The problem with the "War on Families" narrative is that the numbers just don't bear that out as being the truth. Disney's RepTrak numbers have fallen since Florida's government started ginning up the culture war against the company from 78.1 in 2020 all the way to 73.8, which is still a (checks notes) "Strong" reputation. And even if all of the roughly 33% of Americans who believe that same-sex relationships are morally wrong (annual Gallup poll) were to be so turned off as to immediately stop buying tickets to Disney movies, that wouldn't account for why ticket sales are off by well over 50%.
Yeah, I think the culture war narrative leaves a lot of factors out. It's generally agreed that family animation
as a whole has been off its box-office game since the pandemic due in part to multiple films, not just Disney/Pixar titles, ending up straight to streaming, with Illumination and Dreamworks' various modestly-budgeted titles being the luckiest due in part to having open-ended theatrical windows, often at times of year where there wasn't a ton of direct competition (
Sing 2,
Minions: The Rise of Gru,
Puss in Boots - The Last Wish, and of course
The Super Mario Bros. Movie as the examples; we'll see how
Migration does next weekend). Besides those, there's
Across the Spider-Verse, which managed to defy both superhero fatigue
and family animation malaise despite featuring non-white protagonists, and - even if it wasn't quite profitable -
Elemental, which hung on thanks in part to the open-ended run.
Theories that the Marvel films suffered for being "too diverse" don't acknowledge DC has only had one legitimate box office success story since the pandemic with
The Batman. (Also, beyond
Spider-Man No Way Home and
GOTG Vol. 3 the most successful MCU movie post-pandemic was the
Black Panther sequel and it didn't even feature its original lead!) If anything, it's what a friend of mine calls the "glass cliff" theory - years and years into the "reign of superheroes", just as audiences began to tire of the whole business,
that's when it became okay to feature female/non-white leads regularly. Then when they underperform, the executives don't have to admit that the well ran dry or the movies themselves weren't good enough or were hard to follow because of the now too-dense continuity (the streaming shows only arrived during the pandemic). Similarly,
Star Wars seems to have suffered in its post-movie age for being
too desperate to please "the real fans" with most of its shows focusing on cultishly loved side characters from the original trilogy or expanded universe, despite this leaving less of an "in" for potential newer fans or just casual ones.
And if Disney isn't a "wholesome family brand" anymore...where is the chunk of the potential audience that wants
that going to go to? It ain't to Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network. No major streaming service has come up with a breakout hit show for kids, especially little kids, comparable to a
Spongebob Squarepants or
Bluey. No direct-to-streaming animated feature on those has found the exposure of even a lesser Disney title. In particular, Max gutted its family animation and live-action offerings over the past year (including 1950s-onward Looney Tunes shorts and their back catalog of
Sesame Street episodes).
Going back to
Wish's failure, this was just not a movie that was exciting the masses. Its promotional campaign from the first teaser through the first full-length trailer was half-hearted, and they never found a hook to capture audiences with. (It's been stated elsewhere, but who cares about a
corporation's 100th anniversary?) The animation looked off to a lot of people, and the ads had trouble with the crucial big W's in pushing it:
Who is Asha (besides a bit of a ditz)?
What does she want;
what is so bad about not everybody getting their wishes?
Why is Magnifico a threat in a kingdom
where things are pretty good under his rule, and
why does Star come to her to help?
I also agree that there were a lot of interesting ideas sanded off, and I think it may have been because Disney was so scared of offending
anyone. If Magnifico (and his wife!) are deceitful despots from the start (rather than him being misguided and from there wicked) and people are clearly suffering under their reign - if their wishes ended up being truly desperate, meaningful things like "Food on the table" or "A cure for illness" - it's even easier for people to read the political allegory they like or don't like into the story than it's been with the final product. Can't have a romance in the movie between Asha and Star because boys hate romance (Corporate Disney HATES the brand being perceived as girly!) and "girlbosses" think they make the woman weak. And the setting is intentionally supposed to be all things to all people (rather than the distinct cultural setting of
Coco,
Encanto, or an
actual fairy or folk tale adaptation) so no one feels "left out", even if it means the Teens don't get actual characterizations because they're not gonna sell toys like Star and Valentino will so why focus on them?
