I'm a Sri Lankan desi by way of Dubai by way of Minnesota.
Regarding Frozen, Disney, and Computer Animation.
So basically I just wanted to talk about how people are complaining about Disney. About their title changes, character designs, and more specifically, about Frozen. All Disney is getting is complaints about how bad Anna looks, how bad the story is, how bad the title is, and this negativity is really pissing me off! Why can’t y’all just wait until the final product? Wait and see if it is good or not. Sure Disney is a little behind, and sure Anna looks sort of like Rapunzel but so what? Did it bother you when Aroura sort of looked like Cinderella? When Rapunzel sort of looked like Ariel? And the title change, who cares!? It is just a title! The title doesn’t make a movie bad or good, what makes it good are the characters and the story! And that brings me to my other point, people are complaining that this story is stupid, or that it isn’t anything like the original. It really bothers me, because this isn’t the 90’s! Some stories have to be changed to fit with todays audiences! It is sad that we have to add in a male protagonist to increase the movies income, but that is how it is! And also, maybe Disney wants to tell a new story! The Princess and the Frog, Tangled , Wreck-It Ralph and Frozen are all new! They aren’t all original but they have new plots and such. Disney is being more creative than they were, and you have to give them props for that! They are thinking outside the box, new characters, and stories. So please stop complaining! I understand that you want the 90’s films back, but these aren’t 90’s films, they are a different time era, a different audience. The 90’s films weren’t the 50’s films either, and they were still good! They had a new formula each time, a new type of layout that worked! We are in the Disney CGI renaissance right now, better known (or rumored) as the Disney Revival. The Disney Golden Era, Renaissance, and Revival, have each had different formulas, and characters. Some where similar, but yet they are still amazing! So deal with it, that it’s not 1990, and leave the past behind! Look ahead to the future!
I get both the impression that you genuinely wanted to know why people are upset, and that you haven’t read literally any of the critiques and were just looking to vent. But since you tagged this right up, I’ll help you out and break it down. Starting with your closing line, because it realllly stands out.
leave the past behind! Look ahead to the future!
I’m not sure where you pulled the angry nostalgic 90’s kid strawman from, but either way, this line? This line right here?
It’s pretty funny, because as it turns out, that looking to the future is what a lot of critics are doing! That’s where a good chunk of disappointment comes from! I am boggled by your angle, really. You’re looking at this from a weird battle of the decades psuedo animation history perspective, and that might be why you’re missing what a lot of critics/unhappy fans are talking about.
You’re a Disney enthusiast, so I assume you know that Anna is their last listed “Upcoming Princess” to date, and their list of future films doesn’t indicate any Princess stories on the horizon, let alone any starring WoC.
Pixar’s upcoming films are: the Monster’s Inc. sequel, Good Dinosaur, the Finding Nemo Sequel, and an untitled Dia de los Muertos movie. Seeing as how Pixar could barely handle Merida without title, story, writer, and advertising angle being drastically altered —and since it takes Pixar about four to seven years to finish a film, and Disney studios about four to five years (Tangled was made in two, after 10,000 years of development hell)— I doubt we’re getting a PoC princess anytime soon.
This, in combination with their history (~*the past*~) is the problem!
Disney has been making princess movies since 1937, and they didn’t have a princess of color until 1992. They wedged Pocohontas and Mulan in there to placate, and even then, their “Princess” status is h u g e l y contested within the Disney fandom, and they usually aren’t included in most Disney Princess lineup gear. And when they are, you can bet they’re usually in the back. Really now, Disney almost literally releases buffer walls of four White princesses in between what I have come to call their PoC Princess dumps.
That is why a lot of people are upset!
Sure Disney is a little behind, and sure Anna looks sort of like Rapunzel but so what? Did it bother you when Aroura sort of looked like Cinderella? When Rapunzel sort of looked like Ariel?
Yes! Absolutely!
Because they are all W h i t e. Frozen easily could have been based in a PoC culture. Disney is no stranger to changing up their source material. So no, the main squibble here isn’t “OMG LOOK HOW SIMILAR THEIR EYEBROWS AND BUTTON NOSES ARE, YOU ARE SO FUCKING LAZY DISNEY” it’s the fact that Disney keeps cranking out White Princesses.
It’s the fact that, to quote Moniquill:
“Ok we’ve been to ‘Total Fantasy World Inspired by Medieval Germany’ ‘Set in Mystical Medieval Scottland’ and now ‘Anderson’s Scandinavia’. They’re just going to the whitest places on earth on purpose now. It’s like a scavenger hunt for places that they can have plausible deniability for not including POC even as background characters.”
This is why the concept of comparing Anna and Rapunzel completely misses the point, as does your above “Why are you guys so mad!!” post.
