'Strange World' Disney's 2022 Animated Film

[brideck]

It also sounds like you are a grown adult. Which is an entirely different demographic than a 9 year old boy. Historically, Disney cartoons were mostly aimed at parents taking their young children to the movies. That's not to say that a couple of college kids couldn't have gone to see Sleeping Beauty or Aladdin or Frozen together. Also not saying that a childless adult living in New York couldn't have gone to see those movies with their childless adult friends after drinks at a local bar.

But those are not the demographic that these films are not only aimed at, but (perhaps most importantly) are required to make financially successful.




I think the problem here is that the Burbank executive class, living in the sealed off bubble that so many in media/entertainment live in, convinced themselves by listening to their own morally superior Talking Points that they were right to push the envelope on gay themes in children's films as they have the past few years.

The marketplace of free consumers has spoken in 2022, and that marketplace was clearly not ready for it. Not in 2022, likely not in 2025. Maybe in 2030 or 2040? Who knows?

I liken it to the first inter-racial kiss on American TV; the kiss between Captain Kirk and Lt. Uhura on Star Trek around 1967 or '68. It pushed envelopes, to be sure, but it was timed correctly. If the first Television broadcasts in America in 1939 and 1940 had featured inter-racial kissing it would have revoked broadcast licenses and crashed whatever business plan of whichever network dared to show that in 1939. But by 1968? It was racy, to be sure, but the timing was right.

I think that Burbank has overplayed their hand on their timing for putting gay characters into children's cartoons. The free marketplace of parents around the entire planet in 2022 has now made that quite clear.

After 2022's decisive marketplace statements, the ball has been placed back in Burbank's court. Where will they serve it, I wonder?

Guilty as charged -- grown adult, married with no kids even. (What am I doing on this site again?) FWIW, we do try to share slightly deeper media with our godkids/nieces/nephews when we have them, but we also have the time/energy to make those things more engaging by helping the kiddos through them. I entirely understand why so many parents end up falling back to Paw Patrol instead.

I totally agree with the business cases you're making. There's really been a triple whammy here: 1) the pandemic caught everyone with their pants down, 2) Disney shifted all of their eyeballs to the money-losing D+ (with the exception of the MCU, which remains "event" viewing), cannibalizing all of their ancillary income in the process, and 3) the culture wars that you're alluding to.

I wonder if it would have worked for them if they had practiced a "one for me, two for everyone" strategy instead where they slowly worked certain elements into their movies alongside their broad appeal stories.

 

[TP2000]

It's pretty sad when someone has nothing better to do with their time the week before Christmas except splatter all sorts of homophobia on a Disney chat board.

How do you know @mickEblu is not Muslim, or Hindu, or Atheist? Or any number of cultures or religions where the third week of December bears no more cultural significance than the second week of June or the first week in October?

Or, perhaps he is a devout Christian who places homosexuality in the same category as divorce and adultery and eating beef on Fridays? That would actually seem to make the most sense, if he finds the addition of a gay character in a children's cartoon inappropriate for his family's culture and values.

He might even be Canadian for all we know.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

I think the problem here is that the Burbank executive class, living in the sealed off bubble that so many in media/entertainment live in, convinced themselves by listening to their own morally superior Talking Points that they were right to push the envelope on gay themes in children's films as they have the past few years.

The marketplace of free consumers has spoken in 2022, and that marketplace was clearly not ready for it. Not in 2022, likely not in 2025. Maybe in 2030 or 2040? Who knows?

I liken it to the first inter-racial kiss on American TV; the kiss between Captain Kirk and Lt. Uhura on Star Trek around 1967 or '68. It pushed envelopes, to be sure, but it was timed correctly. If the first Television broadcasts in America in 1939 and 1940 had featured inter-racial kissing it would have revoked broadcast licenses and crashed whatever business plan of whichever network dared to show that in 1939. But by 1968? It was racy, to be sure, but the timing was right.

I think that Burbank has overplayed their hand on their timing for putting gay characters into children's cartoons. The free marketplace of parents around the entire planet in 2022 has now made that quite clear.

After 2022's decisive marketplace statements, the ball has been placed back in Burbank's court. Where will they serve it, I wonder?

I agree with these 2 points, with the majority of Disney studio employees located in the LA area they are in a liberal echo chamber and I have no doubt the producers, directors, and writers feel they are giving the public what they want, the problem is LA is not indicative of America though, not even indicative of much of California for that matter.

