Patricia Heaton’s Hateful Slur About Buzz Lightyear
The actress from Everybody Loves Raymond needs to keep Buzz Lightyear’s name outta her mouth.
In spite of myself, sometimes I’m impressed by how quickly the obedient mouthpieces from right-wing America are able to amplify their latest talking points. As Mark Twain said, “A lie can travel around the world and back again while the truth is lacing up its boots.”
This time around, the most recent Big Lie is aimed at a beloved Walt Disney cartoon character.
Patricia Heaton says Disney ‘made a HUGE mistake’ recasting Buzz Lightyear, says studio ‘castrated’ character
Pixar hasn’t got a friend in Patricia Heaton.
The Emmy-winning “Everybody Loves Raymond” alum, 64, and former registered Republican, took to Twitter Tuesday to air her frustrations over “Lightyear” — the origin story of beloved “Toy Story” character Buzz Lightyear, or at least the fictional man who inspired the fictional toy.
“Saw the trailer for Buzz Lightyear and all I can say is Disney/Pixar made a HUGE mistake in not casting my pal @ofctimallen Tim Allen in the role that he originated, the role that he owns,” said Heaton. “Tim IS Buzz!” Why would they completely castrate this iconic, beloved character?”
And just like that, Patricia Heaton turned Pixar’s nothingburger of a casting decision into something controversial. No, Heaton wasn’t just “expressing an opinion”. What she did was deliberate. The actress has been in the business long enough to know how things work. Heaton heard her master’s newest dog whistle and did her job.
Whenever the bigwigs in Hollywood are thinking about casting an actor for a specific role, it usually comes down to either money, availability or whether they think it’s a good fit. Nothing personal, just business.
In this particular instance, it was a no-brainer to replace Tim Allen with Chris Evans because this interpretation of Buzz Lightyear is the person the toy was inspired by. Hearing Tim Allen’s voice coming from this more realistic version of the character would have been off-key and confusing. Pixar made the right call here.
But although some people might think that Patricia Heaton was just being supportive of her buddy Tim Allen, Heaton had a different objective in mind when she deliberately used the word “castrate”. It wasn’t an accident.
Heaton’s contemptible use of that word brought to mind a passage from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass:
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master — that’s all.”
Don’t underestimate Heaton because she co-starred for years in a dumb (and successful) sitcom. Acting is a challenging profession where words are tools to be used and she’s a pro who knows how to use them. Maybe not a master, but good enough to get away with what she did.
By putting “castration” and “Buzz Lightyear” together in the same sentence, Heaton purposely made a vulgar and inappropriate innuendo about a movie that was made for children. When Lightyear is already being unfairly targeted by the usual homophobic suspects, Patricia Heaton gladly joined the homophobic chorus.
And it’s a damned shame. The same-sex relationship in Lightyear is the emotional heartbeat of the movie, and it’s what saves Buzz from turning into Captain Ahab in the end. But unfortunately, there are none so blind as those who will not see. Worse, these obsessive lunatics want to pluck out everybody else’s eyes as well.
When these xenophobic shitweasels think of the LGBTQ+ community, they don’t see human beings; they see disembodied gentitalia doing perverted things to each other. They’re fully invested into believing their hallucinations because they’re insane.
Alyssa Rosenburg of The Washington Post recognizes a big red flag when she sees one:
In the meantime, “Lightyear” is a paradox. Its representation of lesbians suggests that not much has changed since 1997, when Ellen DeGeneres and the character she played on TV both came out, yet it’s taken 25 years for even something that mild to make it into a kids’ movie. By the time such a first happens, it inevitably feels milquetoast to people who have waited decades to see their families represented — but still controversial to those who wish gay people would remain invisible, if they must exist at all.
It once seemed possible that the LGBTQ movement was powerful enough to reach infinity, and beyond. The response to “Lightyear,” and the ugly uprising it’s a part of, are a sobering reminder of how much work remains to be done on the ground.
Unfortunately, “To Infinity and Beyond” will never happen for humankind when the only thing that the mob of sociopathic Luddites want to do is drag us backwards.