Disney hints of a gay character in their new Jungle Cruise

This period fantasy adventure comedy film, based on the Disney Parks’ theme park attraction of the same name, starring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, Emily Blunt, Edgar Ramirez and Jack Whitehall, is an exciting ride many are waiting to board. Set during the World War 1, it narrates the story of Captain Frank “Skipper” Wolff (Johnson), who takes the scientist, Dr Lily Houghton (Blunt) and her brother, McGregor Houghton (Whitehall) on a voyage to discover the ‘Tree of Life’, that is believed to have healing powers, which could be useful for the doctor’s modern medicine. The adventure they embark upon constitutes the film’s rest of the story.

Another interesting aspect of the movie is one of its dialogues between Wolff and McGregor that talks about the latter’s sexuality in an indirect manner. Although words like ‘gay’ and other terms related to LGBT aren’t mentioned, it could be construed that McGregor comes out as gay, while opening up to Wolff. His implementation of the term where his “interests happily lay elsewhere” prompts Wolff to raise a toast to “elsewhere”. In relation to this, Johnson had addressed in the press conference of the movie by saying, “I felt that the scene was really exactly what it was, which was two men talking about what they loved, and who they loved.” Whitehall’s character goes on to talk about this in the movie, that he decides to accompany his sister to find the ‘Tree of Life’, as she stood by him when others in the era of World War 1 scorned him for whom he “loved”.

It can be understood that Disney is moving along with the changing times in its movies and also their theme parks, where they had eliminated offensive depictions of indigenous people in their rides in California and Florida.

Jungle Cruise, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra and written by John Norville, Josh Goldstein, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, is awaiting its release in Indian theatres.