That said I think they’ve been very light handed with gay characters, it’s not like they jumped straight into making movies featuring 2 princes as the leads, the gay characters are minor roles in the background, similar to how minority characters were often background characters a couple decades ago, it feels like the same slow approach that took minority characters from background to lead characters, They’ve been much more heavy handed with race and gender swapping though, it’s rare to see a Disney remake now where the former white female lead isn’t a minority or the former male lead isn’t now a female, and it feels very in your face.

 

[TP2000]

Guilty as charged -- grown adult, married with no kids even. (What am I doing on this site again?)

Don't worry, I'm in the bachelor niche of the same category! And I'm coming up on two decades here, even though a few people here wish I hadn't been so committed.

FWIW, we do try to share slightly deeper media with our godkids/nieces/nephews when we have them, but we also have the time/energy to make those things more engaging by helping the kiddos through them. I entirely understand why so many parents end up falling back to Paw Patrol instead.

I used to babysit my two nephews when they were young, about 20 years ago. It was nerve wracking trying to find a movie to watch that would keep them entertained but not trigger the wrath of my sister (their mom) for having too much T&A or violence or swear words. I barely survived!

Once I even tried to teach them how to play Backgammon to keep them entertained until the pizza showed up. You can imagine how that went over with 9 and 11 year old boys.

I totally agree with the business cases you're making. There's really been a triple whammy here: 1) the pandemic caught everyone with their pants down, 2) Disney shifted all of their eyeballs to the money-losing D+ (with the exception of the MCU, which remains "event" viewing), cannibalizing all of their ancillary income in the process, and 3) the culture wars that you're alluding to.

I don't envy Burbank executives in the past three years, or any media execs really. But especially Burbank executives, who had their properties in California shut down for just over a year while their properties in Florida were reopened after only six weeks of closure. Navigating that business-political environment must have been nightmarish for them, which lets me cut them some slack when I'm feeling generous and forced to explain it like this.

I wonder if it would have worked for them if they had practiced a "one for me, two for everyone" strategy instead where they slowly worked certain elements into their movies alongside their broad appeal stories.

A very good point. I think they got caught in bubble-think. I'd lived in SoCal until six weeks ago. In a new state it's been absolutely stunning for me to see how the world moved on while so many in LA are still masked up and fearful right now as if it was March, 2020. And yet they're quadruple vaxxed!

Burbank leadership and the cubicle armies below them are victims of that type of bubble-think; not so much with Covid specifically (but it's a part of it!), but with other socio-political aspects that are never challenged in elite conference rooms or cocktail parties or Silver Lake brunches.

But the free market of consumers are happy to challenge that bubble-think by not spending their dirty, suburban money on morally superior art like Strange World. Or so the Silver Lake bubble-think goes, sadly.

 

[brideck]

I agree with these 2 points, with the majority of Disney studio employees located in the LA area they are in a liberal echo chamber and I have no doubt the producers, directors, and writers feel they are giving the public what they want, the problem is LA is not indicative of America though, not even indicative of much of California for that matter.

It's interesting because there are specific business problems with Disney targeting liberals that people should have been able to tell them. A lot of liberals (if they don't have Disney nostalgia from their childhoods) don't actually like how conservative traditional Disney princess movies, etc. are, so they never bothered to engage their own children with Disney media. Case in point, my spouse's sister had to be harangued into believing that modern Disney animation might be okay/useful for her children to watch. So they're going after people who are not naturally predisposed to the brand.

Also, the generations younger than mine (Gen X) are the more liberal ones, but they're also the ones who've grown accustomed to being able to watch/play/listen to anything and not have to pay much (if anything) for it. Why pay when you can just stream/download/torrent things instead? (Answer: So people can afford to make more of the entertainment that you like, but I digress.) Most modern forms of entertainment are in the process of reckoning with this change, and it's not going to end well for a lot of them. The future: where everything is a niche market.

 

[TP2000]

It's interesting because there are specific business problems with Disney targeting liberals that people should have been able to tell them. A lot of liberals (if they don't have Disney nostalgia from their childhoods) don't actually like how conservative traditional Disney princess movies, etc. are, so they never bothered to engage their own children with Disney media. Case in point, my spouse's sister had to be harangued into believing that modern Disney animation might be okay/useful for her children to watch. So they're going after people who are not naturally predisposed to the brand.

Another really great point! That may be helpful in explaining why Burbank made the decisions that it did the past five years. So many people who read The Atlantic and never vacation in WDW wouldn't have touched a Disney product in 2010.

I think Disney execs, moving in those circles increasingly, knew it and wanted to be able to brag at the Silver Lake brunch about their career choices instead of make excuses for their career choices. And the shift was born.

