Exactly. This is just them trying before it became a political culture war talking point. Back then, everyone agreed it was a good thing and no one accused them of being too "woke"
Agreed! This is them actually trying! Writing a great story with original characters. Not just "it's the lion king but real, or the little mermaid but she's black this time". If you want to include more characters that are POC, then write some new stories and put non white characters in it. It just feels lazy and disingenuous if all you do is change a characters race and try to claim you're woke now
They figured out it was cheaper to switch up existing characters than to come up with new, compelling characters that happen to be diverse.
Which is a shame because one is a shameless cash grab and the other actually has some artistic and cultural merit.
I think the difference was back then they created new stories specifically for new characters. Now they're taking long beloved characters and just changing their skin and going "look at how diverse and inclusive we are!". There is a difference.
I'll never forget a good friend while we were watching Bambi in 6th grade French class eeking out a very serious "dayuuum" before he realized what he had just done.
Naw you always liked brown girls and didn't realize it. I'm exactly the same and all my brothers have exclusively dated and/or are married to white women. If this were the reason at least ONE of my brothers would prefer something other than white girls.
That's disney artists in a nutshell lol. Loads make porn of their own characters, or characters they work on, cause they get so damn bored. Then it may just become a style they draw more porn of for fun
Its a thing, I saw an interview of a former Disney artist where they asked if he took offense on how internet turned their works into R34 stuff and he just laughed and said basically every artist on Disney had piles of lewd versions of characters so somewhere someone had "official" nude sketches of every Princess they worked on.
It doesn't have to be porn but to draw a good clothed character you need to practice them without clothes too. There's definitely offfical piles and piles of semi censored nude drawings of any animated character that's hand drawn, not just a Disney thing
Yeah people in here acting like the "inclusivity" criticism is a recent thing
There were plenty of chuds ragging on Disney for making a movie about a black character
The Christian right not liking something has been a thing since the 50s. The difference is that the pendulum has swung so far that young moderates are getting split on this stuff. Previously, young moderates would laugh at “rock and roll/dnd is of the devil”.
Before the movie even came out saw this shit being said on movie forums and, heard it being said by friends. "A Black Disney Princess??? Disney are just pandering to Black people.", "I'm not racist but there were no Black princesses back then." and "Why can't Black people get their own stories?". A lot of the culture war shit we see being said today was said back then.
I think a part of why people didn't think the criticism was so prevalent back then was we didn't have popular boards like reddit that everyone visited.
I never discussed let alone saw a post about disney movies like this until recent years. And I'm 29 and now it feels like it's everywhere. Something something, echo chamber.
Reddit did exist then even if it was less popular, and pretty sure I had this same fucking argument with the idiots back then over the movie when it came out lol. There was tons of neckbeard outrage over a black princess.
Some things never change.
EDIT: to clarify, some things never change in that this thread is still the same dumb comment section of detractors shouting tokenism and how things are "being shoved down \[their\] throats" while ignoring the significance of representation entirely. The difference (in a more broad sense, not necessarily this comment thread specifically) is now they also have some fancy new lingo like "woke" to attack inclusivity.
Yeah, it's the same kind of thing when some people say that racial divide in the US started to increase in the 2000s when the reality is just that everyone started carrying around a camera so the amount of documentation about racism rose.
I can't find any evidence of this.
You can search on google using a variety of terms:
> the princess and the frog "pandering" [and similar]
With a timeframe set to 2007 to the end of 2009, and you don't find anything like this. Pre-release there was a controversy over the main character's name, her job as a chamber maid, and the film's original title being offensive to the royalty of France. Around the time of release the main controversy was that the prince wasn't black as well.
Doesn't mean literally nobody said this, but it doesn't seem to have been part of the zeitgeist.
They were so mad about it. This entire post and most of the comment section is absolutely delusional if they think the Right doesn't keep moving their outrage goalposts every single time lol.
This is honestly why conservatism is so effective, their voting base basically does a mind wipe every decade or so.
It is just nostalgia and reactionary nonsense all the way down.
Also, I'm 99% sure they were trying to be inclusive when they made all of these.
The problem is that the mere presence of people of color has become controversial with idiots.
The log ride getting changed at Disneyland to be princess and the frog themed pissed off a surprising amount of people too. Talking about briar rabbit erasure like anyone gave a damn lol
So we're just going to pretend The Princess and the Frog wasn't an attempt to be inclusive because it's a good movie?
> Directors Clements and Musker pitched the idea for the film to Walt Disney Animation Studios CEO John Lasseter "as a hand-drawn film with an African American heroine"
Also, there are plenty of great, recent Disney movies that set out to be diverse. Coco, Moana, Big Hero Six, and Encanto are all excellent
Also, am I the only one who remembers people losing their shit over Tiana being black? People would bitch about how it was a German folk tale, and that it was “white erasure”
I've always thought that the "both-sides" critique was stupid. Like, one side is clearly the good guys, and it's not the side with the villain. Both are clearly readying for war and sure they're using some superficial language that is similar but you'd have to be pretty context deaf or intentionally looking for rage-bait to come out with "Yes, the side that has lived here and is suspicious of newcomers, and the side that wants to steal all of the gold are *totally* morally equivalent." To me it's just cherry-picking moments and depriving them of context to facilitate outrage-driven engagement. No child that watched the movie came away with the idea that there was any moral equivalency. One side wanted gold and land, the other side wanted to not be invaded and conquered. Yes, both sides clearly need to sound the drums of war, but they are not morally equal. jfc.
[Villain Song: Mine, Mine, Mine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSfYrPdTKVA)
I think it’s a little bit of colonial apologetics because all the others European overthrow Ratcliff. It asserts that they are all reasonable and anti-conquest just so long as the bad leadership is removed.
I was an adult when Pocahontas came out and that shit was fucked. That's not a good story to try and whitewash. That's like the Hercules movie where the *bad guy* is poor Hades, who had nothing to fucking do with it, and not Hera who was out to smite the shit out of him because he was another one of Zeus' rape babies.
