'Beauty and the Beast' Detractors Are Focusing On the Wrong Message

The controversy about "that gay moment" in Beauty and the Beast during the press junket week in Los Angeles; it was revealed during that long weekend of interviews that LeFou had the first acknowledged gay moment in a Disney film.

Then the backlash began. One Alabama drive-in, which is privately owned, declared on the company's Facebook page, "If we can not take our 11-year-old granddaughter and 8-year-old grandson to see a movie we have no business watching it," Henagar Drive-In Theatre management stated. "If I can't sit through a movie with God or Jesus sitting by me then we have no business showing it."

The owners have since deleted their entire Facebook page due to the negative attention. While the family is entitled to their beliefs and how they choose to live their lives, I think the press is focusing in on a fleeting moment that is not even going to register in a young child's mind.

Even Beauty and the Beast composer Alan Mencken told Comicbook.com that the whole thing was "an utter non-issue."

After seeing the film last Saturday, I agree. In fact, we are missing an entire story that some parents might want to hear instead.

I listened to a five-year-old girl talk about how scary the film is. So while everyone is making a fuss over a second of film, the kindergartner was telling her mom in the bathroom that the wolves and the final scene involving a gun were too much for her.

While I am not a parent, I heard her talk about the vividness of the darkness and the violence in Beauty and the Beast. Not once did she mention LeFou and his "gay moment". The film is rated PG for a reason — for some "action, violence, peril and frightening images," according to the Motion Picture Association of America.

Let's focus on the real issue here: violent images and gun usage in kids' films. That is something all citizen, no matter what their religious beliefs, should be concerned about. Beauty and the Beast is a magnificent film, but you might want to think twice about taking your pre-school-aged kid to see the movie. Sometimes, Disney can be scary.