New Animated Film Features Same-Sex Couple

The upcoming Boxtrolls includes a story element never before captured in a mainstream animated film–a same sex couple. 

The film’s just-released trailer includes narration describing the film’s theme–the nuclear family isn’t what it used to be.

Families come in all shapes and sizes,” says the narrator. “Even rectangles.

The project is courtesy of Laika, an animation studio which previously produced ParaNorman. That film featured a gay character, a dumb jock who reveals his orientation late in the film.

The studio’s leader says the same-sex material isn’t meant to offend even though it could.

For Travis Knight, the 39-year-old president and CEO of Laika and an accomplished stop-motion animator in his own right, finding stories that send kids the right kinds of messages — and not necessarily the safest ones — is a top priority.

“We’re not in any way trying to be activists. We’re just trying to be who we are,” Knight tells The Hollywood Reporter not 24 hours after he and his wife welcomed their third child, a boy, into the world. “All art and all artists have a point of view, a way of looking at the world. We want to make films that are bold and distinctive and enduring and actually have something meaningful to say.