Disney General - The saddest fandom on Earth

[Crescent Fresh]

This was the ethos behind sites like Cracked.com

Not exactly. Cracked WAS an amazing site in its very earliest days, genuinely one of the funniest sites on the internet. Its ethos had nothing anything like the politicking it turned into later.

You Might Be a Zombie is a genuinely great read if you can find an old PDF of it, it’s basically “old Cracked” distilled.

 

[X-avier cuck]

Not exactly. Cracked WAS an amazing site in its very earliest days, genuinely one of the funniest sites on the internet. Its ethos had nothing anything like the politicking it turned into later.

You Might Be a Zombie is a genuinely great read if you can find an old PDF of it, it’s basically “old Cracked” distilled.

I brought them up because of what they became and how who departed from there essentially ended up becoming walking sjw stereotypes.

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

I'm old enough to remember when Cracked was the shitty wannabe MAD that people only read for Don Martin

 

[Basic Blond Boy]

It seems to me that somewhere between the dawn of the Disney Renaissance and the era of smartphones and streaming, an entire generation of viewers—millennials, as we came to call them—constructed a new form of pseudo-progressive politics. It wasn't born in the halls of academia or on Capitol Hill, but in comment sections, YouTube essays, and on the pages of early blogs and forums. It was a kind of cultural vigilantism—a belief that pointing out a flaw in a beloved piece of media was tantamount to justice.

This was the ethos behind sites like Cracked.com, the rise of "Cinema Sins," and the endless churn of video essays that purported to "deconstruct" your childhood. It created a generation of critics more interested in being right than in being fair—armed with sarcasm, selective memory, and the need to be applauded for noticing that Aladdin was made in 1992.

From this environment came a style of critique that often mistook the past’s limitations for intentional malice. It forgot that films, like people, are products of their time—not finished arguments, but works caught in the act of becoming.

Enter the next generation—Zoomers, the Tiktok natives—who came of age watching this millennial performative progressivism play out like a tired stage show. In response, many took the opposite approach. Why engage with something that might make you uncomfortable, even a little? Better to dismiss it outright. Better to cancel the screening than to sit with the ambiguity.

And so, we arrive at the current state of discourse—a landscape where Hollywood seems to be simultaneously trying to be “on message” and universally likable, while also terrified of misstep. Where discomfort isn’t the beginning of a deeper truth but a red flag to retreat.

But art is not always safe. Nor should it be. We cannot retroactively sanitize the past, nor should we be afraid of its imperfections. If we lose the ability to grapple with complexity—to see a film as both flawed and formative—we lose something vital not only in our criticism, but in our culture.

Eh, not entirely...

I think we pass over Gen X and their cynical outlook, along with really the whole of the 2000s which were not a good time for Disney. Cracked and the like were more or less parroting already made critiques you would find in Robot Chicken, Family Guy, or the wholly grail that was Shrek. Hell, even Disney went hard on themselves in 07 with Enchanted.

In terms of the uber-critiques, most of YouTube just stole the style of either Mystery Science Theatre 3000 or Roger Ebert.

If we are speaking on Progressive politics, again, a lot of it was already a thing thanks to the 90s and 00s. Arguably the Daily Show was the biggest catalyst in making politics as insufferable as it is today. One can also go into works like the Simpsons, South Park, SNL, etc..

From this environment came a style of critique that often mistook the past’s limitations for intentional malice. It forgot that films, like people, are products of their time—not finished arguments, but works caught in the act of becoming.

Cannot feel bad for Hollywood or entertainment as they themselves destroy the past to prop-up the new. As stated above, this wasn't something that came about just because of the internet. The Simpsons was not like other family sitcoms, spewing a host of new-age sitcoms that deconstruct the family as all hating each other. We had comics like Watchmen that deconstructed Superheroes followed by the Boys and Invincible.

Where the mediums are fumbling now is that there is nowhere to go. They don't have writers clever enough or with enough confidence to make new media that isn't just a joke upon itself. They also refuse to make new media, going back into the franchise well and deconstructing them to try to look cool. At least the deconstructions of the 90s and 00s had their own soul and could say something, the 10s and 20s are just vague regurgitations and doubling down in a desperate hope to recapture lighting in in a bottle.

 

[The greater a'tuin]

I brought them up because of what they became and how who departed from there essentially ended up becoming walking sjw stereotypes.

There is no better example of how much society changed for the worse.

 

[catsandsoup]

Anyone remember pointlesswasteoftime.com, the site John Cheese and David Wong had that got folded into cracked.com?