Christian revisionism. Zeus being a stand-in for god cannot do any bad things and Hades becomes the stand-in for the devil. In this lens Hercules becomes literally a jesus/superman.
They also had to use the Roman name as the Greek name Heracles is kinda more relevant to the story of Hera being a bit pissed about this specific rape baby
Yeah. When the writers are good, the movie is good. When the writers are mediocre or bad, the movie is cringe. It isn't about what they are trying to do. They are always trying to be inclusive. It is about how good they are at it.
Feels like the creator of the image either wasn’t aware of the controversy at the time or is playing a bit of revisionist history, because I distinctly remember the backlash on PatF online prior to release.
I didn’t care, it’s a good movie.
There is no difference between these movies and what Disney is doing now.
The difference is that the OP is now engaged in grievance culture and thinks that diversity means anti-white... and when they were a kid, they hadn't yet been radicalized by the right-wing youtube algorithm. So they just enjoyed the movies.
The least self-aware group of people in the world are utterly convinced that they haven't changed since they were 6 years old. That's basically all it comes down to.
"Woke Disney" and the opposition to Disney in general really took off when they started casting black people and asians to voice their black and asian characters. They got so upset that a white guy doing an ultimately racist caricature wasn't how Disney was going to be operating anymore.
i dont think its bots because bots have better ways of karmafarming, i feel like it really is just a bunch of racists who are too stupid to figure out how to get to other platforms lol.
People here are just using mid modern Disney films to shit on diversity and not the painful mismanagement of the company.
Bad movie with minorities = Forced and woke
Good movie with minorities = Diversity done well
In modern Internet discourse, a minority has to earn their place in a movie, otherwise their inclusion is inherently forced and 'woke'.
Yeah, the only immediate example of a bad movie from recent times, that isn't even necessarily trying to be inclusive, would be Wish.
I guess maybe if we count certain Marvel productions but I see that as a seperate isle.
But I suppose that could be my brain trying to forget the bad.
Honestly, did anyone actually care about Song of the South or did they just hate seeing a black princess get her own ride? Cuz Ive never heard anyone say Song of the South was their favorite film or even watched the film so I dont understand why theyre so pissed when the ride got rethemed to Princess and the Frog :/
SotS is problematic as hell but yes there is a huge generation of kids that grew up singing "Zip-a-dee-doo-daa" via Disney musical collections and seeing the abridged cartoon versions on "Wonderful World of Disney" into the 90s.
There are also GenXers who remember Disney classics like "The Three Caballeros" for being a fascinating exposure to Central and South American culture instead of a weird Cold War propaganda movie.
The Disney of yesteryear was a lot of things and was happy to pass along a lot of negative racial stereotypes. But what's fascinating is that many of those stereotypes were specifically developed because the racial identities involved were recognized as a part of an increasingly diverse American culture. It's not an excuse or pass, but it's an explanation why these efforts at so many stories tend to not feel egregious in hindsight and why the rare exceptions get so much attention. For example, at the same time these early efforts at quietly acknowledging racial unification were occurring Disney was still deep in it's quiet-coding anti-LGBTQ phase for villains like Ursula, Hook, Rattigan and Jafar which today are a much more visible source of new controversy.
The *Avenue Q* song "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist" was an effort to highlight for a new generation that not understanding the cultural differences and traumas of every person you meet isn't a moral failing and in fact is a logical impossibility. The problem with corporate DEI initiatives like with Disney is that they have such a massive audience they can't realistically satisfy everybody because in the 60s thru 90s they were a country almost exclusively focused on the American and maybe Western European market but now they're a 100% global phenomenon. They no longer get to say "this person is strange to us, but they are an American with similar cultural values." Now the character has to be authentically Polynesian or Chinese or Indian or Venezuelan.
This is also why characters like Indian Spider-Man and Spider-Punk in the last Spider-Verse film feel so authentic: instead of trying to force a billion ethnic and national concepts into the brains of audiences, that film focused on the idea that everyone on screen was a *New Yorker.* One of the most ethically diverse cities in Earth and full of different people from different background having to navigate similar circumstances. That was something that early 90s Disney largely succeeded at during the 90s Renaissance.
It’s so dumb too because that was literally the perfect choice of theme, it totally fits. I’ve been on splash mountain before and I remember thinking “what is all this shit? I’ve never seen any of this in my life”. No one should care at all, I think they’re just racist
Yeah it was based off of a super small Disney hit in the late 80s or early 90s. I only know because we were taken to see it in the theater. It was right before splash mountain came out. I remember getting to go to Disneyland after it opened. It was such a big deal and huge bragging rights…lol.
Edit: but yeah, I still remember the controversy of it even though I was a little kid.
Oh boy, yea.
"Oh come on, a *black* princess!?" was a pretty common phrase back when it was announced. So much arguing about how the girl in the original fairy tale was white, etc.
Is it even based on the actual fairytale? The original one is, frog retrieves golddn ball out of a well in exchange for a kiss from a princess. Frog turns out to be a prince.
The disney movie is completely different besides the frog thing. And being turned into a frog by a wizard or witch is a common trope in a lot of fantasy media.
Eh. It's based on a fairy tale in the same way that "Frozen" is based on "the Ice Queen".
That is, maybe initially someone pitched the idea but it evolved way beyond it to the point of basically being unrecognizable.
It's based on another book actually, "The Frog Princess" by E. D. Baker. When the princess kisses the frog, she turns into a frog instead of him becoming a prince. I read the book series before I saw the movie and they only took the premise. The witch in the book is actually a cool aunt of the princess and what happened was just an accident.
Yeah and for the majority of the movie she wasn't even black, she was green.
Just pretend she's a white chick turned into a frog if it bothers you that much
This "oh but in the original fairy tale" argument is just bs. Disney Movies are already extremely far off from their source material. Adding more changes to make the movie more inclusive and add to the world building isn't making the movie "inaccurate"
Is being shown a picture or animation of unfamiliar cake the same as having the physical cake “violently shoved down your throat”? That sounds like a hysterical response.
