Sean Griffin is a critical queer film theory scholar and professor at the Meadows School of the Arts.[1][2][3] His work includes Tinker Belles and Evil Queens: The Walt Disney Company from the Inside Out, which was adapted from his dissertation.[1][4]
Tinker Belles and Evil Queens (2000) suggests that The Walt Disney Company, despite having a focus on heterocentric "family values" in its films, has long attracted gay audiences, particularly through queercoding and gay subtext of its films.[4][5][6] It was described by journalist Nico Lang of Harper's Bazaar as "the book on the gay history of Disney".[7] According to Jonathan Alexander, Griffin argues that Disney did this out of economic considerations of LGBT consumers paying for Disney products.[8]
In 2023, Hbomberguy accused James Somerton of plagiarising text from Griffin's Tinker Belles in one of his YouTube video essays.[9][10]