Disney went woke now they're going broke

I think there’s an issue with most of these new star treks though. aside from committee meetings and talking about feelings every few scenes…

Old Star Trek made you think.

it didn’t tell you what to think.

Thankfully Star Trek fans like me, yep old school, got a chance to say goodbye with Picard S3. It’s not our franchise any more.

I prefer freedom of thought, something I believe young people have less of and are accepting of these days. It’s something that when you see it, you can’t unsee, and that’s why more and more are stepping away from the likes of Disney, tokenism and virtue Signalling. Hell I’m Bisexual, and I detest what Pride is nowadays for all the same reasons.

I think Disney is missing the fact that parents today grew up on the animated Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Jungle Book etc etc and aren't particularly keen on the shit remakes. I saw the new Dumbo in the cinema with my kids and DS was 4 and utterly bored. I am the sort of person who is annoyed when film versions deviate from the book, so a live action remake which deviates from the animated version is always going to irritate. I've just stopped bothering with them. The added bits of story are always crap, and sometimes don't even make sense. Give me a brand new film, don't remake the old ones!

But you didn't find the singing crab, the talking seagull, the shapeshifting witch, or the fact that they were half-girls, half-fish 'odd'?

All that was not odd at all...Just the fact that the actresses playing them were of different ethnicities?

Disney has always been ideological, though the ideology changes over time. Disney has a global market,follows popular trends and tries to be acceptable to everyone. Hence the focus groups. And a lot of it is fun and creative and inspiring. I'm a big fan of their "Recess" TV series and Lilo and Stitch is one of my favourite films (so emotionally engaging and the opening sequence must be one of the best animated musical sequences ever!)

The flaws in the ideology show up most when they take an old story and manipulate it, whether it's one of their remakes or adapting old fairy tales and storybooks. They changed Pinnochio from the original ideology where becoming a "real boy" means accepting years of boring hard work earning pennies to support Geppetto to an exciting adventure where Pinnochio gets to rescue Geppetto from a sea monster. The point of the original story was to stop rushing off after adventures, Of course the new ending is more entertaining but there are consequences if children only see one kind of story.

Disney sells comforting escapist fantasy to children and families. Andnow their marketing even says you can "become yourself" at Disneyland -- which jars. Fantasay and escapism are great for a holiday but the exact opposite of "becoming yourself" and it's not healthy for children to believe they are only really "themselves" on holiday in a fantasy land.

I didn't say that I had a problem. I just said that I found it odd that a bunch of sisters were so different.

Star Trek franchise got in a right pickle with Picard by being too woke which is ironic when you look back at earlier offerings which broke important taboos

I watched series one and two of Picard - DH watched series 3 and said it was the best but I was done by then. Wokeness was not the issue.

Star Trek tends towards positivity - learning exploring trying to do better - it goes very dark at times but still retains positivity overall - Picard was just set in a bleak universe. The plots were convoluted - Deus ex machina was overused - characters and their relationships were poorly defined and sometimes seemed to change with the plot needs.

If you were going to point to a start trek series that was woke - Discovery would be most people's first thought. It goes very dark but feels star treky - I think because it does have solid characterisations with well thought through and believable relationships - characters develop over time and events but you still know who they are and what is driving them. It does have issues - pacing in later series was off - you about to be blown up but suddenly have 5 minutes to talk though all your relationships and Michael Burnham does get a bit space Jesus zipping round the galaxy - I've seen critics use the term and it seems to fit - only she can save the universe again and again. However it works when Picard just doesn't.

Great point. Perhaps when people negatively use ‘woke’ what they really mean is ‘tokenism’?

Tokenism really irritates me as it feels like a tick box exercise rather than genuine inclusivity.

You find it odd that mermaids have different ethnicities? You do get that it's a fairy tale... right? And that they are meant to represent the different oceans of the earth?

I mean you're OK with a singing crab, but you have a problem with actresses of different ethnicities playing sisters?

lostinfusion · 27/06/2023 13:02

I don't understand the remake of the little mermaid - in my mind Arial is a red headed girl

why not make a new disney princess rather than just change the race of a current story, surely that is more racist?

there you go. It was just up there, you silly sausage! 😁

I guess a mermaid could be any color? I mean, they're not actually real creatures.

And they probably would be grey or some other colour not seen in humans.

I did find it odd though that the daughters of Triton were all of different ethnicities - has he been sleeping around?

I'm just tired of all of these live action remakes. Have they really run out of fresh plots?

Perhaps you could point out to me where I said anything about it not being realistic?

Go on then. Explain why a fictional cartoon half-fish is only realistic if she is played by an actress with white skin.

@ Superfood - missed the point completely & yet think you are clever enough to call someone else terminally stupid, lol

An example of Disney "anti racism":

Personally I don't think it's responsible to be pushing this kind of propaganda on children.

Can't see why the OP posted this in Feminism: Sex and Gender, unless it was to exploit legitimate concerns about women's rights (in relation to trans activism) in order to undermine genuinely progressive Disney trends like countering racism and homophobia.

