Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur He has often touched on ideas about race, class, and issues like gentrification while following the adventures of 13-year-old genius Lunella Lafatette (Diamond White) and her pet dinosaur, Devil (Fred Tatasciore). But according to now removed social media posts by animators who worked on “The Gatekeeper,” an episode about Lunella and other members of her school's volleyball team being terrorized by a transphobic adult, Disney has opted to prevent the episode from being officially released due to its subject matter.
“The Gatekeeper” spends much of its running time discussing how no one has a problem with team captain Brooklyn (Indya Moore) being trans, except Greer (Amy Sedaris), a coach/parent at a rival school. It's not until Greer hears that Brooklyn used to play on a men's soccer team that he tries to disqualify Lunella's team on a technicality. Lunella, the other girls, and her own adult coach, Hrbek (Tatasciore), can see (and say explicitly) that Greer is motivated by bigotry and an unfounded fear that her team will lose. But instead of taking those comments seriously, Greer traps Brooklyn and most of the team in an escape room-like pocket dimension that resembles his locker room.
The episode (which The edge has seen a leaked version of) features a pair of queer and trans pride flags, as well as a needle chosen from Charli free yourself. . The episode's message about accepting and celebrating people's identities is not subtle, but it is fundamentally uplifting and clearly intended to emphasize the importance of respecting other people.
Reports that Disney will pull the episode come just over a week after Donald Trump's harsh decision. transphobic presidential re-election campaign led him to victory and a year later Disney CEO Bob Iger insisted who felt that the study project had focused too much on messages. We've reached out to Disney for comment on whether it actually plans to stop “The Gatekeeper” from airing, and we'll update you when we hear back.
