Russell T. Davies, the creator of the original British version of Queer as Folk, has lashed out at The Walt Disney Company over its moving the series Love, Victor from Disney+ to Hulu. Davies also says he fears for the future of queer content as entertainment companies become more monolithic.
Disney first announced Love, Victor, the sequel series to the popular film Love, Simon, would stream on the companyâs new streaming service Disney+ when it debuted this year. The company then announced that the show would land on Hulu instead, after fears that its storylines might be too mature for the Disney+ brand. Creators Issac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger, as well as showrunner Brian Tanen, ultimately praised the move, as it would allow them to tell Victorâs story without any fear of censorship.
For Davies, however, the move sets a frightening precedent. The writer/creator had harsh words for Disney, and what its treatment of Love, Victor could mean for future series.
Related: Brian Tanen on âLove, Victorâs move to Hulu: âHulu will allow us to tell more adult storiesâ
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âMy great worry with huge monoliths like [Disney+] is itâs family orientated, itâs family-friendly,â he said while speaking at the Edinburgh TV Festival, reports PinkNews. âDisney is out to buy all of these companies and will keep buying them, and then, as a gay man, Iâm sitting there going: âWell where is my content?â When Disney+ launched they had 3,931 hours of entertainment, it took 23 weeks to watch; I could watch the gay content in half an hour and thatâs really important to me and really scares me.â
âIt had a series called Love, Victor, which is a television spin-off of the film Love, Simon, which is a gay series,â Davies said. âThey moved it on to Hulu. They commissioned it and developed it, then they moved it. Thereâs a small sign there of what will happen once this free-for-all becomes great big monoliths, as it will.â
For the record, Disney+ does feature LGBTQ content in its programming, including a recent Pixar short film, as well as the much-promoted documentary Howard. Several films featured on the streaming service also feature incidental queer characters. The service does, however, try to maintain the Disney âbrandâ of family-friendly titles without graphic sex or violence.
Weâre guessing Davies may not be aware that the fight to maintain the squeaky-clean Disney reputation is also nothing new. The company originally founded âspinoffâ production companies Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, and even later bought Miramax precisely to produce more adult-oriented content without damaging the Disney name. The company also still owns and produces Love, Victor despite the move to Hulu, and greenlit a second season of the show earlier this month.
In other words, Disney isnât embarrassed by Love, Victor; itâs proud enough to keep producing it albeit on a service more oriented toward the showâs audience.
As showrunner Brian Tanen told Queerty: âEveryone at Disney, every executive, was a champion of not only the show but also what it was about. There were a lot of fansâthemselves activists of this subject matter. I think Disney+ is a platform finding its brand and its voice. I, for one, feel that for the longevity of the show, that Hulu will allow us to tell more adult stories. Weâll be more able to grow up and have nuanced stories that will include not just first crushes, but also first sexual experiences.â
The cancellation of Love, Victor over its content would be cause for concern, and true marginalization of queer voices. Disney moving the show to Hulu, on the other hand, sends a message that larger companies are still committed to producing honest, mature, LGBTQ-themed content. Thatâs a cause to celebrate.
Season 2 of Love, Victor is now in the early stages, though an official production date has yet to be announced due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
jayceecook
This article screams “THE CHECK FROM DISNEY CLEARED! POST THAT ARTICLE DAVID!” – team Queerty
DarkZephyr
No it doesn’t. I agree that the move to Hulu was a good one. The show won’t be stifled by being on Disney itself.
JPDonahue
Disney has evolved a bit with the inclusion of a bi-sexual character on their pre-tween animated show, âThe Owl Houseâ (featuring Wendie Malick). Baby steps? Not everyone is the enemy.
quantum
I don’t know where Davies has been; western media is already largely a handful of monoliths. For god’s sake, Disney has a fifty percent stake in Lifetime, but it’s not like they’re gonna put movies about serial rapists and murderous nannies on Disney+.
