Our hero, Nate ( Rueby Wood) has a classmate/confidante ( Aria Brooks) who crushes on him - hard.

But here it is, Tim Federle’s screen musical adaptation of his best-selling book about a 13 year-old Broadway baby and his “matter of life and death” dreams of singing and dancing on The Great White Way. What a time for “Better Nate Than Ever” to come to Disney+. Now, those same “Let Disney and its Reedy Creek Improvement District do whatever they want” legislators and their reactionary governor have passed a flagrant assault on free speech, gay rights and academic freedoms, one which carries “gay isn’t OK” messaging that many parents and students feel is dangerous and downright threatening. Disney, after all, not only tolerated but embraced the gay community’s creating “Gay Days” at Disney World.Īnd with all that, Disney has been reluctant to take a stand against hate-mongering legislation not designed to “protect kids/spare parents,” but to single out a minority group for increasingly authoritarian Republicans to attack and “erase.”ĭisney has bought influence in the Florida legislature for decades, giving them free rein to develop Disney World, Celebration and everything about that happened “on property” from the start. Many have been shocked at that in light of the corporate culture that seemed inspired by gay lyricist and eventual AIDS victim Howard Ashman’s reinvention of the screen musical, in animated form (“The Little Mermaid” and “Beauty and the Beast), which led to a more openly gay-friendly company. It’s been jarring to see the Walt Disney Company’ s tepid, tone-deaf under-reaction to Florida’s “Don’t say ‘gay’ bill in light of everything that America’s greatest entertainment entertainment company has done that sends just the opposite message.

Better nate than never book