'Strange World' Disney's 2022 Animated Film

[jeangreyforever]

Keep in mind, there was a conservative backlash against the Hunchback of Notre Dame at the time — with Christians disliking how sexual Esmeralda was and feeling that Frollo painted Christians in a negative light. The release of Hunchback also coincided with backlash to Disney giving benefits to same-sex couples.

Of course, while not nearly as profitable as Aladdin or the Lion King, The Hunchback of Notre Dame did gross $325 million on a $100 million budget, and it was the fifth highest-grossing movie worldwide of 1996. Not comparable at all to Strange World's box office performance.

I hope I didn't imply that Hunchback was a box office failure the way Strange World was. In fact, the general public never gives it its due when it comes to the box office because like you said, it was a hit and made the top 10 highest-grossing movies of 1996. If you look at the highest grossing Disney animated movies from the 90s and the 2000s, Hunchback still makes the top ten list along with Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas, and Tarzan. Sadly Chicken Little makes that list too lol.

The issue comes more from how Americans still have a very strong puritanical backbone. They have no issues with gratuitous violence in their movies but anything dealing with sexuality (and that includes straight couples) makes them queasy. Hunchback was a G-rated example of mixing both sex and religion and most American parents were aghast at that. There's a reason the movie did even better financially and critically in Europe, particularly in Paris where it was a massive hit because Europeans have never shied away from sex and they're not nearly so rigid on religion. Disney was afraid the Parisians would reject it, but they loved it the most! My Latin American Disney friends say that even though Latin America has very staunch Catholic values, they don't have the religious hang-ups Americans do so Hunchback is quite popular there as well. They don't view it as an attack on faith. Hunchback also has a strong following in Japan where Esmeralda and Clopin are quite loved and get merchandise unlike in the US. I don't think it's a coincidence either that Hunchback had a massively successful musical in Germany which ran for years, whereas in the US it could never even get on Broadway. Disney didn't even put their logo on the Hunchback musical in America because they were afraid families would see the Disney logo and think the show was suitable for children.

 

[jeangreyforever]

Serious talk by whom?

Read the news reports from when the scandal circulated.

Also I got the nude story mixed up. It was Miley who had the magazine cover where she posed nude. Vanessa had actual nude photos which were leaked. She had to apologize and Disney publicly said she had a lapse in judgment and made an error. Miley got flack too but I don't remember any rumors or reports that she was going to be fired, but that may also have had to do with the fact that she was headlining Disney Channel's biggest franchise at the time.

 

[Prince-1]

Hunchback was a G-rated example of mixing both sex and religion and most American parents were aghast at that.

I assume you have some evidence of this. I mean there are a lot of people who post “facts” and then can’t provide anything to back it up. They just use their own assumptions as their own facts.

 

[jeangreyforever]

I assume you have some evidence of this. I mean there are a lot of people who post “facts” and then can’t provide anything to back it up. They just use their own assumptions as their own facts.

I assume you can do your own research. You make it sound as though it's my duty that anytime I ever hear anyone talk about Hunchback, I should keep a audio recording so I can post here. Or if I ever see news articles, blogs, comments, posts, or Facebook groups discussing it, I need to make a collage of each and every instance for your personal readership. I promise you'll find the content if you look for it because it's well-documented.

 

[_caleb]

Read the news reports from when the scandal circulated.

Oh. I thought you were claiming to have inside info from Disney leadership.

A lot of what you write makes it sound like this, but you're actually just talking about what you've read online. I'd encourage you to take care sharing opinions and rumors as facts because we do have actual Disney insiders here with inside info. If you're not one of them (and most of us aren't), you might consider making it clear.

I believe this may be why @MisterPenguin , @Prince-1, and others have been asking you to post links/sources for some of the claims you've made.

 

[Prince-1]

I assume you can do your own research. You make it sound as though it's my duty that anytime I ever hear anyone talk about Hunchback, I should keep a audio recording so I can post here. Or if I ever see news articles, blogs, comments, posts, or Facebook groups discussing it, I need to make a collage of each and every instance for your personal readership. I promise you'll find the content if you look for it because it's well-documented.

So then you have no evidence that “most Americans“ were aghast of anything. Gotcha.

 

[Prince-1]

Oh. I thought you were claiming to have inside info from Disney leadership.

A lot of what you write makes it sound like this, but you're actually just talking about what you've read online. I'd encourage you to take care sharing opinions and rumors as facts because we do have actual Disney insiders here with inside info. If you're not one of them (and most of us aren't), you might consider making it clear.

I believe this may be why @MisterPenguin , @Prince-1, and others have been asking you to post links/sources for some of the claims you've made.

