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Disney's problem isn't just that it is woke; it is also creatively dead
Hotair ^ | 07/14/2023 | David Strom

Posted on 07/14/2023 7:00:04 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

Another day, another example of Disney’s substituting a political message for creativity.

This example is from The Daily Mail, which puts a bit more meat on the bone regarding the already controversial live-action remake of “Snow White and the 7 Dwarves.”

The earlier controversy stems from Disney’s self-conscious hire of a Latina actress to play Snow White–an example of the fact that race-swapping is perfectly acceptable when doing so displaces a White actor, but “cultural appropriation” when a White actor plays a non-White character.

I found the earlier controversy to be an example of the tedious character of these racial debates because sometimes it matters–race swapping in JRR Tolkien stories makes no sense–while race swapping in other stories is utterly irrelevant. A Black James Bond? Who cares? Is the actor good? England is now a multiracial society and we have seen many James Bonds, none of whom look alike.

Race-swapping hobbits? Hobbits are literally a race already, as are elves and orcs, etc. Mixing in yet more races within races makes no sense, especially in a story set in what is clearly a medieval/European setting.

Are you sure those aren’t Biden appointees on the right?


— 🫃🏼💉🇺🇦Hollaria Briden, Esq. & Ally (@HollyBriden) July 14, 2023

A Snow White with darker skin literally makes no sense, of course, because she was quite literally Snow White, named after her abnormally White skin. “The fairest of them all,” I seem to recall. But whatever. My objection is not particularly that the races were swapped, but by how tediously predictable doing so was.

Snow White and the Unabomber


https://t.co/2wKV0kh0wP pic.twitter.com/LZdpiEy3p4

— Sunny McSunnyface (@sunnyright) July 14, 2023

Same with this next “controversial” decision: replacing the dwarves with…whatever. “Magical beings” of every race and height and gender. Peter Dinklage took umbrage that dwarves were stereotyped in the movie (shocking, I know!), so Disney decided to work with activist groups to come up with an alternative.

Again, whatever. More tediousness. The story comes second.

While I cringe at all the excessive “sensitivity” and the need not just for political correctness but also at the need to turn every creative enterprise into a struggle session run by critical theorists, all these controversies are a result of a deeper disease that Disney and much of Hollywood is suffering from.

Hollywood has lost its creative edge. They apparently have no new ideas, new stories to tell, and nothing with which to entertain us–so they default to political lectures.

Political lectures are boring. How many Soviet-era films have people ever rushed to see?

Having a political point of view is nothing new in movies, and I’ve watched plenty of left-leaning political movies that annoy me quite a bit but were entertaining and definitely worth watching. If you have a good story, it might be better or worse with different politics, but you have a GOOD STORY.

A good story well told covers many sins. I don’t rush out to see conservative movies (there are a few) because they have a good message, because message movies tend to suck.

Look at this controversy: everybody is focused on the wokeness; fine, whatever. Just as important is that Disney can’t come up with anything but a remake of a movie of which they are apparently ASHAMED. They declare Snow White to be toxic but are too creatively bankrupt to come up with anything but a race-swapped Snow White with an empowerment message that Princes are unnecessary appendages to a strong Latina woman.

Geez. If you dislike Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, make a different movie. You have billions of dollars, after all. But instead, Disney wants to live off the legacy of “white supremacy” while decrying it.

It’s like Ben and Jerry’s wanting everybody else to return “stolen land” but hanging on to its own in order to crank out cash, only worse. Ben and Jerry’s actually has an edible product; Disney is recycling what it claims to be its own trash.

That isn’t just hypocrisy, but pathetic.

Hollywood isn’t incapable of coming up with good stories, and good stories don’t even have to be complicated. Tom Cruise (whose religious beliefs seem utterly bizarre to me, but so what?) knows how to make a good movie. Disney? It recycles its own IP, injects idiotic political messages (Indiana Jones is a pathetic old man who will be upstaged by a personality-free girl boss), and begs you to part with your cash.

I wouldn’t even stream it if I could. Sounds awful, as does every Disney movie of late, and the box office receipts reflect that.

It’s not just that the politics are stupid and destructive; it’s that Disney has nothing else. They aren’t even creative enough to be decent propagandists.

The last great creative burst from Hollywood was in television, mostly on cable channels. The take was cynical, hating on everybody, and amoral for the most part. But it was worth watching. It wasn’t the message that drove the story, but the story and good acting.

This is the Kathleen Kennedyization of Hollywood. Kennedy is the woman who destroyed Star Wars, which was already pretty awful after The Empire Strikes Back. When Disney bought the Star Wars franchise from George Lucas, Kennedy took over the property. Immediately she produced The Force Awakens, which is just a remake of the first Star Wars with race and gender-swapped characters.

That’s it. Nothing new. New characters (more races and genders!), same story.

And that is Hollywood today. Lots of money but not a single new idea or story worth telling.

 



TOPICS: Business/Economy; Music/Entertainment; Society; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: creativity; disney; woke
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1 posted on 07/14/2023 7:00:04 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Woke and the death of creativity go hand in hand.


2 posted on 07/14/2023 7:02:31 PM PDT by aynrandfreak (Being a Democrat means never having to say you're sorry)
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To: SeekAndFind

Hear that sound? Walt, spinning in his grave.

Fire all the writers and give it to AI. They couldn’t do any worse.


