I went to see the new, live-action “Beauty and the Beast” on Sunday, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s certainly flawed and can never compare to the original, but it was visually stunning, had a great score, and was satisfyingly nostalgic.

There was also a queer subtext in the movie that people have been talking about for weeks.

In an interview with “Attitude” magazine – an LGBT men’s publication – a couple weeks before “Beauty and the Beast” hit theaters, Director Bill Condon, himself an openly gay man, announced that there would be “a nice, exclusively gay moment” in the upcoming movie. He was specifically referring to LeFou, Gaston’s simpering yes-man, who “is confused about what he wants,” describing Josh Gad’s portrayal of LeFou as “subtle and delicious.” But he concluded that the storyline would “have its payoff in the end.”

Naturally, these comments — despite their tentative nature — sparked a rash of controversy surrounding LeFou’s sexuality, causing one theater in Alabama to refuse to show the movie and earning it an adults-only rating in Russia.

But a couple of days later, Gad admitted that “there’s nothing in the script that says ‘LeFou is gay,’” and Emma Watson (Belle) described it as “subtle” three times in the same paragraph, saying that there’s not “a huge narrative there.”

Condon himself weighed in again only three days after his original comments, saying that “it’s all been overblown,” and “to not make a big deal of it.”

“I love the way it plays pure when people don’t know and it comes as a nice surprise,” he said. He then commented a couple days before the movie came out that he was “sort of sick of this.”

I realize that Condon’s original comments were ambiguous and noncommittal and that he made them to a magazine targeted at a specific audience that had special interest in them.

But if you make comments to any publication at all about an LGBT character in a film this big in a franchise this big, you have no right to be surprised if the world erupts into controversy the next day. Of course it’s been overblown. By Condon. And if you wanted people not to make such a big deal of it and are so sad that it won’t be a surprise, maybe you shouldn’t announce it with trumpets.

Here’s what happens: Early in the film, LeFou wonders why Gaston needs a woman and isn’t happy with just the two of them. Later, when Gaston asks him, “Why has no girl snapped you up?” LeFou replies that he’s “too clingy.” There are a couple of other moments that are less obvious, but certainly consistent with a gay LeFou.

Then, near the end of the movie, during the fight between the townspeople and the household objects, LeFou tells Mrs. Potts, “I used to be on Gaston’s side, but we are so in a bad place right now,” to which she replies, “You’re too good for him anyway.”

Madame Armoire, a wardrobe that rather enjoys dressing people up, dresses three men in drag. Two of them storm off in anger and disgust, but the third takes a moment to flash her a wide grin. In the final dance scene, this man and LeFou are each dancing with women, then find themselves thrust into each other’s arms and begin dancing with each other for a couple of seconds, looking intrigued at best, but certainly not hating it.

And that’s about it. That dance scene, as far as I can tell, is our “exclusively gay moment.”

I’ve long ago resigned myself to the fact that Disney generally plays it safe and doesn’t try to gain the spotlight by garnering controversy. They try to stay just about caught up with progress without stepping into controversial territory – this is why we’ve had so many strong female characters in Disney movies recently.

I may not like this avoidance of controversy, but it’s a business decision, and I’ve accepted that that’s the way it is. I figured we wouldn’t have anything significant in the way of queer representation for another few years at least.

And so far, I was right. I can’t even be upset that Disney’s first gay character falls right into the trope of the confused gay man in love with his straight, masculine best friend, or that he’s morally ambiguous at best — though this LeFou is much more likeable than the previous one — because he’s not their first gay character in any meaningful way.

Disney has been queer-coding its villains for decades. The expression “queer-coding” describes the practice of giving characters effeminate or stereotypically queer characteristics without actually commenting on the character’s sexuality or gender expression.

Some examples of villains that Disney has done this with? Scar from “The Lion King.” Governor Ratcliffe from “Pocahontas.” Jafar from “Aladdin.” Hades from “Hercules.” King John from “Robin Hood.” Ursula from “The Little Mermaid” — explicitly inspired by the drag queen Divine, and of course, LeFou from “Beauty and the Beast.”

Over and over, Disney has represented its heroes as strong and masculine and its villains as weak and effeminate — equating queerness with evil. All they’ve done here is make one of their already queer-coded villains slightly less villainous and slightly more queer. It’s a little less subtle than their previous subtext, but it’s still subtext.

This is progress, but it’s one more step on a continuum; it’s not any sort of meaningful “first.” The main difference is that they announced it ahead of time. It was like pointing out an Easter egg before we even get to see the movie. If you have to announce your big gay moment, you’re doing it wrong. If it’s really as big and as gay as you say, you can just drop it in the movie and everyone will be talking about it the next day.

If Disney hadn’t made such a big deal out of it, a lot of people probably wouldn’t have noticed, and it would have been relegated to conspiracy theories, like in “Frozen.” I probably actually would have been excited about the obvious queer subtext.

So Disney, stop patting yourself on the back. You’re way behind everyone else, and that’s saying a lot when it’s still really difficult to find queer representation that doesn’t fall into harmful tropes and stereotypes.

And even for Disney, this isn’t anything new. You’re just continuing a long line of negative LGBT representation relegated to whispers and knowing nods with slightly less negative representation and slightly louder whispers about a character we already knew was gay.

And any progress that was made here was completely ruined by the big announcement. Stop shouting about how inclusive you are and just be inclusive.