A Spirited 15 Rounds ...

[2351metalcloud]

With the sole exception of the purchased IP of SW and MARVEL Disney has virtually zero mindshare for boys over the age of 8 or so. The MK and Movies are seen as targeted to small children and up to tween girls.

Thst's the point the article was making

Released while Iger was CEO although not necessarily beginning production while Iger was CEO: some Pirates of the Caribbean movies, National Treasure: Book of Secrets, The Chronicles of Narnia, Prince of Persia, Tron: Legacy, John Carter, The Lone Ranger, Pete's Dragon

Maybe some of those movies not doing as well financially as Disney wanted was a factor in Disney buying LucasFilm and Marvel.

Some of those were very expensive to make. They are probably marketed to a higher greater average age than some other movies made by Disney like Treasure Planet for instance, but much of those movies probably has generally greater appeal to males than female people of whatever age.

For whatever reason, Disney made almost a string of animated movies before Iger became CEO where much of the movie probably has greater appeal to males than female people of whatever age including: The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Doug's 1st Movie, Tarzan, Dinosaur, The Emperor's New Groove, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Treasure Planet, Brother Bear, Chicken Little

I'm not sure why Disney did this. Maybe they were worried about their popularity among boys, maybe they just wanted to vary some of the characters attributes in some ways (such as gender), maybe they were worried about over-saturation of princess movies over too short of a period of time, and/or maybe they wanted to compete with Pixar once they got started making movies. Whatever the reasoning behind this, these movies don't seem to have been quite as successful financially as some earlier movies where much of the movie probably has generally greater appeal to females than male people of whatever age such as The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. However, I would be surprised if the fact that these later movies where much of the movie probably has generally greater appeal to females than male people such as Atlantis and Treasure Planet were like that in their appeal in regards to gender was a great factor in whether those movies were successful and that other factors involving their creation and viewing were greater factors.

Edit:
Since Bolt, it seems like 'Walt Disney Animation Studios' and Pixar are varying whether a movie has generally greater appeal to males than female people of whatever age or generally greater appeal to females than male people of whatever age: see Disney has made Bolt, The Princess and the Frog, Winnie the Pooh, Tangled, Frozen, Wreck It Ralph, Big Hero 6, Moana, Zootopia and is planning on releasing Wreck it Ralph 2 and Gigantic. Pixar has made Up, Toy Story 3, Brave, Monsters University, Cars 3, Inside Out, The Good Dinosaur, Finding Dory and is planning on releasing Coco, Incredibles 2 (which supposedly focuses more on Ms Incredible), and Toy Story 4.

 

[Pixieish]

Released while Iger was CEO although not necessarily beginning production while Iger was CEO: some Pirates of the Caribbean movies, National Treasure: Book of Secrets, The Chronicles of Narnia, Prince of Persia, Tron: Legacy, John Carter, The Lone Ranger, Pete's Dragon

Maybe some of those movies not doing as well financially as Disney wanted was a factor in Disney buying LucasFilm and Marvel.

Some of those were very expensive to make. They are probably marketed to a higher greater average age than some other movies made by Disney like Treasure Planet for instance, but much of those movies probably has generally greater appeal to males than female people of whatever age.

For whatever reason, Disney made almost a string of animated movies before Iger became CEO where much of the movie probably has greater appeal to males than female people of whatever age including: The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Doug's 1st Movie, Tarzan, Dinosaur, The Emperor's New Groove, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Treasure Planet, Brother Bear, Chicken Little

I'm not sure why Disney did this. Maybe they were worried about their popularity among boys, maybe they just wanted to vary some of the characters attributes in some ways (such as gender), maybe they were worried about over-saturation of princess movies over too short of a period of time, and/or maybe they wanted to compete with Pixar once they got started making movies. Whatever the reasoning behind this, these movies don't seem to have been quite as successful financially as some earlier movies where much of the movie probably has generally greater appeal to females than male people of whatever age such as The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. However, I would be surprised if the fact that these later movies where much of the movie probably has generally greater appeal to females than male people such as Atlantis and Treasure Planet were like that in their appeal in regards to gender was a great factor in whether those movies were successful and that other factors involving their creation and viewing were greater factors.

I love most of those titles...but my oldest is still a little young to be super into them, no matter how hard I try. Unfortunately, he's at that age where he still wants to watch animated movies/shows but there aren't very many targeted to his demographic that he's interested in. (They're either targeted for younger kids or older people.)

 

[brb1006]

And as the mom of an 11-year-old, I have to agree. In MK, it's princess overload, and there's no reason for it to be. My son likes the princess movies, but not in the "watch them over and over" way that he does other Disney movies, and most of the shows on Disney XD he couldn't care less about. He's juuuuuuust starting to get into GotG, and while it's pretty much killing my husband, he doesn't show any interest in SW outside of video games.

