3 ms·

I haven’t watched a new Disney movie in the last 10 years. What have they been preaching?

zulban 3y ago
Lots of internet commentary on this already, but in my personal experience there are many BIPOC or LGBT or female characters that are undeveloped and lacking any tragic flaws.
- fakedang 3y ago
  Not to mention the tortuously shit dialogue: "Black girl magic!"
- dragontamer 3y ago
  > female characters that are undeveloped and lacking any tragic flaws You mean like Hunger Games or Twilight? Or the male equivalent of Capt. America? (Or Harry Potter?) Steve Rogers is just your ordinary everyman who's underdeveloped and lacking in any tragic flaws. I mean... at this point, even Hulk is missing out on his classic flaw of rage. *All* the Marvel characters have braindead writing these days, female or male. But plenty of the "good" ones (ie: Capt. America) were always like this from the start, its a trope in comic books for a reason because it keeps working. (Superman, Shazam, Capt. Marvel, Capt. America). For some stories, you don't need a flawed lead character, they could just "be good" and you can focus on other elements of storytelling. But that's the kind of main character tons of people love and gobble up. Both male, and female, versions of it. --------- But hey, I like my "Superman" stories. (My Adventures with Superman cartoon this year was excellent). Or perhaps for a more well-regarded character: Ang from "Avatar the Last Airbender" is pretty much your typical every-man / heroic type without any tragic flaw. (Etc. etc. Lots of good examples around all of writing. Indeed, Oedipus Rex is arguably one of the earliest "Lack of Flaws" character to maximize the chance that the audience take's Oedipus's side in his struggles). Mary Sue / boring good guys / Superman types / Lawful-Good Paladins who just try to make everyone feel better can be done well. It just takes good writing to make them captivating. I personally think they're the hardest character to make work, but when its done well I enjoy the trope (especially because I recognize how hard it is to write).
  - spoiler 3y ago
    I feel like some of the examples you list are a poor choice to illustrate your point. Both Harry Potter (books so more than films, but in the films too) and Aang have plenty of flaws, and there's arcs and events that help them grow/develop. It's been a while, but Katniss does have plenty of flaws and growth (and even some things she never overcomes about her self). Although, it's been a few years since I've read Hunger Games, I feel like she doesn't belong in the same category as Bella (which feels like a placeholder character intentionally). Tris from Divergent might be a good example though, but even there there's some growth. Regarding some of the super heroes: they're all kinda "super" and very mary-sue-ish, I agree. But they still face challenges and difficulties they need to overcome, or the stories they're part of (rather than the character themselves) are otherwise interesting. Most of the modern "strong female leads" are just boring (and this comes from a gay boy who LOVES strong women, my favourite characters are women: Sydney Bristol, almost every one from ATLA & Korra, Willow & Buffy, Halliwell sisters, Xena, Lara Croft, Jade from BG&E, women from Harry Potter, Aya from Parasite Eve games, an uncountable plethora of amazing female characters in Anime and manga, and I could go on and on and on, it's not like it can't be done, or hasn't been done, it has been done MANY times). The only challenge these modern Disney SFLs face is not believing in themselves (and as someone who struggles on and off with self esteem issues, I realise how difficult those can be, but also it's not "enough" to base a whole character around just that), usually with a sprinkle of "blame the patriarchy" in there too. All this misandry and trying to portray any masculinity as toxic is just lame. It's very similar to Disney's queer coding of villains. I remember in my teens, while being a sexually confused and closed queer how sensitive I was to that bullshit and how awful and ashamed it made me feel. It's ludicrous how it's being done again, just the aggressor and targeted demographics are different now. I can't tell if that's just Disney's Modus Operandi, or of this is some type of bitter revenge writing. It sucked then and it sucks now, and it will continue to suck. We need to do better. People mentioned elsewhere in threads that people complain about too many POCs. I've not seen much of this (maybe a few low quality posts online, but that's just racist drivel of a few small minced idiots, and rarely anyone cares about it). What people dislike is their liked characters' identities getting twisted to fit "modern audiences" (often it's MORE than just race). And the irony is, not even this mythological modern audience likes it because it usually ends up being a shallow self insert, so then down the line the audience gets blamed and called names). There's plenty of original PoC characters that are loved (of Disney: Mulan, Pocahontas, Aladdin/Jasmine, Moana, Lilo, Encanto cast). The whole "well why does it matter" argument is also a bit of a bad faith bait. If it didn't matter, why so bullishly insist on changing it?

