Arlo is a 15-year old alligator-boy who grew up in the swamps of Louisiana, but now lives in Seaside, New York. He has a Southern accent that keeps slipping away, a penchant for bursting into song, the innocent joie-de-vivre of Spongebob Squarepants, and the friend-making obsession of Casper the Friendly Ghost. Most of the episodes in I Heart Arlo (2021) involve Arlo trying to help a friend who is facing a crisis:
From left to right:
1. Alia, an irresponsbile tiger-girl, struggles to hold down a job.
2. Marcellus, a grumpy fish-man, tries to profit financially from other people's problems.
3. Tony, an Italian rat, doesn't want his parents to find out that he runs a pizza place instead of being a gangster.
4. Furnecia, a drag queen furball, is so stressed from working overtime at her hair salon that she begins losing her hair.
5. The giantess Bertie (not shown) wants "a room of her own," but every refuge she finds soon gets overrun by her friends.
Arlo also has problems of his own: he sheds his scales, causing his friends to think he is a ghost; he gets sick with "swamp itch"; he tries to relate to his estranged father, a wealthy bird-man (Vincent Rodriguez III of My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend).
Vincent Rodriguez III is gay, of course. So are Michael Woodard (Arlo), Mary Lambert (Bertie), Jonathan Van Ness (Furlecia), and Ryan Crego (the executive producer).
Their Seaside community is built on friendship and acceptance of nonconformity, gender and otherwise. When Dad finds Arlo wearing a dress, his only concern is that he will need a new pet name. How about "Pumpkin"?
In the episodes I watched, no one expressed any heterosexual interest. Or any same-sex interest, for that matter. Romance does not appear to exist in this world.
Some reviews have suggested that, in addition to the general acceptance of difference, Arlo is gay, and his earlier movie (Arlo the Alligator Boy) a coming-out story. What about his lack of expressed same-sex interest? They explain that he is a kid, too young to have sex.
I've heard that one before: boys can gaze in awe at the girl next door a decade or more before they hit puberty, but you can't be gay unless you are sexually active. It's nonsense. Gay boys have crushes in kindergarten. For a fictional character to be identified as gay, they have to say or do something that indicates an experience of same sex desire. Arlo doesn't.
However, lots of kids are nonbinary, transgender, asexual, aromantic, or simply gender-noncomforming. They can respond message of radical inclusion rather than alienation and rejection, regardless of whether Arlo actually dates anyone.