Hasn’t the prevailing complaint been that there are too many streaming services, not that they’ve become monoliths? I’d be more worried if Disney started cordoning off all their LGBT content to a different streaming company DisneyRainbow or something dumb like that.
And a “half hour” of gay content on Disney+ is more than a little bit of an exaggeration; “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” is heading into season 2; it’s cheeky, it’s terrible, it’s delightful, and it’s gay as eff.
Jack
It was the right decision to move the show to Hulu. Disney’s shows on their Disney branded channels have no longevity because they are intended for kids and tweens. I want to see Victor as a college kid and I don’t want to hear the noise of Million Moms. If it was a political move or a creative move doesn’t really matter to me. Kids can find Hulu just fine. They found Netflix to watch 13 Reasons Why.
Cam
“”The cancellation of Love, Victor over its content would be cause for concern, and true marginalization of queer voices. Disney moving the show to Hulu, on the other hand, sends a message that larger companies are still committed to producing honest, mature, LGBTQ-themed content. Thatâs a cause to celebrate.””
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Translation: The Disney executives are subtly threatening that Love Victor would have been cancelled if they didn’t move it.
Disney still advertises on FOX News, not really too much of a surprise. And we all know that “Family Friendly ” means “No LGBTQ people allowed” fro mthem.
DarkZephyr
I really don’t believe that’s necessarily the case. I think what would have happened is that we would have had a much more Disnified version of the show and I’m glad that’s not the case. There was a scene on the show in the coffee shop that was kind of a metaphor as well as a kind of simulation of an explosive orgasm involving latte foam that I thought was funny and even almost endearing. Straight or gay, that couldn’t have gone down on Disney itself. I don’t think homophobia needs to be involved for that to be the case.
Cam
@DarkZephyr
I get your point, and you may be right. The reason I question it is that the first season as written was supposed to be on Disney. They made the decision after it was filmed apparently.
If you look at other programming on Disney it isn’t any racier, the difference is that the characters aren’t straight.
Even then, 90% of the show was all about whether or not Victor’s straight friend would get a girlfriend and Victor’s fake relationship with a girl. So not very in depth or R rated.
DarkZephyr
You do make a good point. For an LGBT themed TV show it was somewhat light on the LGBT content for the majority of the first season. I guess I can KIND of understand it as they have to spread this story line over the course of an entire TV show rather than a film and it dealt with him slowly coming to grips with who he really was. That may be why they gave his male love interest a short term boyfriend, so that we could actually see some same sex interaction on a show that’s supposed to be about that very thing, since we werenât seeing any yet involving the showâs protagonist. But yeah it was definitely a slow boil to get to the same sex romance aspect.
Anyway, while I like his love interest and will be happy if that relationship works out, I have to admit that a part of me is hoping Victor actually winds up with his goofy friend Felix. I know heâs being portrayed as straight and they are building his relationship with Lake, but he could always turn out to be bi and they could always bring somebody else in for Lake. lol
Cam
@DarkZephyr
LOL! Now THAT would be some drama, Felix finally gets the girl of his dreams, then dumps her for Victor.
DarkZephyr
Indeed! But I can hope! lol
Still, his current love interest is a decent enough guy, but I would love to see some more character development with him. Per your point, they didn’t spend anywhere near enough time with him for us to get a very good idea of what he’s about in my opinion. We found out about Victor’s beard and her life, we found out about his straight sister’s life, we found out about Felix’s life, and of course Victor himself had some good character development, as did Lake. Heck, his parents did too. But his same sex love interest? For most of the season he seemed mostly like a background character that we know very little about. Hopefully now that they will make the show specifically FOR Hulu we will get the gay show we want with plenty of character development for Victor’s boyfriend.
Cam
@DarkZephyr
I almost forgot about his sister because they wrote her so one dimensional. It seemed like somebody in the writers room said “Hey, can somebody write in a sullen teen as his sister?”
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Joshua333
He has a point considering the queer baiting Onward had earlier this year or have we forgotten that film?
Archie
The move didn’t fix the content. Season 2 was still disappointing.