Celebrity rapper Snoop Dogg has created a new controversy by wading into the debate about LGBTQ+ characters in children’s entertainment.

In the latest interview to fuel his feud with gay representation in kids’ media, Snoop Dogg has singled out Pixar’s 2022 film Lightyear for its inclusion of a same-sex relationship. During a conversation with podcaster Sarah Fontenot on her It’s Giving podcast last week, the veteran rapper recalled attending a screening of Lightyear with his grandson and struggling to explain to the young boy why two women were shown as a couple in the family-friendly film.

The Pixar film is a spinoff of the Toy Story series, but centers around the “real” Buzz Lightyear, the space-age science-fiction hero who is a toy within the fictional universe of the Toy Story franchise. Lightyear includes a character in a same-sex relationship, and briefly shows two women kissing.

The original version of the film did not include the kiss, but after Pixar staff and LGBTQ+ advocacy groups pushed back against its removal, the studio restored the scene, and Disney moved forward with Lightyear’s release.

For Snoop Dogg, the issue was that his grandson asked him during the screening of Lightyear how two women could have a child together, and the rapper was left without a ready response.

“Why, my grandson, in the middle of the movie, like, ‘Papa Snoop, how does she have a baby with a woman? She was a woman,” Snoop recalled of the encounter. “Oh s—, I didn’t come in for this s—. I just came to watch the g—— movie.”

The rapper said he did not have an answer for his grandson at the time, and instead advised him to wait and see what happened next in the film. “They just said she had a baby. They are both women. How does she have a baby? S—. The movie ain’t over with,” Snoop continued. “I’m scared to go to the movies. Like y’all throwing me in the middle of s— that I don’t have an answer for.”

In his extended comments on the podcast, the rapper said he did not necessarily have an issue with the representation itself, but with the fact that young children ask so many questions when they are exposed to such content.

“It threw me for a loop,” he said. “These are kids that we have to show that at this age, like, they’re going to ask questions. They are going to ask. I don’t have an answer. And I was just there to go to sleep and watch the movie. That s— woke me up.”

Anger and Broader Context of LGBTQ+ Inclusion

The comments immediately angered progressives online, who also noted that Snoop Dogg was scheduled to perform at the Australian Football League’s Grand Final later this year. In an interview with PinkNews, the AFL’s chief executive Gillon McLachlan confirmed that Snoop would still perform at the major sporting event, despite the controversy, with the AFL having found no issues with the rapper or his history.

The AFL has made various inclusion and diversity initiatives public in recent years, but had not publicly commented at the time of this writing on whether the rapper’s performance would still go on as planned.

Lightyear was embroiled in controversy about LGBTQ+ representation even at the time of its release. The film was released in June 2022, and from the moment of its debut, conservatives spoke out about the inclusion of a same-sex kiss in the movie.

After the outrage over the LGBTQ+ content of Lightyear grew so loud that Disney moved to remove the kiss from the movie, Pixar staff and LGBTQ+ advocacy groups spoke up and called for the scene to be reinstated. The company did so, and the film went ahead as scheduled.

Lightyear voice actor Chris Evans responded to some of the criticism during a Reuters Television interview at the time. “The real truth is those people are idiots,” Evans said. “There’s always going to be people who are afraid and unaware and trying to hold on to what was before. But those people die off like dinosaurs. I think the goal is to pay them no mind, march forward, and embrace the growth that makes us human.”

Lightyear represents one of Pixar’s attempts to expand the Toy Story franchise with new storylines beyond the narrative of the main series. Buzz Lightyear is a space-age science-fiction character in the real world, who is the “hero” that the Buzz Lightyear toy is based on in the fictional world of Toy Story. Despite some high-profile marketing and being part of one of Pixar’s most popular series, Lightyear received mixed reviews and underperformed at the box office, taking in just over $226 million worldwide against a budget of $200 million.

Snoop Dogg’s latest comments have added a new wrinkle to the debate about LGBTQ+ representation in children’s films. On one hand, many feel such content in family films is normalizing diverse families and makes a positive statement. On the other hand, Snoop Dogg argues that young children will invariably ask awkward questions about LGBTQ+ characters that parents and grandparents may not be prepared to answer.

The rapper has not expressed any sign of backing down or apologizing for his comments at the time of this writing, and there is still time before his AFL Grand Final performance later this year. He is likely to continue to face backlash for his podcast comments and the discussion around them, but they have certainly once again placed him at the center of a wider cultural argument about how children’s films should approach depictions of modern family life.