Review: Disney Proves They're Cowards by Holding a Gay-Free "Prom"

For a long time now, gay and bi folks have supported and celebrated entertainment projects that include GLBT characters — especially teen-themed projects like Glee that choose to make the statement that gay people are an important and valued part of even our high school and middle school communities.

The new Disney movie Prom, reportedly an attempt to create a new High School Musical-like franchise project for younger teens, celebrates the diversity of American high schools with an admirable range of races, looks, and body types (and the film even includes a number of actors who actually look like teenagers!).

In fact, the range is so wide that it was obviously very intentional: the movie is a romantic fantasy, but an effort was made to portray teenagers and high school in a much more "realistic" way than, say, The Vampire Diaries or even High School Musical.

Still, Prom doesn't celebrate all kinds of diversity: every single character in the movie is straight.

But this is America, 2011. This complete lack of GLBT diversity is itself a statement: that gay people are not an important and valued part of our schools.

Coupled with Disney's complete lack of age-appropriate GLBT characters on the Disney Channel and in other entertainment projects aimed at kids and younger teens (like High School Musical), it's now becoming possible to start drawing conclusions about the company.

Yes, they have a strong corporate record on gay rights, and yes, ABC and ABC Family, which are part of the same corporate family, also have strong pro-gay records when it comes to portraying GLBT characters.

But when it comes gay characters in projects for younger viewers, they are, to be perfectly blunt about it, cowards. We all know that Disney will eventually include such characters in their projects (in an age-appropriate way, natch). But like the various incarnations of The Micky Mouse Club (which originally included no black Mousketeers and few minorities of any color), Disney is choosing to follow behind the rest of society as it changes, not lead on this important social issue.

The idea that gay characters are not appropriate in any programming for children or younger teens is, of course, absurd, usually based on the false argument that anything "gay" is somehow inexorably linked to "sex." But a teen gay character portrayed in an age and Disney-appropriate way — dating and dancing and the like — is no more "sexual" than a straight character behaving the same way.

Prom doesn't even include any "coded" gay characters, like Ryan in High School Musical, that can, from a certain angle, be interpreted as gay (except maybe one unattached character, although even he seems to find girls attractive). Prom is much more of an ensemble movie than High School Musical, with literally dozens of scenes of various characters contemplating who to take to the prom, asking each other to the prom, and then dealing with the heartache or romance that results.

As far as I could tell, Prom doesn't include even any same-sex couples dancing in the background dance scenes. Would it have killed them to throw us even that particular bone?

And since I refuse to believe that in the year 2011, this issue of same-sex teens at a high school or going to the prom wouldn't have come up while making this movie, I'm finding it difficult not to draw a pretty firm conclusion about the direction Disney gave the filmmakers and the stand the company is taking here.

All this said, it's worth noting that comparisons between Prom and Glee are a little erroneous. Not only do the projects have nothing in common except a high school setting, Prom is clearly aimed at the middle school (and younger) market while Glee seems to me to be more aimed at an older age group.

So how's the movie itself? Absolutely conventional in virtually every way. On the other hand, many members of the cast are appealing (including Shameless's Cameron Monaghan really hamming it up as the aforementioned single character, a high school geek), and the script isn't nearly as bad as the recent teen romance Beastly. It is what it is, and for what it is, it gets the job done.

One day very soon, age-appropriate gay teen characters will be as common in programming for younger teens and children, and considered exactly as "controversial," as racial minorities are today.

When that day comes, it will sadly be no thanks to Disney.