Disenchanted: A Gay-Free Heroic Fantasy Spoof

I'm not very happy with Matt Groening's (or his writers') inclusion of gay characters.

 The Simpsons has a very occasional homophobic stereotype prancing about, plus Smithers (who finally came out after 17 years) and Patty (28 years). Neither have the slightest inkling of gay history and culture.

They don't even get the offensive gestures right.  Remember when BOTH Patty and Smithers flashed limp wrists to demonstrate they are gay?  Patty?  Really....

On Futurama, Groening's science fiction spoof, gay people were mentioned exactly twice, both times disparagingly, and same-sex desire was dismissed as ridiculous once.

So I didn't have high hopes for Disenchanted (2018), Groening's parody of the fairy tale genre.

In the faux Medieval kingdom of Dreamland, teenage Princess Bean (Abbi Jacobson) is a drunken wastrel who rebels against the constrained princess life imagined by her father, King Zog (John DiMaggio).  Her partners in crime are:

1. The demon Lucie (Eric Andre, left).

2.  The naive, goodnatured elf Elfo (Nat Faxon, top photo and left).  I'm not sure, but think this is a photo of Faxon's character having sex with a guy (notice the bald spot on top).

Nice triceps, Nat.

Together Bean, Lucie, and Elfo have a sort of Leela-Fry-Bender dynamic.  Elfo even has a partially requited crush on Bean.

Other characters include:
1. King Zog, a brash, easily perturbed Archie Bunker type.
2. His second wife, Queen Oona, a snakelike creature who speaks with an Eastern European accent.
3. His sorcerer, Sorcerio (Billy West), who believes that elf blood holds the secret to immortality.

Various courtesans, advisors, and knights that it's hard to keep track of.

The society is sort of fun, a juxtaposition of magical-realm and the horrors of real Medieval life.

I like the fact that their religion isn't Christianity.  They worship the "one god who is the brother to the other one god," and there's a female high priestess.

The plotlines are rather predictable:  Bean rebels against an arranged marriage; Bean tries out a number of new jobs, including executioner; Lucie is captured by an exorcist; Elfo makes up a girlfriend to avoid admitting that he likes Bean.

I liked the episode where the witch from "Hansel and Gretel" turns out to be innocent, the victim of the murderous children.

But there are overarching plots inside of plots.  Elfo is not what he seems.  Bean's mother, who was turned to stone 15 years ago, is not what she seems, either.  Nor is Bean.  And some dark wizards are watching the activity in a magic flame and commenting on how well their plan is progressing.  It becomes quite complex, not to mention surprisingly dark, and ends on several cliffhangers.

The artwork is competent, the visual tropes pleasantly familiar from 30 years of Springfield, and there is a quite a lot of beefcake.  Even the portly King Zog was a muscular warrior, as shown in a flashback to his youth.

Gay references:  Not many.  When Bean decides to cozy up to invading Vikings, she says "I'm changing teams," and Lucie yells "Called it!"  He thinks that "changing teams" means turning lesbian.

You'd think a demon would know that you can't turn lesbian.

Generally in fantasy stories, when you encounter sirens, female creatures whose beautiful songs lure you to your death, only the men have to stop up their ears.  Women are immune.  But when Bean and the gang encounter them, Bean has to stop up her ears, too.  Nice for the myth to be somewhat less heterosexist.

And that's it.

Gay characters: Sorcerio refers to another guy as his ex-lover.  So he's gay.  I suppose.  But when they encounter a hippogriff, a horse-eagle-human hybrid that claims to be female but asserts that "gender is fluid," Sorcerio offers to have sex with it.

And that's it.