She has nothing because she is just extrapolating what she feels and thinks and applying it to “most Americans” even though there is no evidence to support her position.

Were some people upset with the movie? Of course because some people get upset over almost anything especially if religion is brought into it but most people did not. And it’s funny because she said that, “If you look at the highest grossing Disney animated movies from the 90s and the 2000s, Hunchback still makes the top ten list” which is confusing if ”most Americans“ were aghast of the content of the movie.

 

[jeangreyforever]

Oh. I thought you were claiming to have inside info from Disney leadership.

A lot of what you write makes it sound like this, but you're actually just talking about what you've read online. I'd encourage you to take care sharing opinions and rumors as facts because we do have actual Disney insiders here with inside info. If you're not one of them (and most of us aren't), you might consider making it clear.

I believe this may be why @MisterPenguin , @Prince-1, and others have been asking you to post links/sources for some of the claims you've made.

Oh ok, thank you for the explanation. I'm certainly not a Disney insider nor have I ever claimed to be but I didn't realize there were some among us here. That makes more sense now.

The Vanessa Hudgens scandal was well documented though. I just did a Google search right now, probably the first time I've done it since it happened all those years ago, and you can see various news articles and reports. There are even many about how she was fired which clearly turned out to be false. I remember hearing in the media that there were serious deliberations by Disney over whether they would keep her or not. The same was the case for Nickelodeon with Jamie Lynn Spears after she became pregnant during Zoey 101, although they ended up keeping her too for the final season. I can't remember now if Zoey 101 was always supposed to end when it did or if it ended prematurely because of her pregnancy.

 

[jeangreyforever]

She has nothing because she is just extrapolating what she feels and thinks and applying it to “most Americans” even though there is no evidence to support her position.

This is the umpteenth time you have pretended like you know me or my tastes. The Hunchback of Notre Dame is my personal favorite Disney movie so you're the most mistaken you've been yet in your fortune telling if you think I feel about it the way conservative or religious Americans do who feel it's anti-Christian or too mature for children.

And while you have my gender correct, I don't recall ever mentioning my gender on here which confuses me. Either you're assuming I'm female, which I think is odd since you claim to be such a stringent force for LGBT representation in which case you shouldn't assume one's gender and should have the courtesy to ask beforehand what gender I am. Or you recognize me from another forum and if you're who I think you are, suddenly the hostility you've treated me with since I've started to post here makes complete and utter sense.

 

[LittleBuford]

I assume you can do your own research. You make it sound as though it's my duty that anytime I ever hear anyone talk about Hunchback, I should keep an audio recording so I can post here. Or if I ever see news articles, blogs, comments, posts, or Facebook groups discussing it, I need to make a collage of each and every instance for your personal readership. I promise you'll find the content if you look for it because it's well-documented.

Hunchback came out pre-internet (or, more accurately, when very few people were online). I can find absolutely nothing to substantiate your emphatic claim that “most American parents were aghast at” the film’s content.

 

[TP2000]

Some of y’all are just now discovering Jaboukie Young White, and it shows. Anyone who follows him knows his material has been raunchy and for adults since he entered the business, which was at least five years ago. Disney had no problem hiring him, obviously.

I had never heard of him until two weeks ago, but that's unsurprising considering my demographic and personal tastes in entertainment. I imagine most American parents of small children had never heard of him either.

But more parents of small children (the biggest demographic for a Disney film like Strange World) are now aware of him, and have seen his latest song lyrics printed out online in chat groups or Facebook posts. And now I have also read his lyrics.

I will be playing my cherished Motown Christmas album tonight to cleanse my brain.

But most importantly to this discussion: I find the decision by Burbank execs to hire this particular performer, with his known record of being very raunchy and often profane, to be questionable at best and idiotic at worst. What were they thinking? That parents with Internet connections weren't going to find out he was the Ethan Clade voice actor?

The business decision to hire Jaboukie, out of all the thousands of voice actors and minor celebs in the world, makes the failure of Strange World even... stranger. It's just one piece of the puzzle, but the puzzle is really weird.

What was Burbank thinking?!?!

 

[Prince-1]

This is the umpteenth time you have pretended like you know me or my tastes. The Hunchback of Notre Dame is my personal favorite Disney movie so you're the most mistaken you've been yet in your fortune telling if you think I feel about it the way conservative or religious Americans do who feel it's anti-Christian or too mature for children.

And while you have my gender correct, I don't recall ever mentioning my gender on here which confuses me. Either you're assuming I'm female, which I think is odd since you claim to be such a stringent force for LGBT representation in which case you shouldn't assume one's gender and should have the courtesy to ask beforehand what gender I am. Or you recognize me from another forum and if you're who I think you are, suddenly the hostility you've treated me with since I've started to post here makes complete and utter sense.

