Phelim McAleer: Parents expect whimsy from kids’ movies not activist propaganda
You may have noticed the Disney/Pixar animated movie ‘Elio’ that came out recently – then again, you may not, as it absolutely bombed at the box office.
Released in June, this child oriented sci-fi tale about an 11-year-old boy, mistaken for Earth's leader by aliens, was Pixar’s worst ever debut. It is now on track to lose about $200 million.
This isn't merely a misfire; it's a seismic failure for a studio that once dominated with billion dollar family-friendly blockbusters such as ‘Toy Story’ and ‘Finding Nemo’. And now, the industry’s trade newspaper, The Hollywood Reporter, has revealed why the movie was so bad.
According to multiple insiders, the film's prominent "queer themes" were removed late in the production process, leaving a themeless narrative void.
Insiders told The Hollywood Reporter that original director Adrian Molina, an openly gay filmmaker, had crafted the hero as "queer-coded", with elements like a "bedroom scene suggesting a male crush”. Yes, you read that correctly. Disney/Pixar thought it was appropriate to feature an 11-year-old boy with gay sexual fantasies in a movie aimed at the children.
But after alarming test screenings – where not one viewer in Arizona raised a hand to say they'd pay to see the movie in theaters – the studio panicked, fired Molina, and overhauled the script to excise those gay themes. The result? As sources put it to the Hollywood Reporter: "Elio just became about totally nothing."
The changes exposed the core problem with the movie. Pixar and the director had originally sacrificed storytelling to push a political agenda. The "queer elements" weren't accidental afterthoughts – they were the movie's raison d'être, a vehicle for messaging over plot. Once the agenda was stripped away, there was no story left to tell. And that's the persistent problem plaguing Hollywood: filmmakers keep sacrificing stories for ideological crusades. And now they are wondering why no one brings children to see their propaganda pieces that celebrate sexualising 11-year-olds.
This removal of the gay themes from ‘Elio’ is part of a Trump-inspired trend where studios are retreating from injecting leftist politics into children's content. It may be too late, as audiences remain scared of having their values and children's innocence assaulted without warning in the movie theatre.
Yet The Hollywood Reporter frames this retreat as a tragedy, decrying it as a "loss for diversity" and even suggesting the film might have succeeded with the "queer” storyline intact. They see the removal of gay storylines – and other political threads, like environmentalism in upcoming projects – as the problem, not the solution. This perspective blindingly misses the point: it's the insertion of these agendas in the first place that's destroying the industry. By prioritizing propaganda over entertainment, especially in kids' movies, Hollywood alienates families who want whimsy, not workshops on sexuality or activism. It has been an ongoing problem.
‘Lightyear’ which came out in 2022 had a same-sex kiss followed by a backlash and family boycotts. It lost hundreds of millions.
The recent live action Snow White cleaned up its act and removed woke elements before release but couldn’t stop its star Rachel Zegler letting audiences know that she was pushing for a non-traditional ‘girl power’ Snow White who didn’t need a Prince Charming. Not surprisingly, audiences stayed away in droves.
These audiences really are tired of the agendas in their movies and the industry is suffering. The 2025 American box office is stumbling, with family attendance hit hardest by this fatigue. My hometown of Los Angeles is withering under the strain. Falling box offices and strike “victories” that saw massive salary increases for already well-paid movie professionals have led to empty studios and sound stages. The artform is dying before our eyes, not from streaming but from overpaid moviemakers who seem to hate their audiences. For children's fare, they particularly loathe the parents, who insist on protecting childhood innocence from premature sexualization.
Hollywood needs to abandon the agendas. Perhaps prioritize plots that enchant, not indoctrinate. If Hollywood persists in seeing agenda removals as the problem rather than the symptom, more ‘Elio’-level disasters loom.
• Phelim McAleer is a Tyrone-born journalist/producer who lives in Los Angeles: @phelimmcaleer