4 posts tagged “disney”
There's just something about the abject foolishness in this Tinker Bell complaint from Debbie Schlussel that irks me. It has irked me enough to even write a post here on LiveJournal. (All the peeps who have me on their LJ friends lists know how hard it is to get me to post something here.)
The stupidity gets a running start with the very first sentence:
Either Disney is trying to appease “modest” Muslims or they’ve gone the way of the rest of Hollywood and are trying to make their feminine characters more masculine.
Somehow, she has it in her head that Hollywood is making its female characters more male. I really want to see what is leading her to this bizarre conclusion. The very manly shorty-short jeans worn by Megan Fox in Transformers II? Miley Cyrus playing dress-up as Miss Rock Star Hanna Montana? Did the Gossip Girls start wearing Camo? Was there less cleavage on MTV this summer? Hollywood must be sending different movies to her town.
And maybe the Evil Radical Muslims have her in their misinformation campaign as well, unless she thinks a hat and a short skirt is an acceptable substitute for a hijab and a burka.
But you know what, she has not watched Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure. I'm pretty sure Disney does not send her screener DVDs. She is in a snit about one picture of the character -- it's not even a shot from the movie. Amazon.com has several stills posted from the movie posted on its product page. There are five pictures of Tinker Bell available on Amazon, four of which where you can see her outfit. Only one of those four show Tink in her Robin Hood adventurer outfit. It's less of a redesign than of a woman getting dressed up in mission appropriate clothes. Maybe Tink wears the outfit for a significant portion of the film, but unless Schlussel can go on an archeology mission in a cocktail dress, she has no standing to complain.
And it's a funny argument Debbie Schlussel has made: a woman with more than one outfit is unfeminine.
Here is a semi-contrarian view of the Disney purchase of Marvel which kind of expands on criticisms I have of Disney as well. Disney is buying entry into a market it has been dead to for about a decade. Surprisingly, I didn't make a snide joke about it in my brief post noting it, I've been telling people who would here me that Disney has hit a brick wall; the people they seem able to relate to are tween and teen girls. I would not be surprised to learn that they have a last ditch project in the Imagineering Labs to make young boys look and behave more like young girls. That would explain the Jonas Brothers.
As recently as the 90s, Disney could themselves release films that were broad, critically acclaimed hits. Today's Disney can be described as selling fairy tale princesses to girls. What is remarkable is how much its other properties (with the obvious exception of ESPN) has femmed up. ABC TV is essentially the WB Network for grown ups (h/t Jaime Weinman). The Disney Channel, which used to be home to shows like Jet Jackson, The Jersey and Even Stevens (starring a pre-Transformers Shia LeBeouf) is now almost entirely devoted to shows starring future female Disney pop stars. Miley Cyrus. Selena Gomez (summary). Again, the Jonas. And for all of the work Disney spent relaunching little watched Toon Disney into Disney XD as a male counterpart to The Disney Channel, XD is still far more popular with girls. (Curiously, it may be because they write the boys in XD shows as having doubts and insecurities, which would make them more appealing to girls than boys. Quote the article: "Amid their tomfoolery, the lead characters sometimes turn to the camera to agonize over decisions, expressing self-doubt in a way that is reassuring to girl audiences,")
For this entire decade, Disney could not pay a boy to partake in entertainment from the castle branded company. Now the House of Mouse pins its hopes on the House of Ideas, though critics will note the ideas are still 30 plus years old. They will still need good people to execute those ideas. Whether or not Marvel has those people remain to be seen,
And since I first posted about Disney and The Princess and the Frog (formerly: The Frog Princess), they've already stumbled out of the gate. The film has been preemptively declared racist, which has sent Disney scrambling to make changes and clarify matters.
I'm glad you're trying again, and with hand-drawn animation. Ironically, the paucity of such releases will help you look fresh again. But you need to get this project right. Placing one of us, and New Orleans into such important leading roles has made it all the more imperative that you don't fail us here. And marking this as your return to classical animation means your reputation is on the line. Disney, unfortunately, I feel you lost your magic. Please prove me wrong.
