Why did the villain have to be gay?
What was the point of making King Candy effeminate? Would he have been any less effective a villain had he been straight?
shareHey there, just wanted to throw in my two cents.
First off, I understand your concern. Second, effeminate ≠ gay.
Third, I think that sort of the opposite of what you're arguing was true in the movie. That is, King Candy/Turbo was acting "effeminate"/"ditzy"/"silly" to make himself seem innocent and pure, when in reality he was just a competitive, aggressive evil man. When he changes into Turbo, we see him starting to lose his "effeminate" voice, because it was just a ploy to get people to trust him.
So in actuality, his "goodness" is portrayed by an effeminate personality, while his evil side is more masculine and mean. So while I understand why you thought they were equating villain with effeminate, I think it's pretty much the exact opposite.
The other issue is that he was a character with basically no sexuality. If anything, I'd say he was asexual. As were most of the characters in the film (excluding those portrayed by Jack Brayer and Jane Lynch).
Thank you for your kind and helpful message. I've come to dread reply notifications about my original post because so many people seem to think I'm being a crazed pro-LGBTQ fanatic, and nothing could be further from the truth.
> Second, effeminate ≠ gay.
Absolutely true. Although effeminacy hardly connotes heteronormativeness either. I admit that I was not aware of the homage to Ed Wynn when I posted, and logically I know that neither Alan Tudyk nor Jane Lynch would be in a homophobic film - but in the era of "that's so gay" my gut reaction to the film was one of discomfort to see an effeminate male character presented to children as a villain.
I get your point that effeminate men are frequently represented as being sweet and unthreatening - here in the UK at least it seems that nearly all of the children's television presenters are effeminate gay men. But it leaves a slightly sour taste to think that King Candy is only considered "safe" because all the other characters in the game are young girls - it implies a tacet subtext that if there were any young boys it would be different because of course all gays are pedophiles.
I also take your point about the asexuality, although I would have to say that the other asexual characters are presented in a far more neutral uncoded, manner than the villainous King Candy.
Anyway, thank you for your interesting and considered response :-)