Just building on this to post the story again for folks who may not have seen it. This comes from an interview done with Hirsch in 2017, at The Mary Sue. The entire thing is very much worth a read! But here’s the relevant part:
Kaiser: One of the issues around the show was representation/diversity, and there were a lot of rumors about what Disney would/wouldn’t allow—the little old ladies falling in love in “The Love God” is probably the most famous example. Any comment?
Hirsch: Definitely. If you’ve been following me for a while you’ll know I’ve never been shy about discussing my frustrations with Disney’s censors and this was one of the most frustrating incidents of all. Back on “Love God” there was a scene in the script that described a few random couples in a diner falling in love in through the power of cupid’s magic.
When one of our storyboard artists presented the scene to me, she’d made one of the couples two lovable old ladies. It was sweet and casual and I knew INSTANTLY that it was going to turn into a huge fight with Disney. So naturally I left it in. The note came back immediately “The scene of the two old ladies kissing in the diner is not appropriate for our audience. Please revise.” I responded with a one word answer: “Why?”
This basically broke the censors. The couldn’t think of a single way to phrase an answer to that question so they made me talk on the phone so there would be no paper trail. They were terrified of sounding like bigots—but I honestly don’t think they were bigots, I think they were cowards. They basically admitted that there was no good reason why I should change it, but that they get complaints about this stuff from various homophobic parents and would rather avoid the headache, and couldn’t I just drop it?
I said that if we did that we were basically just being held hostage by bigots and screw that, lets rise above this crap and just pull the trigger. The worst thing that can happen is that we get some letters. Who cares? Disney’s a giant company, we can survive some letters from some cranks. I don’t think they necessarily disagreed—but there’s no incentive in their job to say yes to things. But I kept going back to them.
We probably had 6 or so conversations about it. It’s one of the only times I had a face to face meeting with the censors. I didn’t want to go back to my board artist and tell her that I lost this fight. I wanted to win, and I wanted to set a precedent, and I argued that little things like this could mean the world to people and that anyone who was pissed off deserved to be pissed off. But despite my greatest efforts it finally came down to “change the scene or we’ll cut it out of the episode ourselves.”
I felt awful reporting to the artist that I’d lost this one. But I didn’t stop trying. In the last episode, I had the two police offers, Blubs and Durland, flat out say they loved each other, and I didn’t get a single note. I think the censors were finally less scared of complaining parents than they were of having to deal with how annoying I am again.
Since then, times have thankfully changed. I hear that Disney has allowed same-sex couples in Star Vs the Forces of Evil, and the Nickelodeon has done the same in Loud House. Both studios are way behind CN and what they’ve done with Steven Universe, but progress, slowly but surely, is being made. I would love to see a new Disney animated show have the guts to show a proper same-sex kiss on air. One of these networks is going to do it—I encourage Disney to keep growing and be the first.
I think this just underscores what OP above is saying. Representation gets better because people fight to make it happen.
And I hope everyone continues to remember – Dana Terrace has had to fight for what’s in The Owl House. (Some folks are wondering if the shortened Season 3 is a sort of penalty for what she has been able to get Disney to agree to in terms of the Lumity relationship and other rep, like Raine Whispers. I think we’re not going to know the truth about that until after TOH is done and Dana is doing interviews the way Alex was after Gravity Falls ended.) Don’t look at what The Owl House has accomplished and think that just because you are seeing all of that on screen, that’s because it’s now “easy” to do or something. That disrespects how hard Dana has fought for it. And it also lets Disney and others off the hook too easily, gives them more credit than they deserve.
It’s getting better. It’s still not EASY and creators are still fighting. It’s a process that’s happening one step at a time. I completely agree with everyone saying: don’t disrespect the hard work, the fights, and the chances people took (risking getting their shows cancelled) for shows in the past. Every step they took makes it a little easier for their successors to push further, and further.
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