‘Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur’ Episode Revealing Brooklyn As Transgender Pulled From Broadcast, Animator Claims It Was “Shelved Because Of Which Party Won The Recent Election” But Disney Denies
In an admittedly surprising development considering the current media landscape, an episode of Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur in which the character Brooklyn is revealed as transgender has been pulled from broadcast on Disney’s direct orders.
Originally scheduled to air on November 15th as part of the Marvel animated series’ second season, the episode, titled The Gatekeeper, sees the volleyball team at Moon Girl’s middle school, The Squirrels (including the titular heroine, who serves as their water girl), going up against the league’s defending champions, the Lady Leopards, in the school district’s regional play-offs.
Getting in some practice ahead of the game, the aforementioned Brooklyn at one point decides to take a breather, in doing so filling up her water bottle (itself prominently adorned with a ‘Trans Is Beautiful’ sticker), sitting down next to her friend, the non-binary Tai, and proceeding to snack on some orange slices.
Biting into her first citrus piece, Brookyln reminisces, “Ah, orange slices bring me back to my soccer days,” to which Tai affirms, “We’ve come a long way since 5th grade.”
Agreeing, Brooklyn then admits, “[The orange slices] were the only light in the darkness of me having to play on the boy’s team.”
Overhearing this, the Lady Leopards’ coach, Coach Greer, proceeds to recoil in horror before rushing to inform her counterpart on The Squirrels, Coach Hrbek, of this gender discrepancy, as she believes it is unfair to allow a boy to compete in an all-girls sports competition.
However, upon discovering that Coach Hrbek is both aware of this information and accepts Brooklyn’s identity, Coach Greer decides to take matters into her own hands by turning to the league’s official rule book in the hopes of finding a loophole through which she can disqualify The Squirrels’ captain.
Her repeated attempts to ‘gotcha’ Brooklyn all ending in failure, Coach Greer escalates her disqualification attempt by trapping The Squirrels in their locker room, thus rendering them unable to play and the Lady Leopards the defacto winners.
To do so, Coach Greer uses a magic key that can lock any door and transform the room inside into an ever-changing nightmare landscape that, as explained to the team by a holographic projection of their captor, can only be escaped by completing a series of mental and physical challenges.
Eventually solving enough of Coach Greer’s puzzles to earn their freedom, The Squirrels’ are shocked to discover that upon stepping through the door, rather than the hallways of their school, they are sent back to the very beginning of Coach Greer’s challenge room.
Confused by this ‘reset’, Moon Girl exclaims aloud, “But we did everything right!”, to which Brooklyn counters, “No, we didn’t.”
Explaining the situation to her friend, Brooklyn reveals, “It’s like creepy hologram Greer said: ‘To get out, you must follow my rules. I’m trans, my very existence breaks Greer’s rules, which means as long as I’m a member of this team, we’ll never escape.”
“It’s just…how many doors?” she questions. “How many doors do I have to break through until they stop locking me out. I’m so tired!”
(Notably, Brooklyn’s voice actor, Indya Moore, themselves identifies as both transgender (male-to-female) and non-binary).
🚨BREAKING🚨: The shelved 'Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur' episode titled 'The Gatekeeper' has been LEAKED online by @owlphibia!
— Lost Media Busters (@LostMediaBuster) November 15, 2024
With the episode's LGBTQ+ focus, Disney chose to shelve the episode.
Now, it gets to be seen by all.
Watch it here: https://t.co/ydvec8bpDu https://t.co/8AvayzbLSG pic.twitter.com/cxog9xTP16
But rather than derision, Brooklyn’s friends instead meet her with kindness and support, and after a brief respite to steel their resolve, the group returns their attentions to once again escaping from Coach Greer’s trap.
Stomping her foot on the ground as a sort of ‘rallying cry’ to her team, Brooklyn is taken aback when her gesture results in a digital crack forming beneath her, which Moon Girl quickly deduces that since they’ve been playing what is essentially a rigged game, they must instead just break the rules and brute force their way out of the locker room.
Proceeding to do any and everything they can to break down the magical space they have found themselves trapped in, their rampage playing out as a montage of classic video game parodies (the games referenced including Earthbound, Donkey Kong (1981), and The Legend of Zelda (1986), The Squirrels’ journey home ultimately comes down to a team battle against a monstrous digital representation of Coach Greer.
Far from a regular fist fight, this final battle instead sees the team pushing back against their enemy with the assistance of a trans flag-themed volleyball, the weapon exploding with the colors of various pride flags each time it comes into contact with another object.
Finally making it back to the real world thanks to a decisive shot delivered by Brooklyn, The Squirrels reappear on the court to thunderous applause, the match’s attendees none the wiser to their adventure but ready to see them take on the Lady Leopards.
That is, except for Coach Greer, who in response to the team’s return has a ‘Karen’-esque meltdown before being ejected from the court by the match’s designated referee.
From there, the teams take the court, the volleyball is served, and the episode ends on a triumphant shot of Brooklyn confidently making the first move.
News of the episode’s shelving was first broken on November 12th, roughly three days ahead of its originally planned air date, by animator Derrick Malik Johnson.
“So guess I finally got hit with one of the projects (episode) I worked on is getting shelved because of which party that won the recent election.” Johnson informed the public via his personal Bluesky account. “It breaks my heart knowing this impactful and amazing is now about to be consider a lost media episode.”
However, as both the episode’s shelving and Johnson’s reasoning began receiving news coverage, an unidentified Disney insider reportedly denied this explanation, conversely telling Polygon, “in this case, this decision was based on this specific episode, not because of the character being trans.”
Further, said insider asserted that the episode has not been “banned”, but rather “pulled”, though they did not provide any details as to when it might debut on Disney Plus.
Likewise, despite their denials that the episode’s scheduling change was due to neither the recent re-election of Donald Trump or its transgender storyline, the insider declined to provide the supposed actual reasons for it being pulled.
NEXT: Disney And Lucasfilm Provide First Official Look At Star Wars’ New Transgender Clone Trooper
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