disney, why do you betray me.

[samatethecookie]

Disney restyles 'Rapunzel' to appeal to boys

"We did not want to be put in a box," said Ed Catmull, president of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, explaining the reason for the name change. "Some people might assume it's a fairy tale for girls when it's not. We make movies to be appreciated and loved by everybody."

[...]

Disney hopes the introduction of the slightly bad-boy character will help it tap the broadest possible audience for "Tangled," emulating the success of its corporate sibling, Pixar. Pixar's movies have been huge hits because they appeal to girls, boys and adults. Its most recent release, "Up," grossed more than $700 million worldwide.

"The Princess and the Frog" generated considerably less -- $222 million in global ticket sales to date.

"Based upon the response from fans and critics, we believe it would have been higher if it wasn't prejudged by its title," Catmull said.

Am I misguided here? Didn't the movie generate less money because James Cameron released his movie around the same time? People wanted to see "Avatar", which is an unfortunate thing for other movies released around the same time but it doesn't mean the rest were bad movies.

If it's about Pixar's financial success, well, maybe Pixar is making more money because it takes its audience seriously. Yes, there's a lack of female leads and I do see the problems with that, but you can't tell me Disney can't learn a thing or two from that company. "Up" was successful and heart-warming because it wasn't about a fairy tale or characters bursting into song and whatnot. It was about an elderly man who wanted to live his deceased wife's dream for her, which leads him on an adventure with a boy, a huge bird and a talking dog. It was a risk because main protagonists are usually younger, but the animators behind Pixar have the passion to pull it off. Pixar hasn't come out with a fairy tale or a princess movie. There's a film about a princess in the works, but that's, what, one out how many movies they worked on? (Not to mention there's other studios that flourished without depending on tired fairy tales, such as Studio Ghibli and, as much as I feel 'meh' towards most of their films, Dreamworks.)

My point is this: the problem lies in what the audience wants, not what appeals to boys, because I don't think that's the specific problem here, and boys and men have been watching Disney films for years, and that's not counting the animators behind these films that happen to be men. (I mean, my father? He fucking loves Enchanted. It's one of his favorite movies! And that's not counting the other movies he's watched with me over the years.) Simply catering to the boys that hate Disney movies just because isn't going to help the studios survive.

I think audiences in general are sick of movies about princesses, children included. As much as I loved the movies during the Disney Renaissance, and as much as I liked "The Princess and the Frog", my feelings changed when I watched "Sailor Moon" and adopted Serena as my role model over somebody like Ariel, because I actually got to see this girl kicking ass and saving the world with her friends and boyfriend as her support.

I still love Disney. That part of me will never change. However, it's hard to love a studio that refuses to take some risks for its new audience. I wouldn't mind saying good-bye to the princess movies if something new comes out of it. Society is evolving, so the studio should evolve along with it.

In the meantime, Disney, please change the fucking title back to its original one.

Comments

[escalove.livejournal.com]

I am just feeling overly pissy towards movies studios in general, and this is one of the reasons why. I firmly believe that Disney set itself up to fail with TPATF and that they expected it to fail (according to their probably stupid and unreachable standards of what makes a success or not.)

Re: Pixar, I am kind of ticked that their first film with a sole female lead is a princess/fairy tale movie (Really Pixar, Really?), but then there lack of female lead roles is one of the reasons that i haven't seen Up! (That and I am pretty much running a preliminary Bechdel Test for all films that I want to see so that may mean that I won't be seeing any more films for like ever)

But let's face it, the only thing Hollywood cares about are white cisgendered heterosexual boys for childrens movies and for at adults move the demographic to that holy upon holy "18-45" range within the same group. And the studios. comic book companies, and all that wonder why nobody is going to the movies/reading comics anymore.

[samatethecookie.livejournal.com]

The only thing I can say to you about Up is it's better to watch it before you make up your mind about it but I'm only saying that because I'm a little biased, since I loved it. And I can argue that the female character Ellie was in the movie, with or without a physical presence. But I I think you know what works for you pretty well by now. If you know it doesn't look or sound like a movie you want to watch, then it probably isn't.

I'm going to be honest, the lack of female leads in Pixar don't bother me as much as Disney studios aiming to market towards boys and believing boys aren't going to sit down and watch a movie about a princess. (Although Pixar baffles me that they're making a princess movie after they said they were leaving that up to Disney. This princess better be awesome, Pixar, because what the hell.) I don't understand that mindset AT ALL. There's a lot of boys that want to watch Disney movies, just as much as there were a lot of girls my age, when I was nine-ten, who wanted to watch Dragon Ball Z instead of Sailor Moon, or watch both. It's inevitable. Do we really need to label things as "boy things" or "girl things"? Because no matter how Hollywood markets anything towards kids, it's not going to matter because sometimes girls and boys don't want to fit into a label as they get older, experience certain things and figure those things out for themselves.

And the studios. comic book companies, and all that wonder why nobody is going to the movies/reading comics anymore.

That's one of the main reasons why a lot of female fans don't financially support DC or Marvel anymore. Or they read things at an arm's length from the company. Marvel's blatantly stated that their comics weren't made for women so we should just stop criticizing it or suggesting appropriate female representation. (Because it's so crazy that girls read comic books! CRAZY.) I'm not sure if DC ever came out to imply that, but that doesn't mean it's completely innocent either. I'm always like...then what the hell do you expect? Your female audience would support you so much and you'd get a lot out of it if you just LISTENED and at least tried to treat us like we're normal.

[escalove.livejournal.com]

I admit that Up! kind of ticked me when I found out that the only female character was dead and it was just kind of an "of course" moment for me, but then this came after seeing so many movies where women were being fridged or absent so it was kind of like the straw that broke the cameras back, and not to the mention that it isn't just that all the leads have been boys but that pretty much on top of the Pixar films have pretty much been complete boyfests, with maybe a few token girls for good measure so I with Pixar I am kind of at an "enough is enough, can you remember that girls exist too" thing going on.

And then there is Hollywood in general, there is a reason that Coraline and Whip It! were my favorite movies of 2009.

I have a theory that this increased pressure to block things into "girls" and "boys" coincides with the heightened visibility and much stronger push of the LGBT community, and that by holding onto gender essentialism parts of society are trying to push that community back into the closet and to shame them. But that is something that is long and academic.

Well being that Joe Quesada has pretty much as admitted as much (such a douche he is), I wouldn't support them either.