I don’t know why, exactly, when there are more sapphic stories — on TV! and in movies! and books! and video games! — than ever before, Disney Channel’s tween cartoon, The Owl House, is the one giving me the most feelings! But it is! It’s got me out here for really real swooning, and also cackling out loud in hysterics. This week’s episode, “Knock, Knock, Knockin’ on Hooty’s Door,” is the funniest and sweetest one yet. Plus! Luz and Amity finally confess their feelings out loud with their voices, and not just by blushing constantly every time they accidentally say something nice about each other or brush their hands together. And, if you can believe it, it’s all thanks to Hooty.
It goes like this: Hooty is convinced, as usual, that he’s worthless, so he decides he’s going to help Eda, King, and Luz with their problems all at once. Eda and King’s problems are more magical and mystical in nature, but Luz’s problem is the hardest one of all. She doesn’t know how to ask out Amity. She doesn’t want to do it in a dorky way. She wants to ask her out in a “smart, cool, and classy” way, because Amity’s just so rad. As she’s brainstorming ideas, Hooty goes ahead and completely kidnaps Amity and drops her off in The Owl House’s abandoned basement, which he has turned into a completely horrifying Tunnel of Love. Like, imagine Ariel and Prince Eric’s “Kiss the Girl” boat ride, but instead of fireflies and percussion, strings, winds, words, it’s Hooty wailing about “we could hold wholesome hands for hours” while he sails them through a haunted animatronic landscape full of stuffed rabbits and bears missing their eyeballs and mouths.
He has even helpfully hanged a banner that said, “I think you’re smart, cool, and classy.”
Amity is flattered and blushing more furiously than ever, while Luz tries to destroy the entire thing with fire magic because she’s so embarrassed. At the end of the ride, she insists this wasn’t her idea, and it’s Amity’s turn to be embarrassed. She wipes away a tear and starts to leave — and that’s when Hooty goes berserk and tries to cast himself out of the house! Even though he IS the house! (“OUT! OUT, VILE OWL! RID THIS HOUSE OF THYSELF!”)
Outside, King and Eda plead with Luz to at least pretend Hooty helped her solve her problem. She whispers to Eda that the problem is she wants to ask out Amity, but she wants to do it in a cool way, not a weird way, and now things are even weirder than they were in the hexed Tunnel of Love because Hooty is flipping out and whacking himself on the ground over and over and causing the house to crumble around their ears. Eda grabs Hooty and flies him up into the sky away from the girls.
Amity starts blushing and Luz starts blushing and they hem and haw and finally it’s Amity who blurts out, “Do you want to go out with me?” And them Luz blurts it out too. They blush even more, hold hands on purpose, and agree this is even more terrifying.
Disney has made a few mouse-sized gay strides in recent months, with its first queer love song and it’s very small nod to gayness in Jungle Cruise — but it’s still miles behind every other network and studio when it comes to LGBTQ+ rep. The Owl House continues to push things forward in a major way, outpacing every other Disney story combined. And it’s not just that the there’s two entire openly queer characters having an actual love story on-screen, it’s the quality of storytelling. It feels so real.
There are 13 more episodes left in season two, and then season three’s three 44-minute specials. Until then: HOOTY HOOT!
I watched it later because I was at work and I was warned to avoid spoilers because things happen and I was like “IN A HOOTY EPISODE?”
The episode where we all forgive Hooty for being Hooty because this happens.
Lol well he did Hooty it to the up at the end of the episode!
That he does. Sigh.
Probably helps that the creator, writing staff, producer, and half the voice actors for the series is openly queer. Representation matters, and they are showing why.
Happy for the baby gays but I’m definitely super shallow and this art style annoys me lol.
HAHA! Same ideas. This is really good ideas for gay kids.
I just wanted to say that there’s still 13 episodes in season 2 of ‘The Owl House’ as it’s a 21 episode season.
hey, AS tv/movies/comics team — thanks for covering queer visual media <3 I have a request which is, would it potentially be possible to not put spoilers in the headlines of articles? like maybe it's for SEO purposes or to encourage people who don't watch the shows etc to read the article anyway, which I understand. but I find it consistently frustrating and dispiriting, and have felt that way since at least this post from 2015: https://develop.autostraddle.com/lumberjanes-issue-17-continues-positive-representation-as-jo-talks-about-being-trans-303008/
-ds
Hey DS,
Yes it is for those exact two reasons (SEO and because experience shows it significantly encourages more people to read, likely from people who don’t watch the show but are now interested because of the title). That said, we do try to be very conscious and thoughtful about how we title things and, more directly to your point, when! For example, in this instance we are a full day behind OUT magazine’s coverage of this same plot line, which a near identical title: https://www.out.com/television/2021/8/03/disneys-owl-house-just-made-lumitys-relationship-official
In part we try because we do understand that our readers have different feelings re: spoilers. But I also want to note that the industry standard is that after an episode has already aired, that it’s no longer considered in bad taste report on what happened, including when necessary in the title itself, because… well, that’s our jobs. Reporting on television and what happened for our readers.
Whenever possible we do try to keep headlines intriguing but not always explicit, that said we also sometimes have to make calls on what is best for that specific piece and the (often conflicting!) needs of our readership. I know this wasn’t your example, but I’ve also had readers who have also complained about spoilers more than a week after something has aired (once, three weeks after it aired!). Which, as you can imagine, wouldn’t allow us to properly do our jobs. We are still in competition with other websites who are also covering these things. Anyway, as I hope you can see, it’s a tightrope to please everyone on this but we try to be as fair as possible while still doing our jobs as people who cover television.
But I definitely do hear you! Thank you for sharing your concerns with us.
(And I’m excited for Luz! Good for her! I just started Owl House for the first time over the weekend, and I can’t wait to find out when/how it gets gay. )
Thank you so much, Carmen, for this thoughtful, detailed, and informative reply. I really appreciate the time and effort you put into responding to me, and to navigating the headline spoiler conundrum. I’ll never not prefer the AV Club style of just using [REDACTED] in headlines, but I understand the audience (and finances) at that publication are very different from those at AS. And I’m looking forward to watching Owl House eventually :)
It’s been multiple days since the episode aired, to the point even Disney has uploaded to YouTube a clip of just the queer content in this episode. If I’m remembering correctly, when AS reported on Owl House’s queer content in S2E5, they posted on a Tuesday following the Saturday US airing. This time they waited until the following Wednesday. So, to be honest, I feel like there’s never a length of time people are gonna be happy about spoilers. On a personal note, learning a series’s queer hints go canon is what motivates me to actually start watching, so this title works really well for people like me.
I was blushing ALMOST as much as Luz and Amity!!!!!! PRECIOUS BBYS I LOVE THEM SO MUCHHHHHHHH
Also the fact that Amity’s voice actor also voiced Katara feels like a personal gift to me. The way she says “Us? Dating?” in this episode made me flash back to the Cave of Two Lovers episode of ATLA where Katara says “Us? Kissing?” and the butterflies it gave me… ✨✨✨
(Side note: is it too late to claim Aang as a smol lesbian? Cause that would make some feelings I had make a lot of sense…)
I am so in love with this show!! <3