"The Mitchells vs. the Machines": Don't Say the Word, but Katie is....

 

Just a few years ago, there were no openly identified gay characters in any children's or family movie or tv series, ever.  Then, gradually they began appearing, in quick, blink-and-you miss it scenes: two dads drop off their son for a sleepover, a boy has a rainbow flag on his wall. More often than not, they still refuse to Say the Word, leaving the "lies, secrets, and silence" intact.     

I heard that the 2021 movie The Mitchells vs. the Machines was different: it doesn't try to hide the fact that protagonist Katie is gay. 

Creator/director Mike Rianda noticed that he was basing Katie's character on queer people.  He knew that the studio bigwigs wouldn't allow non-heterosexual people to exist, so he made Katie gay without telling them.  Then animator Lizzie Nichols wrote them a "heartfelt" letter: "We do not want to silence ourselves for fear of a bigoted few. We have to be on the side of what is right and just."  There was some pushback and some "very nervous people," but in the end they agreed.  

So let's see how they reveal Katie's queerness to the viewers.

Prologue: Some real family photos, with the taglines "blessed" and "family first," and a voiceover: "We all want to be the perfect family." Ruh-roh, "family is everything" rhetoric usually means "only heterosexuals need apply."

Scene 1: We start in the midst of an apocalypse, with robot monsters searching for "the last humans," and the family driving in a panic. 

Flashback to a few days before.  Katie Mitchell tells us that she has always felt like an outsider -- she never "fit in" -- (queer code 1),  so naturally she became a filmmaker (queer code 2: a rainbow button.  But you have to be looking for it to notice).  

Since Dad is played by Danny McBride, I have moved this review to Righteous Gemstones Beefcake and Boyfriends.