Also, the generations younger than mine (Gen X) are the more liberal ones, but they're also the ones who've grown accustomed to being able to watch/play/listen to anything and not have to pay much (if anything) for it. Why pay when you can just stream/download/torrent things instead? (Answer: So people can afford to make more of the entertainment that you like, but I digress.) Most modern forms of entertainment are in the process of reckoning with this change, and it's not going to end well for a lot of them. The future: where everything is a niche market.

The entire streaming thing is baffling to me. I simply can not pencil out how it makes Disney any money long-term, or even mid-term. For only 8 bucks a month, no matter how many Doritos commercials they ladle on to the family in Denver just trying to watch Herbie Goes To Monte Carlo or Toy Story 3.

In another thread I likened streaming to Cryptocurrency. I just can't figure out how it works long-term or how it makes any sense financially. My tiny brain just can't comprehend it, and I'm left living rather comfortably off of real stocks and bonds and watching a BluRay disc of Airport 1975.

 

[TP2000]

The bag girl at Trader Joe’s asked me if I was excited for “the Holiday” last week. Singular. I asked “which one?” Lol. Just silence. Then I asked “Christmas? Oh yes I am, how about you?”

I love Trader Joe's, and Target. And as of about two days ago I started saying "Merry Christmas!" to any and all service workers. And I'm in a new town where none of these employees knows me yet. They light up and say "Merry Christmas!" right back at me. I wouldn't have been able to say that a week or two ago, because the Christmas spirit never hits me until about a week before Christmas.

But from now through Sunday? Watch out grinches! I'm on fire!

It's funny that when you are genuine with people how warmly they respond to you, even if the HR department and our moral betters don't approve of genuine warmth and cultural foundations.

 

[Heppenheimer]

It also sounds like you are a grown adult. Which is an entirely different demographic than a 9 year old boy.

Historically, Disney cartoons were mostly aimed at parents taking their young children to the movies. That's not to say that a couple of college kids couldn't have gone to see Sleeping Beauty or Aladdin or Frozen together on a date nite. Also not saying that a childless adult living in New York couldn't have gone to see those movies with their childless adult friends after drinks at a local bar.

But those are not the demographic that these films are not only aimed at, but (perhaps most importantly) are required to make financially successful.




I think the problem here is that the Burbank executive class, living in the sealed off bubble that so many in media/entertainment live in, convinced themselves by listening to their own morally superior Talking Points that they were right to push the envelope on gay themes in children's films as they have the past few years.

The marketplace of free consumers has spoken in 2022, and that marketplace was clearly not ready for it. Not in 2022, likely not in 2025. Maybe in 2030 or 2040? Who knows?

I liken it to the first inter-racial kiss on American TV; the kiss between Captain Kirk and Lt. Uhura on Star Trek around 1967 or '68. It pushed envelopes, to be sure, but it was timed correctly. If the first Television broadcasts in America in 1939 and 1940 had featured inter-racial kissing it would have revoked broadcast licenses and crashed whatever business plan of whichever network dared to show that in 1939. But by 1968? It was racy, to be sure, but the timing was right.

I think that Burbank has overplayed their hand on their timing for putting gay characters into children's cartoons. The free marketplace of parents around the entire planet in 2022 has now made that quite clear.

After 2022's decisive marketplace statements, the ball has been placed back in Burbank's court. Where will they serve it, I wonder?

Hey, I saw Aladin on a date! High school, though

 

[Heppenheimer]

Great point. It never feels natural and organic, it feels forced and fake and mandated by HR. Audiences, made up of real humans who are naturally intelligent, can spot the fakeness from a mile away.

It's also always a very noticeable one-way street the past 15 years or so. If you have a famous story written by a European author based in European cultures, like Frozen with The Snow Queen or The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen, you almost have to swap out the leading white European roles for a non-white actor or actress.

But can you imagine if Disneyland had a blonde white surfer guy named Tyler from Laguna Niguel play the role of Simba in the stage version of The Lion King in the Fantasyland Theatre?!? Heads would explode in fury and rage, even though The Lion King is all about animals who have no race or ethnicity or culture. But somehow only Black actors/actresses can play the leads and take the leading roles in onstage performances of The Lion King?

Only Asians may play Mulan. Only Pacific Islanders may play Moana. Etc., etc. But an ancient European story written by a European author and set in a well-established European culture? Let's find non-whites for those roles. Inclusion!

Disney California Adventure presents Frozen Live On Stage!

I basically agree with the sentiment here, and as a lover of history-based entertainment, it largely kills the verisimilitude of these kinds of films with this new habit of inserting peoples and ideas into historical times and places where they simply would not have been present. It doesn't serve the story, it only seems to serve a studio agenda. Not to say we can't have more diverse history films. Westerns, for one, should feature far more black and hispanic characters to be accurate to the times.