3 posted on 07/14/2023 7:04:16 PM PDT by rottndog (What comes after America?)
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To: aynrandfreak

The reason, at least in part, is because liberalism removes morality. Without clear morality, you can’t have clear heroes and villains. Without that simple basis of heroes and villains, you cannot create storylines that involves heroes and villains.

That’s the real reason for the dearth of new material in Hollywood, I think.


4 posted on 07/14/2023 7:05:06 PM PDT by Jonty30 (If liberals were truth tellers, they'd call themselves literals. )
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To: SeekAndFind

“Woke” and “dead”.

Goes together like “peas and carrots”


5 posted on 07/14/2023 7:05:47 PM PDT by Jim W N (MAGA by restoring the Gospel of the Grace of Christ (Jude 3) and our Free Constitutional Republic!)
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To: rottndog

Yes. I thought it was bad enough they were pulling live CGI stuff on their PC Disney creations.

Now they’re going live CGI on REAL Walt animation, besides the self-conscious diversity.


6 posted on 07/14/2023 7:06:42 PM PDT by the OlLine Rebel (.Common sense is an uncommon virtue./Federal-run medical care is as good as state-run DMVs)
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To: SeekAndFind

Wokeness forbids creativity. Things that create interest and thematic tension in a story are offensive.

Collectivism can only destroy.


7 posted on 07/14/2023 7:08:34 PM PDT by lurk (u)
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To: rottndog
Hear that sound? Walt, spinning in his grave.

You better stop, Mousesters; Mickey's sound?
Walt would never dig what's goin' down...

8 posted on 07/14/2023 7:11:56 PM PDT by chajin ("There is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12)
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To: SeekAndFind

Mirror mirror on the wall who’s the most miscegenated of them all?…


9 posted on 07/14/2023 7:15:02 PM PDT by EEGator
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To: SeekAndFind

Brownie and The Village People.


10 posted on 07/14/2023 7:21:01 PM PDT by George J. Jetso
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To: SeekAndFind
I heard a rumor that a remake of Gone With the Wind is being considered with black plantation owners and white slaves. (Didn't really hear that, but wouldn't be very surprised if it's true.)
11 posted on 07/14/2023 7:23:47 PM PDT by Will88 ((The only people opposing voter ID are those benefiting from voter fraud.))
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To: SeekAndFind

I’m gonna ask ChatGPT to take the song, “Love and Marriage” and ask it to change the line, “You can’t have one without the other” to something with ‘woke’ and ‘lack of creativity’.

Well, I tried and it said that it could not change the lyrics of the song, but then I asked ChatGPT to write a song with ‘woke’ and ‘lack of creativity’, and it responded with a bunch of suggestions in the rock-and-roll genre. Try it. ;)


12 posted on 07/14/2023 7:25:51 PM PDT by adorno
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To: aynrandfreak

That is correct.


13 posted on 07/14/2023 7:30:50 PM PDT by No name given (Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: Jonty30

Well said.


14 posted on 07/14/2023 7:31:11 PM PDT by No name given (Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: SeekAndFind

Hiring a Latina to play Snowflake is race-swapping? How so?

It is illogic like this that makes our side look ridiculous.

Compare it to pictures of Jesus. Almost certainly Jesus was a dark featured Mediterranean. But most pictures of him make him out to be a fair skinned northern European. missionaries in Africa told me that in Africa most pictures of Jesus show Jesus to be African.

Martin Luther King was right, judge a person by the content of their character...including SnowWhite.

PS My first girl friend and her daughter were extremely blonde, extremely white Latinas. Most “pretty” women on Latina TV are blonde and white.


15 posted on 07/14/2023 7:36:39 PM PDT by spintreebob (ki .h g)
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To: SeekAndFind
EXCLUSIVE: Snow White and the Seven... Politically-Correct Companions? First pictures of new live-action remake of Disney classic shows stand-in princess walking with diverse band of merry men and women after row over using dwarf actors
16 posted on 07/14/2023 7:36:46 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
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To: SeekAndFind
Where are all the wonderful Negro fairy tales? Oh, Disney already told them in Song of the
South
, but they blacklisted their own movie because it depicts happy black folks in the
postbellum South. But we can't have that because it doesn't fit the “narrative”.

Disney blackballed their own movie about African folk tales.

17 posted on 07/14/2023 7:37:55 PM PDT by Governor Dinwiddie (LORD, grant thy people grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil.)
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To: aynrandfreak

Disney is creatively dead BECAUSE it is woke.

“wokeness” and its neo-marxist antecedent are fundamentally deconstructionist, anti-spiritual, materialist. Man is a machine which can be broken down and re-constructed, power is the only motivation, man has no soul.

How can you create anything beautiful that touches the supernatural with such an attitude?

All a marxist can do is tear-apart, and make a frankenstein recreation of what has existed long before.

Which is exactly what they are doing with “Snow White.”


18 posted on 07/14/2023 7:38:38 PM PDT by PGR88
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To: rottndog
Fire all the writers and give it to AI. They couldn’t do any worse.

The AI will be woke because the programmers are woke.

19 posted on 07/14/2023 7:38:41 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
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To: SeekAndFind

What do you do with the Smurfs??


20 posted on 07/14/2023 7:39:54 PM PDT by mfish13 (Elections have Consequences.)
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