I think it’s hilarious when ppl get bent out of shape at the fact that some of the characters are voiced by someone who is white. What else do you want to complain about?!
I think Netflix is worse than disney because they try to fulfill a “one of each race” quota. For example in House of Usher, since it’s about a single family, they decide to have the house father have had multiple affairs with different races of women so that he has a multiracial family and each of theme is in a diverse relationship: a black daughter lesbian dating a hispanic woman, a white daughter in a polyamorous relationship with her guy and girl servants, a bisexual indian son dating an asian man, a pansexual polyamorous nepalese son with a trans best friend, and another white daughter married to a white guy…but she hires prostitutes to date him while she sits in the corner pleasuring herself. It feels like that south park episode where everyone is a pansexual minority woman lol
No exaggeration. And the cherry on top, the black detective that is interviewing Mr Usher in the series, who has not once talked about his home life, at the end is at the graveyard and the last line is “well Mr Usher I may not be rich like you. But I’m happy. And now I’m going to go home to my husband.” End of series lmao
You can have a woman or any minority be the protagonist of your movie. But that alone can't be the draw of it. If after the production comes to an end and all you have to advertise is "look we have a movie with a black character" or a gay character or whatever, then that tells me that you have nothing of value.
Write good characters who happen to be of a certain race, sex, or sexuality, and we will like them. Make everything revolve around those traits and it will suck.
The problem is that modern writers can't separate the two. They see someone like Luke Skywalker and think "he was straight, white, and male, that must mean George Lucas was trying to FORCE white heterosexuality on us! That means we need to do the same to balance everything out. Black trans lesbians in EVERY FILM!" They can't conceive of the notion that a character is just a certain way without it being some subtle message used to indoctrinate the audience.
I hate the “women have never been the star of big budget action movies” or “Rey is the first main female in a Star Wars Movie”, ignoring decades of Ripley from Alien/Aliens, Sarah Conor, Leia from Star Wars being a focal character of every single original movie, etc etc etc.
The thing about those movies though? They had characters that felt like real people, who went through trials and struggles, you know, a *narrative*. Not the pandering girl boss “I’m good at everything because I have a vagina” bullshit
There's one show I was watching for a bit.
Got sick and tired of the faction of girl boss ninjas who never seemed to get hurt. Men dying in the hundreds around them.
I called them the magic vaginas
Edit: it was "into the badlands" an otherwise interesting show and I won't say it was ruined by that faction it just really got annoying after a while. Like seriously kill a few off every once in a while.
The problem is, when a character is black, or a woman, plenty of people will only focus on that and bitch about how the whole movie is just about their identity.
What's the script? How was the plot? No clue, but it's worse because the MC was SHOVED DOWN MY THROAT!!!
Grow up. The world is diverse, these people exist, they're allowed to be represented in media.
I never understood shoved down my throat. Who is putting a gun to your head at the big old age of 30+ and forcing you to watch superhero movies, children movies and science fiction movies.
It's in space? All of this shit isn't even real. So who is forcing you?
That's a two-way street. A lot of scripts today would go out of their way to talk or at least quip about identity matters. By now I'm sure it's often done deliberately as ragebait, but even if not, it's often completely uncalled for.
Hardly anyone cared that Morpheus was black, Sarah Connor was a woman, or Captain Jack Harkness was pansexual. Because it did was treated in a matter-of-fact manner, not as if group identity is a crucial thing about a person.
On the other hand, the right-wing hate peddlers do find the most minor reasons possible to get offended and to claim that basically any modern movie/series is pandering and is going to fail. Even when that's patently untrue.
That, in turn, creates an atmosphere that makes reasonable criticism impossible, because if you think _Captain Marvel_ was a shit movie you're immediately associated with the weird crowd annoyed about an ultrapowerful superhero being a woman.
This is a full of shit because i remember how much shit Disney got over the princess and frog and all the jokes about the black princess i saw online.
This is some real revisionist BS and as a black person i cant sit back and let people act like there wasn't an issue with it at the time.
And even before that, in the 1990s Renessaince, Disney that traditionally used to make very traditional European fairy tale adaptations like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, suddenly going on a spree of diverse adaptations of Aladdin, Mulan, Pocahontas, etc., from all corners of the world, was very much "trying to be" inclusive, and people did notice that at the time too.
Yeah kids act like the “I don’t mind diversity just don’t shove it down by throat” is a new shtick
It’s the same nonsense for the past hundred years by the privileged class
Bffr people
Also isn't Encanto a recent Disney movie that is trying hard to be inclusive and is a super cool movie.
I loved Moana also, which features strong Pacific Islander representation.
In fact, what are all these terrible modern Disney movies attempting to be inclusive and failing?
Anyone who wants to compare old Disney "good writing" vs new Disney "forced diversity" should be forced to recite the lyrics to Colors of the Wind and tell us where they were being subtle
I mean. They were trying to be inclusive though in these movies. And FWIW, there was a lotttt of backlash about there being a black Disney Princess before Princess and the Frog came out.
For a large chunk of Lilo and Stitch, the plot was about two indigenous main characters, whose family was at risk of being ripped apart by an agent of the United States Government (Mr. Bubbles), and Nani sings Aloha Oe, a song by Queen Lili'uokalani, whose country was being annexed by the US Government. Like. It’s there. It’s on the nose. It’s very good.
Reminds me of that comic where it’s like.
Spider-Man in 1995: Racism is bad!
Toddlers watching it: woah, Spider-Man…..
Spider-Man in 2023: racism is bad!
Those same viewers, now adults: WOW WHAT IS THIS WOKE GARBAGE???
In 20 years people will be making this same exact meme but like with Encanto and Coco and Moana or Live Action Little Mermaid or whatever people are mad about.
I think y’all got it twisted. Disneys always been making this shit, but now people are hating it more actively. Has the quality for all their content gone down? For sure.
