- #VOLTRON LEGENDARY DEFENDER GAY FUCKING SHIT SERIES#
- #VOLTRON LEGENDARY DEFENDER GAY FUCKING SHIT TV#
It just tends to be a little bit behind.ĭOS SANTOS: It’s strange, when we first got in, getting social on any level was this no-fly zone. What I’ve found in my time in animation is that animation is unfortunately always a few years behind all the other media even as far as catching up culturally, socially, progressively, and that’s regardless of who’s trying to push for more representation etc. But it’s still kind of an older frame of mind that’s hanging on. It’s a problem that we’ve had to deal with and had to fight against in order to get messages of acceptance into the material that kids are watching, just to make it more of a normal thing that they see. You get into this weird space where there’s a lot of people - not everyone, obviously - who get really freaked out whenever people try to be more progressive in things that their kids are watching. MONTGOMERY: This isn’t at all how we feel about the subject matter but there’s this weird area with animation in that currently it’s starting to trend where we have animation that is more inclusive but also for older audiences, whereas for a very long time animation in America has strictly been for kids. So that’s the place where we find ourselves in a lot, especially coming off of Legend of Korra and Avatar: The Last Airbender. As we got deeper, we realized ultimately we’re just making the type of show that we want to watch. So initially there were pitches for Voltron being this giant toy-driven franchise and “Merch! Merch! Merch!” and all the stuff that goes along with something that involves robotic lions that transform into a robot. We push a lot of drama, but we also push a lot of comedy, but we tend to push the dramatic edge about as far as you can go. Why do you think LGBTQ characters in general are harder to come by when it comes to traditionally kids-focused entertainment?ĭOS SANTOS: Without getting, at least in this part of the conversation, to LGBTQ rep, we find that we are in this weird niche of animation.
#VOLTRON LEGENDARY DEFENDER GAY FUCKING SHIT SERIES#
MONTGOMERY: The fact that we were able to get it out regardless of where it is in the series is ultimately what’s important. “No, we want to dig into this stuff.” Ultimately, it was the right decision I think to spread the love over the course of the series. And so when we started pitching out that original block of backstories and we were getting some pushback from the executive level, we were like, “No, we want to see it!” We were fans ourselves.
MONTGOMERY: There was a definite interest early on to spend more time with the Paladins in the present and that ended up dictating moving the story along faster and waiting until later to reveal some more of the backstory.ĭOS SANTOS: People, as any fandom will, want to know the origins of the characters and what makes them tick.
#VOLTRON LEGENDARY DEFENDER GAY FUCKING SHIT TV#
As the process dictates in TV animation, you mull these stories around and then you come up with the idea that maybe we should save some of these backstories for later and move this to that. Pidge had a bit of a backstory that carried over a few episodes, all that was going to happen in a much more concentrated way up front and we had this whole arc. MONTGOMERY: Yeah it was gonna be either the first or second episode of season 2.ĭOS SANTOS: It was all the Paladins getting split apart. JOAQUIM DOS SANTOS: We had an episode that was at the top of the second season? Him being gay was just something that we had always wanted to do with him from early on. So the vast majority of the conversations of his backstory were around figuring out what else is there, the illness and those aspects of it. LAUREN MONTGOMERY: I think a lot of his backstory was created independently, even from his sexual orientation, ‘cause that was just a part of who he was but it wasn’t necessarily a discovery moment. Do you remember what those initial conversations were like with Shiro’s backstory? ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Lauren, you said this backstory was a longtime coming and there was almost a moment where it could’ve been featured earlier in the seasons.