Things you're tired of seeing in movies

[dascoyne]

I wouldn't have cared so much about Disney putting forth a world view of "diversity and inclusion" if they hadn't abandoned thoughtful stories, layered characters and universal themes at the same time. I don't mind the message; I'm bored by it.

When it became apparent that every Disney franchise was getting the woke makeover I wisely cashed out all my Disney stock.

 

[p51]

I wouldn't have cared so much about Disney putting forth a world view of "diversity and inclusion" if they hadn't abandoned thoughtful stories, layered characters and universal themes at the same time. I don't mind the message; I'm bored by it.

Agreed.
For me it's like the news of a women Doctor Who. I tried going into that with an open mind. I wasn't a fan of it, but I thought if they could continue good stories, I'd cope.
Instead, they went full woke. I remember talking to a coworker about where the series had gone. She'd never seen Dr Who but had heard of it. I'll never forget her response, "They did an episode about Rosa Parks? Seriously? Wow, how woke can ya get?" This, from a person who is very left-leaning. I thought if she had that response, it wasn't just me, then. People kept trying to tell the producers that the show had totally gone off the rails and legions of lifetime fans had turned away from the show, including me.
It took quite some time for them to realize the fans were right. Disney will learn the same lesson soon enough as all the news I read points to the Mouse kingdom is losing money hand over fist.

 

[Cephus]

Agreed.
For me it's like the news of a women Doctor Who. I tried going into that with an open mind. I wasn't a fan of it, but I thought if they could continue good stories, I'd cope.
Instead, they went full woke. I remember talking to a coworker about where the series had gone. She'd never seen Dr Who but had heard of it. I'll never forget her response, "They did an episode about Rosa Parks? Seriously? Wow, how woke can ya get?" This, from a person who is very left-leaning. I thought if she had that response, it wasn't just me, then. People kept trying to tell the producers that the show had totally gone off the rails and legions of lifetime fans had turned away from the show, including me.
It took quite some time for them to realize the fans were right. Disney will learn the same lesson soon enough as all the news I read points to the Mouse kingdom is losing money hand over fist.

I had nothing against a woman being the Doctor, if she was the absolute best person for the job. Unfortunately, the only reason Jodie got the job was because she had boobs. I like her as an actress, but her skills had nothing at all to do with the choice. The same goes for the next actor. He only got the job because he's black. They're just trying to score diversity points.

This actually makes things worse for minorities and women actors because now, people automatically assume that they only got the job because they filled a checkbox. This is completely unfair to them, but that's how Hollywood (and the BBC) work today. In fact, people started screaming because no female directors were nominated for an Oscar this year. Never mind that female directors won the last two years, the fact that people aren't choosing the nominees based on having a uterus is really making people start to ask if any of the awards are valid.

None of these morons understands that they're just undermining their own positions and destroying modern cinema and television at the same time.

 

[batguy]

Making good art is hard and everybody wants a nice reliable shortcut. Wokeness is just the latest in a long line of attempts to find a crutch to avoid doing the work.

Ripoffs of Jaws & Star Wars & Alien & Die Hard. CGI disaster flicks in the 1990s. Remaking old TV shows in the 2000s and turning them into jokes because it's easier than doing them correctly. Blaxploitation flicks in the 1970s. Etc.

It's always the same pattern. A good work comes out (or several of them) that sells particularly well because of some 'angle.' So the studios try to repeat the 'angle' on more imitations and not bother with the underlying quality. And it works - at first. But then the sales start dropping. They double-down on the angle (when they should be dialing back) until it becomes a ridiculed punchline in pop culture. They finally realize that the plane has crashed into the mountain and they have no choice but to quit it. So they go looking for the next trendy angle.

Wokeness took over the lead a decade ago when third-rate caped superheroes & cinematic universes were failing left & right. Today they are in the doubling-down stage. I think they are far enough along to abandon it but they don't have a replacement plan. The next big trend has not emerged yet.

 

[gedmac66]

I don’t get it...., “woke or wokeness” is that to blame for any or all previous franchises failing to attract audiences ?. Whatever happened to audiences just not being interested in what’s being developed by studios ?

 

[batguy]

I don’t get it...., “woke or wokeness” is that to blame for any or all previous franchises failing to attract audiences ?. Whatever happened to audiences just not being interested in what’s being developed by studios ?

It's not the wokeness per se. It's the fact that studios have been trying to substitute wokeness for basic quality. And when that wasn't working, they doubled-down harder on more clumsy & heavy-handed wokeness.

Hollywood will keep defending this stuff right up until they do an abrupt 180 and start pretending they always thought it was cringe.

