Are female superhero movies unpopular because…

[JECE]

For example, compare this

If Doom wanted to expand on that point she could have, and it may have made for a more constructive conversation.

to the conversation in question:

I mean for fucks sake we have actually lowered the rates of sexual crime. I get that requires using science and data, which is a very feminine concept which is why you're unfamiliar with it, but we can actually lower occasions. Also, and this is really obvious if you look at the data- most sexual assault happens between people who know each other. You're more likely to be assaulted by a family member then a stranger. Something you would know if you adopted that most feminine of traits- looking at statistics. . . . 1/3 of all rapists are spouses. But I'll be sure to warn all the other girls to take sensible precautions and not get drunk or wander off alone with their husbands.

Doom427 did expand on the point that evidence-based strategies to limit violence against women exist. Did you just not remember or did you ignore the point in the first place? For all your talk of Doom427's 'ideological dogma', you're the one who is ignoring poignant criticism of your perspective on violence against women.

[Octavious]

Saying something exists isn't expanding the point. If she wanted to expand the point she could have said who has lowered lowered the rate of crime and by how much, and what strategies they took that might have contributed to this. How it compares with the rates in similar countries that didn't adopt these strategies so we could get a decent idea of how effective they were. A discussion on the lessons learned following the strategies, unintended consequences and the like. Maybe even a link to a few reports on what the statistics actually are and some commentary on their reliability in an area where getting accurate data is notoriously difficult. These would all be perfectly valid ways of expanding the point.

What Doom did, by contrast, was simply state that data exists that proves she's right before spewing forth a load of sexist dribble. Still, brownie points for trying

[Doom427]

Saying something exists isn't expanding the point. If she wanted to expand the point she could have said who has lowered lowered the rate of crime and by how much, and what strategies they took that might have contributed to this. How it compares with the rates in similar countries that didn't adopt these strategies so we could get a decent idea of how effective they were. A discussion on the lessons learned following the strategies, unintended consequences and the like. Maybe even a link to a few reports on what the statistics actually are and some commentary on their reliability in an area where getting accurate data is notoriously difficult. These would all be perfectly valid ways of expanding the point.

What Doom did, by contrast, was simply state that data exists that proves she's right before spewing forth a load of sexist dribble. Still, brownie points for trying

https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=You%27re ... e+fuck+out

https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=Sexual+a ... rpetrators

And, if somehow, I have not held your dick far enough for you to spend any effort on understanding this-

https://www.rainn.org/statistics/scope-problem

https://www.cdc.gov/injury/features/sex ... index.html

Anyway Octavious- I'm pretty much done in this thread. Congrats- I guess that means you win diplomacy? Much like how posting Goatse to every press channel at the start of the game would make me win Diplomacy. Maybe if you put any effort into this I would bother, but it's really not worth it? Like If you really wanted to you could find some organization online that has a really fancy professional website that says "Rape- it's the women's fault, right?" but you're just too lazy to even do that.

Sitting on your ass, responding to stats by ignoring them, and then demanding your opponent bring facts and logic while you use exclusively your knee jerk responses. It's a nice life. Sadly I respect myself too much to follow your example.

[Octavious]

I have made no demands of you at all, Doom. I have criticised your enthusiasm for sexism, expressed a few of my views, and mentioned to JECE (as he seems extremely interested for some reason) what sort of arguments would stand a higher chance of changing my mind. Whether or not you wish to try doing so is entirely up to you and I'd certainly demand no such thing. My preference, for some time, was to move away from the topic as you clearly have no interest in other points of view and have listened to exactly nothing I have said before now. Which is, of course, entirely within your rights. What we can agree on is that you do indeed appear to have a great deal of respect for yourself, which in many ways is admirable and is probably rather useful in the game.

[Chaqa]

I didn't realize the old forum had come back.

[Doom427]

My preference, for some time, was to move away from the topic

I said I liked the res evil movies and your response was "Yeah, women suck and can't shoot the guns though".

[Octavious]

My preference, for some time, was to move away from the topic

I said I liked the res evil movies and your response was "Yeah, women suck and can't shoot the guns though".

