Jun 6

Jun 6 [Pride 2021] Lilo's Two Dads - Disney's First Canonically Queer Couple

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It seems every few years news comes out that Disney's latest film will feature the company's first openly queer character.

Seriously, they've done it four times now, 2017 had news that LeFou would be gay in the Beauty and the Beast remake, the same year had Cyrus Goodman in the series Andi Mack, and then there was the Officer Specter in Onward. A lot of people missed the gay family in Frozen too.

But what if I told you that not only was there a queer couple before any of these, but the weren't just minor characters or passing mentions but two main characters who were explicitly and canonically queer way back in 2002 in the Lilo & Stitch franchise.

Yes, Jumba and Pleakley are canonically queer and I'm going to prove it.

Now the original film didn't really do much to develop their relationship as anything more than two drastically contrasting personalities. It does, however, establish Pleakley's penchant for dressing in drag.

For this first film it can easily be dismissed as merely a disguise however this argument quickly loses its weight in the TV series and pilot film, Stitch! The Movie.

Following the events of original film, the pilot film and series has Lilo and Stitch locating the other 625 experiments and finding their home as one big Ohana, or family, a core theme of the franchise.

Joining Lilo and Stitch in their adventures are Jumba and Pleakley who have moved into Lilo's old bedroom as 'roommates', and often appearing in disguise as Lilo's Uncle Jumba and Aunt Pleakley.

The disguises are completely unnecessary however, as they don't need to be hiding that they're aliens, constantly throughout the series civilians see Gantu yet rather than think his stature is as result of being an alien, they dismiss this as being because he's Samoan. So clearly they don't 'pretend' to be a couple as a disguise. Even then, they could easily be friends or siblings and not a couple.

The identities they adopt are quite simple to understand, despite not being blood relatives they're still considered family, quite similarly I too have aunts and nans who aren't blood relatives but are still family.

As such Jumba is an uncle but Pleakley chooses to be identified as an aunt and as Jumba's wife. This aspect is certainly open to interpretation with Pleakley being either trans or non-binary, unfortunately since this is just a very strong and nigh certain interpretation, it's an interpretation nonetheless and cannot be viewed as canon. If only there was a more concrete evidence of them as a couple...

Perhaps if they had gotten married at some point in the series?

Like they do in Season 1 Episode 14 'Fibber'.

In this episode, Pleakley and Jumba canonically get married. The wedding is paid for by Pleakley's family, and is officially ordained by a minister, papers signed and everything.

Some may try to argue that the vows were disingenuous by having Fibber beep immediately afterwards, which he does when someone is lying.

However, this was clearly an intentional misdirect by the writers to avoid backlash against having Pleakley confess his love to Jumba. Fibber beeps three times in a row, he only beeps once per lie in previous instances, not only this but at this point he's still in the house with Stitch so the beeping can only be in response to Stitch and not Pleakley as if he had that range he would be beeping constantly.

Now some of you might say that Jumba and Pleakley couldn't have gotten married since same-sex marriage wasn't legal in Hawaii until 2013, which is true. However, since 1997, Hawaii has had Reciprocal Beneficial Relationships which Jumba and Pleakley could enter. Clearly this was the intention of this episode but due to the complicated name, they obviously chose to refer to it simply as a marriage as to not confuse young viewers and make their marriage seem unusual compared to the marriage of straight characters.

So now you see, Disney clearly tried implementing a queer couple nearly 20 years ago but hid it so well under the pretense of aliens in disguise that it completely slipped through the radar of so many people who never thought to even question it.