 

[pengbuzz]

It's not the wokeness per se. It's the fact that studios have been trying to substitute wokeness for basic quality. And when that wasn't working, they doubled-down harder on more clumsy & heavy-handed wokeness.

Hollywood will keep defending this stuff right up until they do an abrupt 180 and start pretending they always thought it was cringe.

i.e. they lose so much money that their creditors are about to repossess their toupees and viagra.

 

[Cephus]

i.e. they lose so much money that their creditors are about to repossess their toupees and viagra.

Which seems to be the case for a lot of companies right now. Some of them are realizing, "oh wait, this doesn't actually work, does it?"

 

[gedmac66]

So studios (big & small), and whatever they’re producing as being ‘woke’ or seen as such are....., in effect ‘wrong’ !? They’re losing, or disrespecting/disrupting their ‘fan base’......, for whatever that (original) base is worth !?.
I’ve my own views regarding what I like/dislike, grew up with, along with the numerous mediums that informed who/what I think I am today , and accepting this as a’ given’.... I’m open to new insights.
I don’t always agree with, nor appreciate some of the changes (film/tv, characters or story lines..., etc) have/are undergoing or undergone....., so, boo bloody-hoo!
I’m trying to remain positive, cause there’re much more ‘important issues’ that really need attention/addressing.

 

[joberg]

From this:

To this:

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

I don't think most people who are mad at "woke" things are doing it because they are racist or whatever. It's the fact that they are just changing things to get points for being "right thinking" as Hollywood is currently defining that. I could care less about the Little Mermaid, it's just the fact that they changed it just to change it. That's why people get mad about stuff like that. Can you imagine if they remade something like Sanford & Son (my dad's favorite show) with an all white cast just to be different? I doubt you'd have people going "Why are you making a big deal about this? There must be something wrong with you!" There would be at least a week long news cycle of pundits saying how racist everyone is. IMO, doing stuff like this is actually racist itself because it's saying that you need to coopt a white character and change the race to get people to watch a show with an African American actor/actress. Most people will watch anything, regardless of the race/sexual preference/gender of the cast if it has a good story. They need to go back to focusing on the story and just make a good movie.

 

[Cephus]

The problem with the Little Mermaid is that we all know that the only reason Halle Bailey got the job is because she's black. Hollywood is the most racist place around. They see race and gender and sexual orientation first, with actual acting skill a distant second. That's the problem. It isn't that the audience is racist, it's that the people making these stupid movies are!

 

[batguy]

The problem with the Little Mermaid is that we all know that the only reason Halle Bailey got the job is because she's black.

I wouldn't go that far. I imagine her race worked in her favor this time but it wouldn't have been enough by itself.

If the 1989 movie had been live-action, would Halle's race have worked against her back then? IMO it probably would have. Most of the US population was white and that's what they were aiming at (because, money). But I wouldn't call the 1989 casting decision "racism". IMO that's the wrong way to look at it. Just like it I don't think it's that simple with the remake casting.

That R-word has its place. But it's a heavy instrument and IMO we need to be careful about swinging it around. (We don't like it when Hollywood's P.R. machine weaponizes & abuses the term, do we? They try to disqualify fan criticisms as prejudices.) Today's race-related issues are usually not simple. Multiple factors.

And the almighty dolllar is so pervasive in everything. Studios don't always make the most profitable decision, but they are usually in a habit/pattern that they BELIEVED was very profitable when they started down that road. IMO their mistakes (straying away from max profits) usually have more to do with simple inertia than some big sinister political agenda. A studio the size of Disney is a huge ship and it takes years to make it turn.

 

[bwayne64]

Hollywood folks must live in bubbles made of adamantium.

 

[bwayne64]

It's a minor gripe, but people that come to the door, seconds after someone knocks or rings. I mean you don't want to waste screen time, but 2 seconds, lol. What, is everyone a speedster. Of course as a kid, I could turn off the light , run and get in bed, before the room got dark, ; )

 

[Cephus]

Except that's not how modern Hollywoke works. Look at Gina Prince-Bythewood, director of The Woman King, who is on a rampage, declaring everyone is racist because her movie didn't get an Oscar nomination. No, it's because she made a movie that dramatically underperformed at the box office about a tribe in Africa that she tried to play off as heroes against western imperialists, but in reality, actually captured black people in Africa and sold them to the west. Funny how that didn't come up in the movie, huh? We can go on and on and on about this crap. I forget who it was who whined long and loud that no female directors were nominated for best director when women directors won the last two years in a row. I guess if they don't win every single year, it's sexist too!

 

[Tommy]

I wouldn't go that far. I imagine her race worked in her favor this time but it wouldn't have been enough by itself.

