girls am i right?

Also Nalini: Yes, I brought home one of your classmates for dinner because he cried in my office and he’s also the same boy you don’t shut up about. 

Peter: Right?! That dude was so damn cool. Like I swear he’s a better Spider-Man than me.

Michelle: Uh-uh, don’t do that.

Peter: What?

Michelle: *kisses his cheek* Don’t start. You’re perfect. And that’ll never change.

Peter: That’s so… sweet… oh man.

Firstly, Andi Mack has so many episodes missing on Disney+ AND DisneyNow that it would be impossible to try to watch the series in full by using any of these apps. Until recently, DisneyNow had completely removed Andi Mack from its app, and put it back on with only an incomplete season three and without any of the games that were there originally (like Andi's Texts). This, I'm assuming, has to do with that Certain Actor, but the missing episodes has also made including Cyrus in any pride posts or collections harder than it should be (more on that in a second).

On Disney+, there is a "Pride Collection" which does not include anything Andi Mack related despite Cyrus being the first openly gay main character on Disney Channel. His coming out scenes (plural because of the individual scenes with Buffy, Andi and then Jonah) were extremely prominent not only to real people, but also to Cyrus' character as a whole. Two out of the three episodes where Cyrus comes out - "Hey, Who Wants Pizza?" (season 2, episode 1) | "Cyrus' Bash-Mitzvah!" (season 2, episode 13) | "One in a Minyan" (season 3, episode 11) - are not even available on Disney+, nor are any of them on DisneyNow (sidebar, Andi Mack isn't featured on DisneyNow 's pride section either). What's even more frustrating is that the series finale, "We Were Here", where Cyrus and TJ are confirmed to have mutual feelings for each other, are available on both Disney+ AND DisneyNow, yet it does not feature on either app's pride sections. Cyrus being gay wasn't just implied, he literally says the words "I'm gay" the third time he comes out and the second time he clearly says he has a crush on Jonah . It's not easy to overlook him as gay, and as a character who should be included in those pride collections, so his omission is clearly deliberate.

Terri ended up writing a letter to the people who worked at Disney in hopes of convincing them to make the other episodes available to stream. She reached out to all of the actors from the show and asked them to write letters as well (and several of them did). She asked me for advice, wondering if I had any ideas on how to prove to Disney that people still care about the show. Disney basically told her that there was no chance in hell that the rest of the show would make it to streaming.

And the worst part is that in the years since Andi Mack ended, most of the Disney employees who were there when it was on air and saw the impact it had have been replaced by new employees. So the people that Terri was trying to reason with had never even heard of the show. Like all it took was 3 years to erase the show so completely that even the people in charge of its fate don’t know what it is.

During the time in which these emails were being exchanged, the “Certain Actor” was finally sentenced. Just a few weeks after one of the producers of the show had the misfortune of running into him in public. We had hoped that once he was sentenced and the chances of people centering him in conversations about the show died down, that someone at Disney might change their mind or put in some effort to reframe the show’s legacy, but of course that never happened and probably never will.

I told Terri that it felt personal. That after the way they treated her during the Lizzie McGuire reboot fiasco, I couldn’t help but wonder if someone had it out for her work, specifically. She felt like she wasn’t important enough for someone to have it out for her which, like, again… fucking heartbreaking. The creator of two successful and important Disney titles left to feel like she’s unimportant and her work is irrelevant.

But the fact that in the aftermath of the Lizzie McGuire fallout, she was still more concerned about Andi Mack is really telling. She could have reached out at any point and asked me to help her fight for Lizzie (which I did anyways) but she didn’t. What bothers her the most is the disrespect towards Andi Mack because she is still so proud of that little show.

And the thing is, Disney’s decision to erase Andi Mack impacts real queer people. Not just those of us who saw ourselves in it or found ourselves because of it. But the queer actors and writers who worked so hard on it, who now get significantly less financial benefits from the show than they should. Having half of the episodes unavailable and failing to promote the ones that are directly takes money away from real queer folk.

Andi Mack was special. Those of us who watched it when it was airing knew this. The cast and crew knew this. Lightning in a bottle. It was personal. The fact that Cyrus’ character was named after a real queer person in Terri’s life. The fact that Cyrus’ coming out journey was integral to Joshua Rush’s own coming out journey. The fact that Cyrus’ coming out scene in which he said “I’m gay” was inspired by the episode writer Jonathan Hurwitz’ own coming out story. Like these were REAL queer stories and they should be remembered and celebrated as one of Disney’s greatest accomplishments. But instead the company has decided to bury them.

I’ve spent years talking about this and will continue to do so forever. If Disney won’t keep the show’s legacy alive, I will - in whatever capacity I can. And I won’t let people forget whose fault it is that the show has been forgotten about either.