Disney went woke now they're going broke

Truthful retelling of what a fucking mermaid story?

Absolutely definitely yes

Unfortunately they are remaking Lilo & Stitch which is my favourite Disney animation and they are casting white characters so yet more controversy

oh goodness they are going to ruin stitch 😩 he’ll be terrifying 😱

A black woman, not a black mermaid lol!!

But then you really couldn't expect anything else. In Capaldi's run a Time Lord regenerates from a White male to a Black woman and immediately her first words are "thank god, rid of all that testosterone at last".

Yeah that serves as a standout example of the sort of thing people are complaining about.

I have to say Halle Berry has done a steller job as the Little Mermaid, she really has and her singing is amazing. But I wasn't initially pro a black mermaid playing the role of a traditionally Danish Tale. I think since Black Lives Matter, Disney was stuck. They wanted to keep the original soundtracks but it's hard to justify a black carribbean influenced music score without appropriate representation.

Unfortunately they are remaking Lilo & Stitch which is my favourite Disney animation and they are casting white characters so yet more controversy.

The irony is the same people who were pro black casting the Little Mermaid are upset they're not casting darker skinned Hawaiian actors.

Identity politics. No one's ever happy.

But it isn't unfeminist at all. What it is, is a real story about the human soul and the things that beset it.

It's not a story about how to live, it's a story about what to beware of.

Human beings, and maybe especially adolescent girls, often have this feeling that when they are in love, often with someone they don't really know who is kind of an idol for them, if only they love enough and give enough, the beloved will love them back.

It's a bit different for young men, they seem to believe that only if they peruse enough, they will have their love returned. But it's basically the same impulse.

The story of the Little Mermaid is cautionary, it shows what happens when you believe in that and live it out, in a mythologized kind of form.

I would think that's a perfectly good story for feminists.

But then you really couldn't expect anything else. In Capaldi's run a Time Lord regenerates from a White male to a Black woman and immediately her first words are "thank god, rid of all that testosterone at last".

testosterone? They are aliens.

Dr Who is a terrible example for you, it's one show that has so clearly tried to embody a kind of identity politics ideology, and it's ruined the show.

Had sex-changing Time Lords been a part of the lore since the early days, or even arisen naturally, that would have been fine. No real sci-fi fan is unacquainted with sex changing aliens, from The Left Hand of Darkness to Star Trek. And there are plenty of stories of such things in literature and mythology, it's an idea that has a lot of scope for interest.

In the case of Dr Who, there had no sense before gender ideology arose that Time Lords changed sex. Probably not for any good reason, really. It became a thing because tv producers thought it sent the kind of message in terms of social and political perspectives, and because film and tv now have a huge hard on for sex swapping roles.

At the same time you see them filling roles of secondary characters as if by some tick box, and turning more and more to stories that focus on social justice themes and scenarios, with all the subtly of a Victorian morality play about the evils of gin.

Audience know when they are being patronized, which is why Dr Who has such terrible audience numbers now.

Yeah. I don't really like them gender swapping existing characters as if to say a character's sex isn't part of who they are. Well, not "as if" really because that very much is the message that they try to push. I recall my reaction when they announced it was that at least Jodie Whitaker was an actress I liked and I thought would be good in the role. I'd seen her in St. Trinians and in Four Lions and in Broadchurch. It was actually the first one that made me think she could be a fun Doctor.

But boy was I wrong. First came interviews where she said things like she'd never watched Doctor Who before she got the part, or how she was enabling girls to look up to the Doctor / feel part of the franchise. I went to the 50th anniversary showing at the cinema and there were a tonne of girls there. I saw a teenage girl dressed up as the Fourth Doctor complete with hat and long scarf (no idea where she got that!). The Doctor was plenty looked up to by girls and the only two serious Doctor Who fans in my social circle were women in their Forties who had a "phwoar" attitude to David Tenant and (slightly less so) Matt Smith and for whom Jodie Whitaker's Doctor was a final nail in the coffin.

