Inside Out 2 team were reportedly told to make Riley "less gay"

18 September 2024, 17:02 | Updated: 1 November 2024, 17:26

Is Riley Gay In Inside Out 2? Her Relationship With Val Explained. Picture: Pixar

By Sam Prance

Is Riley gay in Inside Out 2? Here's what Pixar employees have said about her relationship with Val.

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A former Pixar employee has claimed that the team behind Inside Out 2 were told to make Riley "less gay" in the film's final cut.

Fans of Pixar will already know that the company has a long and complicated history with queer characters. The company is yet to have an out, LGBTQ+ main character but many people think there are roles in Luca and Turning Red that are heavily queer-coded. Onward also had the company's first openly gay character in the form of Lena Waithe's Officer Spencer.

Another character in the Pixar universe that people have interpreted as queer-coded is Inside Out's Riley, and the fan theory developed further with Inside Out 2's plot line. In the film, Riley is obsessed with another female hockey player named Val. Some people think Riley fancies Val but others believe that she is just meant to be a fan of her in a non-romantic way.

Now, people behind the movie have claimed that Pixar told them to edit it over concerns that Riley came across as queer.

Read more: Inside Out 2 director reveals original 'Anxiety' design and it's completely different

Watch the Inside Out 2 trailer

IGN recently interviewed 10 former Pixar employees who were all made redundant shortly after working on Inside Out 2. The contentious profile explores "the pains of [those] layoffs, the pressure that surrounded [the film] and larger cultural concerns at the studio".

According to IGN's sources, "there was special care put into making the relationship between Riley and Val seem as platonic as possible, even requiring edits to the lighting and tone of certain scenes to remove any trace of 'romantic chemistry'."

One former employee claimed that they were made to do "a lot of extra work to make sure that no one would potentially see [Riley and Val] as not straight."

The main instruction they received was to make Riley "less gay".

Riley tries to touch Val's hair in Inside Out 2. Picture: Disney

Discussing Riley's sexuality, another source said: "Riley is not canonically gay. In the film, what you saw, nothing about Riley says that she is gay, but it is kind of inferred based on certain contexts. And so that is something that they tried to play down at multiple points."

One other person added: "A lot of us accepted the fact that we may never see a major gay character in a Pixar movie."

As it stands, Pixar are yet to respond to IGN's report. We will update you if and when they do.