As seen in recent Disney movies and television shows, Disney is working on being more diverse and not just with skin color. The company has been notoriously known for not having any LGBTQIIA+ characters up until recent shows and movies. Zombies 3 is no exception. On July 15th, 2022, Disney released the third movie in their Zombies series, which this time portrayed an alien invasion.

Similar to the first two Zombies movies, this movie included all of the prior main characters, but introduced three new ones named A-Lan (Matt Cornett), A-Li (Kyra Tantao), and A-Spen (Terry Hu). 

A-Spen (Terry Hu) is non-binary and a person of color. They play one of the new main characters in Zombies 3. They are also assumed to be attracted to both men and women considering that their first crush was Zed (Milo Manheim) and their second crush was Willa (Chandler Kinney). A-Spen and Willa are later seen dancing together, symbolizing that they are now a couple. 

This is a big deal because according to disney.fandom.com, A-spen is the first non-binary character to appear in a Disney Channel Original Movie as well as the second Disney character to be non-binary after Raine Whispers from The Owl House.

There were a lot of mixed reviews on the matter. John F. Trent from boundingintocomics.com wrote an article titled “Disney To Push Their Pro-Grooming Agenda In New Disney Channel Film Zombies 3, Casting SVP Says Goal Is To “Build Identity” For Children” which talks about a “not-at-all secret gay agenda aimed at young children” and says that having LBGTQIIA+ characters and grooming children are the same thing. 

Overall, I thought that Zombies 3 was a good Disney movie with good music. It was entertaining to watch and having open LGBTQIIA+ characters was an incredible leap for Disney. I hope that Disney will continue to make characters like A-spen and Willa in the future.