GC feminism is going to have to work harder and harder to shake off this kind of parasitism, because so many people are woring so hard to muddy the water - both transactivists who want to lie about GC feminism (aka feminism) being right wing and shitty racists who want to crush corporate anti-racism.

Agree. And, of course, this Board is subject to frequent threads of this type, presumably designed to get screenshots of us cheering on racism or actual transphobia.

Can't see why the OP posted this in Feminism: Sex and Gender, unless it was to exploit legitimate concerns about women's rights (in relation to trans activism) in order to undermine genuinely progressive Disney trends like countering racism and homophobia.

GC feminism is going to have to work harder and harder to shake off this kind of parasitism, because so many people are woring so hard to muddy the water - both transactivists who want to lie about GC feminism (aka feminism) being right wing and shitty racists who want to crush corporate anti-racism.

A separate point, there is discussion on the thread about how 'woke agendas' undermine good writing. That might be true to an extent but I don't really think that is an issue at Disney - simply because all of their plotting and characterisation (like that of any big content creater) is going to be determined by commercial concerns, not artistic ones. Just like the ultra-processed food that we readabout on other threads, this is untra-processed fiction. Crammed with additives to improve marketability, shelf-life, etc. Those additives may at different times be woke, anti-woke, racist, anti-racist, sexist, anti-sexist. Etc etc.

Kirk and Uhura didn't kiss because they wanted to, they kissed because they were being controlled by evil slave-abusing aliens who looked like Greek gods.

Uhura broke boundaries by being a high status professional member of the Enterprise crew.

I wonder if a lot of this has to do with the fast availability of new releases on streaming services. You used to have to wait ages for a new film to be available in the video shop. Now it’s as little as 8 weeks sometimes. Unless you’re a colossal fan, a true cinephile or it’s something of an “event”
that breaks new ground somehow (think first Avatar movie or Mad Mad: Fury Road) then a lot of people are content to wait. The cinema is also a lot more expensive than it used to be, especially for families.

Really well put, @OldGardinia

And the irony is that tearing down the old heroes actually reinforces hierarchy - despite all the lip service to equality. It’s just replacing one hierarchy with another.

But yes, from what I saw of it (not much), Picard was VERY woke.

They also seem to have ruined Seven of Nine who was a great character.

I don't think this is just values changing when I say that Star Trek wasn't woke. Captain Kirk kissing Lt. Uhura broke some social boundaries it is true (and good to do), but doing so didn't devalue Captain Kirk. Woke isn't just having some different ethnic groups or orientations in it, etc. It's about supplanting existing ones. Salt starring Angelina Jolie is basically a female James Bond style character. Disliked? Woke? Not at all. Initial trailers and leaks for the last James Bond film when they have him being shown up by a Black female agent who mocks him? Woke. Why? Because it's about tearing down the existing groups, heroes and cultural elements. Romana in Doctor Who - female Time Lord who is arguably smarter than the Doctor and highly capable. Woke? No - they get along great, help each other and doesn't try to force him to change. Time Lord regenerating from White Male to Black Female and gratefully exclaiming "finally, rid of all that testosterone!" Woke, it's a gratuitous (and ham-fisted) dig at White Males. Dungeons and Dragons movie - absolute rainbow of skin colours. Woke? No, it's set in a long-established High Fantasy setting filled with flying carpets and not remotely an analogue to our Earth or history. Amazon's Lord of the Rings series where Galadriel goes full Girl Boss and continually shows up the men around her and Black elves suddenly now exist and Galadriels heroic in his own right husband she loves is suddenly relegated? In a setting which was heavily based on Northern European culture and sagas with massively detailed history and high verisimilitude? Woke.

Sorry for the long-post, not all directed at you. I don't think Woke applies to older media. Ellen Ripley is just a competent and brave woman. She doesn't demand the men around her change or be less men-like. She fits in. Sarah Connor? She's just a badass woman in the original two movies. Only became woke in the latter two films when it was decided that being the mother or the saviour of mankind was a regressive thing and had to be corrected that a woman would be mankind's saviour. Captain Kirk? The man who bedded women from here to Andromeda of every skin colour including green? Guy is as chad as they come.

My motivation to say all this is because the purveyors of Woke love to cast opposition to it as being bigotry and that they're just being "inclusive" (which we are conditioned to think as inherently positive), but that's false. It's more about taking away than adding.

I find it so hilarious that opposition to Disney these days is largely coming from conservatives/centrists (and some traditional old-school leftists who are not into the whole identity politics bollocks).

When I was growing up, if you heard of parents who boycotted or "didn't do" Disney, they were nearly always very left-wing and were critical of the firm because it was commercialist, promoted wasteful consumption, encouraged "princess" stuff among girls and so on.

Star Trek franchise got in a right pickle with Picard by being too woke which is ironic when you look back at earlier offerings which broke important taboos

Disney recently announced that they had cast a transgender YouTuber in their next Star Wars TV series. So someone with little acting ability who appears to have been cast because of their background.