Disney: Salvageable or Spineless?
—Exploring Disney's teeth-grinding issues Part 2
If there is one company that was destined to self-destruct, it must be Disney. Started out with soft, gentle watercolor styles and iconic cartoons, Disney has in recent years evolved into a multi-billion dollar, money-hungry corporation fixated on mainstream cash-grab and clickbait. Once known for its gentle color palette and innocent portrayals of love, Disney has descended into the trap of "politically correct" remakes and sequels, a satire of what they once stood for. However, might Disney still be salvageable? I believe the answer is yes, though it would be a slippery tight rope to navigate. So today, let's talk about how Disney's portrayal of romance has transformed negatively over the years, analyze some of its flops, and explore my own proposed solutions that might just salvage their reputation. This is part 2 of The Problem with Disney.
Love. When you hear that word, what do you think of? Do you think of candle-lit walks at a park, quiet stargazing on golden fields, the clinking of wine glasses as you listen to the rain? These images have all been portrayed by Disney, through gentle characters that are the symbol of innocence and intimacy. For decades, Disney has been the motif of love, a gentle statement of how romance could be within a fairytale. But in recent years, love seems to have become taboo in a Disney story, an untouched topic for fear of…political incorrectness? This is where Disney has gone the most wrong.
I support how Disney is trying out more modern, feminist topics, but along the way it has undoubtedly become an anti-feminist: yes, you heard me right. This iconic studio that created Snow White and Little Mermaid has the entirely wrong idea of feminism. They have forgotten that a girl can be strong even if she cries, be powerful even if she isn't brave, be unique even if she isn't quirky, and most importantly she can love even if she is a feminist. Reliance on a man, or simply on another individual—even if that individual is royal—does not contradict a female's belief of feminism.
Disney entirely disregarded this vital fact and chose instead while creating movies to twist romance, deflate romance, or even banish romance altogether. For example, the notorious Snow White has been largely hated with one of its reasons being, the iconic prince Charming has been replaced by a dorky thief. Why even is royalty taboo in Disney's corrupt eyes, and why has Disney chosen to remove the meaning of true love forever? Even the best classics, such as Snow White and The Seven Dwarves and Little Mermaid, have been twisted during remakes only so that the element of romance is removed. Disney has truly lost their sight on this one, even going as far as to claim some of their past princess stories are "creepy" with the princes being "stalkers" (I mean, one word: 🙄). Disney's central theme has always been purity, gentleness and love—until 2025. This only shows the power of fad "political correctness", and the damage is has on art pieces that could have been hits.
Now that we've mentioned a couple of Disney remakes, I think we should talk about some remake/sequel flops and why they fell so hard at the box office. It might provide a clearer picture of Disney's teeth grinding issues.
It would be a crime to not talk about Disney's largest box office flop in history, Snow White. I believe that there are four main problems resulting in backlash for this cinematic bombshell: casting, characters, plot and advertisement. We all know about the casting: The controversial selection of Rachel Zegler, her unpopular beef with Gal Gadot about the Israel-Palestine war and her backlash on the original Snow White. (Personally I find her slightly victimized, but that's not what we're going to explore today.)
Putting aside the selection of characters, the changes done to the characters' personalities themselves is vexing. Snow White's purity, innocence and hope is stripped way and replaced by a strong, impassive leading personality, removing the princess's original drive. Prince Charming is now an awkward peasant, the evil queen is not quite evil enough, and the dwarves have less personality than ever. Meanwhile, the plot of a young maiden's journey for love is replaced by a stoic woman's stomp for power, with love being a mere afterthought. The dwarves are replaced by nightmarish CGI, the evil queen is weirdly sucked into a mirror, and topics of monarchy are horribly explored.
The advertisement is even worse. Rachel Zegler's complaints about the original Snow White, Gal Gadot's distancing herself from the production of the remake, and Disney's hush-hush attitude of this whole release have all done nothing but worsen Snow White's reputation. If only Disney could have stuck to the classics and not vouched for fad "political correctness", then perhaps this catastrophe could have been avoided. The only lesson I learned from human history is Disney executives never learn a lesson.
Another huge Disney flop I will talk about is Princess Diary 2. I've done a movie review on this before, so I'm not going to go in depth. Basically, this disappointing sequel's ridiculous characters, pallid storyline and unrealistic monarchy portrayals form just another Disney cash-grab, destroying my perception of the cute first movie. The largest problem with this film is princess Mia's suddenness upon falling in love with William, a ridiculous pompous prince with the IQ of a bird. He's already extremely one-dimensional for such a pivotal character, but Mia suddenly falling in love with him is just a convenient response for fitting the plot. Horrible movie, and it deserves the criticism.
Other flops such as Moana 2, Frozen 2 and the remake of Mean Girls are either because of their unrealistic portrayals of love, shallow changes done to characters, or just Disney's inability to keep up with the times. All of these box office crashes show just how out of touch Disney is with its own industry.
Luckily, there are some solutions. First off, Disney has to stop creating such high-profile, high-key remakes/sequels in a desperate attempt to cash-grab. Now is the opportunity for them to express redemption by creating low-budget, low-profile films with renewed quality. They have also got to quit doing remakes or sequels, since that will do nothing but irk the audience further. Things are already not looking good: no matter what movie Disney releases next, it will be negatively criticized by netizens if only to express their anger. It's time for damage control. Try creating gentle, heartwarming films with an innovative watercolor style, different from usual. Yet one question remains. How is all this accomplishable? That is why I will be proposing an actual concrete solution in the next paragraph.
I believe that the best step for Disney to take right now is to create a classic water-color styled cartoon adaption of Little Women. I know it sounds ridiculous when you first hear it. But hear me out. A low-budget, low-profile water-color (almost zero CGI techniques) adaptation of Little Women would be perfect in today's circumstances for below reasons:
- Damage control. Creating a low-budget and low-profile movie hints to customers that Disney might be concentrating on artistic value instead of profit now, which creates a redemption arc for Disney.
- Style. This water-color, almost hand drawn style is similar to Disney's most iconic animation, Snow White and The Seven Dwarves. The similarity will further encourage people that Disney might be trying to return to their roots and regain their original values again.
- Roots. Disney gained success because they based their cartoons on classic fairytales. Now Disney can return to their roots and base more cartoons on classics as well, just not on fairytales. E.g. Little Women and A Little Princess are both viable choices for classics. Once again, this tells people that Disney is trying to redempt and discover new directions to take now (instead of avoiding risks and counting on remakes/sequels.)
- Low-budget. After numerous box-office bombshells, Disney cannot afford another high-budget failure. Instead, this time they can spend less money on marketing/advertisement and instead pour larger amounts of finance onto quality control, which would both help artistically and damage control financially.
All of that perfects Disney's redemption arc from making commercialized, desperate, high-budget cash-grabs to quiet, original, innovative, low-budget classics. Perhaps this idea isn't the most commercialized, industrialized or most interesting to children, but it is a new direction to take and it is better than another sequel/remake. Besides, this is what Disney needs right now. A low-key, gentle cartoon with vintage style just to show people they still care about artistic value.
To sum it up, does Disney still have a hope for salvation? Yes. Can it successful salvage itself? Perhaps. And is it still worth saving? A whole-hearted yes. Disney started out as a beautiful studio with beautiful dreams. Right now it is a corrupt studio with corrupt dreams. But perhaps in the future, it will be beautiful once more, it will create beautifully once more, and by default—its dreams will be beautiful once more.