Disney Pixar debuted Lightyear over Father's Day weekend. While they hoped it would be their latest blockbuster, Lightyear fell flat in the box offices with one of the lowest starts in Pixar's history. While Disney blames its low success on the fact that sequels and spin-offs often struggle in the box offices, it is much more likely that Lightyear is struggling in box offices because it is unpopular with parents who believe that it pushes an immoral agenda that they do not want to expose their children to.
Several months ago, Florida adopted the "Parental Rights in Education" bill, dubbed by opponents as the "Don't Say Gay" bill. At the time, Disney came out against the bill. When the Florida governor signed the bill into law, despite Disney's objections, Disney said they would include more LGBTQ+ characters in their upcoming films, particularly Lightyear. This prompted many parents to reconsider Disney's content for their children.
When Disney and Pixar released Lightyear, the story excluded the virtues and redemptive messages previously enjoyed by Toy Story franchise followers. Instead, the story centered on indoctrination of children. According to the MovieGuide review, "The whole movie is held captive by a contentious agenda of politically correct politics. To whit, the whole movie is centered on an LGBT, radical feminist, anti-male ideology. In fact, Buzz Lightyear isn’t really the hero in the movie. The movie’s real hero is Buzz’s female friend, a lesbian, who marries another woman and becomes pregnant, presumably by artificial insemination. Together, the two women raise a son, who marries a woman and has a daughter. During this whole story, there’s no mention of a grandfather. Instead, Izzy, the granddaughter, mentions at one point that she has two grandmothers. To top it off, there are no references to Izzy’s father, including no scenes of her interacting with her father. Thus, the movie’s whole story seems to be a politically correct validation of LGBT ideology, including an attack on masculinity and the traditional nuclear family." Overall, Lightyear was a Father's Day flop.
To read more about the movie's downfall, click here.