‘Elio’ Insiders Allege Pixar Execs Cut Queer Latino Representation, Leading to Director Adrian Molina’s Exit

After its latest film “Elio” flopped at the box office on its opening weekend, Pixar is once again at the center of controversy.

via: Pink News

Elio, the latest film from Pixar after 2022’s Elemental, follows an eleven year-old boy by the same name as he struggles with his identity as an outsider from his contemporaries. Elio (Yonas Kibreab) is mistaken by aliens as an ambassador for Earth, abducted to the ‘Communiverse’ and befriends Glordon, a lovable worm-like extra-terrestrial.

Elio is joined by Zoe Saldaña as Elio’s aunt Olga, Jameela Jamil as alien ambadassador Questa and more, and the film was originally directed by gay filmmaker Adrian Molina, who also developed the story.

Despite being described by Molina as a “personal coming-of-age story about youthful alienation”, themes with which queer viewers are sure to identify, the cut of the film that has made it to a dire box office debut ($20.8 million domestically and $14 million overseas in a record-low opening for Pixar), is very different.

In a report by The Hollywood Reporter, Pixar insiders have claimed that explicit allusions to Elio’s queerness were “sanded down” before it was released to the public.

“Elio was initially portrayed as a queer-coded character, reflecting original director Adrian Molina’s identity as an openly gay filmmaker,” the report reads, according to “multiple insiders”.

It adds that in the original cut, Elio is seen taking trash and making it into fashion, including a pink crop top; in the final cut, “Gone were not only such direct examples of his passion for environmentalism and fashion, but also a scene in Elio’s bedroom with pictures suggesting a male crush.”

Molina departed the project after internal feedback from studio bosses, and “much of Elio was reworked under new co-directors Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi,” the report states.

An anonymous source also told THR, “It was pretty clear through the production of the first version of the film that [studio leaders] were constantly sanding down these moments in the film that alluded to Elio’s sexuality of being queer.”

The source, a former Pixar artist, added: “Suddenly, you remove this big, key piece, which is all about identity, and Elio just becomes about totally nothing. The Elio that is in theaters right now is far worse than Adrian’s best version of the original.”

“I was deeply saddened and aggrieved by the changes that were made,” former Pixar assistant editor Sarah Ligatich told THR.

Pixar has recently also come under fire for removing a trans storyline from Disney+ series Win or Lose, and the team on Inside Out 2 were reportedly told to make lead character Riley “less gay”.

Elio is in cinemas now.