Infinity Train's Owen Dennis talked about the challenges animation creators still face from executives when telling LGBTQ-themed stories.
Dennis tweeted a thread in response to Insider's database of LGBTQ+ characters in children's TV animation. His first tweet in the thread discusses how progress has been made in this field, saying, "The reason... this can happen is because one show made by the network pushes a little bit, then the next show says 'Well they were able to show _____ on their show, so can't we do that too?' and then that show pushes a little further."
Always has to have been made with the current executive team though, otherwise "well that was before" is the arbitrary excuse that gets used. If it's animation, for some reason you also can't compare it to a movie or something live action, because "well those are different"
— Oweeeeendennis (@OweeeeenDennis) June 10, 2021
Anyway, real happy for all the shows mentioned and the people working hard to make them because it's pretty much ALWAYS a fight in some way. It's hard to make anything in the first place, harder still to push for anything that isn't "suburban white boy".
— Oweeeeendennis (@OweeeeenDennis) June 10, 2021
This progress, however, is not linear. Dennis notes that standards shift with management, stating that building upon past hits "always has to have been made with the current executive team though, otherwise 'well that was before' is the arbitrary excuse that gets used." He says TV animation is also treated as "different" from live-action TV or movies so progress in those mediums doesn't translate to cartoons.
The Infinity Train creator says he is "real happy" for the shows mentioned in Insider's report "because it's pretty much ALWAYS a fight in some way. It's hard to making anything in the first place, harder still to push for anything that isn't 'suburban white boy.'" In replies to this thread, he notes executive opposition to diversity is often presented through indirect language (e.g. saying they want a character who "isn't too niche" rather than outright saying "no minorities") and the same companies that try to prohibit LGBTQ characters will hypocritically celebrate the shows that fought for inclusion during Pride Month.
In an older now-deleted thread, Dennis noted that Infinity Train was not allowed to include all of the representation the writers had wanted to and they instead had to rely on subtext rather than text. Lake, the protagonist of Book 2, has widely been interpreted as having a character arc analogous to trans experiences, while the relationship between Ryan and Min-Gi in Book 4 is left ambiguous as to whether it's meant to be platonic or romantic.
Dennis' statement about new executive teams undoing past teams' progress might explain why Infinity Train faced such restrictions even in the aftermath of Steven Universe's groundbreaking LGBTQ+ representation. Steven Universe fought for representation while Cartoon Network was owned by TimeWarner; ownership of the network shifted to AT&T in 2018, so most of Infinity Train's production was under different executives with different standards. Cartoon Network and the other WarnerMedia companies are in the process of once again changing management with the Discovery merger.
Created by Owen Dennis, Infinity Train stars Ashley Johnson, Jeremy Crutchley, Owen Dennis, Ernie Hudson, Kate Mulgrew, Lena Headey, Robbie Daymond, Bradley Whitford, Ben Mendelsohn, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Kyle McCarley, Isabella Abiera, Diane Delano, Johnny Young, Sekai Murashige and Minty Lewis. All four seasons are now streaming on HBO Max.
Source: Twitter
