Disney went woke now they're going broke

[Hoardasurass]

Woke Disney loses $900Million in recent box office flops https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12236445/Woke-Disney-loses-900Million-recent-box-office-flops-liberal-agenda-turns-movie-goers.html?ito=native_share_article-nativemenubutton
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Sure, but why are they bad?

What's being described as "woke" here is part of the reason, it just kills good writing.

And to some extent it's also being used to generate interest - let's cast a "diverse" actress in such and such a role and maybe create some media chatter about our shit film.

I don't think that's even what it originally meant.

As used by conservatives, it's mocking people that think they are "awake" to injustice when they are really just self deluded and likely narrow minded individuals.

Personally I see woke as shoving an agenda or ideology down other peoples throats.

When it comes to movies or tv, it’s usually diversity or gender casting along with the undermining of prior characters, or having a winge at the old white guy.

Nothing wrong with a great actor of any race or gender in a fab story or character arc, but when it’s a substandard actor and the show is being sold on its ‘virtues’ most people know to engage or turn off. Blaming the fans usually follows.

Even a very wonderful actor can be a tokenistic choice, just like any hiring decision.

The serious negatives of tokenism don't go away because the person is competent, that's for sure. Least of all for the person hired.

I know it's not Disney, but there's going to be a live action 'How to train your Dragon' with a black actress playing Astrid.

It is irrelevant what it originally meant (past tense of wake). It doesn’t mean that now.

Well it depends on who is using the term and in what context. There may still be some people using it in its original meaning.

Disney aren't the only ones losing money though to be fair.

Cineworld are going into administration, paramount losing money.

The quality of big films coming out now is pretty dire across the board, the exceptions are notable because they are exceptions.

Television is more variable, but quite a lot is bad, and some shows that were very good are now quite shit.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

An example of Disney "anti racism":

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

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

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

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