This started out as snarky, but really I’m just too miserable…
Disney’s latest pit-stop on the
While I appreciate the need to generate a profit, I don’t see how destroying cherished fairytales and deciding that girls are not an audience worth catering to is really the way forward for a “family centred” company.
Disney made the movies that defined my childhood, and I had hoped that the incorporation of Pixar would generate a little more imagination and a fresher feel; not a regression to unbridled sexism and consumerism.
Disney and Pixar have never been afraid to make “boy-focused” movies - take the success of Cars for example. Understanding that movies like this have universal appeal is well and good, but what about endeavouring to break down the gender stereotypes that mean that boys don’t (or rather, are told they don’t) want to go and see fairytale movies.
Also, the perception that you can create some kind of homogenous movie that appeals to such a wide audience range every time is just a fallacy. Movies like Finding Nemo are a jackpot. If you want to create unique movies that you would actually want your own children to watch, then making allowances for the fact that each individual movie is going to appeal to a different core of people is simply a must.
I resent the idea that children need to be elbowed into a gender box and taught how to think. Children of previous generations all enjoyed Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty… Suddenly deciding that children cannot enjoy a film simply because they cannot gender-identify with the main protagonist is taking things down a very dubious path… surely they cannot then identify with a protagonist who is a different colour or of a different faith - as these differences are obviously just too huge and insurmountable for a child’s imagination to overcome.
I also take issue with the fact that a male protagonist is default, and the perception that girls should have no problem identifying with a male character, whereas boys are apparently just too challenged by the idea of identifying with a female character. This is just insulting to all involved.
No, some boys don’t want to see a girl flounce around in a ballgown - which I can quite agree with - but then neither do some girls. Some girls don’t want to see some cars race around a track - yet this is a movie idea that would never be challenged. My issue here is not with the fact that there are “boy movies” but that there can’t be “girl movies”. Although, ideally, the whole business would be less gender-focused and more story-focused.
I certainly don’t have enough room here to get into my other issues with Disney - body image etc. - but this latest step has just so upset me. Not only can they not even believe in making a fairytale with its original name, but the story must be so altered as to leave me in doubt that it will even much resemble the Brothers Grimm story, aside from featuring a woman with abnormal hair growth who resides for a time in a very tall tower.
But fear not, there will at least be swashbuckling action.
