Disney: No More Fairytales
November 26, 2010
by Bruce Nahin
|The opinions expressed herein are those of the author, and not necessarily those of The New Agenda.
Disney last week said that they would no longer be producing fairy tale movies, a staple of that studio since Snow White and Cinderella, animated features starring princesses.
The net result of this move however, may be to eliminate female-centric product from the studio. None of the Pixar products thus far released has been geared to girls, and under the Disney banner its current product Tangled, is a reworking of the Rapunzel story by Grim, featuring a male action hero as well as the long haired damsel.
Lots of this conversation about princess movies flopping began after the release of The Princess and the Frog (with Disney’s first black princess). According to “Hollywood,” the film underperformed, having made $104 million domestically and $162 million overseas for a total of $267 million on a budget of $105 million. Hardly a flop.
Apparently in the age of mega-franchises, when movies need to appeal to a broad audience to justify a sizable investment, Disney discovered too late that Princess and the Frog appealed to too narrow an audience: little girls. This prompted the studio to change the name of its Rapunzel movie to the gender-neutral Tangled and shift the lens of its marketing to the film’s swashbuckling male costar, Flynn Rider .
Melissa Silverstein, on her blog Women in Hollywood, commenting about this stated:
If boys won’t be encouraged and challenged (even though I have no idea why it is such a challenge) to see a movie about a girl how the hell do we have any hope for the future of women in film. It should be all of our jobs — including the filmmakers — to show that this is not true, because really, guys, is this the world you want your daughters and sons growing up in?
When you rate movies according to the low bar of the Bechdel test, (“Are there two women in the movie whose characters have names? Do they talk to each other? And do they talk to each other about something other than men?”),so few movies for adults pass the test, even some famous “chick flicks”, it’s obvious that it’s not just little girls who are being shorted in films. It’s pervasive.
Actually the little girls I watched Princes Frog with (on DVD) I assume didn’t like it because they wandered off in the middle of the movie. I thought the Princess theme was going well for Disney as they seem to be the only commercial character costumes I see girls in at Halloween. Of course which other costumes are they going to wear Avatar costumes? The TV shows on Disney channel are very female centric. In fact my daughter says they have been complaining non stop at her school because they don’t get Disney channel on the dorm cable system. I guess that’s not too big a problem for them as they can watch anything on line. Also with the Twilight movies, which have hardly any male audience, being in the top 5 openers and money makers especially if you are looking at net profits rather than gross earnings you would think more studios would be interested in serving the female audience something they will actually pay to see.
But I get your point that cutting off fairy tales cuts off stories from the old days when women and girls could be heroes rather than fashion icons or pieces of ass that are our only options in modern day Corporate Media
You know Disney had a string of good movies in the 60s that stared Hayley Mills. Trouble with Angles comes to mind if the religious theme isn’t too frightening in this day and age it would be a great remake. Then there was some sort of Greek vacation mystery. They could probably do a good job on Nancy Drew or some sort of knock off. The one Nancy Drew movie that was in theaters a few years ago went for the idiotic campy crap so the movie was only OK but a real girl modernized version of Nancy would sell. In fact there was an opportunity to have a “Bewitched” update franchise but they camped that up to the point where it was unwatchable. I still can’t see any movie with Nicole Kidman in it after that fiasco. But the best advise is get the production out of Hollywood. The Harry Potter franchise shows that the UK film industry can do a better job on female characters.
Britain is MUCH better then Hollywood. Well, at least ‘Ballykissangel’ was pretty good. There are fewer women then men (at least in the orthodox and semi-orthodox seasons) but they have enough personality between them for ten men. There was even an episode in season three that had something about feminism, but I haven’t watched season three since it was on PBS Alaska One years and years ago. However, my favorite movie is ‘Babbette’s Feast’ which is Danish. The three main characters are women, and it’s an amazing movie!
I didn’t see any of the Disney Princess movies till I was a teenager. My sisters went through a DP phrase, and have the book, toys, and sleeping bags to show for it.
I’m not too happy that Pixar has yet to feature a female lead.
We should have a go-to list of films, tv shows and books that have strong women.
Anna, agree, Babette’s feast is an amazing movie. could not have been produced in Hollywood.
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