Four dads being cancelled makes me worried for Love Simon especially since its the only other gay show they have. Do you think they might cancel Love Simon to?
I wouldn’t worry about Love Simon atm. We don’t actually know why Four Dads was cancelled but it would be naive to think that it had nothing to do with the rep since the whole show is focused on four openly gay married men; though unless we get some insider leaks we may never know how big of a role the gayness of the show played in it being scrapped . And it’s certainly not a good thing to lose a show that would have had so much textual rep this early on. I know that the initial reports earlier this year said that the show would begin filming in the spring for a fall release date but I’ve seen conflicting reports on whether they filmed just a pilot or an actual first season. If they did film more than just a pilot than it’s more likely that the cancellation was driven by fears of a homophobic backlash.
That being said, I think Love Simon is in a safer position. It’s based off of a well known book and movie so cancelling it would attract attention and it’s unlikely Disney + would cancel their only other gay heavy series so soon after cancelling Four Dads. Love Simon also has an official instagram account and has finished filming their first ep; they even recast Victor’s best friend Mia, which is probably not something they would do if they were worried about being cancelled. And with Victor coming to terms with his sexuality it would be easy if they so choose to keep any dating or hand holding or kissing from happening until late in the season whereas with Four Dads there would have been no way to avoid showing the dads acting as husbands for very long.
This is a sad reminder that progress isn’t always linear. We’ve seen that on Disney Channel, where they went from no rep at all to dipping their toes in the water with the lesbian parents on Good Luck Charlie in the penultimate episode to going full steam ahead with an openly gay main character on Andi Mack to now having no rep at all again and no real sign of it in any of their news shows.
We saw a similar dynamic on Andi Mack itself. S2 was much less censored with Cyrus able to talk about his feelings, Cyrus saying he would need to one day come out to his parents, set up for Cyrus to one day kiss a boy and have it feel right, and an unambiguous TJ look back was approved. Then in between S2 and S3 production Disney cracks down hard for whatever reason and the look back is edited to make TJ look straight and then ignored, Cyrus is never able to discuss his feelings, Cyrus never came out to his parents, there was no Tyrus kiss, and even Tyrus quietly getting together was only approved at the end of production, months after the show had been cancelled. Love Simon will break a lot of barriers but it may be the case that it’s alone in doing so on Disney + and Disney Channel for a while until Disney gets more comfortable with lgbtq story lines.