Live theater, though, is a little different. There's more of a suspension of disbelief implied in the process. For musical theater, in particular, proper voice casting has long been more important than matching the ethnicity (or even age) of the character, which often isn't even directly spelled out in the libretto anyway. That's why you could get away with old, morbidly obese and barely mobile Pavarotti playing young, heroic Radames in Aida. He didn't look the part at all, but he could sure still sing it!

 

[MisterPenguin]

Google me up a photo of any use of the word "Christmas" in signage or advertising inside a Disneyland or Disney World theme park in 2022.

I'll wait...

Aw, heck. Just because it's Christmas I'll give you a head start:

https://www.micechat.com/240321-first-look-new-holiday-merchandise-at-disneyland-resort/

 

[Wendy Pleakley]

How did this thread segue into the fictional narrative that people are oppressed because they "aren't allowed" to say Christmas?

They even managed to shoehorn this into the Santa Clause TV show. They actually had a cringe line about "not being allowed to say Merry Christmas" in a literal TV show about Christmas.

 

[Phroobar]

Disney animation was not in a good place in the ’80s. Hence the Renaissance. It’s easy to romanticise the past, but this isn’t the first slump Disney has had, and it won’t be the last.

That is the whole point of Disney. Disney lives off nostalgia. That is the reason the parks are packed even with no fully operating rides. That is the reason we rewatch their movies.

 

[ILoveWDW4ever]

Disney animation was not in a good place in the ’80s. Hence the Renaissance. It’s easy to romanticise the past, but this isn’t the first slump Disney has had, and it won’t be the last.

Correct! The 70s and 80s were a bad time for Disney.

So, they changed course, got back to what made Disney animation the gold standard, and the Renaissance was born.

What they didn’t do was keep plowing ahead in the same direction hoping for audiences to change.

 

[Phroobar]

Correct! The 70s and 80s were a bad time for Disney.

So, they changed course, got back to what made Disney animation the gold standard, and the Renaissance was born.

What they didn’t do was keep plowing ahead in the same direction hoping for audiences to change.

Disney is on a ten year tic-toc of good vs bad movies. Right now they are on a toc. Don't expect it to change for another eight years.

 

[LittleBuford]

That is the whole point of Disney. Disney lives off nostalgia. That is the reason the parks are packed even with no fully operating rides. That is the reason we rewatch their movies.

I think you missed my point, which was to do with peaks and troughs in Disney’s history of filmmaking.

 

[ILoveWDW4ever]

Disney is on a ten year tic-toc of good vs bad movies. Right now they are on a toc. Don't expect it to change for another eight years.

I see what you mean. However that is basically saying this is a natural phenomena that will simply correct itself.

 

[LittleBuford]

Correct! The 70s and 80s were a bad time for Disney.

So, they changed course, got back to what made Disney animation the gold standard, and the Renaissance was born.

What they didn’t do was keep plowing ahead in the same direction hoping for audiences to change.

If we’re talking about animated feature films (and let’s include Pixar for the fun of it), the only recent offerings that have really done badly are Lightyear and Strange World. Some of you are making it seem as if we’ve been subjected to years and years of bad films, as if Coco, Encanto, and Luca never existed.

 

[LittleBuford]

How did this thread segue into the fictional narrative that people are oppressed because they "aren't allowed" to say Christmas?

They even managed to shoehorn this into the Santa Clause TV show. They actually had a cringe line about "not being allowed to say Merry Christmas" in a literal TV show about Christmas.

I take responsibility. I made the mistake of responding to a post by @TP2000 that mentioned Christmas, saying that I myself was a big fan of the holiday, and that prompted him to unleash the usual “War on Christmas” talking points.

This thread has become a dumping ground for reactionary grievances. The rage end resentment are palpable, even through all the witty repartee.

 

[SuddenStorm]

I love Trader Joe's, and Target. And as of about two days ago I started saying "Merry Christmas!" to any and all service workers. And I'm in a new town where none of these employees knows me yet. They light up and say "Merry Christmas!" right back at me. I wouldn't have been able to say that a week or two ago, because the Christmas spirit never hits me until about a week before Christmas.

But from now through Sunday? Watch out grinches! I'm on fire!

It's funny that when you are genuine with people how warmly they respond to you, even if the HR department and our moral betters don't approve of genuine warmth and cultural foundations.

I'm surprised you aren't shopping at Harmon's.

 

[Disney Irish]

Hopefully once this goes to D+ this thread and be retired and locked.