This week on the It’s Giving podcast, hosted by Sarah Fotenot, rapper, former talk show host and Olympic enthusiast, Snoop Dogg made a guest appearance, and a lot of people were mad when he referenced LGBTQ+ representation in children’s films. Snoop, whose given name is Calvin Broadus, Jr., took umbrage with the depiction of a lesbian couple in the movie, Lightyear, most specifically the couple raising a child together. Lightyear is the origin story of the Toy Story character Buzz Lightyear. In the movie, the character, Alisha Hawthorne, voiced by Uzo Aduba, is married to a nice lady named Kiko and is also Buzz’s best friend. The movie also features the first same gender kiss in a Disney-Pixar movie, which led to it being banned in many Muslim countries. The kiss, which is less than a second long and is nothing more than a couple simply greeting each other, was originally removed from the film but then put back after clamor from the movie’s crew.
While watching the movie with one of his grandsons, his grandson asked how Alisha’s character was able to have a baby with another woman. When recalling the incident, Snoop recalled, “Oh shit, I didn’t come in for this shit. I just came to watch the goddamn movie. It fucked me up. I’m, like, scared to go to the movies now. Y’all throwing me in the middle of shit that I don’t have an answer for.” A man who was on trial for murder is afraid of two women having a baby. Well, alright, sigh. He continued, “These are kids. We have to show that at this age? They’re going to ask questions. I don’t have the answer.” There are plenty of children who have two mothers and are even younger than when Snoop’s grandson was curious about the union. Those kids manage just fine, but for some reason, the question, or rather the answer, was so unfathomable to the star, who has made a career in lyrical oration.
The ridiculousness of this take is not just the ubiquity of gay couples in everyday life, but also its hypocrisy considering Snoop’s image.
One could easily argue that Snoop does not market to children, but that does not mean his music was not played on radios for children to hear, and many grew up hearing his music, even if just in passing. His target audience may not be children, but children are most certainly depicted on one of his albums’ covers, most specifically one of several that is drawn as a cartoon. That album, Coolaid, even features a song about having sex with multiple women. In the song, Two or More, Snoop raps, “I need two or more…maybe even three or more…one of me, three of ya’ll, so lick it up.” Sometimes those women who have sex with each other end up marrying. The notion of being okay with queerness, as long as it satisfies a straight man’s sexual desire, isn’t exclusive to Snoop as a rapper or as a person; many rappers want conservatism for their families, while delighting in the parts of queerness that benefit them—cough cough, Lil Boosie.
By the way, the song came out in 2016, a year after Snoop’s first grandchild was born.
If he is so concerned with the images that his grandchildren see, he probably would feel the same about the images his children saw, and growing up with a father who continuously embarrassed their mother is probably not the thing someone wants seared into the fabric of their childhood memories. Snoop is a magnetic hypocrite, a man who has made his entire career off being the cool guy, with a gift for gab, but suddenly, he is at a loss for words on how to explain that not all families look the same, especially when he has fathered a child outside the confines of his marriage. Not to mention, the characters in the film are married; some of their grandchildren’s parents never were or were not at the time of their birth. The call from the morality police is coming from inside the mansion. The constant depiction of women needing to be saved by a man’s kiss in Disney movies is fine, but the depiction of two mothers in a loving relationship is where he crosses the line.
Frankly, people are allowed to change their minds and their opinions on social issues, even if their stance sucks, as Snoop has changed his religion, no less than three times, but never has Snoop come out and denounced his own overtly sexual lyrics or his lyrics that are more adult in nature. He has happily accepted the role of “Unc,” with its perception of wisdom, without doing much of the work. None of his reflections on things that don’t serve him includes him reflecting on how those things are interwoven with his past. Snoop has gone from being anti-Trump to performing at one of his inauguration parties, without making any clear mention as to why he made such a drastic political change: MONEY. With that said, it is highly likely that his new political stances are also part of the thinly veiled attempts to appeal to his new political associates, for whatever fucked up reason. He cozied up to the same president who is more than likely a child molester, among other obvious crimes. Not to mention, throughout his decades-long career, Snoop has flaunted his gang affiliations, and as recently as Snoop the Super Bowl LVI in 2022, with kids watching, Snoop performed in full Crips regalia.
Snoop is human and, like most humans, is liable to have different opinions of things throughout time, but there is a stark difference between evolving and devolving. Despite his multiple arrests, Snoop is still viewed with reverence and respect, but when it comes to voicing his capricious and self-serving politics, he betta lay low.
