Finding Dory's two-second shot sparked Pixar's culture wars

Finding Dory was released in 2016 as a sequel to 2003’s Finding Nemo, reuniting voice actors including Ellen DeGeneres and Albert Brooks. The story centers on Dory, exploring her childhood and short-term memory loss, and arrived after years of speculation. A two-second clip in the trailer showing two women walking alongside a baby stroller touched off wider debate.

The brief moment remains in the film, where the women and the stroller are struck by an octopus in one of the movie’s big action set pieces, but it offers little additional context. Filmmakers addressed the attention directly. “They can be whatever you want them to be,” said co-director Andrew Stanton.

“There’s no right or wrong answer.” “We never asked them,” added producer Lindsay Collins. “We have not asked that of any of the couples in any of our shots in any of our movies,” Stanton concluded. The moment arrived amid online campaigns pushing for more diversity, such as Give Elsa a Girlfriend, and broader conversations about queer representation.

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