They also took away one of the few pacifist role models for boys if they really want to talk about male vs. female role-models if they think that matters.

Jodie Whitaker's Doctor was notably stupider, dependent and arbitrarily bad with people in a way no other had been.

But then you really couldn't expect anything else. In Capaldi's run a Time Lord regenerates from a White male to a Black woman and immediately her first words are "thank god, rid of all that testosterone at last". If you want to sum up Woke in one line, that clunker will do it. It's not about adding, it's about taking away. Everybody would have loved it if they brought back Romana. And they wouldn't have even cared if she was smarter than the Doctor because Romana was smarter than the Doctor. (At least back before the writers made the Doctor a godlike figure).

The pretence is that they're trying to promote the idea that sex or skin colour doesn't matter. But you can tell it matters more to them than it does to anybody else. The same people who didn't like the female Doctor would have loved to see the female Time Lord Romana return. Plainly the issue isn't that such people hate women. It's that their own things are being colonised aggressively and they're told their bad people if they don't like it.

I doubt anything fundamental is lost of she wishes for a kid with hair as black as coal, lips as red as blood and skin and smooth as snow.

If anyone is going to answer awkward casting questions, surely it's DC re Flash

No 😳

not at all

though the addition of kevin bacon is not to be sniffed at

Oooh but is the a Christmas special arguably better than them both?

And yet I'm left wing, have only ever voted Labour and have never bought the Mail in my life.

Curious

It's one of those rare "perfect" films in that there's nothing I can think of changing that would make it better.

I'm also old enough that when I saw the, well, I don't want to spoil it, but a certain group of kids if you know what I mean, I pretty much just lost it at that point.

Cast were superb.

And to keep it on topic, whilst some called the movie "woke" it really isn't because it's not trying to take away from anybody. Chris Pine's character isn't mocked because he's White or male. And Holga isn't better than other people because she's a woman, she's just better because she's Holga (and not without her flaws).

It is not a hill you will die on. It is a film, not terrain.
/drax

Using 'woke' negatively - often done by a rightwing Daily Mail reader.

Apart from The Jungle Book I haven’t bothered with any of the “live action” remakes of the renaissance-era films

the jungle book one is the best

In theory as a feminist I suppose I should like the "feisty" Disney Little Mermaid but the original Hans Andersen story is not about adventure it's about total self-sacrifice to a hopeless love. The Little Mermaid is brave and beautiful but she gives up everything including her own life and she doesn't even get her man at the end. It's nearly as un-feminist as you can get (OK, "Patient Griselda" is worse) but it's still a beautiful story and you can take a lesson from it about how self-destructive romantic love can be, if you want to.

Even in the first film Disney spoilt the story in pursuit of political correctness so personally I don't care what else they do to it.

that's a really good point MossCow

Maybe.

But some people have different minds from your mind.

In my mind Cinderella is the one in the blue dress from the Ladybird book. For my DDs she has a pink dress - and she’s black. That’s the version they grew up with.

Go see guardians, it's awesome. Take a tissue, I cried. For like the whole last quarter.

We watched Lightyear at the cinema. Neither DS nor I felt preached to about homosexuality. I saw Little Mermaid alone, I didn't feel preached to about racial inclusivity.

If someone's mere presence makes someone feel preached to, they need to check their bias

Beauty standards based on the old Victorian consumptive chic, where white skin, pink cheeks and a thin body looked great but sadly you were dying of TB.

Conflating their current financial woes with the so-called 'wokeness' is quite the stretch.

Unless you're the kind of person who watches Fox News and is offended by a mixed race mermaid 🙄

Complaining about a black Little Mermaid is on a par with complaining about a female Doctor Who 🙄

Unfortunately the female Doctor Who was shit. Why not increase female representation by making new female roles, rather than shoe-horning women into shows by turning existing male characters female?