I would bet Halle Bailey was cast primarily for her strong (and safely multi-Grammy-nomination-validated) singing voice. Her race probably did indeed help, but I doubt any of us would’ve been surprised if the role had gone to another popular musician, black or otherwise. When it comes to recent musicals, the main casting demographic seems to be popular musicians who can passably act / popular actors who can passably sing. Truth be told, the best performer for the role was never going to be picked, because they’re almost certainly working in musical theater.

One flaw I see in this debate around recasting race is that the issues of what stories Disney should tell and who Disney should cast often get conflated. I’m all for Disney creating new stories; as far as I’m concerned, the whole live-action remake saga is a giant unnecessary cash grab at the corporate level. But… they’re clearly going ahead in any case. So if they’re going to be producing these for the foreseeable future, then is it fair for black performers to have almost zero chance of landing a major role outside of playing an animal?

I mean, just try to name three black human/humanoid characters from Disney theatrical animated feature films prior to this decade. Can anybody?
[It says something that even the most obvious one spent the majority of her screentime as an animal.]

That doesn’t make The Little Mermaid or any other individual film automatically in need of altered casting. But taken together as a whole, across nine decades and over 40 films that prominently featured humans/humanoids, it’s pretty inescapable that white performers have disproportionately benefited.

In my view, if we’re going to get a pointless forced rehash of Disney’s animated catalog, the least they can do is make the casting ever-so-slightly less exclusive when a character's race is flexible (and really, does a mermaid's race matter?). Of course the studio will smugly pat itself on the back; no one does self-congratulation like Hollywood. But I’d rather that than the alternative of literally doubling down on the blaring absence of black animated Disney characters.

 

[JediMichael]

It's a minor gripe, but people that come to the door, seconds after someone knocks or rings. I mean you don't want to waste screen time, but 2 seconds, lol. What, is everyone a speedster. Of course as a kid, I could turn off the light , run and get in bed, before the room got dark, ; )

I totally think of this shot from Back to the Future...even on the commentary they make fun of it in how ridiculously fast they wake up, get downstairs and out the door.

 

[batguy]

Except that's not how modern Hollywoke works. Look at Gina Prince-Bythewood, director of The Woman King, who is on a rampage, declaring everyone is racist because her movie didn't get an Oscar nomination. No, it's because she made a movie that dramatically underperformed at the box office about a tribe in Africa that she tried to play off as heroes against western imperialists, but in reality, actually captured black people in Africa and sold them to the west. Funny how that didn't come up in the movie, huh? We can go on and on and on about this crap. I forget who it was who whined long and loud that no female directors were nominated for best director when women directors won the last two years in a row. I guess if they don't win every single year, it's sexist too!

There's no question that individuals in Hollywood try to weaponize cries of racism & sexism. Sometimes whole P. R. departments do. But that doesn't prove there's a larger agenda beyond making money. The industry has gotten fixated on the idea that leaning hard into wokeness is a money-maker.

It's partially because of the standard corporation thing about chasing new customers. Talk to anybody who has been a buyer of some product for decades (Harley Davidson, Star Wars, brands of clothes, sports leagues . . . anything) and they will tell you similiar stories. The idiots in charge are driving off thousands of real existing customers in pursuit of new ones that they won't get. Companies LOVE to lose money doing that. Not only Hollywood and not only recently.

 

[batguy]

I would bet Halle Bailey was cast primarily for her strong (and safely multi-Grammy-nomination-validated) singing voice. Her race probably did indeed help, but I doubt any of us would’ve been surprised if the role had gone to another popular musician, black or otherwise. When it comes to recent musicals, the main casting demographic seems to be popular musicians who can passably act / popular actors who can passably sing. Truth be told, the best performer for the role was never going to be picked, because they’re almost certainly working in musical theater.

Yep. True dat. Hollywood has a bad habit of picking movie stars for singing roles when they should be picking vocal stars.

In my view, if we’re going to get a pointless forced rehash of Disney’s animated catalog, the least they can do is make the casting ever-so-slightly less exclusive when a character's race is flexible (and really, does a mermaid's race matter?). Of course the studio will smugly pat itself on the back; no one does self-congratulation like Hollywood. But I’d rather that than the alternative of literally doubling down on the blaring absence of black animated Disney characters.

Yeah, pretty much. I just don't care what they do with these remakes.

The population has literally changed. In 1940 the US population was about 90% white. In 2022 it's about 60% white. That's a pretty big difference. Old Hollywood movies would still look way "too white" to the modern public even if they had been very accurate for their own time.

And this is only taking the USA into account. In 1940 Disney was mainly aiming at US audiences. Today Disney aims at the world.