An Artist Has Re-Drawn 8 Disney Heroes as Trans Characters
Disney has increasingly become a playground for queer artists as they reimagine its animated heroes and villains as drag queens, gay couples, pin-up hunks and same-sex make-out pals.
Now an anonymous art director in New York City has begun reimagining Disney heroes as transgender, creating gender-swapped before-and-after portraits of characters like Belle from Beauty and the Beast, Jasmine from Aladdin and Tiana from The Princess and the Frog.
The artist recently wrote, “Like millions of you I grew up watching Disney movies. I love them and always will as they talk about love, freedom and transformation.”
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The artist expressed surprised over Disney excluding transgender characters from its films because “more than anyone else know the meaning of and seek for that love, freedom and transformation portrayed by Disney.”
Wondering what would happen if Disney used the power of their animated heroes to help tear down stigmas and taboos surrounding the LGBTQ community, the artist drew the trans portraits, showing the original animated heroes in black-and-white and their newly realized transgender forms in living color.
The portraits depict the heroes at their finest, expressing deep moments of self-revelation, joy, mistrust and quiet reflection — a range of emotions that correlates to the emotional highs and lows that accompany gender transition.
You can see the full collection at the trans.disney Instagram account.
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It’s probably going to be a while before Disney develops an openly trans character seeing as they’ve just started introducing same-sex couples and families on their children’s TV programming. There’s some hope though as one of Disney’s more recent directors has said that the company is open to the possibility of having an LGBTQ princess one day.
Beast from Beauty and the Beast
Tiana from The Princess and the Frog
Jasmine from Aladdin
Hercules
Pinocchio
Belle from Beauty and the Beast
Ariel from The Little Mermaid
Aurora from Sleeping Beauty
This article was originally published on October 23, 2020. It has since been updated.
