Can we adress this perhaps? I find it very ugly tbh.
As far as I understand, this is a grievance over the fact that heteroromantic narratives can capture large audiences.
I think it's no secret that the ship-potential is a large part of the burning engine that made Z2 a 1.8BN$ super hit; even if can only speculate as to how important that component really was.
This provokes a certain envy. That part I can understand but it's not truly zero-sum. One successful heteroromantic story would not steal from, or make impossible, a completely different queer-colored productiob elsewhere.
In fact, wouldn't produced romance create an increased pull for more romantic stories?
Disney is in a strange bind, that I analyze goes something like this: They used to pander to conservative family-first type audiences. Then comes a time where they tried to modernize, but they didn't have the guts to be truly progressive.
Making another fairytale romance would only make the absence of alternatives glaringly obvious.
So for a long stretch we see the no-romance policy as the solution.
But now Disney has a massive new conservative audience in China that seems very hungry for love stories, and for a certain rabbit and fox pair in particular.
This might tip the scales enough to cash in on WildeHopps in Z3.
So yes, annoyingly this will mean the accepted ship gets showcased front and center, and any alternatives like Bucky and Pronk and such? Subtly codified into oblivion. As always.
Disney can essentially produce hits, and cast a shadow. Or they can retreat back into the diplomatic no-romance posture. These are the two choices.
If you want to criticize Disney, at least do it right. Tell them that they should have the stones then to make a movie (another franchise) which doesn't gaf about the Chinese audience, and accept a lower box-office, but there's no point attacking Zootopia and WildeHopps.
"You produced <this>. Now you should feel obligated to also produce <that>."
That I can see as a more valid position.
But don't go into this petty "If I can't have it, you can't either." because that just isn't true, and it only leads back to the bleak no-romance policy, and nowhere else.