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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Yes casting a black actress as the little mermaid is a good thing but to then set the movie in the Caribbean during the time of slavery but showing none of that instead having a happy relationships between the races basically airbrushes out slavery and the harms it caused so not great.

So you're saying that despite your thread title and laughter, The Little Mermaid just isn't woke enough for you.

The film did actually address this indirectly through the prejudice and animosity between the humans and the sea people, and how they were brought together with the love story. There was quite a clear analogy with racism.

It was also quite clear that each of king triton's daughters represented a different ocean of the world. I thought they were all beautiful.

The sisters certainly had better costuming than Ariel. Ok, yeah I get there might be an element of practicality to it, but I would have preferred seaweed, shells, coral etc for her mermaid bra than a bit of sparkly material.

I mean sure, I suppose I could try and believe that they have the mermaid version of Primark under the sea. It's just a bit naff and against the original themes though.

I would suggest that someone who has no difficulty suspending belief in talking seagulls, singing crabs, shape-shifting witches, and fish/human hybrids, but finds siblings with different skin colours "jarring", has a problem with their attitudes to race.

I did get you were suggesting that the first time and frankly why you'd assume everyone must suspend disbelief in exactly the same way as you is to me very odd way of thinking.

I don't know enough about that poster to assign any reason for them finding anything odd but was merely offered different possible reasons base on my experience of fantasy.

My examples of jarring were nothing to do with race.

Yeah, I wasn't referring to you. I understood your examples. I don't think a massive anachronism such as potatoes in medieval England or using a word wrongly is comparable to someone finding it 'odd' that a group of fictional mermaids could be played by actresses of different ethnicities.

I have seen the film. There was nothing remotely jarring about the casting of the mermaid sisters, unless you're someone with a problematic attitude to race.

@Superfood · that''s nice because I thought your post was a clear attempt to paint me as racist for daring to have a different view point to you.

Shows that I never really watched much Star Trek! Well, they smooched and were different colours. That's the key part! And like you say, she broke barriers just by being a high-ranking competent crew member too.

No, I was referring to and responding to @DdraigGoch , which I thought was quite clear from the fact that I quoted their post and named them.

So @Superfood's big post I was going to reply to seems to have been deleted. There were some particular digs and there does seem to be a general tone of implying people are racist for disagreement. I liked the little bit about "dispelling the myth of GC being Right Wing feminism" or something. Hello - Right Wing feminist here! ;)

It talked about "anti-racism" and Disney's efforts to "combat racism" with the assumption they work. They don't. "Anti-racism" isn't being against racism. It is an academic term and is racism but in an approved direction. It leads to more racism.

People can tell the difference between The Princess and the Frog where the prince happens to be non-White and The Little Mermaid where someone set out to say "I don't want her to be White". The first is an act of acceptance. The latter an act of aggression. Always accompanied by "if it matters to you, you're a bigot". I don't think you have to be a bigot to dislike an agenda pushed on you or to resent being targetted. And to be clear, it is targetted.

Somebody wrote a browser extension for Chrome which replaces the words black and white on a webpage. Instantly the BBC website became filled with stories about "Black fragility," "Is Blackness a Problem" and my personal favourite: "What's wrong with Black people?" Anti-racists really think people don't notice this stuff and don't feel attacked. And when pointed out think it's a good thing. Even though attacking people based on their race OBVIOUSLY increases racial division and causes resentment. They think it's a good thing because they don't think in terms of individuals or if the treatment of an individual is good or fair, but more in terms of group identities and trying to balance them. Even if that's racist to individuals.

At any point someone can write a story about characters of any race, sex or sexuality. A new story. Yet what gets pushed repeatedly is taking and changing existing ones. The double-standard is to tell others that they can't care about the changes when knowing full well the changes are being made by people who very much do and are targeting a group because of it. And such people never seem to matter that the practical reality is to create racial and other resentment, because they'd rather 'fight racism' than eliminate it. Just as groups like Stonewall seem more interested in seeking out confrontation and manufacturing it when it is in short supply, growing in wealth and power as they do so, rather than diminishing as acceptance has grown. Hell, their efforts are actively making things worse for gay people in non-Western countries now. But it's an industry. There's money in the cause.

If someone wants me to not care about a character's skin colour, my response is "fine - you first".

Something else Superfood raised is an argument I personally have always disliked and found very specious. Which is 'if it's not fully realistic you can't object.' It's routinely trotted out to dismiss the feelings of fans of something. It's based on the fallacy that if you introduce a fantastic element, all objections suddenly have no basis because now anything can happen. It is an argument which gets used to throw out verisimilitude, culture, familiarity or internal consistency as needed. But realism in media isn't like virginity where once it's gone it's gone and any further changes don't make a difference. Of course they do. It's a flawed argument used to shutdown objections on the false basis that realism is the basis for them. I've never seen it used the other way around.

Exactly, and canon is very important to fans. There needs to be some consistency to pull together the fantastic elements. All fantasy worlds need realism in some contexts to ground them, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Lotr, but it needs to be consistent with the world to make the story work.

I do think if they had kept the red hair and still used Halle the fans would have accepted it more. It's that there are so many changes, from plot to songs to visuals to costumes that mean fans are less than enthused because it breaks up the world too much.

I think the red hair point is true.

Odd as it sounds out loud. I was really disappointed by the hair colour. Disney ar edging live action remakes to cash in on the nostalgia that people feel for the original. Than change significant parts of it so it not nostalgic.

What they did to Flounder can never be forgiven.

