Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth for the Colson Center on Johnstone Street. Before it debuted late last month, Disney boasted that its newest animated film, Elio, quote, continues Pixar's tradition of crafting films that resonate across generations. But even after several iterations and attempts to hook test groups, Elio earned just $21 million during its domestic opening weekend, which was the worst debut in Pixar history and a huge disappointment after more than $200 million was spent making the movie. Elio, the title character, is a space fanatic with an active imagination. He finds himself on a cosmic misadventure where he must form bonds with alien life forms, navigate a crisis of intergalactic proportions, and along the way, discover who he's truly meant to be.
But that was not the original storyline. According to sources reported by The Hollywood Reporter, the movie was supposed to be centered on a queer-coated 11-year-old protagonist, With subtle details included that hinted at a same-sex crush. Later versions of the film softened Elio's homosexual identity, but continued to make personality the primary driver of the storyline.
So, for example, an early version reportedly shown to the production crew portrayed Elio collecting trash on the beach and turning it into homemade apparel. And that included a pink tank top, which, according to multiple insiders, was to portray the character as a queer coated character and reflect original director Adrian Molina's identity. As an openly gay filmmaker. But even after all of the changes were made, the movie still failed to work. After a test screening held in Arizona in the summer of 2023, the audience was asked how many would watch it in theaters.
According to reports, and I quote, not a single hand was raised.
Now, a group of gay Pixar employees that go by the name Pix Pride are blaming the poor box office showing on the fact that the storyline was changed and stripped of its underlying gay themes. As one Pixar staffer put it, quote, you remove this big key piece, which is all about identity, and Elio just becomes about totally nothing, end quote.
Well, the staffer's close to the truth. Pixar did try to rescue the movie from a focus on gay identity, especially in light of the recent failures of other Pixar movies, but that was just one particularly annoying form of a larger problem. And that problem is the perpetual insistence on postmodern notions of identity that just at the end of the day do not replace good storytelling.
Now of course, identity discovery and formation can be essential aspects of the best stories. The redemptive narrative of scripture, which culminates in the work of God to redeem the world that he made, is built on a notion of identity that humans are made in the image of God. And that explains both their significance within the created order and just how serious the consequences of the fall are. But in the end, the story of Scripture is compelling because of redemption and renewal. How the sacrifice of God redeems and restores us to who He always intended us to be.
But in a postmodern vision, identity is self-determined. It's constructed. Everything else about reality has to confirm to our own notions about who we are. According to GLAAD's Studio Responsibility Index, the portrayals of that kind of a vision of identity, especially in the form of the ever-growing list of identities in the acronym, have increased significantly since the early 2000s. In 2022, 100 major studio films included gay characters.
That's more than 28% of all films made that year. These films claim to portray an elevated view of identity, but what they offer instead is actually an impoverished view of identity. Because in that view, sexuality is identity. Autonomy is what gives us dignity. But that's only plausible in certain times and in certain cultures like ours, which already suffer from what sociologist Peter Berger called the permanent identity crisis of modern man.
You see, the ideals of human equality and dignity are, as even Frederick Nietzsche once noted, another Christian concept. That furnishes the prototype of all theories of equal rights. As I pointed out in my book, A Practical Guide to Culture, co authored with Brett Kunkel, today many want to have the fruit of human dignity while soundly condemning or abandoning its roots.
Now the Bible, of course, is filled with captivating stories, from the epic tales of the patriarchs to Jesus' miraculous ministry. They not only reveal God's character, they also reveal to us along the way what it truly means to be human. created and redeemed in his image. The very best stories are the ones that tell the truth about who we are. And until Hollywood figures out identity as it actually is.
LEO will not be its last flop. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint. Today's Breakpoint was co-authored by Bob Dittmer. If you're a fan of Breakpoint, leave us a review wherever you download your podcast. And for a version of this commentary that you can either print out or share with others, go to breakpoint.org.
