Beauty and the beastiality

It would be one thing if Alabama drive-in theatre owner Carol Laney had refused to book Disney’s latest retread of Beauty and the Beast (Lickona liked the sets) based solely on a perceived lack of imagination on the part of the studio. After all, how much more money can they milk from the Oscar-winning animated smash that was reverse-rotoscoped into a Tony-winning Broadway sensation?

Add to that a pair of fourth-rate direct-to-video continuations (Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas and Belle’s Magical World), a video game, and the cruel and exacting Beauty and the Beast: A Concert on Ice and Disney Inc. has enough dough in the petty cash drawer to purchase half the western hemisphere and transform it into their own Magic Kingdom.

Instead of badgering the cheapskates at Disney for their disdainful tracing of story, songs, and Beast costume, Laney instead chose to rally against what she observes to be a queer permutation of America values coming soon to an IMAX near you.

In the April issue of Attitude, director Bill Condon, desperate to stoke the PR flames, revealed that in his Beast, Gaston’s lovable sidekick, LeFou, will be Disney’s first-ever openly gay character.

In Laney’s world, it’s okay for a minor to have mature sexual feelings for a creature with a bear’s torso, a lion’s teeth and flowing mane, a pair of wild boar tusks, and the legs and tail of a wolf all topped by a horned-head of a buffalo, just as long as it’s a member of the same sex.

Said Laney, “If I can’t sit through a movie with God or Jesus sitting by me, then we have no business showing it.” If the Lord has the misfortune of accompanying Laney on her every visit to the picture show, He has my permission to text, talk, and kick the back of her seat throughout the movie.

Both of our local outdoor theatres, the Santee Drive-In and the South Bay Drive-In, will be showing Disney’s latest milestone. How long’s it been since you frequented a drive-in?