 

[Trilby]

I'm old enough to remember when Cracked was the shitty wannabe MAD that people only read for Don Martin

I miss that Cracked.

 

[Mister Fister]

They need to cut all of their DEI hires and commissars. That's the real source of their problems. But of course, they'd rather cut the actual production workers instead.

I'll make my own star wars, with hookers and blackjack

 

[The Mighty Banth]

Throw Coco in there too. I know it’s a bit older but it counts.

I'll defend Coco because the disfunction came from the guy being murdered and once that was explained, the family was restored.

 

[X-avier cuck]

@Basic Blond Boy Generation X lived through animation’s low point—they watched studios treat the medium like a toy aisle. That cynicism had roots. But it also had respect. The artists who emerged from that era—Bluth, Bakshi, and later, those who led the Disney Renaissance—weren’t trying to tear things down just to be clever. They were trying to restore something.

Millennials during the digital era took a different approach through early use of YouTube, began to reanalyze classical through a modern-day social political lens.

Many seem to believe that if a piece of art doesn’t reflect their current worldview, it’s irredeemable. So we end up with takedowns—sometimes thoughtful, often not—that confuse buzzwords for depth. These critiques get repeated until they become canon, regardless of whether they actually hold water.

Enchanted is actually a great examination of before and after this era because the movie spoofed Disney stuff in a loving way which is why it was in live action to begin with because it added to the story they wanted to tell.

The LA Remakes are created to readdress the bad faith criticism that was generated by the above and more or less exist to try to overtake the original as THE version that most audiences will remember because of it but they don't because on top of being awful they are made in that face just like the arguments that generated their existence.

 

[Mac Monster]

I wonder if Disney will make Pleakley a troon because he likes to crossdress.

 

[BigBadBastich]

I wonder if Disney will make Pleakley a troon because he likes to crossdress.

Don't give them ideas...

 

[Cnut]

People say a lot about the remakes, but in the parks it's still the animated characters. Even when promoting the new ones like Little Mermaid.

What does this tell us? That Disney knows the classics can't be undermined? Or, that they have no faith in the live actions on some pseudo-permanent cultural level? Perhaps that they don't want to be in $gratitude to actor's likenesses?

As a special case: Pirates of the Caribbean, a 'new' movie franchise based on the classic Disneyland ride, ended up putting robots of Johnny Depp into the classic ride. There is no Aladdin ride, but if there were-- would we see Robin Williams replaced with Will Smith? I don't think so.

These remakes while maybe hyped and taking resources away from a potential good movie, are completely ephemeral and no one will remember them in five let alone fifty years. (Except maybe as a lesson in folly.)

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

I'll get the photo after I trim it down, but guy in front of me had an ancient faded bumper sticker about getting rid of Eisner and bringing back Roy

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

I'm not sure the car's been the same but he's ride-or-die with that spare tire cover lmao

 

[Your Starter for 10]

People from Beaumont Texas don't ever get rid of anything.

 

[cactus]

As a special case: Pirates of the Caribbean, a 'new' movie franchise based on the classic Disneyland ride, ended up putting robots of Johnny Depp into the classic ride. There is no Aladdin ride, but if there were-- would we see Robin Williams replaced with Will Smith? I don't think so.

I love the POTC movies, but fuck do I want them to take any and all references to the movies out of them, the rides were fine as is (also the old auction scene needs to come back, I don't know anyone who was offended by it).

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

(also the old auction scene needs to come back, I don't know anyone who was offended by it).

and the old attempted rape scenes

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

Be prepared for the thinkpieces because evidently Pleakley is still in drag judging by one of the trailers.

 

[Candlelight Desolation]

and the old attempted rape scenes

I've been thinking about Hunchback a lot recently, and I think it's crazy how Disney was able to get away with all the stuff with Frollo lusting after a woman decades younger than him so much so to the point where he is willing to actually kill people (innocent commoners unfortunately caught in the crossfire) over it.

Incidentally, I would like to note that as someone who had some Catholic influence in my early childhood, Hunchback was more effective given I actually thought Frollo was supposed to be a priest when I watched it (if you watch the movie, he's clearly supposed to be a priest to me). I'm not involved in the Catholic Church anymore, though given my now very different spiritual views, I have to note that what Frollo says at the beginning of the "Hellfire" song reminds me of the Biblical parable of the Pharisee and the publican, given the hypocritical Pharisee says this in the parable where Jesus is speaking out against pride/religious hypocrisy:

Luke 18:11 - The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.

Frollo: You know I am a righteous man / Of my virtue I am justly proud [...] You know I'm so much purer than / The common, vulgar, weak, licentious crowd