I lived in New York for four years, but never went to the Museum of Natural History -- I was more of a MOMA guy. And I've never seen any of the Night at the Museum movies, about the statues of historical figures in dioramas coming to life and befuddling security guard Ben Stiller and his son Skyler Gisondo.
But the trailer to the Disney Plus animated Night at the Museum: Kamunrah Rises Again does not feature any boy-girl kissing -- a relief because earlier today I tried the fourth season of You, on Netflix, due to the promise of a gay character, and was treated to a "recap" involving 15 men and women swallowing each other's tongues.
Plus the trailer appears to show a gay couple, two cavemen with their arms around each other, so I'll give it a try.
Scene 1: We zoom through a diverse New York to the Museum, past dioramas with Sacajawea, Joan of Arc, Genghis Khan, a barrel-chested caveman, a monkey, a cowboy, a Roman soldier, Teddy Roosevelt, a T-Rex skeleton, and a future exhibit, "Kahmunrah: The Disappointing Son." He's an Egyptian pharaoh with standard Disney villain's long face and (I assume) British posh accent.
A rather chunky security guard enters, singing about his new job (he's just doing this until he makes it on Broadway), and stares as if he's never been inside the museum before. Wouldn't he have seen it during his interview, at least? He ignores the Instruction Manual and takes a nap. Then the sun goes down...
He wakes up to a monkey and Teddy Roosevelt. Then a mastadon, Sacajawea'a bear, a cave man and woman (I guess they were a heterosexual couple), and an additional cave man, who talks in stereotyped "Me Tarzan" talk. Actually languages begin complex, with multiple noun cases and irregular verbs, and become simpler over time. Then two miniatures, the cowboy and the Roman soldier. Joan of Arc tries to kill him. The T-Rex skeleton eats him and "poops him out." And so on, until he scrams. The denizens chuckle: they got rid of him in just two minutes!
Wait -- don't they inform new hires that the museum has a coming-to-life problem? No wonder they flee in terror!
Scene 2: Larry, the Ben Stiller character who originally discovered the coming-to-life problem, asks the denizens to stop scaring away the security guards. They argue that he wasn't a good fit; they want Larry's son. No way! Instead, he calls the chubby, feminine McPhee, who is in a bubble bath, with cucumber slices over his eyes.
McPhee thinks his mother is calling, and criticizes her bath-drawing ability. Then he covers by saying that "Mother" is a pet name for his supermodel girlfriend. Oh, no, a gay stereotype, complete with mother-obsession and fake girlfriend. I am disgustipated.
The denizens repeat: hire your son. "But Nick can't take care of you. He's a screw-up! And he's still in high school." In most states, 16-17 year olds can only work until 9:00 pm on school nights and 11:00 pm on weekends, so Nick would automatically be disqualified.
Ok, the caveman-gay couple was just a tease, and there's a homophobic stereotype (maybe two, if Kamunrah turns out to be swishy). I'm just going to fast-forward to the end, to see if this movie can be redeemed by the lack of a boy-girl fade-out kiss.
Nope. Not a kiss, but Nick and his girlfriend holding hands as they walk blissfully into the future. Ugh.
Disney does this all the time- teases gay content on a trailer and then it becomes one of those if you blink you miss it scenes or the gays can be cut out when the film is shown in homophobic countries.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, one of their recent tv movies on Disney Channel for Halloween "Under Wraps 2" features a full on gay wedding with an on screen kiss. Disney seems to want its cake and eat it too, when it comes to LGBTQ representation.
DeleteIn the live action movies the "gay couple" was the miniature Roman soldier and the cowboy
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