ParaNorman. It’s a film perhaps best remembered for the way it boldly threaded zombie movie tropes into animated family fare, deftly mixing heart, humor, and scares.But, for our purposes, ParaNorman also deserves credit for its trailblazing inclusion of the genre’s first gay himbo character.
And we’re (un)dead serious about that.Related: Hiding in plain sight: 10 of the queerest cartoon characters everWell before Disney began touting “exclusively gay moments,” Laika did what no other studio had done before: It introduced the first openly gay character in a mainstream animated feature… who, yes, also happened to be a sweet and brawny airhead.Sure, it’s nothing more than a brief mention of a same-sex partner.
And, yes, it doesn’t come until the film’s final moments. But what ParaNorman did was pretty remarkable for the time, and it’s just part of why the film deserves to be seen as a new animated classic.To back up a bit, ParaNorman is the story of a kid named (you guessed it) Norman, a young New Englander with a penchant for horror, who also happens to have the ability to talk to ghosts.