Wow... You genuinely can't read something without reimagining it as having some fantasy meaning that fits your ideology. What a depressing world you have created for yourself. You have my sympathy

[Doom427]

I'm sorry Octavious, did I make a mistake and I'm actually talking to a five year old? cause I think anyone above the age of five would have the self-awareness to understand this.

Anyway, if that's the case, I'm sorry for being so rude to you, and you have some very impressive vocabulary for a child of your age. Though maybe do a bit less Andrew Tate videos with your phone- you might end up being a bit of an asshole if you keep this going.

[Fluminator]

This was a blast from the past to 2016 internet era conversations.

I will say that my view on the OP subject has changed since it was first posted.

I follow movie reviewers on youtube (because I never really watch movies and this is a more efficient way to still be connected to culture) and there is a big faction of anti-woke movie reviewers. I gave them the benefit of the doubt that the reason they were hypercritical of movies with minority leads was just because it made for interesting essays or whatnot. But the backlash so many of them had regarding the black mermaid in the trailer last month kind of shattered that.

If you have a problem with a fictional mermaid being black, you have serious problems. The movie might be terrible (I doubt it's marketed towards middle-aged white men), but just off the reaction to the trailor... i dunno man. I lost a bit of faith in humanity after that.

So tbh, yeah, I think men hating women superheroes might play a role in it.

[kestasjk]

If you have a problem with a fictional mermaid being black, you have serious problems. The movie might be terrible (I doubt it's marketed towards middle-aged white men), but just off the reaction to the trailor... i dunno man. I lost a bit of faith in humanity after that.

I think these live-action remakes are lazy cash-grabs so I'm not going to see it and don't care about the lore of a children's animated movie.. but I think you can have a problem with this for defensible reasons:

Here's my take: What we're doing right now is exactly what Disney wanted when they made the conscious, calculated, cynical decision to cast someone of a different race as a cheap marketing stunt.

They are making a shot-for-shot recreation of the cartoon, not a remake or adaptation, but a like-for-like/shot-for-shot cartoon to live remake, same songs, same shots, same dialog, same red hair. (If I'm wrong about this let me know, that's how it looked from the trailer and it's fundamental to my point)

Because everything else is exactly the same except the skin color of the main character Disney knew it would draw attention; some people wouldn't like it and overreact, others would then defend it as being forward thinking and progressive and color-blind, and their lazy reheated live-animation remake that no-one would ever give a second thought would get free marketing and attention that it would never get otherwise.
People would consider going to see it as being a token of support for a cause, and the movie would be a sort of statement (like the female Ghostbusters remake, or the Black Panther black superhero thing which was somehow made into a landmark achievement for civil rights).

That doesn't feel good to me, it's a trend that I don't like.. It's not about making a good movie or about race, it's about selling tickets to an otherwise completely mediocre and unremarkable movie by dividing people and doing a cheap stunt. I think it puts the actor who was cast in an awkward position where I think she was cast for her skin color.


Again this isn't something that actually annoys me, I'm not losing sleep over this nonsense, but I do think by painting it as progressive people who support Disney's decision vs racist people who hate to see black people plays right into Disney's marketing strategy.
To me it would be like making a remake of Cinderella but Cinderella has downs syndrome, or is an amputee, or is transgender, or some other silly gimmick. It's not about making a good movie, and it feels like it cheapens the actual conversation by using it to sell movie tickets.

I know that's an easy POV to attack as hating black people or something, but really I just think it's a bit cringe and it's not something we should reward or play into.

Edit: (And bear in mind I'm partly just stirring the pot a bit and siding with an unpopular POV because it often makes for interesting discussion)

[Jamiet99uk]

I didn't realize the old forum had come back.

It's still there:

https://webdiplomacy.net/forum.php?view ... 48#1539548

[JECE]

If you have a problem with a fictional mermaid being black, you have serious problems. The movie might be terrible (I doubt it's marketed towards middle-aged white men), but just off the reaction to the trailor... i dunno man. I lost a bit of faith in humanity after that.

I think these live-action remakes are lazy cash-grabs so I'm not going to see it and don't care about the lore of a children's animated movie.. but I think you can have a problem with this for defensible reasons:

Here's my take: What we're doing right now is exactly what Disney wanted when they made the conscious, calculated, cynical decision to cast someone of a different race as a cheap marketing stunt.

