Disney fans are tired of seeing the company rehash old content repeatedly and want to see the studio tell new and contemporary stories.
Disney seems to be losing favor with its audiences on all ends of the spectrum. Many have complained for a few years now that the company is pandering to woke audiences with its recent decisions, whether that is with the retheming of the ride Splash Mountain to Tiana’s Bayou Adventure in Walt Disney World Resort and Disneyland Resort, or with its casting of Black singer and actress Halle Bailey in the live-action remake of The Little Mermaid, and Yara Shahidi as Tinker Bell in Peter Pan and Wendy.
However, Disney has also been criticized for its content being offensive to minorities at the same time, particularly when it comes to its older content. An easy example is Peter Pan or Pinocchio, which featured offensive Native American narratives and other issues, which the remakes “corrected”, much to many fans’ umbrage. The latest news we’re reporting is in this vein. Per a recent survey by Newsweek, polled Disney fans who found some of the Mouse House’s older content to be “outdated” and “offensive,” and feature outdated cultural depictions.
Contrary to the “woke Disney” crowd, “Almost 50 percent of respondents to a Newsweek poll agreed that if Disney was going to reboot its vintage content, it should update plots to align with modern values.”
While many audiences across the board have been frustrated with Disney remaking old movies instead of creating new ones, the reasons for this frustration have been varied. Some feel that Disney is changing too much of the original vibe of the films, while others feel like the Walt Disney Company is being lazy.
Newsweek’s poll was conducted by Redfield and Wilton Strategies on August 22 and 23 with a sample size of 1,500 eligible voters in the U.S. The poll showed that 26 percent of respondents strongly disagreed or disagreed with the statement “classic Disney films contained outdated, offensive stereotypes,” while 45 percent strongly agreed or agreed with it.
When the poll asked: “Do you support or oppose remakes of Disney classics which change the plot and storyline of the original film to modern tastes and morals?” responses were overwhelmingly in favor of updating storylines, with 44 percent agreeing and 24 percent opposed to these kinds of changes.
The poll directly opposes much of the “woke Disney” criticism that has been going around since Disney began adding content warnings to its shows on Disney+ and distanced itself from the movie Song of the South.
“Historically, Disney has committed every form of offence. Racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia: it’s there throughout the Disney canon. In places it’s explicit, like the tropes of non-consensual kisses with unconscious princesses, in others it’s implicit, such as their long history of queer-coded villains with disfigurements,” Hannah Yelin, reader of media and culture at Oxford Brookes University, told Newsweek.
Does Disney Plus Have Inappropriate Content?
While the Walt Disney Company’s streaming service Disney+ doesn’t have “inappropriate” content in the more commonly accepted definition of the word, it hosts a lot of older films that, as Yelin explained, have arguably problematic descriptions of characters and society at large.
Which Disney Movies have Content Warnings?
The Walt Disney Company, in a project called Stories Matter, brought together experts from within the company to review a lot of this older content and add content advisories.
Per the company, “As part of our ongoing commitment to diversity and inclusion, we are in the process of reviewing our library and adding advisories to content that includes negative depictions or mistreatment of people or cultures.”
Movies with content advisories include Aristocats, Swiss Family Robinson, Dumbo, Peter Pan, and more.