I think the songs make a big difference to the hook of Disney movies. They become classics. Everyone time my grandson comes he asks Alexa to play you've got a friend in me because he adores the woody movies.

Took three boys to see Lightyear they were bored. It lacked something.

Granddaughters know the words to so many Disney movie songs.

It's a feel good thing. If it doesn't stir emotions it's bombed in our family

By "group of mermaids" you carefully omitted the key detail that they are sisters, but never mind. You've clearly got the bit between your teeth and are determined to paint me as some kind of knuckle-dragging racist.

Other posters have given examples of how it's important to focus on details in order to make a fantasy world believable. I used to read Thomas the Tank Engine as a kid. The author went to great pains to make everything authentic - everything except the anthropomorphism of course.

You ask what else I find odd - to give an example from a different franchise it used to irk me that Harry's first quidditch practice with Wood was in broad daylight, whereas in the book the light was failing. Focusing on tiny details and being unsettled by any adaptation that isn't precisely how I remember the original is just part of my personality. I'm pretty sure that my mother suspected autism and had me assessed but I was never diagnosed.

I got what you meant.
I also don't automatically think people who would have preferred a natural redhead are racist either. One of my friends was horrifically bullied for her ginger hair at school. She felt Ariel made it ok to be redhead. Now Ariel is not a ginger she feels a bit like she's not 'cool' enough. I imagine that kind of bullying isn't really an issue in America but in the UK it's pretty horrible. I wouldn't cast her as racist just because she isn't cheerleading the change, despite how good that virtue signalling would be.

@OldGardinia Princess and the Frog is an excellent example of a film that deals with themes such as racism very well. It shows the wrongs of discrimination without preaching. It's a shame that it didn't do as well at the box office as Disney wanted.

It annoys me when people who aren't invested in the canon jump straight to racism. Often it shows their own ignorance of the creation.

For example the Blood and Fire Game of Thrones series cast the valerians as black. Whilst the TV audiences would have then found it easier to follow who was legitimate because the 'bastard' children would then be white, it doesn't make sense in grr Martin's world. This is because both the valerians and the targarians are immigrants from the same place that interbreed and do a lot of incest. Part of the plot is they are seriously inbred. Having two distinct races playing these families doesn't really work as it suggests the opposite. The whole premise, themes etc are pulled apart and people who aren't invested in the world just bleat about racism. It's also not particularly flattering that the families are white either. They're meant to be unstable due to inbreeding, so not a flattering portrait.

But yeah little mermaid and her siblings points to different mother's. Fine for those who don't care about the originals but their mother is clearly established in the originals and sequels so galling for fans.

And yes, often it's the asd among us (hi!) Who notice these things, and the neurotypicals hurling accusations of racism about. Somewhat ableist.

It also shows that you have to work to achieve your dreams. The message is very much "don't just dream, but also don't stop dreaming". It's one of the most interesting themes in a Disney movie as Tiana at the start is working herself to the bone to save money and losing touch with people and her real hopes. You see that right from the opening montage where a man tries to give her a flower but she walks on by without noticing. At the start it's just a throw-away joke but as the movie goes on you see she's in danger of losing herself. Meanwhile Prince Nasseem is the opposite - happy go lucky, never worked hard and doesn't know how to do anything. BUT he makes her laugh and talk to people again. And the villain is literally named Dr. Facilier. I.e. he's makes things easy, his whole scheme is about finding shortcuts in life. It really is a remarkable movie (and the opening song is sooooo catchy).

Anyway, why is there so much discussion about the Little Mermaid being Black when what I really want to know is why did they cast a 57 year old actress for the role?

Yes, but people are free to mock and weaponise the term woke, just as e.g. the left are free to try to mock the use of the term "red pilled" by some right-wingers.

If they were successful at that, to the point that people were mostly embarrassed to use the now unfashionable term, I guess someone could still insist that, "being red pilled is a good thing!".

Well yeah, on a particular meaning. Just as "being woke" is a good thing on a particular meaning.

People are being careful with money and limiting cinema trips and subscriptions. Also, there’s far more competition now. I’d be far more worried about someone who quotes, and appears to agree with, a Daily Fail article than Disney TBH.

Disney is suffering from a lack of decent storytelling. They keep rehashing old stories instead of telling new ones. The new stories they do produce are a mess of bad stories, terrible dialogue and, occasionally an absolute gem.

Soul was terrible, I was really looking forward to a celebration of jazz and got an existential crisis instead. Lightyear was good but not great. Encanto was fantastic.
Marvel is now very seen one, seen them all which is a shame.

Personally I quite enjoy the diversity of the new films I just want a decent story to back them up.

I think this thread has been deliberately placed in Feminism in the hope that there will be racist replies.

And then using this thread to prove white feminists are inherently racist try to get the board shut down.

Because they think it will be more effective than complaining about the "transphobia".

Check out site stuff.

She doesn't turn to sea foam in the books, but I agree that I'd like that ending better than getting together with the Prince.

The live action films I've seen have been flat and not appealed. Little Mermaid looks like more of the same and I wouldn't waste my time watching with the children.

This kind of mirrors politics generally, look a how many formerly left vs right things have flipped. Like Trump saying he would protect American industrial interests, and the American left flipping out and going whole-hog globalist? Or much of the left in the UK claiming EU skepticism as being inherently right-wing. Or the widespread accusation by the left that concerns around movement of labour is right wing, while the right is now concerned with movement of labour.

It's all pretty crazy.

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

Curious*

The woke insults are to call people Daily mail readers. Lol who cares. Everything is loosing meaning with these idiots. We are all racists, bigots, Tory scum, Trumpists. Honestly who cares.