They are making a shot-for-shot recreation of the cartoon, not a remake or adaptation, but a like-for-like/shot-for-shot cartoon to live remake, same songs, same shots, same dialog, same red hair. (If I'm wrong about this let me know, that's how it looked from the trailer and it's fundamental to my point)

Because everything else is exactly the same except the skin color of the main character Disney knew it would draw attention; some people wouldn't like it and overreact, others would then defend it as being forward thinking and progressive and color-blind, and their lazy reheated live-animation remake that no-one would ever give a second thought would get free marketing and attention that it would never get otherwise.
People would consider going to see it as being a token of support for a cause, and the movie would be a sort of statement (like the female Ghostbusters remake, or the Black Panther black superhero thing which was somehow made into a landmark achievement for civil rights).

That doesn't feel good to me, it's a trend that I don't like.. It's not about making a good movie or about race, it's about selling tickets to an otherwise completely mediocre and unremarkable movie by dividing people and doing a cheap stunt. I think it puts the actor who was cast in an awkward position where I think she was cast for her skin color.


Again this isn't something that actually annoys me, I'm not losing sleep over this nonsense, but I do think by painting it as progressive people who support Disney's decision vs racist people who hate to see black people plays right into Disney's marketing strategy.
To me it would be like making a remake of Cinderella but Cinderella has downs syndrome, or is an amputee, or is transgender, or some other silly gimmick. It's not about making a good movie, and it feels like it cheapens the actual conversation by using it to sell movie tickets.

I know that's an easy POV to attack as hating black people or something, but really I just think it's a bit cringe and it's not something we should reward or play into.

Edit: (And bear in mind I'm partly just stirring the pot a bit and siding with an unpopular POV because it often makes for interesting discussion)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Q5uhh5cmwlI

[JECE]

If you have a problem with a fictional mermaid being black, you have serious problems. The movie might be terrible (I doubt it's marketed towards middle-aged white men), but just off the reaction to the trailor... i dunno man. I lost a bit of faith in humanity after that.

I think these live-action remakes are lazy cash-grabs so I'm not going to see it and don't care about the lore of a children's animated movie.. but I think you can have a problem with this for defensible reasons:

Here's my take: What we're doing right now is exactly what Disney wanted when they made the conscious, calculated, cynical decision to cast someone of a different race as a cheap marketing stunt.

They are making a shot-for-shot recreation of the cartoon, not a remake or adaptation, but a like-for-like/shot-for-shot cartoon to live remake, same songs, same shots, same dialog, same red hair. (If I'm wrong about this let me know, that's how it looked from the trailer and it's fundamental to my point)

Because everything else is exactly the same except the skin color of the main character Disney knew it would draw attention; some people wouldn't like it and overreact, others would then defend it as being forward thinking and progressive and color-blind, and their lazy reheated live-animation remake that no-one would ever give a second thought would get free marketing and attention that it would never get otherwise.
People would consider going to see it as being a token of support for a cause, and the movie would be a sort of statement (like the female Ghostbusters remake, or the Black Panther black superhero thing which was somehow made into a landmark achievement for civil rights).

That doesn't feel good to me, it's a trend that I don't like.. It's not about making a good movie or about race, it's about selling tickets to an otherwise completely mediocre and unremarkable movie by dividing people and doing a cheap stunt. I think it puts the actor who was cast in an awkward position where I think she was cast for her skin color.


Again this isn't something that actually annoys me, I'm not losing sleep over this nonsense, but I do think by painting it as progressive people who support Disney's decision vs racist people who hate to see black people plays right into Disney's marketing strategy.
To me it would be like making a remake of Cinderella but Cinderella has downs syndrome, or is an amputee, or is transgender, or some other silly gimmick. It's not about making a good movie, and it feels like it cheapens the actual conversation by using it to sell movie tickets.

I know that's an easy POV to attack as hating black people or something, but really I just think it's a bit cringe and it's not something we should reward or play into.

