Disney/Pixar In General

x5 That's not really saying much, considering that for most of Disney's existence its female leads had little in the way of either agency or personality. Being "nice" is not a personality, and passively accepting abuse is not agency. I am frankly tired of hearing otherwise.

In fact, you could argue that fairy tales as a whole, not just Disney's adaptations thereof, are an inherently conservative genre of fiction. In most of the classic fairy-tales, female characters who are in a position of power, or who possess magical abilities, are invariably evil. The female protagonists can gain privilege by marrying into it— that is, by taking advantage of a man. In these stories, a woman who builds herself up from the beginning, or who has abilities that the men in the story do not, is something to be feared and hated.

This theme even permeates Disney's movies after Walt's death. Consider Ursula in The Little Mermaid— she is a powerful witch, and she disregards typical standards of attractiveness. Indeed, her design was based on Divine, the famous drag queen. She seems to have no personal interest in romance. In short, she is everything a conservative would expect of a stereotypical feminist. Or think of the villains in the movies that came afterwards: Jafar, Scar, Governor Ratcliffe, Hades. All of them effeminate and campy, all of them coded as unmistakably homosexual.

The Walt Disney Company was founded by conservatives, it was build on a platform of conservatism, and no matter how "liberal-friendly" it tries to sell itself as, it ultimately cannot escape the conservative brand that has become linked to it.

OK. Rant over.

Edited by ElSquibbonator on Jan 18th 2019 at 2:42:00 PM

Ok, Scar and Radcliffe I'll give you have some foppish characteristics (even if Scar's are few and far between), but HADES AND JAFAR? Really?

Jafar's main motivation is that he wants to marry Jasmine in the first place and Hades, sure, he fits the gay best friend trope NOW but that didn't entirely exist back then and you do realize who voices him right?

I'd also point out that they adapted Hunchback into a significantly more liberal tirade against law and order where the minority groups are sympathized with and the (former priest) judge makes a deal with 'Virgin Mary' to let him rape a woman or burn her in hell for eternity. Almost nothing about Hunchback feels partiarly 'conservative', or at least for the time. I admit progression marches on is in play here.

You don't give the classic princesses enough credit...plus, Disney has done way more than Disney movies. Miss Bianca for example is a great female lead, too, and personally, I really enjoy Duchess. And then there is naturally Lady.

Fair enough. But I'll just mention that in this 2017 ranking of major film studios by the "LGBT-friendliness" of their output, Disney has been ranked as the worst: https://www.glaad.org/sri/2017/walt-disney-studios

. But on a company level, they consistantly get top marks on tests measuring corporate equality and anti-discrimination. (And just because this tends to get overlooked Modern Family by ABC is a sitcom featuring a same sex couple that adopted a Daughter.)

Personally I see Disney’s overall philosophy as a company being somewhat Utilitarian honestly. They tend to be “conservative”, but not in the modern reactionary sense, but more of a “conservative progressive” (to use Swanpride’s term) sense, that favors slow and measured, but lasting change.

On an employee level, they are one of the first companies to provide health benefits for Same Sex couples, in 1995. Despite a lot of pushback from a social conservatives, Disney hasn’t budged. Same with including Same Sex couples in their “Fairytale Weddings” package in the parks since 2007.

They cosigned a Amicus Brief in 2013, asking the Supreme Court to overturn the Defense of Marriage act, and in 2015 they signed another Amicus Brief, asking the supreme court to legalize marriage equality.

Edited by megaeliz on Feb 17th 2019 at 10:42:47 AM

Mickey's Mix Magic whole show from it's a small world. I think they had a bit of a problem with the projectors for the first 30 seconds, but get them up and running eventually.

Who would expect Aristocats or Jungle Book?

Edited by megaeliz on Jan 19th 2019 at 4:55:25 AM

Not really. Jafar doesn’t even like Jasmine. He only adopts the plan to marry her after his first couple plans to gain the throne fell through, and enjoys Iago’s suggestion that they immediately toss her off a cliff afterwards.

After those plans turn out to work after all, he turns her into a slave and then tries to make her fall in love with him solely because she’s tired of her defying him and wants to exert control over her.

I’d agree, however, that the claim that he’s effemenate doesn’t really hold the same water it does for someone like Scar.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jan 19th 2019 at 1:59:40 AM

Or ratcliffe...but then, Disney is just as likely to subvert "manliness" in their villains (see Gaston, Cifford, Percival C Mcleach aso).

I think the problem is more the lack of heroes who act this way. There are a few sidekicks - cockworth for example or the smaller alien in Lilo and Stitch - but they are few and far between, too.

Edited by Swanpride on Jan 19th 2019 at 4:55:23 AM

I predict the Hunchback remake is going to bomb. Hopefully it'll bomb hard enough to put an end to Disney's remake craze.

