Rapper Snoop Dogg has caused a new wave of controversy by speaking out against LGBTQ+ representation in children’s films. In particular, Snoop singled out Pixar’s 2022 film Lightyear, which features a same-sex couple, during an interview with Sarah Fontenot’s It’s Giving podcast last week. The rap legend said that he brought his grandson to see the movie, but that he was caught off guard by the material and could not answer his grandson’s questions about how two women could have a baby together.

Lightyear is an animated spinoff of the popular Toy Story series that features a new character in a same-sex relationship. During one scene, a minor character shares a kiss with another woman. While that scene was cut from the film after the initial release, Disney added it back into the film after Pixar employees and LGBTQ+ advocacy groups pushed back against its removal.

For Snoop, a defining moment of the film came when his grandson leaned over to ask him a question about how the scene was possible. “Why, my grandson, in the middle of the movie, like, ‘Papa Snoop, how does she have a baby with a woman? She is a woman,” the rapper said on the podcast. “Oh s—, I didn’t come in for this s—. I just came to watch the g—— movie.”

The rapper said he had no response to offer to his grandson’s question and that he simply told him to keep watching. “They just said she had a baby. They are both women. How does she have a baby? S—. The movie ain’t over with,” he continued. “I’m scared to go to the movies. Like y’all throwing me in the middle of s— that I don’t have an answer for.”

In the podcast, Snoop said that the thing that particularly worried him was the thought of a child asking questions about a story point as the movie progresses. Parents or grandparents are then required to answer questions that they may not be comfortable discussing or addressing.

“It threw me for a loop,” he said. “These are kids that we have to show that at this age, like, they’re going to ask questions. They are going to ask. I don’t have an answer. And I was just there to go to sleep and watch the movie. That s— woke me up.”

Reaction to Snoop’s Comments

Comments from the hip-hop icon have already sparked outrage on social media and among progressives who are irate about Snoop Dogg’s Australian Football League Grand Final set to take place later this year. The Daily Wire reported that AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan dismissed the idea of removing Snoop from the performance bill in an interview with PinkNews. The AFL has publicly supported inclusion and diversity over the years and has not said that the rapper’s performance would be canceled.

Lightyear was at the center of some controversy when the film was first released in June 2022, as conservatives railed against the inclusion of the same-sex kiss, which they said was inappropriate for a children’s film. The scene became so controversial that Disney had it removed before reinstating it after Pixar employees and LGBTQ+ advocacy groups pushed back.

Actor Chris Evans, who voices Buzz Lightyear in the film, also defended the scene against critics in a Reuters Television interview. “The real truth is those people are idiots,” Evans said at the time. “There’s always going to be people who are afraid and unaware and trying to hold on to what was before. But those people die off like dinosaurs. I think the goal is to pay them no mind, march forward, and embrace the growth that makes us human.”

Lightyear was an animated spinoff of the Toy Story series. The film attempts to fill in the backstory for the “real” Buzz Lightyear, who is the fictional space-age science-fiction hero who, within the world of Toy Story, is the inspiration for the Buzz Lightyear toy. Despite heavy marketing and its connection to Pixar’s most successful films, Lightyear was a box office disappointment, earning just over $226 million worldwide against much higher expectations.

The rapper’s comments further stoke the cultural firestorm around LGBTQ+ representation in children’s films. Advocates say that representation is simply normalizing a diverse set of modern family structures. Critics say that children, as Snoop notes, will simply ask questions about that content that parents and grandparents are not ready to answer, and it makes the films potentially controversial.