GRcade

Preezy wrote:Dat Jasmine though

I'd get all up in her cave of wonders

Errkal wrote:Im not sure I would approve of a pudgy princess, I mean we need to teach people not to take the piss out of larger folk and that, but there is a fine line between ensuring people are taking the piss / abusing larger folk and "making it ok" i that if you are porking up you should go "ahh well I'll be a fatty then" and not try and prevent it.

There was quite a lot of outrage about Maui being too fat when the movie came out. People would lose their strawberry floating minds if the female character was portrayed as overweight.

Did people object to Russell in Up?

Karl wrote:

OrangeRakoon wrote:Health concerns are valid

You shouldn't couch your argument in platitudes like this. Worrying that seeing an overweight Disney princess will turn your kid fat is at best stupid, not "valid".

But

Karl wrote:Although it's sometimes something they say, I don't think they are seriously afraid that a movie will "turn my kid fat" or "turn my kid gay".

So people do think this and are stupid, but they also don't seriously think this. Make your mind up.

Maybe we could have a shape-shifting princess who transforms into a person of every age, religion, race, social class, sexual orientation, culture, sex, dialect, level of physical and mental 'ableness', ethnicity, language, nationality and gender identity - that way everyone will be happy.

The Princess actually wants to be addressed as a Prince and the kingdom has to accept it

Errkal wrote:

Preezy wrote:Dat Jasmine though

I'd get all up in her cave of wonders

You guys do realise that by all accounts Jasmine is supposed to be like 15 or something right?

I’d be more than happy for Disney to mix it up some more with a gay relationship or character being a feature of their next movie. If nothing else it would be interesting to see if we’ve crossed the threshold into a world where doing so actually has a positive effect on the movies reception and performance (both critically and commercially) rather than causing loads of people to either hate on it or just straight up not watch it.

Preezy wrote:

Karl wrote:

OrangeRakoon wrote:Health concerns are valid

You shouldn't couch your argument in platitudes like this. Worrying that seeing an overweight Disney princess will turn your kid fat is at best stupid, not "valid".

But

Karl wrote:Although it's sometimes something they say, I don't think they are seriously afraid that a movie will "turn my kid fat" or "turn my kid gay".

So people do think this and are stupid, but they also don't seriously think this. Make your mind up.

If you give them the benefit of the doubt then it's profoundly stupid; if you don't then it's deeply internalised bigotry. I'm inclined to believe the latter, but I was responding to OR who predicated his response on the former. Either way it's an ignorant point of view.

OrangeRakoon wrote:Did people object to Russell in Up?

Everyone was probably still sobbing after the opening to notice

Lotus wrote:Maybe we could have a shape-shifting princess who transforms into a person of every age, religion, race, social class, sexual orientation, culture, sex, dialect, level of physical and mental 'ableness', ethnicity, language, nationality and gender identity - that way everyone will be happy.

The point isn't to check off boxes for the sake of checking off boxes. Kids pick up a lot from movies, they both take role models from them and take their ideas about different kinds of people from them. If a movie's hero happens to be gay then it gives young gay people a cool character to look up to, and it makes being gay seem more normal to other kids who see the film. That's what "representation" is, but you're talking about it like it's something the liberal illuminati made up to annoy you.

Dual wrote:The Princess actually wants to be addressed as a Prince and the kingdom has to accept it

A Disney prince who is a trans man could be pretty cool. Thanks for sharing.

Lotus wrote:Maybe we could have a shape-shifting princess who transforms into a person of every age, religion, race, social class, sexual orientation, culture, sex, dialect, level of physical and mental 'ableness', ethnicity, language, nationality and gender identity - that way everyone will be happy.

The problem though, is that when you try and satisfy every minority, you end up with something resembling the south park christmas play.

Vermilion wrote:

Lotus wrote:Maybe we could have a shape-shifting princess who transforms into a person of every age, religion, race, social class, sexual orientation, culture, sex, dialect, level of physical and mental 'ableness', ethnicity, language, nationality and gender identity - that way everyone will be happy.

The problem though, is that when you try and satisfy every minority, you end up with something resembling the south park christmas play.

"And now we have a bloody WOMAN as Doctor Who. It'll be a BLACK James Bond next. The world has gone crazy, where are the roles for the straight WHITE MEN?"

Representation isn't about giving token appearance to every minority you can think of in a single film, it's about how visible those minorities are in the wider environment and films in general. A Disney film isn't problematic for not having the main character belong to x minority, but the collection of all Disney films is probably problematic if they never give any representation to that minority.

