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  The OSA Telegraph

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'The owl house' has DISNEY'S first bisexual lead

9/10/2020

2 Comments

 
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"LGBTQ rep in media is rare, especially with Disney. But in the new show, The Owl House, we are introduced to their first bisexual lead character, Luz Noceda. ​" -- Piper Stuip, 7th grade
​The Owl House follows Luz Noceda, a dorky, 14-year-old, fanfiction nerd, who stumbles upon a door to another world, “The Boiling Isles.” Here she meets the foxy, Eda, “The Owl Lady”, the most powerful of witches and her little friend, King, “Ruler of demons”, as he calls himself. Luz decides to stay with Eda and King, and learn to become a witch, aside from her human properties. 

Throughout the first season, Luz has shown romantic interest in both females and males, but mainly with the recurring character, the pretentious Amity Blight. In both episodes, “Enchanting Grom Fright” and “Wing It Like Witches'', their relationship has further grown. It was Blight's intention to ask Noceda to “Grom” The Boiling Isles version of prom. But, with a few more activities, that include one being chosen to defeat the Grometheus, “bringer of fear.” In the end, the Noceda and Blight defeat the monster, and they share a dance together.

Luz and Amity start out as rivals. They first meet because Luz assisted Amity’s classmate, resulting in her top class spot to be taken, something that's very important to Amity. So they often fight and challenge each other, Blight constantly trying to “one-up” the other. That is, until the episode “Lost in Language,” where Luz attempts to befriend Amity, but instead becomes close with her two older twin siblings. But that ends in a spell gone wrong, and the two bond during the catastrophe. However, a real friendship isn’t established until the episode “First day” where once again, they find each other in the midst of destruction.

Dana Terrace, creator and executive producer, tweeted that at first, Disney wouldn’t allow her to include any kind of LGBT rep. “I’m bi!,” Terrace continued in the tweet. “I want to write a bi character, dammit!” “Luckily my stubbornness paid off,” Terrace said in another tweet, “And now, I’m VERY supported by current Disney leadership.”

Animation has done well with LGBT rep for the most part. Shows like The Legend of Korra featured two canon bisexual women in a relationship, before gay marriage was legal in all 50 states. Steven Universe also shows a great deal of representation, and also aired before gay marriage was legalized. Both shows targeted towards younger audiences, however, newer releases such as, Shera: Princesses of power, and Kipo have also done exceedingly well.

As for Disney's personal history with LGBTQ representation, they haven’t done as great. Of course they had their first canonically queer character, Cyrus, in the TV show series Andi Mack, in the episode One in a Minyan which aired on Febuary 8th, 2019. Cyrus was the first and only explicitly queer character in Diseny media before Luz and Amity. 

LGBTQ representation in media is incredibly important. Yet we hardly ever see it. Or, a good interpretation of it. Often, they either get written, or killed off. And in a lot of cases, bisexuality seems to be erased as a whole, which can cause many bisexuals to feel invalidated. 

This makes Luz’s bisexuality a positive step in moving forward. And, hopefully, it can result in it being normalized at one point.

You can find The Owl House on Hulu (with specific subscriptions), DisneyNOW, Amazon Prime Video, and put together playlists on YouTube.
2 Comments
Isabella
9/14/2020 01:06:05 pm

This is a great article! Well written

Reply
Sander
9/15/2020 10:43:22 am

Glad you got to write about the combination of a fan-fiction nerd and LGBTQ representation.
Great article you can tell you care about the subject.

Reply



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