Much-Needed LGBTQ Representation Appears in DuckTales

Season Three of the DuckTales remake premiered last weekend on Disney XD, and while it featured the usual crew of Scrooge and his nephews, the episode presented something new for the Duckverse as well: a gay couple!

https://twitter.com/lechepop/status/1246305230112739329

If there was going to be any confusion on whether or not these dads were both men, or clearly in love, it was squashed quickly by the creative design of their “I’m with Dad” t-shirts. Young duckling Violet Sabrewing (voiced by Libe Barer) was introduced earlier, in Season Two. In the Season Three premiere, “Challenge of the Senior Junior Woodchucks,” Violet competes to become a Senior Woodchuck.

It’s revealed in the episode that Violet’s friend Lena, whom we first met in the Season two episode “Friendship Hates Magic!” has been adopted by Violet’s two dads. During a Junior Woodchuck meeting at the top of the episode, Lena excitedly cheers for Violet, calling her a “sister from a couple of misters.”

Using characters’ parents to reflect the gender and sexuality spectrum is a common trope among children’s shows looking to diversify their cast. Disney is not the first to go this route; back in 2014, Cartoon Network’s Clarence featured a set of gay dads for a secondary character. However, some fans were disappointed that the animators ‘wimped out’ with a cheek kiss.

Steven Universe is probably at the top of the list doing justice for LGBTQ characters. The original series features an entire species of female-only ‘gems’ who often have romantic relationships with one another. The series also made history and featured Cartoon Network’s first same-sex marriage! Last year, in the spin-off, Steven Universe Future, Sadie, a female human character, introduces Steven and fans to her new partner Shep (voiced by Indya Moore), who is non-binary.

And then there’s Adventure Time, another Cartoon Network favorite, who’s writers finally gave fans the ship they were waiting for with a dramatic, same-sex kiss between two female characters during the show’s finale. Unlike Nickelodeon’s choice to pull the last few episodes of Legend of Korra off the air, most likely due to the same-sex pairing of main character Korra and her female counterpart, Asami, they went for it.

But we’ve come a long way since then, and Disney does not plan to get left behind, as animation becomes the foreground for advocacy and inclusion.

In a Tumblr blog post, co-executive producer and story editor for DuckTales, Frank Angones admitted that Violet’s dads, while present in the episode, “do not play a huge role in the story thus far.”

“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 (and it resulted in Matt Humphreys coming up with one of my favorite Lena lines ever). But I’m well aware that the ‘queer representation through parents and background characters’ trope is an issue, and we’ve sort of stumbled backward into a lot of heteronormative romances in this show due to legacy characters with pre-existing relationships.”

It doesn’t sound like this will be the last example of queer representation we’ll see in Duckburg. However small, we’ll chalk this one up as a victory and a definitive step in the right direction.

A step in the right direction for LGBT representation… Thank you so much, #DuckTales pic.twitter.com/0wVPLLm4zP

— kolbi ???????? (@PixieSphere) April 4, 2020