No hostility from me. I just call out people who post either homophobic crap, people who troll repeatedly, or post things claiming to be facts and can’t provide one iota of proof to back up their assertion. I’ll let you decide where you fall on that list.

As for your gender, I have no clue who you are but since you went with Jean Grey in your name I took a wild guess and went with the obvious gender selection. Maybe I should have been a detective??

 

[Prince-1]

Hunchback came out pre-internet (or, more accurately, when very few people were online). I can find absolutely nothing to substantiate your emphatic claim that “most American parents were aghast at” the film’s content.

I also did a cursory glance on the interweb and found nothing that showed “most Americans“ were aghast of anything involving the Hunchback movie.

 

[jeangreyforever]

Hunchback came out pre-internet (or, more accurately, when very few people were online). I can find absolutely nothing to substantiate your emphatic claim that “most American parents were aghast at” the film’s content.

The very first search result that pops up for me.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

"The Hunchback of Notre Dame" has intentionally tested the boundaries of traditional Disney fare with its adaptation of Victor Hugo's gothic novel.

www.pluggedin.com

“Esmeralda is awfully provocative,” actor Jason Alexander (the voice of a gargoyle) said. Disney would have us believe this movie’s like the Ringling Bros., for children of all ages, but I won’t be taking my 4-year-old.

Also the parent of a preschooler, Focus on the Family’s manager of Youth Culture, Amy Stephens, told Plugged In, “This is not a children’s film, which makes many of the product tie-ins and promotional efforts aimed at little ones inappropriate and irresponsible.”

 

[Prince-1]

The very first search result that pops up for me.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

"The Hunchback of Notre Dame" has intentionally tested the boundaries of traditional Disney fare with its adaptation of Victor Hugo's gothic novel.

www.pluggedin.com

The link is a review of the movie from some random website. It shows nothing about the “aghastness” of America. Do you have anything else to support your position.

 

[TP2000]

The perception of, like, maybe a few thousand people. The majority of society doesn’t know, nor do they care.

What if America did know who Jaboukie was, and if his lyrics were printed in major media to read and digest?

Burbank is probably breathing a sigh of relief that the issue stayed relatively hidden and buried in Facebook groups made up mostly of unknown Midwest moms.

It's just one interesting angle to this disastrous movie, and likely at least a small part of the reason marketing was so thin and rare for Strange World after they spent $180 Million on it.

 

[jeangreyforever]

I had never heard of him until two weeks ago, but that's unsurprising considering my demographic and personal tastes in entertainment. I imagine most American parents of small children had never heard of him either.

But more parents of small children (the biggest demographic for a Disney film like Strange World) are now aware of him, and have seen his latest song lyrics printed out online in chat groups or Facebook posts. And now I have also read his lyrics.

I will be playing my cherished Motown Christmas album tonight to cleanse my brain.

But most importantly to this discussion: I find the decision by Burbank execs to hire this particular performer, with his known record of being very raunchy and often profane, to be questionable at best and idiotic at worst. What were they thinking? That parents with Internet connections weren't going to find out he was the Ethan Clade voice actor?

The business decision to hire Jaboukie, out of all the thousands of voice actors and minor celebs in the world, makes the failure of Strange World even... stranger. It's just one piece of the puzzle, but the puzzle is really weird.

What was Burbank thinking?!?!

What surprises me the most is that Disney's usually been pretty good about hiring actual teen actors or child actors for their age appropriate non-princess characters. Like Lilo, Miguel, Moana, Nemo, Dash, etc. I haven't seen this movie so I have no idea what specific age Ethan is supposed to be besides being a teenager, but I'm surprised they didn't hire an actual teen for the role. Especially considering the wide casting search. Moana was a success in part because they found a voice actress who felt very much like Moana personified in human form.

 

[LittleBuford]

The very first search result that pops up for me.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

"The Hunchback of Notre Dame" has intentionally tested the boundaries of traditional Disney fare with its adaptation of Victor Hugo's gothic novel.

www.pluggedin.com

I think the issue for me and others hinges on your use of the word “most”. Perhaps you were simply being hyperbolic, which would also explain “aghast”.

 

[TP2000]

Anyone remember Miley Cyrus?

So many Disney stars who went a bit wild, while still a Disney star.

Remember the kerfuffle in the news when it was reported she and her teen friends were drunk at her 16th birthday party at Disneyland?!? I had forgotten about that one, but it sent Burbank into clean up mode very quickly.

 

[TwilightZone]

It does explain why I haven't seen any trailers say who the actors are, like in a typical disney commercial.
"Come see Moana! Featuring voice acting from the rock!"


I'm not sure if I've seen a strange world commercial like that.