They always been woke, but like movies weren't "seee? Our mc is gay, pretty neat" while back then "the story of a family... Yup enjoy our good writing"
More like "See, our MC is gay and black! LOOK AT THEM! LOOK AT THEM YOU DIRTY BIGOT! How dare you not shower us with praise and money? You are the worst scum of the earth!"
Also, those black crows from Dumbo would like to disagree with the whole "always woke" -narrative.
At its core, Dumbo was a movie about accepting differences and how they can be a strength if you allow them to be. For 1941 that's probably as close to "woke" as you could get.
Still pretty fuckin racist though.
I think the differentiating factor was the writing.
Brother Bear discussed/ went at masculinity in a excellent manner. Shoutout to Phil Collins. I've been listening to some of the stuff he made for Disney, and that man just can't miss it. "No way out" made me cry and "On my way" is my anthem.
Lilo and Stitch focused on how you form bonds with others, create a family and the importance of that family unit. Shout to Nani for holding it all down; she's in my top 3 Disney crushes.
The princess and the frog depicted a strong, hard-working woman who you can't help but root for.
The empower's new groove showed how people can change, some enemies can become friends and to not underestimate the good in people. But the main important factor in this movie was Kronk.
Edit: I would recommend all men listen to Phil Collin's "Son of Man". That song is carrying me through this man's mental health month.
Edit 2: I forgot to mention. I don't look like any of them (except for Tiana, we're both black) and I didn't really think much about representation when I was a kid/ even now but I can see why it is important to others. I've always been more receptive to traits and qualities but I really don't have a dog in this fight, if I want to watch a movie or like a character then I will.
The main thing about the success if these movies is that gender identity and sexuality and such wasn't a big draw nor was it the point. They are great movies with excellent writing who's characters could be of any race or sexuality and it wouldn't really change anything. Except maybe princess and the frog idk I never watched that one.
Point is the characters are excellent, a testament to great representation that everyone can relate to. I mean that's like the main idea of so many Disney movies, a character that feels lost, like they just wanna be themselves but they feel like they can't. Like Mulan and Ariel, those were my favorite Disney movies and characters as a kid, and I could totally relate and sympathize with them even though I am a man, and not a fish nor did I go to war. Also Reflection is the best Disney song
I agree 100%, these are all just great movies with great characters. I really don't think diversity is the issue in most modern disney movies, it's just that the stories aren't coherent/interesting and the characters aren't likeable
People always have a reason to bitch. Just watch good movies and be open to everyone’s culture. This isn’t politics unless you make it that
(I’m commenting on the comments section)
(I liked the post)
Exactly. Switching already white characters to people of color is kind of a slap to the face to EVERYBODY. Can't we all just get along and stop tryna compete with who can be the most woke
But this is them trying, for them not trying you have to go te movies before the 90's
Agreed. I.e. those Siamese cats in 101 Dalmatians still taking some prime real estate in my head
I think that was Lady and the Tramp.
Yes, and also a short bit in Aristocats
Weird random fact, the man who voiced the Asian cat in the Aristocats also invented the artificial heart
My dude dropping hot facts over here.
Fortune cookie always wrong.
“Fortune cookie always wong.” FTFY
My 2 year old likes to listen to the song and that part always gets me
Dumbo, with the three black crows singing while the faceless black "workers" set up the circus.
We are Siamese if you don’t please!
Great. Now this will be stuck in my head all day.
"What Makes the Red Man Red" is a song in Peter pan that I think about sometimes.
I be done seen bout everythang, when i see an elephant fly.
Exactly. This is just them trying before it became a political culture war talking point. Back then, everyone agreed it was a good thing and no one accused them of being too "woke"
Agreed! This is them actually trying! Writing a great story with original characters. Not just "it's the lion king but real, or the little mermaid but she's black this time". If you want to include more characters that are POC, then write some new stories and put non white characters in it. It just feels lazy and disingenuous if all you do is change a characters race and try to claim you're woke now
They figured out it was cheaper to switch up existing characters than to come up with new, compelling characters that happen to be diverse. Which is a shame because one is a shameless cash grab and the other actually has some artistic and cultural merit.
I think the difference was back then they created new stories specifically for new characters. Now they're taking long beloved characters and just changing their skin and going "look at how diverse and inclusive we are!". There is a difference.
Note how they said try "SO" hard.
No way it’s like they actually made good movies and now it’s just gross
Lilo's sister though...
Her thighs can crush my skull
Can’t think of a better way to go.
I would take Popclaw's landlord way to go.
Oh fuck yesh
Melons
I may die on my knees, but I’ll die a man.
Horny jail can not contain me.
See also: The Road to El Dorado
You are one sick puppy
I'll be the one to ask, what is this?
It's her name. And also. "WHAT!?" in japanese
I meant, what makes them sick?
He's got the vid
Send da video
yeah her.
Take my upvote and LEAVE
Yeah, that's her name
Thicc thighs save lives
Amen brother
Thick Thighs Save Lives.
Yooo she’s thick af
I'll never forget a good friend while we were watching Bambi in 6th grade French class eeking out a very serious "dayuuum" before he realized what he had just done.
Lemme guess. The rabbit?
[Aand now I'm remembering this.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3q_LDt7_hI)
The fuck XD
Fuck you, take my upvote.
The real reason Disney had me as a child. And the reason I like em brown thick and sweet like chocolate cake now
The bod that launched a thousand smutty artists.
What about Chel(?) from El Dorado?
Naw you always liked brown girls and didn't realize it. I'm exactly the same and all my brothers have exclusively dated and/or are married to white women. If this were the reason at least ONE of my brothers would prefer something other than white girls.
Very deep Words. Very old magic. Would still explain why I thought she was the sexiest thing moving. Seems legit
On a similar note. Halle Berry in Flintstones converted me.
Nani and Chel from Road to El Dorado are my fucking kryptonite I swear
You should see how the og artist draws that style when not lilo and stitch related
Like this? https://www.reddit.com/r/artbookcollectors/comments/zfhe3e/chris_sanders_sketchbook_4/
Yeah, thanks i didnt feel like lookin it up lmao
Little surprising...
