If they make their way onto land, they magically transform-in appearance, at least-into humans, free to interact with the landlubbers of a small fishing town populated with whimsical characters. Luca and Alberto share an intense, defining, and world-cracking-open bond, but must hide who they really are in the presence of judgmental, fearful others.
That outline holds an obvious potential for queer allegory, and indeed many Pixar fans tracking the film’s development quickly labeled Luca as the studio’s “gay movie”-a coming-out story to be placed on Pixar’s mantle alongside its meditations on grief, artistic expression, loneliness, Ayn Rand-ian objectivism, and parenting. Finally, Disney might actually venture into queer storytelling, a vast landscape of human experience that the studio has only meekly (and smugly) gestured toward in recent years.