This?
These?
No. No one was saying that their chins were too similar.
((Here. Another example: At best, I think it’s safe to assume that we won’t get another Black princess for at least fifteen years. I’ll have children by then! Just in time to tell them “Well, hold on to this Princess. Treasure her, even if you don’t relate to her, because that’s the only one you’re get.” All while the endless flood of White princesses with brunette hair or blonde hair and different eyebrows and button noses vs. slightly less button noses roll out, with the occasional PoC princess flung in to shake things up -or, more realistically, aim to appease critics of their white-girl formula, while the majority of the Disney fandom sits back like “WOW. A blonde princess with green eyes! How progressive!!” That’s not cool, and it is excluding a lot of little girls of color from having media representation!))
That’s why initiatives like the Princess Reina project, Racebent Disney, and even This Could Have Been Frozen are so popular; because PoCs get suuuuuuch limited representation when it comes to Disney, the Disney Princesses, and the media at large.
Disney isn’t exactly being clever with the same old heroine.
And hey, remember the last time they made a Latina princess? Oh wait, they actually didn’t! LOL.
And the title change, who cares!? It is just a title! The title doesn’t make a movie bad or good, what makes it good are the characters and the story!
…
If you think the title of a film has no bearing on the film itself, proceed directly to Film 101. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.
The fact that Disney’s new marketing angle is to reduce their princess story titles to single genderless adjectives because EWW GIRLY THINGS!!1! is deeply problematic. Like, you literally said “It is sad that we have to add in a male protagonist to increase the movies income, but that is how it is!” right after alleging that the changed titles don’t matter. Do you really not see the connection, here? (Here is the connection, in case you really don’t. Here are more thoughts about the changes to the story: Gerda as a girl vs. Anna as a Princess, Kai vs. Kristoff, the absence of little their girl and the addition of Elsa, and why it’s not exactly progress.)
They are thinking outside the box, new characters, and stories. So please stop complaining! I understand that you want the 90’s films back, but these aren’t 90’s films, they are a different time era, a different audience.
What even is this part?
Firstly, Wreck-It-Ralph is not a Disney princess movie. So I’m not sure why you included it in this discourse?
Secondly, are they really thinking outside the box?
Really?
Because they sure as hell aren’t being very diverse. In fact, their releases post-PatF are looking very 50’s, chromatically speaking.
Why can’t y’all just wait until the final product?
So, if you’ve come to understand even a fraction of why people are upset re: Frozen, you now know that waiting until the final product is released doesn’t address the critique at all!
Jhenne laying it all down
S L O W C L A P
I haven’t watched the new films yet uwu
I’m not very familiar with Star Trek but I love Uhura’s character and I’m going to watch the new movies ASAP
Could’ve been as easy as that.
remember that time some white grl was like ‘i thought the Air Nomads were white?????’
Actors who COULD HAVE Played Khan
Oded Fahr
Naveen Andrews
Sendhil Ramamurthy
But no, this is the logical choice.
In the original Trek, Khan, with his brown skin, was an Übermensch, intellectually and physically perfect, possessed of such charisma and drive that despite his efforts to gain control of the Enterprise, Captain Kirk (and many of the other officers) felt admiration for him.
And that’s why the role has been taken away from actors of colour and given to a white man. Racebending.com has always pointed out that villains are generally played by people with darker skin, and that’s true … unless the villain is one with intelligence, depth, complexity. One who garners sympathy from the audience, or if not sympathy, then — as from Kirk — grudging admiration. What this new Trek movie tells us, what JJ Abrams is telling us, is that no brown-skinned man can accomplish all that. That only by having Khan played by a white actor can the audience engage with and feel for him, believe that he’s smart and capable and a match for our Enterprise crew.
Marissa Sammy on Star Trek: Into Whiteness.
perfect commentary which parallels what Rawles was saying earlier about the possibility of Moriarty being a person of color:
- “…The actual issue is that black people aren’t often allowed to play full and complete characters, and an antagonist who isn’t unintelligent, thuggish cannon fodder is just as much of a rarity for black men as the stubbly hero who saves the world or wtfever. “
- “…The stereotype in no way intersects with brilliant geniuses who choose to step outside of the boundaries of society in order to exercise their intellect while having no concern for lesser beings.
Or to break it down further: the problematic stereotype regarding black people is that of being, in essence, subhuman. Characters of the Moriarty (and Holmes) archetype are rooted in being superhuman.”
You see? It’s more complicated than “people of color get typecast as villains.”
Black people get typecast as an extremely specific type of villain - they’re thugs, brutish and animalistic. South Asian actors are similarly typecast as scary oppressive (usually coded Muslim) terrorists.