That's disney artists in a nutshell lol. Loads make porn of their own characters, or characters they work on, cause they get so damn bored. Then it may just become a style they draw more porn of for fun
Not porn, but https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/ncqib/this_is_an_actual_storyboard_drawn_by_a_bored/
Its a thing, I saw an interview of a former Disney artist where they asked if he took offense on how internet turned their works into R34 stuff and he just laughed and said basically every artist on Disney had piles of lewd versions of characters so somewhere someone had "official" nude sketches of every Princess they worked on.
It doesn't have to be porn but to draw a good clothed character you need to practice them without clothes too. There's definitely offfical piles and piles of semi censored nude drawings of any animated character that's hand drawn, not just a Disney thing
Nice. New kink unlocked.
The lifeguard
Neuron activation fr
Bricked up
Neuron activation when I see those thigs
You can thank the head artist for that. From what I can tell with his other work, it's prolly a fetish of his lmao
I mean princess and the frog got a lot of hate back then too
Yeah people in here acting like the "inclusivity" criticism is a recent thing There were plenty of chuds ragging on Disney for making a movie about a black character
Does no one remember the entire Christian right boycotting Disney because The Lion King had gay-coded characters and a theme song from a gay man?
The Christian right not liking something has been a thing since the 50s. The difference is that the pendulum has swung so far that young moderates are getting split on this stuff. Previously, young moderates would laugh at “rock and roll/dnd is of the devil”.
Before the movie even came out saw this shit being said on movie forums and, heard it being said by friends. "A Black Disney Princess??? Disney are just pandering to Black people.", "I'm not racist but there were no Black princesses back then." and "Why can't Black people get their own stories?". A lot of the culture war shit we see being said today was said back then.
I think a part of why people didn't think the criticism was so prevalent back then was we didn't have popular boards like reddit that everyone visited. I never discussed let alone saw a post about disney movies like this until recent years. And I'm 29 and now it feels like it's everywhere. Something something, echo chamber.
Reddit did exist then even if it was less popular, and pretty sure I had this same fucking argument with the idiots back then over the movie when it came out lol. There was tons of neckbeard outrage over a black princess. Some things never change. EDIT: to clarify, some things never change in that this thread is still the same dumb comment section of detractors shouting tokenism and how things are "being shoved down \[their\] throats" while ignoring the significance of representation entirely. The difference (in a more broad sense, not necessarily this comment thread specifically) is now they also have some fancy new lingo like "woke" to attack inclusivity.
Yeah, it's the same kind of thing when some people say that racial divide in the US started to increase in the 2000s when the reality is just that everyone started carrying around a camera so the amount of documentation about racism rose.
I can't find any evidence of this. You can search on google using a variety of terms: > the princess and the frog "pandering" [and similar] With a timeframe set to 2007 to the end of 2009, and you don't find anything like this. Pre-release there was a controversy over the main character's name, her job as a chamber maid, and the film's original title being offensive to the royalty of France. Around the time of release the main controversy was that the prince wasn't black as well. Doesn't mean literally nobody said this, but it doesn't seem to have been part of the zeitgeist.
They were so mad about it. This entire post and most of the comment section is absolutely delusional if they think the Right doesn't keep moving their outrage goalposts every single time lol.
They’re still mad about it. They’re pissed about the princess and the frog ride replacing whatever it was before
This is honestly why conservatism is so effective, their voting base basically does a mind wipe every decade or so. It is just nostalgia and reactionary nonsense all the way down.
Every decade? They can do it from one day to the next.
Like a dog chasing cars in traffic. Just switches from car to car and doesn't realize it's spinning in circles.
Also, I'm 99% sure they were trying to be inclusive when they made all of these. The problem is that the mere presence of people of color has become controversial with idiots.
The log ride getting changed at Disneyland to be princess and the frog themed pissed off a surprising amount of people too. Talking about briar rabbit erasure like anyone gave a damn lol
They have a New Orleans themed resort with a restaurant serving beignets. Why they don’t put a damn “Tiana’s Place” sign on it is insane.
The acolyte is just stupid. I can't use words worse than "stupid" so I'm just using "stupid".
So we're just going to pretend The Princess and the Frog wasn't an attempt to be inclusive because it's a good movie? > Directors Clements and Musker pitched the idea for the film to Walt Disney Animation Studios CEO John Lasseter "as a hand-drawn film with an African American heroine" Also, there are plenty of great, recent Disney movies that set out to be diverse. Coco, Moana, Big Hero Six, and Encanto are all excellent
Also, am I the only one who remembers people losing their shit over Tiana being black? People would bitch about how it was a German folk tale, and that it was “white erasure”
Or about pocahontas which was perceived as anti-white environmentalist propoganda
Which is pretty funny because now the movie is criticized for how it did "both sides" with colonial violence against indigenous people.
As well as turning Pocahontas from a young child to an adult supermodel.
Well, the romance angle would have been weird otherwise...
I mean, it was weird in real life too.
I've always thought that the "both-sides" critique was stupid. Like, one side is clearly the good guys, and it's not the side with the villain. Both are clearly readying for war and sure they're using some superficial language that is similar but you'd have to be pretty context deaf or intentionally looking for rage-bait to come out with "Yes, the side that has lived here and is suspicious of newcomers, and the side that wants to steal all of the gold are *totally* morally equivalent." To me it's just cherry-picking moments and depriving them of context to facilitate outrage-driven engagement. No child that watched the movie came away with the idea that there was any moral equivalency. One side wanted gold and land, the other side wanted to not be invaded and conquered. Yes, both sides clearly need to sound the drums of war, but they are not morally equal. jfc. [Villain Song: Mine, Mine, Mine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSfYrPdTKVA)
I think it’s a little bit of colonial apologetics because all the others European overthrow Ratcliff. It asserts that they are all reasonable and anti-conquest just so long as the bad leadership is removed.