Edit: (And bear in mind I'm partly just stirring the pot a bit and siding with an unpopular POV because it often makes for interesting discussion)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Q5uhh5cmwlI

And in case from that previous video you think that Trevor Noah is soft on Disney's new take on the Little Mermaid, nope:
https://youtube.com/watch?t=4m32s&v=wh0Bzul5vEc

[kestasjk]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Q5uhh5cmwlI

And in case from that previous video you think that Trevor Noah is soft on Disney's new take on the Little Mermaid, nope:
https://youtube.com/watch?t=4m32s&v=wh0Bzul5vEc

Right, Disney's marketing department really hit a home run.. Buy an ad during The Daily Show; a few hundred thousand dollars for 15 seconds.. Make an unexpected casting choice that gets some media attention and you get a segment in two shows for free.

A remake that took as much effort as the CGI Lion King gets free marketing and is immune to criticism. At Disney they call that a Zip-a-dee-doo-dah day.
And when Disney has a hit you know they'll reuse that formula until they've milked it dry.

Anyway it's all fun.. Disney movies have always had strange snippets of the time they were made.

[JECE]

It only got free media attention because the criticism of the casting choice is very lame. Disney can't predict how dumb people can be. And the free media attention doesn't necessarily help. I only know about the movie because of these two segments, and I still have no intention of seeing it, or even checking out the trailer.

Trevor Noah made some good points, in case you missed them. Both clips are relevant to the devil's advocate argument that you laid out above.

Trevor's criticism of Disney is near the end of the second link, by the way. The sexist princess fantasies that Disney is famous for don't disappear because of "an unexpected casting choice", as you put it.

[kestasjk]

It only got free media attention because the criticism of the casting choice is very lame.

I'd like to believe that they made this decision thinking no-one would give a thought to her skin color.. But when they're remaking the animated film scene by scene, song by song, shot by shot, same plot, same character, same everything.. And Lion King/Mulan/etc were so unremarkable, Marvel got good publicity recently doing the same thing and talk-shows lapped it up.. You don't think it was a conscious decision?

Trevor takes on racists who care about the little mermaid; an easy target we can all get on board against and have a chuckle: Mermaids are fictional, lots of white princesses, it's not a big deal, people are being racist.

He makes a good point that the storyline is exactly the same shallow, cliche Disney princess plot. He should've dug into that and asked why they didn't modernize the story, why is there no social commentary, why are we making princess wins the heart of prince charming movies in 2022, why is the only token change an actress' skin color?.. Is that all it takes?

Is this really just racist little mermaid fans vs the progressive, color-blind Disney Corporation..

[captainmeme]

So to be clear, you're saying that if a decision angers racists then it's wrong for that decision to be made?

Your point here appears to be that Disney knew it would be controversial, therefore it was done for publicity, therefore it shouldn't have been done. But it's only controversial in the first place because of people being racist. If people weren't being racist then there would be zero controversy and zero publicity associated with the controversy.

In what world is the right response to that 'Ah, look at Disney deliberately riling up racists, they should really wind that back' rather than 'Perhaps the racists are in the wrong here?'

I don't disagree that maybe they should have modernised the story. But saying 'you can't put a black person in a film unless you rework it to be completely suitable to modern sensibilities first' is a tad ridiculous.

[kestasjk]

Your point here appears to be that Disney knew it would be controversial, therefore it was done for publicity, therefore it shouldn't have been done. But it's only controversial in the first place because of people being racist.

You don't have to be racist to not like companies using tokens for publicity.

If the trendy topic happened to be equality and support for amputees say, and Disney cast an amputee in a role where it was obviously a choice by a committee to include an amputee to score points, get the film discussed and praised, and sell movie tickets by leveraging it.. Wouldn't that feel a bit slimy to you?


I think the key question is whether you think she was cast for her skin color:

- If you really think Disney made the choice without any consideration of her skin color, and had no idea it would be a source of publicity for the movie.. In a shot for shot remake of an animated film where everything else is kept the same.. I think that's sweet but naive, but if that's what you think fine.

- If you think Disney cast her for her skin color to generate publicity and sell movie tickets.. I just don't think that's a good thing. It's hard to pin down exactly why but it just feels wrong; taking a serious topic and using it to sell movie tickets.


And throwing the racist label around so readily as a kind of debating tactic, for finding a hollow attention-grabbing stunt mildly distasteful, to me kind of waters down what racism means. We can all play that game of looking for something racist in things.. Using tokens in this way could in itself be considered racist.

