PROFILE: Dean DeBlois
Concluding our profiles on LGBT Pride Day, and on the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning the Defense of Marriage Act making same-sex marriages legal throughout the country, we look at Disney animator and director Dean DeBlois.
DeBlois began his career at Disney as Co-Head of Story on Mulan in 1998. In 2001, he moved on to Story Artist on Atlantis: The Lost Empire. And, in 2002, alongside Chris Sanders, he both co-wrote and co-directed Lilo & Stitch which he would become attached to through the years in some shape or form. He would develop characters for the various Lilo & Stitch movies and television series, including Stitch! The Movie, Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch, Leroy & Stitch, and Lilo & Stitch: The Series.
In addition to that, he would work on the Japanese anime Stitch! and the Chinese series Stitch & Ai.
DeBlois is openly gay. He once recounted a story that their coworkers at Disney Animation "knew that one of [them] was gay," but assumed it Sanders because he "hobbled in there looking like a redneck."
With the anniversary of Obergefell v. Hodges on June 26, 2013 or 6/26/2013, many fans equated the date with Stitch's experiment number 626 and made him an unofficial mascot. DeBlois responded by drawing the sketch above with Stitch holding the rainbow flag and Scrump holding the flag of the LGBTQ Civil Rights Organization Human Rights Campaign.