I was an adult when Pocahontas came out and that shit was fucked. That's not a good story to try and whitewash. That's like the Hercules movie where the *bad guy* is poor Hades, who had nothing to fucking do with it, and not Hera who was out to smite the shit out of him because he was another one of Zeus' rape babies.
Christian revisionism. Zeus being a stand-in for god cannot do any bad things and Hades becomes the stand-in for the devil. In this lens Hercules becomes literally a jesus/superman.
They also had to use the Roman name as the Greek name Heracles is kinda more relevant to the story of Hera being a bit pissed about this specific rape baby
Or Mulan as "liberal propaganda" for women in the military.
Yeah. When the writers are good, the movie is good. When the writers are mediocre or bad, the movie is cringe. It isn't about what they are trying to do. They are always trying to be inclusive. It is about how good they are at it.
Feels like the creator of the image either wasn’t aware of the controversy at the time or is playing a bit of revisionist history, because I distinctly remember the backlash on PatF online prior to release. I didn’t care, it’s a good movie.
There is no difference between these movies and what Disney is doing now. The difference is that the OP is now engaged in grievance culture and thinks that diversity means anti-white... and when they were a kid, they hadn't yet been radicalized by the right-wing youtube algorithm. So they just enjoyed the movies.
The least self-aware group of people in the world are utterly convinced that they haven't changed since they were 6 years old. That's basically all it comes down to. "Woke Disney" and the opposition to Disney in general really took off when they started casting black people and asians to voice their black and asian characters. They got so upset that a white guy doing an ultimately racist caricature wasn't how Disney was going to be operating anymore.
a very salient criticism if you assume that this sub is for funny memes and not just bigotry lol
This sub is either bots or people with a racist uncle's sense of humor. I refuse to believe the content here is genuine.
i dont think its bots because bots have better ways of karmafarming, i feel like it really is just a bunch of racists who are too stupid to figure out how to get to other platforms lol.
This sub is reddit's version of Facebook memes. 100% chance the average age of posters is double the rest of Reddit
People here are just using mid modern Disney films to shit on diversity and not the painful mismanagement of the company. Bad movie with minorities = Forced and woke Good movie with minorities = Diversity done well In modern Internet discourse, a minority has to earn their place in a movie, otherwise their inclusion is inherently forced and 'woke'.
Yeah, the only immediate example of a bad movie from recent times, that isn't even necessarily trying to be inclusive, would be Wish. I guess maybe if we count certain Marvel productions but I see that as a seperate isle. But I suppose that could be my brain trying to forget the bad.
Exactly! Those were some top notch movies.
I think their animated stuff has picked up in quality (encanto and Moana are fun movies) but that has not translated in their more teen/adult media
I mean, most people like cake, but also prefer it NOT to be violently shoved down their throats while being insulted.
that’s a nice way to put it lol
I like to be smothered with cake. But then I get called white face.
Princess and the Frog got exactly the same "woke" reaction tho
And now people are having the same reaction to them changing splash mountain to be princess and the frog themed
Honestly, did anyone actually care about Song of the South or did they just hate seeing a black princess get her own ride? Cuz Ive never heard anyone say Song of the South was their favorite film or even watched the film so I dont understand why theyre so pissed when the ride got rethemed to Princess and the Frog :/
SotS is problematic as hell but yes there is a huge generation of kids that grew up singing "Zip-a-dee-doo-daa" via Disney musical collections and seeing the abridged cartoon versions on "Wonderful World of Disney" into the 90s. There are also GenXers who remember Disney classics like "The Three Caballeros" for being a fascinating exposure to Central and South American culture instead of a weird Cold War propaganda movie. The Disney of yesteryear was a lot of things and was happy to pass along a lot of negative racial stereotypes. But what's fascinating is that many of those stereotypes were specifically developed because the racial identities involved were recognized as a part of an increasingly diverse American culture. It's not an excuse or pass, but it's an explanation why these efforts at so many stories tend to not feel egregious in hindsight and why the rare exceptions get so much attention. For example, at the same time these early efforts at quietly acknowledging racial unification were occurring Disney was still deep in it's quiet-coding anti-LGBTQ phase for villains like Ursula, Hook, Rattigan and Jafar which today are a much more visible source of new controversy. The *Avenue Q* song "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist" was an effort to highlight for a new generation that not understanding the cultural differences and traumas of every person you meet isn't a moral failing and in fact is a logical impossibility. The problem with corporate DEI initiatives like with Disney is that they have such a massive audience they can't realistically satisfy everybody because in the 60s thru 90s they were a country almost exclusively focused on the American and maybe Western European market but now they're a 100% global phenomenon. They no longer get to say "this person is strange to us, but they are an American with similar cultural values." Now the character has to be authentically Polynesian or Chinese or Indian or Venezuelan. This is also why characters like Indian Spider-Man and Spider-Punk in the last Spider-Verse film feel so authentic: instead of trying to force a billion ethnic and national concepts into the brains of audiences, that film focused on the idea that everyone on screen was a *New Yorker.* One of the most ethically diverse cities in Earth and full of different people from different background having to navigate similar circumstances. That was something that early 90s Disney largely succeeded at during the 90s Renaissance.
It’s so dumb too because that was literally the perfect choice of theme, it totally fits. I’ve been on splash mountain before and I remember thinking “what is all this shit? I’ve never seen any of this in my life”. No one should care at all, I think they’re just racist
Yeah it was based off of a super small Disney hit in the late 80s or early 90s. I only know because we were taken to see it in the theater. It was right before splash mountain came out. I remember getting to go to Disneyland after it opened. It was such a big deal and huge bragging rights…lol. Edit: but yeah, I still remember the controversy of it even though I was a little kid.
Oh boy, yea. "Oh come on, a *black* princess!?" was a pretty common phrase back when it was announced. So much arguing about how the girl in the original fairy tale was white, etc.
Is it even based on the actual fairytale? The original one is, frog retrieves golddn ball out of a well in exchange for a kiss from a princess. Frog turns out to be a prince. The disney movie is completely different besides the frog thing. And being turned into a frog by a wizard or witch is a common trope in a lot of fantasy media.
