Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz is a 47 year old evil scientist (legally an ocelot) who was born in the nation of Drusselstein. He is the CEO of Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated, an organization dedicated solely to researching the construction of maleficent technology. He tends not to be detestable in the conventional sense, but instead excessively sensational, unusual and for the most part dumbfounded, as his plans continually fail in coming to fruition. However, is he a gay icon? In this essay, I plan to not only answer whether or not this label applies to him, but also why.
Firstly, let’s address some arguments which can be made in favor of Heinz’s gay icon status:
For one thing, Heinz is shown to reject intimate relationships with women. He was entirely incompetent with Phineas’ mother, Linda (whom the television show hints may have had a sexual relationship with him, Phineas being the lovechild. This would have ended Linda’s popstar career as “Lindana”) and had a very short lived relationship with Vanessa’s mother, Charlene. We are shown throughout episodes that he has never had romantic feelings for these women, (nor has he ever cared about the breakups, considering they do not contribute to his backstories at all, aside from Linda’s temporary encouragement of his villainhood) potentially hinting towards a growing interest in men. (What a queen!)
Heinz was often disregarded by both of his parental figures, maternal and paternal. While this isn’t proof of bigotry on the basis of an anti LGBTQ+ rights movement alone, we also see many instances in which Heinz is raised as a girl throughout his childhood, provoking many feelings of gender dysphoria in this cisgender child. This has nothing to do with his potential iconhood, however it is very relevant information to the subject at hand.
Lastly, there is the matter of his status as the main villain of the show. Through the course of the show, Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz continually battles Agents P and P of the OWCA (the Organization Without a Cool Acronym). OWCA is not a government institution, nor is it a private business. Their funding is completely unknown. OWCA seems extremely reminiscent of the LGBTQ+, which can also be described as an “organization without a cool acronym.” Or maybe it refers to the HRC, a non-profit LGBTQ+ rights organization. Doof fights for an organization known as LOVE MUFFIN. While their name seems to be positive in theory, its true motives are revealed to be quite sinister. Perhaps an allegory for the way Family Matters operates, trying to “muffle” the “love” of the LGBTQ+ community. His wardrobe consists of a white lab coat with a black shirt in the middle, which seems to be a symbolistic homage to the Heterosexual Pride flag. OWCA is trying to allow him to be who he needs to be, rather than living in the expectations of his oppressive parents (who, I’ll remind you, misgendered him constantly). In the ending of the show, Doofenshmirtz realizes that his parents’ abandonment resulted in him being raised by ocelots. This means that he technically has been an ocelot all along, and he is able to join the OWCA.
His long battle, trying to fight against the OWCA, wearing a black and white pattern (which, again, represents both villainy and heterosexuality), and following his parents’ orders, concludes with him eventually breaking free from the “norm” (a double meaning, as norm can both refer to what society views as “normal” or Norm, his evil robot roommate) and allowing himself to join the “other team” (again, a double meaning, as this may refer to either the literal opposite team of LOVE MUFFIN, or it could refer to a common euphemism for homosexuality). This experience may ring as quite familiar for many LGBTQ+ teens who struggled with their identity for a long time. Specifically, his battle seems to represent the internalized homophobia which parents often force upon their LGBTQ+ children, and the struggle to overcome it. (our poor smol bean)
Now, how could a person potentially form a counterargument against that seemingly bulletproof logic? Well…
One major point to be had may be Dr. D’s status as the main villain of the series. If the creators of Phineas and Ferb (Dan and Swampy) had intended for Heinz to be a sympathetic portrayal of the LGBTQ+ experience, wouldn’t they have made him into a protagonist? It seems quite bigoted to make the only representation of an LGBTQ+ person be an antagonist.
Also, Heinz is proven to be cisgender. It would be inaccurate to try to claim that a cis person’s experience will be identical to a trans person’s as long as they were raised a certain way. They may have gender dysphoria, but only as a result of their specific upbringing, not due to the result of a globally bigoted system of gender roles and expectations. Cis people who have gender dysphoria would not develop body dysmorphia as a result of their secondary sex characteristics, as they would be entirely fine being accepted when expressing themselves in society.
Lastly, what proof do we have that he is attracted to men? All we know is that he didn’t fare well with women after having sexual encounters with two of them. We know he didn’t care about the women he ended up dating, but technically we have an equal amount of evidence that Heinz is ace. It’s not even unusual for a villain to be ace, Harry Potter did it. (this is the result of a growing acephobic culture, as sexual relationships are becoming seen as normal, where asexual people are seen as abnormal within society) Of course, if he were ace, he’d still be LGBTQ+, but not a gay icon. How do we know that he is gay?
