Disenchantment (2018-2023) was a medieval fantasy animation show on Netflix that ran for a total of five seasons and fifty episodes in total. The half-hour comedy focused on the adventures of Bean (Abbi Jacobson), the beer-drinking teenage princess of Dreamland who has no desire to get married and live the typical life of a royal. Bean is noted for her platinum-blonde hair, freckles, and buck teeth, as well as wearing pants and a vest in a world where women are most often still seen wearing medieval dresses.
While Bean is often set up with men by her father to wed, Bean does admit that in the past, she has felt attraction to men. But of particular note is her attraction to Mora (Meredith Hagner), a mermaid.
In Episode 6 of the first season, titled "Last Splash," Bean's attraction to and involvement with Mora is unmistakably portrayed. The two share several scenes together, including a kiss, and Mora gives Bean a starfish necklace as a token of her affection. However, the episode's plot elements leave Bean questioning if the encounter even occurred. Nevertheless, throughout the series, Bean has a few more encounters with Mora, and eventually, they end up happily together by the series finale.
The creators — Matt Groening, Josh Weinstein, and David X. Cohen — have noted Mora was going to be important from the very beginning of the development of the series. In an interview, writer and co-creator Weinstein noted Mora’s importance both to the show and to Bean from the jump and how the voice artists’ chemistry played into what was shown on screen:
I should also say one of our big guests who’s going to be a recurring character, you’ll meet her in Episode Five Mora, the mermaid, played by Meredith Hagner and Mora, as you see, Episode Six is hugely important character for Been and also the deeper mythology of the show.
In Episode Six when Bean first meets Mora. There’s big chunks of ad libs that were between Abbi, and Meredith Hagner just because they really hit it off in person that we put in the actual episodes and stuff that we could have never come up with in writing.
Disenchantment is noted for being one of the first cartoons in major distribution with a bi female character. Unlike many other episodic animation shows, Groening noted in an interview that due to the fact the show was on Netflix, the streamer’s format, which allowed for binge watching gave them more of a chance to build a larger, ongoing narrative than most broadcast television does, which gave room for Bean to explore her queerness in a way network cartoon landscapes do not.
It is particularly noteworthy that, while the show does not use the term “bi” for Bean, she is a bi character that is voiced by Jacobson, an openly bi actress. As such, it ends up being a decent bi representation in media in general and overall good representation for bi rep in animation in particular.
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