this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2023
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Here's a list of tons of leftist movies.
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I don't know how much of it was subtext and how much of it was simply the mapping of certain classic characters (particularly villains) onto historical figures who also happened to be queer. If Divine hadn't been a queer icon, would she have still made a brilliant physical and performative model for an operatic octopus woman? Absolutely. In the same way, they had a jazzy crab person sound iconically Jamaican, not because they were making some veiled comment about the origins of popular music in America but because they were likely listening to a lot of popular music and fixating on these signals when designing the character.
This has much more to do with queer people and poc being at the forefront of American culture than Disney subtly insinuating LGBTQ themes into their media. It is an impression left on the Disney creative staff, not an impression they intended to make on others.
The original formula for the Disney franchise was to reimagine these short, pithy morality tales familiar to the Boomers as feature-length musicals. The writing wasn't particularly inspired. The art wasn't particularly original. But the time and labor invested in these projects was substantial, and that produced a piece of media that was far more polished and engaging than the more-cheaply and quickly churned out media of their rivals.
I’m gonna have to disagree here. The stories themselves were not original obviously, but old school Disney genuinely did innovate and pioneer new techniques for filming animated cells that when paired with the distinct Disney style of art and animation did make a unique and honestly pretty beautiful style. Most people would be able to pick it out of a lineup no question. Fantasia to this day is an impressive collection of animated shorts put to classical music where artists had an opportunity to interpret the music as they saw fit. Modern Disney is garbage, but old Disney is worth watching with a critical view as there are still tons of brain worms in them.
Fair enough. Although, I'm more thinking of the character modeling and background art, which tends toward basic when compared to the old Rankin/Bass cinematic style, Miyazaki films, Lucas/Spielberg, or even Hanna Barbara. The fluid animation technique is notable, but the underlying artwork tends to be much simpler and more geometric.
Idk. You could say a lot of the same things about how Disney has deployed CGI and other digital editing techniques. Moana and Frozen were both visually gripping. But its clear why the acquired Pixar. They really like their nude, smooth models. Very minimalist.
Good points all around especially
This is exactly what I mean when I say modern Disney is garbage. It pains me to see POC representation only at the point when it’s pretty clear Disney have absolutely checked out of doing any good work anymore. Moana was decent enough I think, but I didn’t like either Frozen very much. I think it’s more of a personal taste thing rather than those movies being worse than any other cgi Disney movie.
If anything, including POC representation is the only thing that's keeping the franchise alive, as it forces them to source art and culture from beyond the six Bavarian townships responsible for 90% of their content before The Lion King. Encanto was another really sold film, in no small part because of how heavily they cribbed from culture outside the Western European mainstream.
Frozen felt very "D&D nerds take over the studio", with lots of story beats and visual elements that just looked like it came out of a TTRPG. I liked it in large part because it subverted a bunch of the traditional Disney tropes. The conflict was between protagonists, with the villain having a very secondary role. There was lots of drama built around simply surviving the elements, rather than punching monsters. And the conclusion was that classic "Waking the Princess with a Kiss" trope wholly inverted into sibling affection, which really warmed my heart.
Onward got me for similar reasons. A bunch of classic Disney elements subverted into a very sweet story.
But Disney isn't doing anything particularly daring. Plenty of studios have been making movies like this for as long as I've been alive.
Character modeling yeah. But watch Pinocchio it's beautiful.
Damn this post is FIRE
articulated something I was only nebulously aware of and couldn't quite put my finger on