of a gay female police officer in Onward and a “nice, exclusively gay moment” for Josh Gad’s LeFou in their live action of Beauty of the Beast. Disney also included a gay kiss in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and has promised that there will be a gay kiss scene in Marvel Studios’ The Eternals.

Disney CEO Bob Chapek on LGBTQ Representation

Disney’s newly promoted CEO Bob Chapek has also promised more representation for the LGBTQ community.

Related: CEO Bob Chapek Confirms Disney Will Have An “Increased Commitment” To LGBT Characters And Stories Moving Forward

At the recent 2020 Annual Meeting of Shareholders, Chapek was asked about LGTBQ representation. He responded, “At Disney we strongly believe we should reflect in our creative content the diversity that we find in our fanbase and our audience. And I believe that will continue with an increased commitment as we move forward.”

He added, “And I believe that will continue with an increased commitment as we move forward. We want to represent our audience. We believe we want to tell stories that our audience wants to hear that reflects their lives.”

The third season of DuckTales is currently airing on Disney XD and the Disney Now app. The first and second seasons can be seen on Disney Plus. The third episode “Double-O-Duck In You Only Crash Twice!” is expected to air on April 11, 2020.

Disney has faced a number of boycotts for their inclusion of gay characters and same sex kiss scenes. The upcoming Eternals film faces a boycott from LifeSiteNews and One Million Moms. One Million Moms also launched a boycott against Onward. CitizenGo has also called for Disney to “STOP LGBT indoctrination around the world.

What do you make of the inclusion of this gay couple?

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