Big Hero 6...THAT was a fantastic movie!!! Great role models for both boys and girls, and had some real-life issues that were dealt with (death). Both my boys adore that movie...sadly one of only a few with multiple strong leads.

I miss the pre-Disney Princess brand days when you could watch any Disney film that doesn't or does featured a Disney Princess and make it the drawing point. I watched Sleeping Beauty mostly for the three fairies,the beautiful art style and music and Snow White because of the Dwarfs and it's importance in Disney Animation.

Not to mention, remember the days when you didn't see almost every girl visiting a Disney park wearing a Disney Princess outfit till the 2000's?

 

[Pixieish]

I miss the pre-Disney Princess brand days when you could watch any Disney film that doesn't or does featured a Disney Princess and make it the drawing point. I watched Sleeping Beauty mostly for the three fairies,the beautiful art style and music and Snow White because of the Dwarfs and it's important in Disney Animation. Not to mention, remember the days when you didn't see almost every girl visiting a Disney park wearing a Disney Princess outfit?

RIGHT?!? You can only watch Hercules, etc. so many times. Thankfully, Brave has Merida (tomboyish enough that my boys DO like her), and Fergus and the triplets...comedy is a big draw for my boys.

 

[brb1006]

Chinese Filmmakers Want To Make Films "Frozen" and "Zootopia" and Disney is teaching them.
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/business...films-like-frozen-disney-teaching-153834.html

 

[RSoxNo1]

You wanna play with fallacies, Scarecrow?

How about this one: Moving the goalposts. You say there is no Disney content for boys. Someone points out a whole channel of content for boys. You then dismiss the whole channel except one show based on a new criteria of quality.

So, when presented with overwhelming evidence you are wrong, you find a way to discredit the evidence. That's moving the goal post.

BTW, if you want to know why the original ad hominem toward you, it's because of the ridiculous lengths you go through to cherry pick data to conform to your argument and ignore anything contradictory. That is a fault that lies within you.

Ignoring the back and forth, the Disney brand itself still has negative connotations to young adult males. Star Wars and Marvel do not.

 

[HMF]

Ignoring the back and forth, the Disney brand itself still has negative connotations to young adult males. Star Wars and Marvel do not.

It's Disney's own fault that the Disney BRAND has negative connotations to males in general when they turned "Princess" into a brand.

 

[RSoxNo1]

It's Disney's own fault that the Disney BRAND has negative connotations to males in general when they turned "Princess" into a brand.

Yep, and it seems they're mildly oblivious to this. They knew the problem was there and then they named their "channel for boys" DISNEY XD

 

[MisterPenguin]

Ignoring the back and forth, the Disney brand itself still has negative connotations to young adult males. Star Wars and Marvel do not.

It's Disney's own fault that the Disney BRAND has negative connotations to males in general when they turned "Princess" into a brand.

That Princess brand is what helped Disney to buy Marvel, LucasFilm (Indy & Star Wars) and Pixar.

 

[Disneyhead'71]

That Princess brand is what helped Disney to buy Marvel, Star Wars, and LucasFilm.

So they sold their sole to the devil and bought cocaine with the profits.

 

[AEfx]

"Classic" Disney also included Davy Crockett, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Old Yeller, Treasure Island, The Love Bug, Swiss Family Robinson, Johnny Tremain, The Sh@ggy Dog, The Absent-Minded Professor and other stories with male leads and/or mostly male casts.

As much as I love those three movies, whittling down ALL of classic Disney to JUST Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, for whatever reason (political, convenience, ignorance etc), is a major pet peeve of mine and many self-identified Disney fans are as guilty of this as anyone else.

That's the point, though. This person is arguing only about Disney Animated Classics and ignoring everything else Disney has to offer.

 

[MisterPenguin]

So they sold their sold to the devil and bought cocaine with the profits.

Princesses are a gateway IP.

 

[AEfx]

While the article was rubbish, you do repeat a same supposition the author does, which surprises me, considering your more modern views. Why would Snow only be a female rolemodel?

When a man watches Cinderella, or a woman watches Indiana Jones, surely they both identify with the lead, not with a blank nameless prince or whatever woman happens to walk into the screen in Indy simply because they are of similar gender?

I don't see where you would come to any such conclusion about me, LOL.

Of course that is true and should be the goal. But that's not the conversation. *BOTH* sides insist there need to be representation of each sex respectively, or we wouldn't be having the conversation to begin with.