Some seem to interpret even Gaston as Ambiguously Gay as well due to his vanity, his dancing with Le Fou and making some rather flamboyant poses throughout the movie. That, and he seems to desire Belle more as a status symbol than being attracted to her, and he ignores the advances of other women.

Edited by DrDougsh on Jan 19th 2019 at 6:40:37 AM

Well, I would put him firmly in the "toxic masculinity" category. Just because Gaston is above all in love with himself it doesn't mean that he is gay. If he is, he is a repressed gay and doesn't display the same behaviour the likes of Scar do.

We can only hope.

x3

I hope it doesn't because Hunchback could be a GENUINELY compelling movie in a sea of... really so-so movies the last couple of years. You could honestly make something Oscar and Academy Award winning out of it, I have no doubt. Get someone who genuinely knows cinematic language and theme and you could make something beautiful.

Its the ONE film of the Live Actions I want to do well because damn it I'm sick of some of the lazy stories they've been doing recently and I REALLY want to prove people wrong who make fun of me when I say Hunchback is my favorite Disney movie.

How long do you think it's going to be before we see an openly LGBT main character in a Disney-branded film?

I'd say within the next decade or so. If not Frozen 2. Its a matter of when, not if.

It's also a concept that I've been throwing around script ideas for the last two years and I would genuinely love to write such a movie.

I seriously doubt it'll be Frozen 2. Disney cares about money first and foremost, and they know that if they made Elsa explicitly homosexual, they would risk losing hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of tickets from conservative audiences. If they want to have an openly LGBTQ lead character, it'll be someone we haven't heard of yet.

I mean, I'd say there IS some argument to it. Frozen is MEGA POPULAR. Like, almost impossibly so. Not advertising she is and then covering it in the movie would benefit from a good opening weekend and a strong follow as it continues and, whatever conservative families that are going to be homophobic fuckwits about it can get bent over the screams of ALL THE CHILDREN WHO NEED TO SEE THE SEQUEL and don't give a shit about the 'Sinful Gayz'.

Honestly, if Disney wants to be more progressive, a good move might not to be 'Let's make a gay movie with no budget and no marketing and blame the gayz when it fails' and probably 'Let's talk about it with one of our big flagship films where its also completely thematically consistent to do so'.

Two decades. At least in their animated movies. Earlier in one of their live action movies, but NOT in one of the big movies because, well, China.

You could indeed make an Oscar-worthy Hunchback of Notre Dame film. But a remake of the '96 movie is not going to be that film. The Disney remakes are a brand unto themselves at this point, made explicitly to cash in on nostalgia. There's no way Disney would ever make a film that does justice to the original novel or the best bits of the original film in a movie that'll be compelled to share the aesthetics and mindset of your Maleficents, Cinderellas or Beauty and the Beasts.

I would prefer a LGBQ lead in a fairy-tale film over any other genre. I like lesbian stories featuring royalty, but they're rare in all formats (literature, live action, etc). People prefer contemporary pieces or period pieces from 50-150 years ago.

I’m wondering how much nostalgia people have about Hunchback in the first place. Since it’s very different and much darker than the other Disney Renaissance films, the fandom has always seemed more niche to me.

Edited by megaeliz on Jan 20th 2019 at 11:54:11 AM

Maybe they will surprise us all by giving Elsa a girlfriend. I don't know. But in the grand scheme of things, Disney has an uphill struggle if they want to overcome their rather. . . problematic legacy. In addition to the characters I already mentioned, I'll also name Foulfellow the Fox from Pinnochio, Prince John from Robin Hood, Ratigan from The Great Mouse Detective, King Candy from Wreck-It Ralph, and Tamatoa from Moana.

Indeed. That is one reason I think the film will bomb. Hunchback is more of a cult movie that's well liked by classic animation buffs — one of the groups of people least likely to get excited for the live-action remakes.

Not...really? Esmeralda might be the most popular of the "not an official princess but we wish she were" characters, maybe after Megara, and both Frollo and Quasimodo have a considerable fanbase. And I mean a fanbase who thinks that both characters are "dreamy" for one reason or another. The music is equally popular - I mean, it is not as popular as, say, Beauty and the Beast, but that might be an advantage. Because everyone acknowledges that the original movie was ambitious but flawed, they can change stuff around considerably more with the approval of the fans as long as it goes in the right direction.

As someone who wasn't old enough during the Renaissance to experience it, I didn't learn that Hunchback was niche until I read about it online a few years ago. I always thought it was within the top 5 Renaissance films. It's always been one of my favorites and it's certainly more enjoyable to me than more popular films like Beauty and the Beast or Aladdin. So, I assumed everyone also thought it was a great film.

I've always heard people drool over the film and especially "Hellfire", so it seemed popular to me. At minimum it was Vindicated by Cable and video.

Edited by Pichu-kun on Jan 20th 2019 at 9:59:55 AM

In order to make it truly goo,d they're going to have to ditch the gargoyles.