Is ‘Agatha All Along’ the Gayest Thing Disney Has Ever Made?

In press for Agatha All Along, the stars said that the show would result in a “gay explosion” which is mighty interesting verbiage to be attached to a Disney property. Disney’s history with queer stuff has been mixed. For every Love, Simon there’s the “exclusively gay moment,” and the kiss in Lightyear getting cut out and restored. Disney isn’t the root of all evil, but in my experience, they don’t seem particularly interested in, let alone adept at, queer representation or media. Forgive my skepticism, but in my humble opinion, Gay Stuff™️ just isn’t Disney’s forte. The claim of “gay explosion” can be read as a called shot or a high-water mark to meet. The statement becomes an open question of how a Disney property would interpret “gay.” There are many ways for media to be gay after all. So I took in the first three episodes of Agatha All Along to find out just how gay this show is.

I had two preconceptions going in. The first was that the bar was low and that it wouldn’t take much to be the gayest thing Disney’s ever made. The second was that, due to the cast, Agatha would be a very specific kind of gay; not gay in the sense that you see queer people doing queer things and more “gay” in the sense that it would include things queer people (predominantly white gay men, alas) are reliably into: campy/arch vibes, fun reads, musicals, Kathryn Hahn, and so on. The cast reflects this goal with not only Hahn in the lead role, but also Aubrey Plaza, Patti Lupone, Emma Caulfield, Sasheer Zamata, and Joe Locke, all people who have to one extent or another contributed to many queer peoples’ personal media pantheon. Plus, as Lupone reminded us while making the strangest face, “it’s a musical.” Invoking these elements isn’t a bad route to take, especially if Disney might feel squeamish about depicting anything so spicy as a queer kiss.

So what do we have after three episodes and just how gay is this show? Is it the gayest show Disney’s ever made? Spoiler warning for Agatha All Along.

Well, yes, yes it is. Even with the giant asterisk that the gayest for Disney is a low bar, Agatha All Along is pretty gay. I was pleasantly surprised! I’ll get into some caveats momentarily, but let’s give some credit where credit is due. Here’s a sampling of some of my favorite gay things I saw in Agatha All Along:

Kathryn Hahn (gay) doing an outrageously fun take on Kate Winslet’s (gay) performance in a Mare of Eastown riff.

Aubrey Plaza (gaaaay) rolling up with huge sexy ex vibes as Rio Vidal and telling Agatha she likes her “horizontal…. In a grave.” Fun, playful, sapphic banter, love to see it. It seems like these two really matched each other’s freak once upon a time.

Patti Lupone (gay gay gay) just doing her thing. Her mean quippy chemistry with Hahn should be powering a whole franchise of movies.

Joe Locke (gay) plays Teen, a femme goth twink who gasped in delight with a hand to his heart when he beheld Kathryn Hahn and Patti Lupone in conversation (gay, relatable). He also ignored a call from his “boyf” to keep queening out with goddesses of stage and screen and like, I get it.

The section of the second episode where Agatha is gathering grumpy, broke witches to sing a song together in her basement (to open a portal to a magical world etc etc etc) made me hope there’ll be drag shows inspired by this mini-series coming soon. Wouldn’t that be fun?

Sasheer Zamata (welcome to queer family!) purring the line “I haven’t seen you since I made a concerted effort to never see you again,” was delish. I am so glad to see her in more things! (Gay)

The third episode features an extended riff on the films of Nancy Meyers and I won’t spoil much except to say that Debra Jo Rupp (gay) performs magic with the line “Bury me in this kitchen!” This also reminds me that one day, I’ll write an essay about how Meyers qualifies for the term “auteur.” In case you were wondering, the preceding sentence is also (gay).

So yes, Agatha All Along is gayer than I was expecting, but it’s time to temper my praise a little. First of all, I believe I was promised a musical! Like yes, (gay), but I also just love musicals. It’s been three episodes and we’ve got one song, albeit a great one. I sincerely hope we get more soon, and there’s still time. As much as I enjoy all the (gay) stuff I listed above, the show is mostly trading in vibes, subtext, and cultural allusions. The notable exceptions are the fleeting image of Teen’s boyfriend and the homoerotic chemistry between Rio and Agatha. The characters never explicitly state their relationship, but the possibility of a romantic/sexual relationship is implied through the actors’ choices and a few double entendres. It’s not nothing (I really enjoyed it and want more), but it’s mostly subtextual and if someone’s promising a gay explosion, that’s what I’m going to expect. A gay explosion would probably be more overt than a fleeting glance and homoerotic vibes.

Agatha All Along is lots of witchy fun and gayer than I was expecting. I didn’t expect the show to give me a trippy horror sequence in the world’s most beautiful kitchen and for that, I’m grateful. That said, we have a ways to go before this could be qualified as a “gay explosion.” Agatha has time to grow into its gayer self yet, something more substantive, but please, please let it give us at least one more song?