The Owl House has returned, and with only one more season to keep telling its story, the series has not stopped pushing the boundaries of what LGBTQ content looks like on the Disney Channel.
Protagonist Luz Noceda—my Afro-Dominican, bisexual, neurodivergent darling—has been in a relationship with Amity Blight for several episodes, and I am still flabbergasted by how it is so … normalized. Amity and Luz call each other girlfriends all the time, and because they have been allowed to be in a relationship in the middle of the series, rather than only getting together at the end, we get to see them actually go through relationship growing pains.
Neither is an excellent communicator—I mean, duh, they’re teenagers—and recently, Luz has been dealing with the knowledge that her mother made her promise to return to the human world and never come back. That doesn’t just mean leaving her found family behind, but also Amity. Amity can sense this change and feels like Luz is keeping something back. She gets a chance to find out what when Luz leaves her phone behind, but Amity doesn’t cross her boundaries. Instead, she uses this as a chance to talk.
The trope of “girlfriend going through their partner’s phone” is a cliché that is rooted in a lot of people acting out their insecurities with a lot of mistrust. Having Amity choose not to invade her privacy—and knowing that’s what it would be—while also attempting to really talk to her partner is the kind of positive relationship representation that is so important. On top of that, it is nice to see that Luz and Amity do not have to be a perfect couple all the time. They care about each other, but they have retained their personal baggage.
In one of the most recent episodes, Luz is trying to push back the pain she feels due to not being with her mom on the anniversary of her father’s death. This leads her to get in the way of Amity’s desire to fight in a brawl competition. Wanting to just be the best and not burden anyone (#browngirlfeels), she makes mistakes. Luckily, Amity is the best as well, and can always ground Luz’s more chaotic energy.
But the queer rep doesn’t just stop with Luz and Amity. We were treated, in the most recent episode, to some great backstory between Eda and Raine. Raine is Disney’s first official non-binary character, and my concern, going into it, was that they would only get a limited storyline. Instead, we get the entire How I Met Your Mother flashback episode, which also reestablishes Raine as the leader of a magical rebel group. Plus, both of Raine’s voice actors are non-binary, including Star Trek: Discovery’s Blu del Barrio.
I love The Owl House and sometimes I feel very sad (for myself) that I didn’t get to grow up with these characters. Surviving on subtext alone can nourish you, but having some canon protein is great. It is really strange to see that the same company that can handle all of this content has leadership that goes back and forth with how much it supports the LGBTQ community. I guess it just shows which creators are fighting for it, and which are not.
(image: Disney)