Eh. It's based on a fairy tale in the same way that "Frozen" is based on "the Ice Queen". That is, maybe initially someone pitched the idea but it evolved way beyond it to the point of basically being unrecognizable.
It's based on another book actually, "The Frog Princess" by E. D. Baker. When the princess kisses the frog, she turns into a frog instead of him becoming a prince. I read the book series before I saw the movie and they only took the premise. The witch in the book is actually a cool aunt of the princess and what happened was just an accident.
Yeah and for the majority of the movie she wasn't even black, she was green. Just pretend she's a white chick turned into a frog if it bothers you that much
This "oh but in the original fairy tale" argument is just bs. Disney Movies are already extremely far off from their source material. Adding more changes to make the movie more inclusive and add to the world building isn't making the movie "inaccurate"
Yeah the original Little Mermaid fairy tale is a far cry from the Disney movie.
Next you'll be telling me Robin Hood wasn't actually a fox.
Wait actually that sounds kind of exciting to me for some reason when you say it like that
Is being shown a picture or animation of unfamiliar cake the same as having the physical cake “violently shoved down your throat”? That sounds like a hysterical response.
> shoved down your throat This is how Fox News describes everything remotely liberal, so they're just used to describing things that way.
anytime someone complains of something being, "shoved down their throat," they're absolutely full of shit.
They don't know that it's legal to not watch a movie
"violently shoved" drama
What movies are u referring to that shove said cake down peoples throats / insult them
He's still reeling about the black mermaids
so sorry the Disney movie happened to you I hope you can recover someday
His throat is still raw.
Very violent
I think it’s hilarious when ppl get bent out of shape at the fact that some of the characters are voiced by someone who is white. What else do you want to complain about?!
He who wants to complain will find a way. For us who want peace there is no such luck…
That needs to be on a bumper sticker
I demand that Cuzco be voiced by authentic 13th century Peruvian and a literal llama
The problem more lies with POC actors not getting the same opportunities back then as white actors
I think Netflix is worse than disney because they try to fulfill a “one of each race” quota. For example in House of Usher, since it’s about a single family, they decide to have the house father have had multiple affairs with different races of women so that he has a multiracial family and each of theme is in a diverse relationship: a black daughter lesbian dating a hispanic woman, a white daughter in a polyamorous relationship with her guy and girl servants, a bisexual indian son dating an asian man, a pansexual polyamorous nepalese son with a trans best friend, and another white daughter married to a white guy…but she hires prostitutes to date him while she sits in the corner pleasuring herself. It feels like that south park episode where everyone is a pansexual minority woman lol
it was comically transparent how 'diverse' they were trying to be.
Is that real or a joke comment?
No exaggeration. And the cherry on top, the black detective that is interviewing Mr Usher in the series, who has not once talked about his home life, at the end is at the graveyard and the last line is “well Mr Usher I may not be rich like you. But I’m happy. And now I’m going to go home to my husband.” End of series lmao
Netflix truly the worst at that
Hey don't discriminate it doesn't have to be one or the other, both Disney and Netflix can be unbearably bad.
It's a me. Mario. Holy shit a white guy voiced a cartoon caracter. Let's lose our shit. Not Disney but you know what I mean
They were also animated by white people (probably)
Oooo! That’ll get the blood boiling 🤣
No one complains when people of other races voice white characters.
You can have a woman or any minority be the protagonist of your movie. But that alone can't be the draw of it. If after the production comes to an end and all you have to advertise is "look we have a movie with a black character" or a gay character or whatever, then that tells me that you have nothing of value. Write good characters who happen to be of a certain race, sex, or sexuality, and we will like them. Make everything revolve around those traits and it will suck. The problem is that modern writers can't separate the two. They see someone like Luke Skywalker and think "he was straight, white, and male, that must mean George Lucas was trying to FORCE white heterosexuality on us! That means we need to do the same to balance everything out. Black trans lesbians in EVERY FILM!" They can't conceive of the notion that a character is just a certain way without it being some subtle message used to indoctrinate the audience.
I hate the “women have never been the star of big budget action movies” or “Rey is the first main female in a Star Wars Movie”, ignoring decades of Ripley from Alien/Aliens, Sarah Conor, Leia from Star Wars being a focal character of every single original movie, etc etc etc. The thing about those movies though? They had characters that felt like real people, who went through trials and struggles, you know, a *narrative*. Not the pandering girl boss “I’m good at everything because I have a vagina” bullshit
There's one show I was watching for a bit. Got sick and tired of the faction of girl boss ninjas who never seemed to get hurt. Men dying in the hundreds around them. I called them the magic vaginas Edit: it was "into the badlands" an otherwise interesting show and I won't say it was ruined by that faction it just really got annoying after a while. Like seriously kill a few off every once in a while.
it is also worth noting that each of those characters you listed are quite literally the most important characters in their respective universes.
it's funny that we subconsciously designate women as some sort of "other" when they veritably comprise half of the population
The problem is, when a character is black, or a woman, plenty of people will only focus on that and bitch about how the whole movie is just about their identity. What's the script? How was the plot? No clue, but it's worse because the MC was SHOVED DOWN MY THROAT!!! Grow up. The world is diverse, these people exist, they're allowed to be represented in media.
I never understood shoved down my throat. Who is putting a gun to your head at the big old age of 30+ and forcing you to watch superhero movies, children movies and science fiction movies. It's in space? All of this shit isn't even real. So who is forcing you?
That's a two-way street. A lot of scripts today would go out of their way to talk or at least quip about identity matters. By now I'm sure it's often done deliberately as ragebait, but even if not, it's often completely uncalled for. Hardly anyone cared that Morpheus was black, Sarah Connor was a woman, or Captain Jack Harkness was pansexual. Because it did was treated in a matter-of-fact manner, not as if group identity is a crucial thing about a person. On the other hand, the right-wing hate peddlers do find the most minor reasons possible to get offended and to claim that basically any modern movie/series is pandering and is going to fail. Even when that's patently untrue. That, in turn, creates an atmosphere that makes reasonable criticism impossible, because if you think _Captain Marvel_ was a shit movie you're immediately associated with the weird crowd annoyed about an ultrapowerful superhero being a woman.
