Pride 3: Out.

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- Out. (2020. Dir. Steven Clay Hunter). Animated Short. 

Greg, a gay man in the closet, is about to move to the city with his boyfriend. When his parents drop in for a surprise visit, he struggles to keep his secret. 

And then a magical cat and dog emerge from a rainbow, make Greg and his dog switch bodies and complicate matters further. 

Well-meaning short film, part of the infamous Spark Shorts collection from Pixar and meant to celebrate LGBT folks. Unfortunately, it’s the kind of story that is about queer people but not actually intended for them. Yet another story made under the impression that queer people *ought* to come out to their straight relatives and friends and that not doing so is lying —as opposed to often being a necessary survival strategy in an extremely hostile world. 

Then there is the entire matter of Greg and his dog switching bodies, which feels like it was added mostly to integrate bits of comedy to entertain children —whom, the filmmakers seem to assume, would otherwise be bored. A story that cannot conceive of queer children existing. 

In short, the opposite of genuinely queer, all-audiences animated shorts like “In a heartbeat”. 

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