Lots of internet commentary on this already, but in my personal experience there are many BIPOC or LGBT or female characters that are undeveloped and lacking any tragic flaws.

fakedang 3y ago
Not to mention the tortuously shit dialogue: "Black girl magic!"
dragontamer 3y ago
> female characters that are undeveloped and lacking any tragic flaws You mean like Hunger Games or Twilight? Or the male equivalent of Capt. America? (Or Harry Potter?) Steve Rogers is just your ordinary everyman who's underdeveloped and lacking in any tragic flaws. I mean... at this point, even Hulk is missing out on his classic flaw of rage. *All* the Marvel characters have braindead writing these days, female or male. But plenty of the "good" ones (ie: Capt. America) were always like this from the start, its a trope in comic books for a reason because it keeps working. (Superman, Shazam, Capt. Marvel, Capt. America). For some stories, you don't need a flawed lead character, they could just "be good" and you can focus on other elements of storytelling. But that's the kind of main character tons of people love and gobble up. Both male, and female, versions of it. --------- But hey, I like my "Superman" stories. (My Adventures with Superman cartoon this year was excellent). Or perhaps for a more well-regarded character: Ang from "Avatar the Last Airbender" is pretty much your typical every-man / heroic type without any tragic flaw. (Etc. etc. Lots of good examples around all of writing. Indeed, Oedipus Rex is arguably one of the earliest "Lack of Flaws" character to maximize the chance that the audience take's Oedipus's side in his struggles). Mary Sue / boring good guys / Superman types / Lawful-Good Paladins who just try to make everyone feel better can be done well. It just takes good writing to make them captivating. I personally think they're the hardest character to make work, but when its done well I enjoy the trope (especially because I recognize how hard it is to write).
- spoiler 3y ago
  I feel like some of the examples you list are a poor choice to illustrate your point. Both Harry Potter (books so more than films, but in the films too) and Aang have plenty of flaws, and there's arcs and events that help them grow/develop. It's been a while, but Katniss does have plenty of flaws and growth (and even some things she never overcomes about her self). Although, it's been a few years since I've read Hunger Games, I feel like she doesn't belong in the same category as Bella (which feels like a placeholder character intentionally). Tris from Divergent might be a good example though, but even there there's some growth. Regarding some of the super heroes: they're all kinda "super" and very mary-sue-ish, I agree. But they still face challenges and difficulties they need to overcome, or the stories they're part of (rather than the character themselves) are otherwise interesting. Most of the modern "strong female leads" are just boring (and this comes from a gay boy who LOVES strong women, my favourite characters are women: Sydney Bristol, almost every one from ATLA & Korra, Willow & Buffy, Halliwell sisters, Xena, Lara Croft, Jade from BG&E, women from Harry Potter, Aya from Parasite Eve games, an uncountable plethora of amazing female characters in Anime and manga, and I could go on and on and on, it's not like it can't be done, or hasn't been done, it has been done MANY times). The only challenge these modern Disney SFLs face is not believing in themselves (and as someone who struggles on and off with self esteem issues, I realise how difficult those can be, but also it's not "enough" to base a whole character around just that), usually with a sprinkle of "blame the patriarchy" in there too. All this misandry and trying to portray any masculinity as toxic is just lame. It's very similar to Disney's queer coding of villains. I remember in my teens, while being a sexually confused and closed queer how sensitive I was to that bullshit and how awful and ashamed it made me feel. It's ludicrous how it's being done again, just the aggressor and targeted demographics are different now. I can't tell if that's just Disney's Modus Operandi, or of this is some type of bitter revenge writing. It sucked then and it sucks now, and it will continue to suck. We need to do better. People mentioned elsewhere in threads that people complain about too many POCs. I've not seen much of this (maybe a few low quality posts online, but that's just racist drivel of a few small minced idiots, and rarely anyone cares about it). What people dislike is their liked characters' identities getting twisted to fit "modern audiences" (often it's MORE than just race). And the irony is, not even this mythological modern audience likes it because it usually ends up being a shallow self insert, so then down the line the audience gets blamed and called names). There's plenty of original PoC characters that are loved (of Disney: Mulan, Pocahontas, Aladdin/Jasmine, Moana, Lilo, Encanto cast). The whole "well why does it matter" argument is also a bit of a bad faith bait. If it didn't matter, why so bullishly insist on changing it?