Lauren Gunderson is standing firmly behind her work on Pixar’s Lightyear after Snoop Dogg criticized the animated film’s inclusion of a same-sex couple.
The acclaimed writer, who earned an additional screenplay material credit on the 2022 movie, fired back at Snoop in a series of Threads posts. After a commenter flagged the rapper’s recent remarks, Gunderson bluntly replied, “He sucks.”
She added a note of optimism in another post. “Snoop was great during the Olympics,” she wrote. “Hopefully he joins the side of Love :).”
Her comments arrived just days after Snoop caused major controversy during an interview on the It’s Giving podcast. The rapper recalled taking his grandson to see Lightyear and admitted he was uncomfortable when asked by the boy about the lesbian couple portrayed in the film.
“Oh s##t, I didn’t come in for this s##t. I just came to watch the g###### movie,” Snoop said. “These are kids. We have to show that at this age? They’re going to ask questions. I don’t have the answer.”
In the movie, a couple, space ranger Alisha Hawthorne (voiced by Uzo Aduba) and her wife Kiko, became one of the most talked-about aspects of the movie. A kiss between them was briefly cut from the movie, but it was later reinstated following backlash. Gunderson said she was the one who originally created their storyline in the script’s early drafts.
“I created the Lightyear lesbians,” she explained. “In 2018, I was a writer at Pixar — such a cool place, grateful to work there, learned a ton from kind and impressive creatives. As we wrote early versions of what became Lightyear, a key character needed a partner, and it was so natural to write ‘she’ instead of ‘he.’ As small as that detail is in the film, I knew the representational effect it could have. Small line, big deal. I was elated that they kept it. I’m proud of it. To infinity.”
Although she clarified that she had “very little to do with” the finished screenplay, Gunderson said she was proud her contribution remained. “I was proud to see a happy queer couple (even for a few seconds) on screen,” she wrote. “I know they got a lot of s##t for this inclusion, but stuff like this matters because beautiful love like this exists. It’s not fiction. What is fiction is Zurg and lightspeed space travel and murderous aliens and a talking robot cat.”
She also pushed back at claims that the film injected sexual content. “What sex? It was a happy marriage that was depicted,” she told one commenter. “You are making it about sex.”
Representatives for Snoop Dogg have not publicly responded to Gunderson’s remarks
Snoop did make a comment where he apologized.
“I was just caught off guard and had no answer for my grandsons. All my gay friends no (sic) what’s up. They been calling me with love. My bad for not knowing the answers for a 6 yr old,” he said on Twitter (known also as X). “Teach me how to learn I’m not perfect.”