Snoop Dogg asks why the film had to ‘show that’ to children

Snoop Dogg has said seeing a same-sex couple in Disney’s 2022 film Lightyear left him “scared to go to the movies” because he did not want to answer his grandson’s questions on homosexual relationships.

In a new podcast appearance, the rapper described taking his grandchildren to see the 2022 Pixar animated film Lightyear. Voiced by Captain America star Chris Evans, the Toy Story spinoff follows marooned space ranger Buzz Lightyear as he tries to make his way back home.

In the film, a montage shows Buzz’s best friend Alisha Hawthorne, voiced by Uzo Aduba, meeting, falling in love with, marrying, and then raising a child with a crew member named Kiko. One of the scenes shows the couple at their son’s graduation, where they share a brief kiss.

On a recent episode of the It’s Giving podcast, which appears to have edited the episode to remove the section from the main upload, Snoop Dogg mentioned his grandson had a series of questions about queer couples that he didn’t “have an answer for”.

“They’re like, ‘She had a baby, with another woman.’ Well, my grandson, in the middle of the movie is like, ‘Papa Snoop? How she have a baby with a woman? She’s a woman!’” he said.

“‘Oh s***, I didn’t come in for this s***. I just came to watch the godd*** movie,’” the rapper continued. “‘They just said, she and she had a baby, they’re both women. How does she have a baby?’”

“It f***ed me up,” Snoop said. “I’m like, scared to go to the movies. Y’all throwing me in the middle of s*** that I don’t have an answer for. It threw me for a loop. I’m like, ‘What part of the movie was this?’ These are kids. We have to show that at this age? They’re going to ask questions. I don’t have the answer.”

Buzz Lightyear, voiced by Chris Evans, and Alisha Hawthorne, voiced by Uzo Aduba, in a scene from Lightyear; Snoop Dogg says seeing a same-sex couple the film left him ‘scared to go to the movies’ (© 2021 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved.)

In the main episode, at around the 31-minute mark, host Sarah Fontenot asks Snoop Dogg what he thinks of her opinion on what she called the “single mother epidemic”, where single mothers are “raising women in their sons”.

Snoop responds: “See, that goes back to the presentation I spoke to you [about] earlier. What you see, it’s what you see. They’re putting it everywhere.”

Immediately after, the video cuts to Fontenot talking about a completely different subject.

However, the podcast has since released the clip of Snoop talking about Lightyear in a different upload and claimed in a comment on YouTube that the video was “mistakenly edited”.

Multiple comments on the YouTube video have called out the podcast for editing the main episode, and it appears to have been added later as a response to the viewers’ comments, based on the time stamps.

“You have removed the piece of the interview when Snoop was elaborating about how to explain to his grandchild about LGBTQ+ content in a cinema movie. Shame on you for removing it,” said one viewer.

Another wrote: “There is no ‘mistakenly deleted’ about it. You literally have to go into YouTube studio, find the section and trim it out manually. It’s pretty intentional. Now that it’s become a viral clip you’re kicking yourselves, should have just held to your content and kept it up.”

Several people brought up the rapper’s 2004 cameo in The L Word, a series that followed the lives of a group of lesbian and bisexual women in West Hollywood.

English singer-songwriter Boy George wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “So sad to read this from Snoop Dogg. Because you can’t turn kids gay by helping them understand that some people are different. You are born gay, just like you are born black or anything else. Kids are a reflection of those who raise them. Come on Snoop, be the legend you are or get some stronger weed! Always your fan. Boy Gay-geous!”

“Snoop Dogg is trending for not wanting to explain lesbianism during a kid’s movie which means he didn’t learn anything about lesbians during his guest star role as Slim Daddy on The L Word in the 2000s,” one person wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

“Snoop Dogg joining in on the ‘We have to show that at this age?’ discourse about LGBTQ+ content in kids’ media is so disappointing. If you can’t find the wherewithal to say ‘sometimes people are gay’ as a grown adult, that’s a you problem. Stop making it everyone else’s problem,” wrote another.

Lightyear was banned in multiple countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar over the depiction of the same-sex couple. The kiss was reportedly removed, and then reinstated again after staff released an open letter criticising Disney’s response to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

“Nearly every moment of overtly gay affection is cut at Disney’s behest, regardless of when there is protest from both the creative teams and executive leadership at Pixar,” employees wrote in a statement to Disney leadership.

At the film’s London premiere, Evans had reportedly said that objections to the same-sex kiss were “frustrating”.

“It’s great that we are a part of something that’s making steps forward in the social inclusion capacity, but it’s frustrating that there are still places that aren’t where they should be,” he said.

The Independent has reached out to representatives for Snoop Dogg and the It’s Giving podcast for comment.