In the new Rugrats reboot for the new US streaming service Paramount+, Phil and Lil’s mom Betty DeVille’s character will be rewritten to be openly gay.
In the original series, which ran from 1991 to 2004, Betty consistently wore sweaters with the gender sign indicating female on it, and was married to Howard DeVille.
Openly queer actor Natalie Morales, who uses both she/her and they/them pronouns will replace actor Kath Soucie, to be the voice behind the cartoon character.
The 48-year-old actor said in a statement: “Anyone who watched the original show may have had an inkling Betty was a member of the alphabet mafia.”
“Betty is a single mom with her own business who has twins and still has time to hang out with her friends and her community, and I think it’s just so great because examples of living your life happily and healthily as an out queer person is just such a beacon for young queer people who may not have examples of that,” she said.
Explaining cartoon show’s influence on her as a kid, the White Collar actor said: “Betty is a fictional cartoon, but even cartoons were hugely influential for me as a kid and if I’d been watching Rugrats and seen Betty casually talking about her ex-girlfriend, I think at least a part of me would have felt like things might be okay in the future.”
Earlier this year, the producers released the first clip from the revival which met with mixed reviews from Twitter users.
“This looks f***ing horrifying,” tweeted one person. “My eyes burn just looking at this!” wrote another.
Others pledged to watch the revival, despite misgivings about the move away from the hand-drawn animation of the original series.
“I think this animation looks like s*** but I’ll probably watch every second of it,” wrote one fan.
Rugrats was in production for nine seasons over the course of 13 years.
The series won six Kids’ Choice Awards, four Daytime Emmy Awards and has its own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
