Disney and Pixar’s Luca has been making waves since it dropped on Disney+ on Friday, June 18, perhaps purposely in the middle of Pride Month. The “coming-of-age story about a boy sharing summer adventures with a new best friend” sounds simplistic enough, but many are seeing the film as a beautifully crafted queer allegory.
****WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD****
Luca, is a ‘sea-monster’. Voiced by Jacob Tremblay, Luca has always wondered what it’s like ‘on the surface’, but is too frightened to try going there. By happenstance, he meets Alberto (voiced by Jack Dylan Grazer of IT fame), another sea-monster who is very at ease with swimming around in the deep, and living above the surface- albeit all alone.
When out of water on dry land, the sea-monsters lose their scales, fins, gills and tails and look just like every other human. No one could know Luca and Alberto’s secret, so long as they don’t expose their fishy roots by getting wet.
Disney and Pixar’s ‘Luca’- Could this Be Their First LGBTQ+ Animated Movie?
Are you with me so far?
After Luca’s parents discover he has been ‘going to the surface’ they try to send him away, to the depths of the ocean, in a place so dark and deep that he won’t be able to revisit ‘the surface’, or Alberto anytime soon.
Of course, Luca swims away to be with his friend, and after a while, Luca and Alberto decide to try life in the nearby town of Portorosso to live amongst the humans, all the while hiding their secret.
Portorosso is a town that looks suspiciously like the stunning Cinque Terre of Italy’s northwestern coast and has a storied history of fearing and hunting sea monsters.
Luca and Alberto instantly meet town bully and hugely bigoted, Ercole before being take under the wing of Giulia, voiced by wonderful relative newcomer, Emma Berman. When Berman and Tremblay really get into scenes of Giulia teaching Luca about the world, they create more than just a little magic…but I digress.
Giulia is a loner who only lives in Portorosso with her divorced dad during school vacations and has no friends. Until she meets Luca and Alberto who she can really relate to.
****SERIOUS SPOILERS AHEAD****
The rest of the movie has a very simple concept of Giulia, Luca and Alberto competing against Ercole and his cronies for glory in the Portorosso Cup but, as all Disney movies do, culminates in an exciting but bittersweetly happy ending where lessons are learned by both parties- the sea monsters and the landlubbers.
Alberto is accidentally outed as ‘a sea monster’. Though he had been brave enough to show his true identity to Giulia before, Luca had left him dangling by disparaging his bestie’s truth.
This time, in front of the whole town, Luca can’t let Alberto be the only ‘fish out of water’ and shows everyone that he, too, is a sea monster.
After much furor and an ardent defense by Giulia’s father, a sea monster hunter who has changed his tune- after all he was born different also, with only one arm- Alberto and Luca are accepted for being who they really are.
And wouldn’t you know it, there just happens to already be two sea monsters living amongst the humans in Portorosso- two little old ladies who are consistently seen together as background characters also “out” themselves after seeing that acceptance can occur in their adoptive town.
Folks have drawn many comparisons between Luca and the queer film, Call Me By Your Name. The 2017 hit is a coming of age story set in northern Italy, (hmm, seeing some similarities here- and not just that either of these films could double as advertisements for the Italian Tourism Board) and chronicles the romantic relationship between Elio (Timothée Chalamet) and Oliver (Armie Hammer).
In what some claim can’t be a coincidence but is rather a nod from Disney and Pixar, Call Me By Your Name was directed by Luca Guadagnino.
While Disney or Pixar may never come out and say they have created their first LGBTQ+ full length animation, it seems they have snuck this one under the radar. Of course the film explores many more themes, especially anxiety.
Much braver than Luca, Alberto teaches his new friend how to push away the fearful voice in his head. I don’t know about you, but “Silenzio Bruno!” will become a staple in my cluttered brain, and will likely be uttered by more than one child as they re-enter a post pandemic society.
Family dynamics are also explored with Guilia coming from a ‘broken home’, Luca from a loving but overbearing and conservative family and poor Alberto giving up hope that his father will return after deeming his teenaged son ‘a man’ and able to care for himself (likely while Dad goes to visit the Salty Spitoon in Bikini Bottom…or am I not allowed to cross those swords?)
Emotional fragility is also explored, with Alberto keeping another secret, that his blustery bravado is covering his deep hurt, and Luca’s big imagination and thirst to learn is going to inspire many kids.
Of course it’s friendship dynamics and acceptance– not fear or hate of others that are different– that are the main veins of the film, but we all have to agree, we could have as happily watched Giulia’s Machiavellian cat, aptly named Machiavelli for 90 minutes.
At its core, and no matter how much the creators insist otherwise (and lets be honest, their denials are pretty half-hearted) Luca is a queer fable. And it is an absolute delight.
Perhaps those who pitched a fit and began sharpening their pitchforks after ‘Stanley’ in the 2017 (a good year for queer films!) live action Beauty and the Beast enjoyed his ‘female’ clothes just a little too much for their narrow minds would enjoy seeing little Luca discover himself and perhaps open their hearts…just enough to stop hunting ‘sea-monsters’ themselves.
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