Oh, people. Leave them alone for long enough and they’ll find something to be upset about. The medium of animation is no stranger to controversy and the latest to receive the treatment is DuckTales. Many of you may already be familiar with the brand. After all, it did originally air back in the 1987s near the start of Walt Disney TV Animation. It made a big splash for a generation before ending. Back in 2017, however, it returned in full-force. If you’ve been visiting this site or listening to our podcasts, you’ll know we’re big fans of the show here at LRM Online.
You can imagine our surprise when we found out that the show was the latest subject of controversy. Those with a bone to pick come from the group One Million Moms, a group that speaks out against LGBTQ+ rights. You can already guess where this is going. Enter the DuckTales controversy.
In a recent episode of DuckTales, one of Webby’s friends, Violet, is revealed to have two dads. That’s it. That’s the controversy. But it was enough to prompt One Million Moms director Monica Cole to write a pretty dick statement.
“WARNING!” she wrote. “DuckTales is not the same cartoon parents grew up watching. Disney has introduced a male couple as the parents of two characters in the reboot of its popular DuckTales, rated TV-Y.”
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“It is apparent that this particular producer is not finished with indoctrinating children by exposing them to homosexual relationships through a facade of normalcy,” Cole said, pointing to a blog post from co-executive producer and story editor Francisco Angones, which we will get to in a second. “If anyone still has any doubt on where Disney stands on this controversial issue, hopefully this makes it clear that there is an LGBTQ agenda they are forcing on young audiences.”
The post in question from Angones was posted last fall on the producer’s Tumblr. In it, Angones discussed Violet’s dad and the production’s desire to be inclusive.
“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,” Angones wrote. “We didn’t really have a story built around them, but when the time came for an episode focusing on Huey and Violet in a particular situation, it made sense that they would be there … But I’m well aware that the ‘queer representation through parents and background characters’ trope is an issue …”
Angones went on to point to the show’s tendency to fall back on standard heteronormative romances. He pointed to the fact that it was largely the result of these being established romances in legacy characters, but added it was no excuse.
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“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. We do have some themes and ideas coming up that address relevant LGBTQ+ narratives. But there’s always opportunity for a lot more…”
Of course, with animators and writers actually working to be more inclusive, it was bound to be the subject of controversy. As a result of this, One Million Moms has pushed their members to pledge not to watch Disney or DuckTales “as long as it veers away from family-friendly entertainment.”
How do you feel about this whole DuckTales controversy? I’ve made no attempt to hide my own feelings about the matter, so let us know yours down below!
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SOURCE: One Million Moms, Francisco Angones (via Animation Magazine)