But when your villain is of the superhuman archetype? When they’re brooding antiheroes, when they’re nuanced, when they’re multi-faceted?
They’re white.
(And check out this post on the glorification of white criminality in shows like Dexter, Breaking Bad, Weeds, Boardwalk Empire, The Sopranos, etc.)
REAL racism exists
not the bullshit that tumblr makes up
benedick cucumber ftw!!!
whaaaaaaat the fuck
I am so fucking sick of any argument that begins “WELL SOMETHING EVEN MORE HORRIFIC EXISTS, therefore your criticism is invalid and your activism is useless!” and what the fuck is wrong with OP that they think it’s appropriate to say “shut up because human trafficking”?
do you fucking give a shit about human trafficking on any other day of the week or is the entire topic only useful to you as a rhetorical flourish when you’re snarking at Star Trek fans? how about this: DON’T USE APPALLING HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS AS A RHETORICAL FLOURISH IN DEFENSE OF YOUR FAVORITE ACTOR.
I mean are you even fucking listening to yourself? I could devalue your entire existence by that rubric. yes, my annoying little spunkweasels, everything you have ever cared about is fucking pointless and stupid because you know what’s more important? human trafficking! child abuse!
except that’s not how shit works. that’s a fucking false equivalence thrown around by beef-witted neanderthals who get their underpants all knotted up at the slightest hint of negativity towards Rinkydink Curdlesnoot.
“real racism,” dickface? real racism is when your vision of the future includes spaceships and alien cultures, but not brown people. real racism is when y’all lose your damn minds if somebody reinterprets or modernizes a text to include people of color - see: Sherlock fandom’s reaction to Lucy Liu’s casting as Watson - but you see nothing wrong with white actors taking some of the (extremely limited) high profile roles for people of color.
Khan Noonien Singh is canonically from India. Do you know how many South Asian actors can get work in Hollywood? Do you comprehend how few roles this high profile come along for South Asian actors (do you comprehend that casting calls for the majority of roles, much less high profile, career-enhancing ones, are for white actors? that even open casting calls somehow magically end up choosing disproportionately white casts)? Do you fucking understand the injustice of losing opportunities to work in your industry because motherfuckers just cannot envision that people like you even exist?
That is real racism.
When brown folks can’t even get cast to play actual brown characters, that is real fucking racism.
Christ almighty, what is wrong with Curdlesnoot fans? I think I’ve met all of two who weren’t dickfaced losers; the rest of y’all act like Mr. “Omigosh what about ~REAL~ RACISM” up there.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The “big deal” is:
- That Star Trek, a franchise known for it’s progressiveness, has regressed in casting and representation to the standards from the 1960s. Khan was a character of color. Regardless of how Star Trek decided to cast this character ~fifty years ago, using the racist casting practices oof yesteryears, there is no valid, non-discriminatory reason for the franchise to regress to that now.
- That aside from Faran Tahir’s brief role in the first five minutes of Trek09, there are no prominent South Asian characters in this franchise, so when a character is named Khan Noonien Singh you’d hope they would be able to find an actor of South Asian descent out of all of the ones that are out there.
- That it’s Paramount again, not feeling like they need to learn anything from whitewashing incidents like “The Last Airbender.”
- That Benedict Cumberbatch is a white man with British and Hollywood crossover appeal; he has access to countless roles that are blocked off actors of color— including hundreds of Star Trek characters…and this just happens to be one of the most prominent characters of color at all in science fiction. If they won’t even cast people of color for iconic bad guys…
- That the Cumberbatchness of Benedict Cumberbatch somehow outweighs the importance of calling out discrimination. But that’s not “silly,” to you, nah, the people who are upset about racism are the silly ones.
That’s why this is a big deal.
I love that my choices as a desi are terrorist! or whitewashed!supervillain with desi name.
ASOIAF fancast - Richard Coyle as Oberyn Martell
Oberyn was ever the viper. Deadly, dangerous, unpredictable. No man dared tread on him.
Oberyn was ever the viper. Deadly, dangerous, unpredictable…and NOT A WHITE PERSON.
JC
THE MARTELLS ARE NOT WHITE
Remember when Carrie Mulligan’s character was originally supposed to be played by a Latina but the director was all “we decided to change it to a blonde haired blue eyed white woman because she seemed more like she needed protecting” remember?
awww shit *whoop* there it is now lets talk about the movie Savages
Yup. I forgot that WOC aren’t worthy of protection and caring.
But they left the ex-con baby daddy/boyfriend/husband Latino.
Why not change that dude to white, too?
Ugh. White ppl man. When are they gonna stop lying to themselves and us
