Could you go over the woke thing in more detail? I thought it was a positive change based on the fandom.
For example, Turning Red. It seems to have a message of… never listen to your parents? Rebel against authority? I’m not sure exactly. It’s a weird movie.
Which is interesting because Moana is, as an adult, possibly one of my favorite movies of all time. The messaging of the heroes journey, venerating your ancestors, but being able to look toward the future and find a new way that sometimes faces resistance is a perfect tale. Then there’s also the subtext of Maui and Tefiti being the archetypal divorced couple, with Maui stealing her heart which causes severe emotional trauma until she is healed by Moana, the archetypal child mending the family.
Frozen is a weird one, I could write a book about it.
Princess and the Frog is great.
It’s so weird! I never know if a mainline Disney movie is going to be good or terrible. I don’t really know what’s going on over at Disney right now.
Turning Red isn’t about rebelling. It’s about finding out who you are. In the film she only really rebels against her mom about one thing, which is the same number of times Moana defies her dad. The rest of the movie is about her desire to venerate her ancestors while still being true to herself. In many ways it’s similar to Moana.
I’m unsure how any of these are “woke” so much as messages you disagree with. Which is fine, but I would encourage reflecting on it further.
Disney has had tons of rebellious characters over the decades. Ariel is rebellious. Simba is rebellious. Belle is rebellious. Mulan is rebellious. Lilo is rebellious. Aladdin is rebellious. Tony Stark is rebellious. Peter Parker is rebellious.
Interesting characters tend to be rebellious. Luke is literally a rebel who doesn’t listen to his father after all.
The group it didn’t appeal to has immense political power in Florida and this threatened Disney’s control of the RCID, which Disney really needs to control…there was a lot of speculation about how this was a loser for Florida, but it wasn’t. It’s a loser for Disney because they need to maintain a specific standard both for grounds and roads, but also control for future development needs. Especially with the parks busting at the seams.
I am willing to bet in the next two years there is some political repair happening between Iger and Florida.