Acting like everyone who left a thumbs down on the trailer to this movie is an "internet racist" as Trevor Noah said .. it's an example of how these publicity stunts can create division and cause people to look for a racist motivations in people they disagree with.

[JECE]

I doubt that many people realize (if it's even true) that this live action remake will literally duplicate every scene from the animated Disney version. Even if this were widely known, don't you think that it's a bit odd to complain (1) that nothing much changed and (2) that the protagonist's skin color did change? Can you pin down exactly how you're not contradicting yourself here?

Say that they killed the Little Mermaid at the end of the film, but kept everything else exactly the same. Would you say that bringing the story closer to the original version by Hans Christian Andersen was a tokenization of Danish culture? More to the point, would internet trolls come out of the closet in droves over this tokenization of Danish culture?

Is this really just racist little mermaid fans vs the progressive, color-blind Disney Corporation..

I really don't want to go down the rabbit hole of racist and sexist YouTube reviews that Fluminator mentioned above. So I couldn't tell you how racist people really have been. But viewing this as a "vs." is part of the problem. It's a manufactured debate where there really should be no controversy. It reminds me of how, sadly, Blazing Saddles is best known in recent times for how it is 'defended' by right wingers opposed to political correctness, except that in reality nobody was criticizing Blazing Saddles for political incorrectness in the first place.

And throwing the racist label around so readily as a kind of debating tactic, for finding a hollow attention-grabbing stunt mildly distasteful, to me kind of waters down what racism means. We can all play that game of looking for something racist in things.. Using tokens in this way could in itself be considered racist.

Acting like everyone who left a thumbs down on the trailer to this movie is an "internet racist" as Trevor Noah said .. it's an example of how these publicity stunts can create division and cause people to look for a racist motivations in people they disagree with.

Trevor made at least two other points that you haven't picked up on yet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh0Bzul5vEc&t=387s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5uhh5cmwlI&t=39s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5uhh5cmwlI&t=60s

[kestasjk]

I doubt that many people realize (if it's even true) that this live action remake will literally duplicate every scene from the animated Disney version.

I remember seeing the trailer and how it had the same scenes, same background etc.

Even if this were widely known, don't you think that it's a bit odd to complain (1) that nothing much changed and (2) that the protagonist's skin color did change? Can you pin down exactly how you're not contradicting yourself here?

Sure: My point is that nothing changed *except for* the protagonist's skin color; this means that they went to great lengths to make the film a live remake, not an adaptation or reboot etc, but a remake intended to be a live action version of the animated film.
This draws attention to this as a change that they did make, and points to it being a conscious decision to make that change.

If they had done a reboot of the film, set it in a different place or time, it was a different plot, then you could say her casting was to support whatever made the film different to the original.

Say that they killed the Little Mermaid at the end of the film, but kept everything else exactly the same. Would you say that bringing the story closer to the original version by Hans Christian Andersen was a tokenization of Danish culture? More to the point, would internet trolls come out of the closet in droves over this tokenization of Danish culture?

I'm not sure what you mean by tokenization of Danish culture. If they did make a remake with just one plot change it would make me wonder what that one plot change was about and why they decided to change that specific thing.

I'd be scratching my head if they killed her at the end of the film, wondering what Disney's reasoning behind changing that one thing was.

Trevor made at least two other points that you haven't picked up on yet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh0Bzul5vEc&t=387s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5uhh5cmwlI&t=39s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5uhh5cmwlI&t=60s

I watched them, I responded to the parts that seemed novel.. Most of it was "you know you can still watch the original" "mermaids aren't inherently black, they can be any color" "the actress is very talented" etc.

I can't watch from Aus without going via the VPN so maybe I'll rewatch these snippets later. Maybe if I watch Trevor enough times.. inject some sodium thiopental..

Really though I don't think we're going to boil it down any more than this:

I think the key question is whether you think she was cast for her skin color:

- If you really think Disney made the choice without any consideration of her skin color, and had no idea it would be a source of publicity for the movie.. In a shot for shot remake of an animated film where everything else is kept the same.. I think that's sweet but naive, but if that's what you think fine.

- If you think Disney cast her for her skin color to generate publicity and sell movie tickets.. I just don't think that's a good thing. It's hard to pin down exactly why but it just feels wrong; taking a serious topic and using it to sell movie tickets.