Pixar's latest movie is first to have an openly non-binary character

Pixar have unveiled that their upcoming film Elemental will feature the studio’s first openly non-binary character, going by they/them pronouns.

July is set to be a busy ol’ month at the cinema. As I’m sure you’ve seen, the big showdown in July is set to be between Margot Robbie’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer which open on the same day. That’s not the only competition. Earlier that month, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One releases, and star Tom Cruise is dead set on nabbing as many premium cinema screens as possible, leaving Oppenheimer scrambling - let alone Barbie. There’s also Disney’s Haunted Mansion, but screen wars aside, Pixar are set to make a great move for representation when Elemental releases on 7 July.

Take a look at the trailer for Elemental below.

As you may have guessed from the title, Elemental is set in a city where fire, water, land, and air residents live together. It follows the tale of a fiery young woman called Ember Lumen and a water element called Wade Ripple who fall in love, despite their differences, after Wade is called in by Ember’s father to fix a plumbing leak. Lake Ripple is Wade’s younger sibling and they are set to be Pixar’s first openly binary character.

Voice actor Ava Hauser, who is also non-binary, will portray Lake and took to social media to announce the news. Ava said, “BIG ANNOUNCEMENT. I got to play Pixar’s first non-binary character! Meet Lake! I voice Lake in the new movie Elemental! I’m seeing it in theatres tonight with my friends, so you can catch it in theatres too if you wanna see them.”

Plenty of Pixar fans were thrilled at the announcement. “Okay but Lake sounds like a really sweet name and I’m already in love with them,” one fan wrote, while another added, “It’s the subtlety of how Lake is introduced to Ember that makes my heart sing. We don’t need to treat LGBTQ+ characters any different from straight characters. Pixar knows true allyship.”

Elemental releases on 7 July, 2023.