Plenty of people can word that better than me but hopefully that gets across the idea, where arguments like "where does it stop" and "you can't satisfy everyone" I think miss the point. There's nothing wrong with a straight white thin main character. The problem comes when that's /every/ main character.

Vermilion wrote:

Lotus wrote:Maybe we could have a shape-shifting princess who transforms into a person of every age, religion, race, social class, sexual orientation, culture, sex, dialect, level of physical and mental 'ableness', ethnicity, language, nationality and gender identity - that way everyone will be happy.

The problem though, is that when you try and satisfy every minority, you end up with something resembling the south park christmas play.

you say that like its a bad thing. once that became normal then people would stop whinging about it.

OrangeRakoon wrote:Representation isn't about giving token appearance to every minority you can think of in a single film, it's about how visible those minorities are in the wider environment and films in general. A Disney film isn't problematic for not having the main character belong to x minority, but the collection of all Disney films is probably problematic if they never give any representation to that minority.

Plenty of people can word that better than me but hopefully that gets across the idea, where arguments like "where does it stop" and "you can't satisfy everyone" I think miss the point. There's nothing wrong with a straight white thin main character. The problem comes when that's /every/ main character.

Exactly.

It is easy when you are part of the majority or part of the privileged to think “there’s nothing wrong with it”, but representation is important to people. Look at how black kids responded to Black Panther, finally they had a big screen superhero that looked like them.

The same goes for girls, gay people, disabled people etc. Seeing somebody on screen that looks like or acts like you is a big deal. For example, there is no shortage of straight white men in movies/on TV, but I always find it exciting if something is filmed or set in Bristol. It’s amazing to see people acting in locations that I recognise. I can only imagine just how much more exciting it must have been for black people to see Black Panther after decades of movie superheros being white.

It shouldn’t be shoehorned in, or made to be really obvious just for the sake of it. But it’s easy enough just to make an animated character look Asian, or to matter of factly show a love interest as being the same sex.

i think i mentioned this at the time but i work with loads of kids who are black and mixed race and the excitement and pride that was on show for the week or so when Black Panther was released was incredible - i dont think we (white men) realise how lucky we are sometimes

Moggy wrote:For example, there is no shortage of straight white men in movies/on TV, but I always find it exciting if something is filmed or set in Bristol. It’s amazing to see people acting in locations that I recognise. I can only imagine just how much more exciting it must have been for black people to see Black Panther after decades of movie superheros being white.

That's actually a really great analogy, considering that I also think it's cool if I see something set or filmed in Coventry It gives me (as a privileged in most ways person) a way of empathising or better understanding how much people's identity being represented can mean. Now I can actually say "oh it's like this but more" rather than just having an abstract or rational understanding of it.

My town is only ever mentioned in the public sphere when someone gets murdered or arrested for murder

Karl wrote:

Lotus wrote:Maybe we could have a shape-shifting princess who transforms into a person of every age, religion, race, social class, sexual orientation, culture, sex, dialect, level of physical and mental 'ableness', ethnicity, language, nationality and gender identity - that way everyone will be happy.

The point isn't to check off boxes for the sake of checking off boxes. Kids pick up a lot from movies, they both take role models from them and take their ideas about different kinds of people from them. If a movie's hero happens to be gay then it gives young gay people a cool character to look up to, and it makes being gay seem more normal to other kids who see the film. That's what "representation" is, but you're talking about it like it's something the liberal illuminati made up to annoy you.

Don't worry Karl, I was being flippant. I honestly don't care about Disney princesses.

Lotus wrote:

Karl wrote:

Lotus wrote:Maybe we could have a shape-shifting princess who transforms into a person of every age, religion, race, social class, sexual orientation, culture, sex, dialect, level of physical and mental 'ableness', ethnicity, language, nationality and gender identity - that way everyone will be happy.

The point isn't to check off boxes for the sake of checking off boxes. Kids pick up a lot from movies, they both take role models from them and take their ideas about different kinds of people from them. If a movie's hero happens to be gay then it gives young gay people a cool character to look up to, and it makes being gay seem more normal to other kids who see the film. That's what "representation" is, but you're talking about it like it's something the liberal illuminati made up to annoy you.

Don't worry Karl, I was being flippant. I honestly don't care about Disney princesses.

Well, excuse me princess!