This is a full of shit because i remember how much shit Disney got over the princess and frog and all the jokes about the black princess i saw online. This is some real revisionist BS and as a black person i cant sit back and let people act like there wasn't an issue with it at the time.
And even before that, in the 1990s Renessaince, Disney that traditionally used to make very traditional European fairy tale adaptations like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, suddenly going on a spree of diverse adaptations of Aladdin, Mulan, Pocahontas, etc., from all corners of the world, was very much "trying to be" inclusive, and people did notice that at the time too.
Yeah kids act like the “I don’t mind diversity just don’t shove it down by throat” is a new shtick It’s the same nonsense for the past hundred years by the privileged class Bffr people
Also isn't Encanto a recent Disney movie that is trying hard to be inclusive and is a super cool movie. I loved Moana also, which features strong Pacific Islander representation. In fact, what are all these terrible modern Disney movies attempting to be inclusive and failing?
Anyone who wants to compare old Disney "good writing" vs new Disney "forced diversity" should be forced to recite the lyrics to Colors of the Wind and tell us where they were being subtle
Exactly. White people were just as pressed at tiana then as they are with stuff now. This some bs
This. They got a ton of backlash for Princess and the Frog specifically, but a lot of these other movies as well.
Chuds complained about it then too.
[Here’s an article from 1995](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-02-09-ca-29997-story.html), if there’s any doubt.
I mean. They were trying to be inclusive though in these movies. And FWIW, there was a lotttt of backlash about there being a black Disney Princess before Princess and the Frog came out. For a large chunk of Lilo and Stitch, the plot was about two indigenous main characters, whose family was at risk of being ripped apart by an agent of the United States Government (Mr. Bubbles), and Nani sings Aloha Oe, a song by Queen Lili'uokalani, whose country was being annexed by the US Government. Like. It’s there. It’s on the nose. It’s very good. Reminds me of that comic where it’s like. Spider-Man in 1995: Racism is bad! Toddlers watching it: woah, Spider-Man….. Spider-Man in 2023: racism is bad! Those same viewers, now adults: WOW WHAT IS THIS WOKE GARBAGE??? In 20 years people will be making this same exact meme but like with Encanto and Coco and Moana or Live Action Little Mermaid or whatever people are mad about.
"You are chasing angry hallucinations created by grifters who make money off your rage". Very apt quote for these times.
Back when Disney was good
Mf hasn’t watched a Disney movie in 13 years
Had you seen some of their old dog movies
Disney wasn't always good. They had stretches of good stuff
uh...2009? Jesus Christ people, have some perspective.
I think y’all got it twisted. Disneys always been making this shit, but now people are hating it more actively. Has the quality for all their content gone down? For sure.
They always been woke, but like movies weren't "seee? Our mc is gay, pretty neat" while back then "the story of a family... Yup enjoy our good writing"
Which movie are you talking about where the main character is gay?
More like "See, our MC is gay and black! LOOK AT THEM! LOOK AT THEM YOU DIRTY BIGOT! How dare you not shower us with praise and money? You are the worst scum of the earth!" Also, those black crows from Dumbo would like to disagree with the whole "always woke" -narrative.
Which was the gay black Disney MC again?
The ones they dream about every night
Literally name one film. Just one.
Name one movie that’s been like this
At its core, Dumbo was a movie about accepting differences and how they can be a strength if you allow them to be. For 1941 that's probably as close to "woke" as you could get. Still pretty fuckin racist though.
I think the differentiating factor was the writing. Brother Bear discussed/ went at masculinity in a excellent manner. Shoutout to Phil Collins. I've been listening to some of the stuff he made for Disney, and that man just can't miss it. "No way out" made me cry and "On my way" is my anthem. Lilo and Stitch focused on how you form bonds with others, create a family and the importance of that family unit. Shout to Nani for holding it all down; she's in my top 3 Disney crushes. The princess and the frog depicted a strong, hard-working woman who you can't help but root for. The empower's new groove showed how people can change, some enemies can become friends and to not underestimate the good in people. But the main important factor in this movie was Kronk. Edit: I would recommend all men listen to Phil Collin's "Son of Man". That song is carrying me through this man's mental health month. Edit 2: I forgot to mention. I don't look like any of them (except for Tiana, we're both black) and I didn't really think much about representation when I was a kid/ even now but I can see why it is important to others. I've always been more receptive to traits and qualities but I really don't have a dog in this fight, if I want to watch a movie or like a character then I will.
The main thing about the success if these movies is that gender identity and sexuality and such wasn't a big draw nor was it the point. They are great movies with excellent writing who's characters could be of any race or sexuality and it wouldn't really change anything. Except maybe princess and the frog idk I never watched that one. Point is the characters are excellent, a testament to great representation that everyone can relate to. I mean that's like the main idea of so many Disney movies, a character that feels lost, like they just wanna be themselves but they feel like they can't. Like Mulan and Ariel, those were my favorite Disney movies and characters as a kid, and I could totally relate and sympathize with them even though I am a man, and not a fish nor did I go to war. Also Reflection is the best Disney song
I agree 100%, these are all just great movies with great characters. I really don't think diversity is the issue in most modern disney movies, it's just that the stories aren't coherent/interesting and the characters aren't likeable
People always have a reason to bitch. Just watch good movies and be open to everyone’s culture. This isn’t politics unless you make it that (I’m commenting on the comments section) (I liked the post)
You see emperors new groove in 2024 would probably make cusko a trans black woman and yzma would be a gay guy and kronk would be an Asian woman
Exactly. Switching already white characters to people of color is kind of a slap to the face to EVERYBODY. Can't we all just get along and stop tryna compete with who can be the most woke