 

[brb1006]

Yep, and it seems they're mildly oblivious to this. They knew the problem was there and then they named their "channel for boys" DISNEY XD

At least we have Ducktales

 

[AEfx]

Ignoring the back and forth, the Disney brand itself still has negative connotations to young adult males. Star Wars and Marvel do not.

You mean young adult males aren't into animated musical extravaganzas intended for children?

Who would have thought!??!!

 

[ford91exploder]

Are you forgetting about the Ducktales reboot you negative nancy.

Have not seen, And these days only watch about 6-8 hours of TV in a week and that largely hulu/dvr.

 

[ford91exploder]

Are you daft? You think Johnny Tremain is a big influencer of today's 6 year old boys? The newest of the movies you mentioned was 1969. At that point Nintendo was a trading card company. Now you are sounding like a pixie dust addled fangirl. "But, but...but 50 years ago, Disney..." while ignoring the current reality of 1/3 of all the Wal-Marts being dedicated to Disney Princesses. In the modern era when people think "Disney". This is what they think.

And that is not the general public fault. It's 20 years of super saturation market penetration.

That picture perfectly sums up what young males think of when Disney is mentioned.

 

[ford91exploder]

No, the article was unfair because it only focused on just one prong of the product that Disney offers. And only one end of that prong, because it basically focuses on the "classic" style Disney films, which yes, are where the Princesses reign in their musical extravaganzas.

It irritates me to have to "defend" them from this idea, because I *do* think there is a half of a good point buried in there - it's that he is picking the wrong subject to apply it to. It's a story in search of a subject, and he went with a daft choice because...Disney brings the clicks, of course.

This notion that I keep seeing pushed (even by some here) that Disney has nothing for "boys" is laughable as all hell. Especially the angle of "my boys have nothing to watch!" which, I have to say, makes their opinion just meaningless because they demonstrably have no idea what they are talking about and know nothing about the product Disney offers (and notice, I rarely hear fathers complain, it's grandfathers...).

Clearly, Pixar is the counterpart, who's films almost exclusively feature male lead characters with female characters in sparse supporting roles (Brave and Finding Dory being exceptions). That's why in a toy store, there is a section with mostly Pixar properties with action figures and toy cars and such, and the "girls" section has all the Princess stuff. (Gee, and to think a few years ago, I was starting to hope we were erasing that line between those toys, but both the right and the left seem hell bent on labeling things either "boy" or "girl" lately.)

And of course that is not to mention...Star Wars and Marvel. They offer both animated product for the younger kids, and live-action product for the older kids, and both are heavily "boy" based. With Marvel, it's just inarguable, and don't believe that nonsense about SW not still being "for boys" mostly - yes, they included two prominent female characters in two movies, but they still introduced far more male characters (and in Rogue One, which really seemed to get undies in a knot with those folks, they clearly didn't see it because it was largely a sausage fest). That's just it - these people are making opinions on trailers and what they see in fleeting glimpses, they have no idea what they are talking about.

This becoming a "conservative" viewpoint making the rounds is as silly as the "cultural appropriation" nonsense coming from the left. Everyone in the middle who doesn't live in either reality is starting to look at both sides like they are on crack, because both sides are using the same tricks to try to make a story or issue out of something just to further the narrative they want the world to believe.

I suggest asking a young male tween about Disney and actually listening to the answer. It will be instructive

 

[ford91exploder]

One of my overriding thoughts during Moana was, 'this should've been a male lead'!

It is much more difficult to develop a palatable male than female Disney lead. When the Disney guy is too soft, he lacks street credibility. When he is a bit less polished, the character feels easily forced, or reeks of Disney trying too hard.

Moana is fine, but also just Merida with black curls. Instead I could totally see a Polynesian surfer guy, slightly inept but one with the waves, with tribal tattoos (the one occasion Disney can get away with a bare chested tattooed male lead!), rebellious, a natural born rugby player (rugby, not Tiki or gods or surfing is the South Seas' religion), doing a mean haka. That is more useful than princess 'filling in the blank demographic spots' #127.

The classic Disney male lead is a charming rogue who does the right thing in the end and since Jack Sparrow there have been damn few of them.

Han Solo fits, as does Aladdin but try and name any recent ones yes there was Uncle Stan in Gravity Falls. But in a major animated movie (Crickets...)

Princesses are easy to market so as per usual Disney they follow the path of least resistance.

As to character identification people tend to self identify with the character most like them.

In the star trek series my favorite characters were Scotty, LaForge and Sisko (after one has been in the corporate world for a while one changes) and Sisko was always about the pragmatic vs the ideal.

 

[ford91exploder]

Same. The original Love Bug movie was great!

Agreed. Especially the finish where Herbie comes in first and third imagine what a ride experience that could be!

Buddy Hackett trying to weld the car together ....