To address those points…
Disney has a history of queer-coding its villains. Tamatoa, Le Fou, Scar, and Jafar have all been considered quite gay, potentially a result of growing homophobia. Disney employees may have internally seen gay people as bad people and accidentally represented them as such in their work. Disney even leaned into this idea in the Beauty and the Beast live action adaptation, as they made Le Fou into a positive and canonically gay character. Needless to say, it wouldn’t be unusual for Disney to try to have a villainous LGBTQ+ character. It can even be said that Doof was redeemed in a very similar way to Le Fou.
Also, the LGBTQ+ community has a history of reclaiming villains from popular culture and turning them into gay icons. The monster from It is often referred to as genderfluid. The Babadook is seen as a very prideful LGBTQ+ character. Wade Wilson, the antihero of Deadpool is canonically pansexual, and his sequel movie includes the first ever gay romance in a superhero film. Elsa, the antivillain from Disney’s Frozen, is commonly seen as a lesbian character, with her voice actress encouraging executive producers of its sequel to give her a girlfriend. Point is, LGBTQ+ villains aren’t uncommon, even within the LGBTQ+ community.
If you’re still not convinced that the Phineas and Ferb writers would try to create a sympathetic LGBTQ+ story, but have their only representation of LGBTQ+ characters be a villain, look no further than secondary protagonists Baljeet and Buford. These two are often seen together in romantic ways, masqueraded by a bully/victim mentality. (possibly a sub/dom euphemism… I’m not saying these children have had sexual experiences, but I am saying that in the future they probably would end up taking those roles) In the second-to-last episode, “Act Your Age,” the main group has all grown to college age, with each of them in a romantic relationship. However we never see Baljeet or Buford’s partner*, probably alluding to them being each other’s partner. Therefore, Phineas and Ferb actually has two LGBTQ+ protagonists and a single LGBTQ+ antagonist, which is actually a quite well-rounded portrayal of LGBTQ+ people.
The argument that Doof is ace would actually be quite sound, if it weren’t for the fact that we’ve seen him experience attraction one time in the series… to himself. In the episode “Quietest Day Ever,” Heinz is shot with a “De-Handsome Inator” turning his face into that of a professional model. Upon looking into a mirror, he becomes enamored with his own reflection, even bursting into (an unbelievably catchy) song about it. This is an allegory to the Greek tale of Narcissus (Narcissus found a pool of water which created a reflection ten times more beautiful with reality and drowned himself trying to kiss his reflection). While an argument can be made that both Heinz and Narcissus’s tales could be seen as evidence of autosexuality (attraction to oneself), it seems accurate to reject this notion. In both stories, the person does not see an accurate reflection of themself, instead seeing an incredibly handsome and unrecognizable face. It is also worth noting that Heinz experiences attraction to his reflection before realizing it was his own, remarking that “this isn’t me. This is just the superhumanly attractive male model that came with the frame. I mean, look at this guy, right?”
Additionally, Heinz seems to be in love with his male rival- Perry the Platypus from OWCA. He has a love song with Perry called “My Nemesis,” in which he goes on and on about how much he cares for Perry. At one point in the show, Perry isn’t there to fight Dr. D and he ends up battling another OWCA agent in secret (Peter the Panda). The show handles this as an affair, even bringing the three into a parody of a Dr. Phil session. Keeping in mind that OWCA represents the LGBTQ+, this is awfully similar to the story of Oscar from The Office (spoilers ahead). When Oscar dates The Senator, The Senator often tries to pretend that he is heterosexual. He has Angela pretend to be his partner and continually seems to have no stance on gay issues. However, when it is time for him to come out, it seems that he had been having an affair with another gay guy the entire time. He was lying both about his sexuality and about who his boyfriend was. Sound familiar?
To address the point of gender dysphoria, the comparison is imperfect. That is entirely true. Doof is a cisgender character, and claiming he is trans-male would be outright foolish. We’ve even seen that he was assigned male at birth. However, as a transgender viewer of the show, I personally can say that as a child who didn’t understand her dysphoria, the story of Heinz being forced into clothing of a different gender, and being treated as a gender to which he did not identify gave me someone to whom I could relate. His story definitely was at least meant to encapsulate gender dysphoria, even if not the greater topic of being transgender as a whole.
In conclusion, there are arguments to be made in both directions. However, many of the pieces of pointing evidence toward Doof being cishet seem to be quite flimsy and only partially accurate. Therefore, it seems like there is more than sufficient evidence to conclude that not only is Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz LGBTQ+, he is actually a homophobe who became a gay rights activist. He is not only a gay icon, but one of the greatest and gayest characters we will ever see.
*Addition from 06–16–2020: An astute reader pointed out to me in the response section that Baljeet is shown to be in a relationship with Ginger in this episode. Technically Baljeet could be bisexual and polyamorous, but that dives more into the realm of headcanon than actual contextual evidence. As such, I will admit that the element of my argument surrounding Baljeet and Buford’s gay subtext has some holes. A character can still technically have gay subtext while being explicitly straight, however, so the gay subtext can still be said to be present in the series even though the canon material states otherwise.
