Disney went all in with streaming television. They did very well initially with the pandemic, but that whole segment of entertainment began falling apart in 2022. Disney has been in retreat. It had absolutely nothing to do with a little brown skinned girl named Moana. The fucking bigotry just astounds me.
Disney’s is selling off segments of it streaming business. It’s also going into the sports betting business with ESPN. That’s going to be their next big profit center. In addition, they’ve got a couple of big movies coming out second half of this year. Including another installment of Deadpool on July 26. He’s a white guy. Is that OK?
No one had a problem with Moana. She was factually correct for the story. But the problem lies with some of my dearest friends whom are not "White." There has been commentary from POC that share the same views as me. Look at where the story originates from. The little mermaid. My black friends could not stand the movie, because they grew up with a little white fish girl. Diversity for Diversity's sake isn't storytelling. Would people who cry foul and bigotry say the same thing if Disney white washed Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, a movie adaptation? There would be a lot of very angry people who would have something to say about it. So why is it bigotry when a classically European story gets race swapped and someone says something about it? People cried foul at the "Racist Crows" of Dumbo, but yet forget that most of the art from African Americans at the time was a caricature of their own race.
Deadpool was white, so? I would raise the alarm if they made Storm, Luke Cage, Black Panther into anything other than what they were originally. In fact I will go one step further, and say the Iron Wars was a damned good comic saga, where Tony Stark assisted a black girl in college build her own damned Iron man suit.
My point was missed unfortunately.
I dont give a damned about the race of a character in a movie, as long as the point of the character is to move the story along, and not be shoehorned in to fill some sort of DEI quota. You literally had a ranking member of the Disney production team say in an interview that she was out to make Disney gay. My point is, I feel it is a crime to change something just for the sake of change that adds little to no value to the story.
Just like they tried to shoehorn Captain Marvel into the infinity saga movies. The directors said there was no room for her, despite the source material not even including her at all, and yet she shows up at the end of Endgame like she was going to be the savior of the universe. In the comics she was in a hospital in New York, permanently comatose. But the modern retcons to sell her movies and toys they brought her back, collapsing an entire character building storyline, nullifying Rogues entire character arc.
How would you feel if they remade Atticus Finch into a disabled lesbian? It doesn't make any sense.
Also there is a reason that they are trying to damage control, because Disney just had a string of flops because people are tired of the movies not being fun and entertaining anymore. You cant shove shit down peoples throats without them growing tired of it.
Look at my review of Dune Part 2. They literally chopped up the story to make Channi the lead character, when in the story she was a side character at most. She was connected to Stilgar, and when her role was done she quietly walked off until the end of the first book, which had her in the throne room to witness Paul's ascension.
You have wounded me, sir. I am so far from a bigot. I like good stories. I do not see the race of the characters, because most good stories do not make it an issue. Gay? don't care, Trans? So? It doesn't matter what they are, as long as they do the thing they are supposed to, without derailing the plot to make some social commentary. If I wanted to listen to a character gripe about society at large, I would pay for it. But If I pay to watch mindless action and men and women in tights doing shit I would never be able to, then thats what I want from my money, not some amped up diatribe.
Can you honestly sit there and call me a bigot for not liking reboots or remakes that take away from the story. I don't mind changes to the source, as long as the changes makes sense and fits the story. And turning a mermaid black, DESPITE her representing the RED SEA which would have made her Middle eastern/ Mediterranean and not white or black sits as well with me as changing the tribal shaman in "Things Fall Apart" into a pasty white skinned Irish lesbian with one leg. I have a distinct feeling it would bother people too, if they read the book.
I have read the book and enjoyed it. It was a boiled down dissenting opinion against African Colonialism. The white people losing their church after the preacher ripped the shaman's mask off during a ceremony was poetic justice in its finest.
My point is this: Make a good story without having to lean on Social Justice, as whatever point the character is trying to make will be lost on people who are their to kill some brain cells for a couple of hours, not get caught up in a protest. Race Swapping in either direction is a horribly over used tool that has been proven to ruin stories.
Call it what you will, paint anyone who doesn't believe in the Progressive social politics as bigots, and continue othering those who you disagree with, but in the end, people vote with their wallets and the dollar thats talking is saying Disney's shit stinks to high heaven.