When Disney gives you nothing to root for, sometimes your time is better spent elsewhere.
With the upcoming Snow White reboot that nobody wanted or asked for approaching, the time has come to address Hollywood’s problems with self insertion and selfishness.
Remakes Of Classic Films Like “The Little Mermaid” Have Proven To Be Divisive For Disney Fans.
The times have changed. Along with that, so have our principles and values. We are faced with nihilistic landscape set by creatively bankrupt storytellers. The storytellers, if we can even call them that anymore, no longer create anything. They take beloved Intellectual properties that have endured love and adulation through multiple generations, and turn them upside down to meet selfish needs for personal gratification.
Most movies today, which are advertised as being reimagined for “modern audiences” have no real morals, message, or gratifying ending for the viewer and whether it is intended, or inadvertent, this sends viewers the message that life is better off being spent on your own with nobody to love and nobody to love you. It is a trend that is poisoning the well of hope and optimism that children should be brimming with.
It’s All About Me
The Little Mermaid opened up earlier this year. In the many interviews it was made clear that while the original film and for that matter, story from 1837 focuses on Ariel’s desire to find love with A Prince that she has become enamored with. Now the story has to be more progressive than that. This is the year of our Lord 2023, children. Ariel can’t go on these meaningless adventures searching for love. The story can’t be about what is good for anybody else except for Ariel.
The Reimagined Little Mermaid (Foreign Advertisement) Focuses Less On Ariel’s Quest For True Love And More About Her Just Getting What She Wants.
The story is now focused on and only about HER needs, HER wants, HER desires. Prince Eric is just along for the ride.
Snow White And The Seven Disney… I Give Up
Then we have the aforementioned Snow White reboot. In a red carpet Interview, stars Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot were emphatic in telling us that “It is not 1937 anymore… She doesn’t get saved by the Prince.” Again, we have a movie with a subversively selfish character going at it alone and striving to be a hero. That plot point is missing from print versions of Snow White And The Seven Dwarves, but I’m sure “modern audiences” will love it!
I sense a pattern forming here.
Compounding the issues that moviegoers have with Snow White is the decision to appease to Peter Dinklage and omit six of the seven dwarves from the story. Dinklage took exception to the casting of little people as dwarves and Disney obliged him.
Peter Dinklage Objected To The Casting Of Little People In The Snow White Remake. As A Result, We have This Troupe To Replace Them.
Disney has had its fair share of controversial characters, but the dwarves are not among them. The Dwarves in the 1937 film are hard working, loyal, noble men who accept Snow White and fight tooth and nail to protect her. They weren’t “…Seven dwarves living in a cave together…” as Dinklage put it. Dinklage clearly knows nothing of the movie, or the story that it is based upon.
He has also outed himself as a hypocrite. This is a man who had no problem being called “an angry elf” by Will Ferell, or being referred to as “The Half-Man” in Game Of Thrones. It was fine for him to play these roles because he was the one being paid for them.
Such roles are now an affront to Dinklage. It’s apparently problematic to cast little people as dwarves. Actors in the Little People Community are upset at the fact that they’ve been denied a chance to work on this project. Professional wrestler Hornswoggle has been particularly vocal about the matter.
Peter Dinklage used his image to build a fantastic career for himself and then swiftly pulled the ladder up behind him.
The Criminal Treatment Of Wendy Darling By Disney
The most egregious update for “modern audiences” is Peter Pan And Wendy which misses the point of the original story so badly, you would think it was written by a drunken Storm Trooper. In this version, girls can be Lost Boys too! This actually defies J.M. Barrie’s progressive take of the time, in which the story explains that “Girls are far too clever to fall out of their prams.” The message was that boys are less smart and more impulsive than girls and are more liable to be “lost”. The filmmakers inadvertently dumbed down females for the sake of progressivism.
Worse than that is the filmmaker’s interpretation of Wendy Darling. In the original story and most screen and stage interpretations, Wendy is a young girl making the awkward transition into adulthood and learning along that journey the values of being a matriarch and the importance of being a positive motherly figure.
The 2023 Version Of Wendy Darling Is A Nasty, Petulant, Unlikeable Character.
The “Modern Audience” version has a character that is obnoxiously petulant. She is needlessly defiant and set out to rebel against her oppressive parents who want her to… Get a good education and become a valued member of society? The writer of the movie is so self-involved that they fail to even realize that Wendy is rebelling against is the life that today’s woman is fighting for. The way JM Barrie wrote it, Wendy leaves Neverland. She grows into adulthood, marries, and enjoys her older years with her grandchildren.
2023 Wendy takes a different path. She grows into adulthood alone. She goes on a series of thrilling adventures alone. She settles down alone. She dies alone. Why are the writers so hellbent on jading these beloved characters and sentencing them to a lifetime of loneliness? Making independence synonymous with being alone is bad storytelling.
The Disney Tragic Backstories Are Equally Bad
Sometimes, a villain is just a villain. Maleficent was an evil witch who wanted to kill an innocent child, Cruella DeVil wanted to skin puppies and make fur coats out of them and Captain Hook was a pirate who wanted Peter Pan dead. Classic storytelling is always based upon the constant struggle between good and evil. We don’t need reasons to sympathize for villains, it adds nothing of value to the lore.
Do We Really Need To Find Sympathy For A Lady Who Wanted To Convert Puppies Into Fur Coats?
These back stories take away from Disney’s lore. By having dalmatians be responsible for the death of Cruella’s mother, King Stephan clip Maleficent’s wings and Peter Pan punish Captain Hook for leaving Neverland by cutting his hand off, the writers make the viewers do unnecessary mental gymnastics. Protagonists become antagonists and vice versa. Eventually everyone just stops caring.
Sometimes you just need to leave well enough alone.
Final Takeaway
Whether “Modern Audiences” agree or not, these trends don’t lead to a thriving box office. Teaching men that chivalry is worthless and women that they don’t need to find love to be happy breeds cynicism. Cynicism does contribute to a company’s bottom line.
Heroes are meant to be revered, and villains are meant to be reviled. Humans are naturally blessed with the desire to love and to be loved.
This is an era of cinema where moviegoers are disenfranchised. People are tired of the selfish narratives and the self inserts. The modern idea of storytelling tells the audience that they’re better off alone, smarter than everybody else, and not wanting for anything offered to them. Eventually we will all get the idea that they know more than the storyteller does. They will then see no need for anything that the movies have to offer.
Disney and for that matter Hollywood better wake up and fix this problem as soon as possible. Because as history tells us time and time again, The Romans didn’t realize their Empire was falling apart until it was far too late to do anything about it.
Thank You For Reading. When I am not writing, I enjoy spending time with my wife Barbara, my three year old daughter Frances, and my loyal hound Marbles.
For more fresh content and honest takes, please follow us on Twitter and our new YouTube channel. Stay Geeky Everybody!
