I don’t go to the movies often, so when my boyfriend surprised me with an evening out to see the new "Beauty and the Beast" remake, I was pretty excited. As expected, the movie blew me away. It had a lot of awesome things going for it: phenomenal special effects, good acting, and even the normalizing of interracial relationships. There were some other progressive features, however, that are keeping Christian families from taking their children to see the movie. The most talked about is Lefou being gay and having a two-second clip in which he dances with another man, but there are two others that have received less attention: the first concerning a character that feels comfortable dressing in drag, and the second is that the Beast was designed to look too much like Baphomet (if you’ve never heard of Baphomet, that’s the official symbol of the Church of Satan). If you’re still on the fence about whether this movie is going to corrupt the youth, have no fear; I’m here to debunk every claim made about "Beauty and the Beast" trying to turn the faithful away from Christ.

Let’s establish the first and most obvious thing we’ve seen in hundreds of articles ever since the news broke out: yes, it’s true that the character Lefou is gay. Here’s the thing, though; gay villains are nothing new. In many cartoons, any character who is sexualized, made to resemble someone in drag (hello, Ursula), or flamboyant in any way is always a villain. No one bat an eye. However, the reason everyone’s losing their minds this time around is because Lefou gets a two-second blip of screen time to dance with another man (because two measly seconds automatically normalizes the homosexuality that people are so desperate to hide from their children, right?).

Here’s the thing, though: my boyfriend and I watched Lefou’s scenes very closely to find this alleged dance scene that everyone was ranting and raving about, and we both missed it. We also thought back on every time Lefou referenced having a crush on Gaston and agreed that children are far more likely to see it as comic relief rather than an affirmation that being gay is okay. Quite frankly, I’m not surprised that it was framed the way it was. As a kid, I’d seen tons of movies in which certain appearances and behaviors that can be considered “gay” were always made out to be funny, and Lefou’s character was no different this time around. Whatever Disney’s intentions were to turn children over to the dark side, they fell flat, because there is not much difference between Lefou and the blatantly homosexual villains of cartoons past; it still sends kids the message that acting “gay” is merely a joke rather than something to be praised and accepted.

Less heard of but still within the realm of sexuality is the other two-second clip (apparently that’s all it takes to turn your child into a future drag queen these days) of one of the guards feeling comfortable in drag. In the scene in which Gaston and the town storm the castle, the talking dresser does her part in the battle by throwing women’s clothing onto the three guards. Two of them freak out and run away, while one stays back and smiles as if to signal that he is comfortable in his new outfit. Awesome stuff if you’re a progressive adult who understands drag and the LGBTQA+ community, but this blip of a man being confident in drag is going to slide right over kids’ heads. If they do notice it, the first thing coming to a child’s mind isn’t going to be “wow, he’s so confident dressing as a woman”, it’s going to be “he’s dressed like a woman, he’s so silly!” These little eggs of representation will be noticed and understood by adults, but if you’ve already raised your child with the mindset that cis-gender and heterosexual are the only acceptable identities, then it’s not going to register to the kiddies that the guard’s drag is okay. It’s simply going to come across as funny if they even catch those scenes at all.

Last, but not least, and probably the most ridiculous thing I have heard yet, is the theory that the Beast looks similar to Baphomet – and that this design was done on purpose. This theory rides on the Beast’s long horns and the fact that he is a “goat hybrid.” Let’s establish the long horns first: reason alone will tell us that just because he has long horns doesn’t automatically point to Satanic symbolism. In the cartoon, his horns were smaller; but he shouldn’t have to look like his puppy-esque counterpart from 1991. He has long horns because he’s supposed to be ugly and scary, not because he’s a wink and a nudge to the Church of Satan. On the “goat hybrid” bit: no, no, no. He’s not a goat. He doesn’t even have hooves. He has paws for both his hands and his feet and his face is clearly still more resembling a dog or even a lion than a goat. Even so, he’s supposed to be, you know, a beast. If he was, in fact, designed to look a little demonic, it’s because the plot relies on him looking undesirable, not because Disney is trying to coerce our youth into Satanism.

In conclusion, it’s safe to say that the new "Beauty and the Beast" is worth seeing. It’s funny, it’s got all the classic songs plus a few goodies not featured in the cartoon, and for the last time, it’s not going to turn your kid gay.