Woke Disney is woke.
🕑 Added 2019-09-28 00:54:16 +0000 UTCThe wokest.
If you are in the Las Vegas area, come out and see Lindsay TOMORROW for her speaker event at the Sahara West Library, "Universal Language: How Sci-Fi Imagines Alien Languages": https://lvccld.bibliocommons.com/events/5d0923b65447a82400297a7d
Comments
Hey Lindsay (or whoever reads these comments), I just wanted to say how much your content means to me. I'm not really a big commenter/interacter, and I know how empty these words can sometimes sound from random internet strangers, but I've followed your work for years. One time I chatted with a stranger for about 10 minutes about how much we loved your videos. I honestly don't know that my sense of humor would be what it is today without your voice. I'm part of a discord server that lights up with excitement any time you post a new video. You are very loved and I'm so glad you're still out there making content.
TMN
I literally just subscribed after seeing that XOXO speech. Lindsay, I've followed you since THAT SITE, and held a lot of fondness for you (Creepy and weird Christmas songs remains amongst my favourite content.) Finding out you did Youtube essays made me an avid follower, knowing you and ContraPoints were pals solidified that even more. Of course I didn't know what was going on as I'm not on Twitter as anyone real, but I'm so sorry for what the Internet Hate Machine has put you through. I've never met you but I hope you never bow your head, I hope you keep doing what you love and I hope to help you, in some small way, with that journey. Many regards!
Lexie Lou
I JUST SAW YOUR SPEECH ON XOXO but comments were disabled so I wanted to stop by here quickly and tell you how much I appreciate what you're doing :D Just cause
Oskuro
I guess the point is that princesses, despite their wealth, were little more than bargaining chips to make political alliances though marriage, but maybe the movie does not make it clear.
That is a really good point
Michał Sporzyński
New Empowered Jasmine is just... weird. Isn't she, by implication (we obviously don't get the specifics of Agrabah politics), like the third most powerful person in the country? "I'm literally royalty but I feel I don't have enough power" is a weird take for a fairy tale. Yay, absolute monarchy? Sure am glad that one person who is richer than the rest of the city combined is not afraid to speak up and won't let anyone push her around...
William Beamish
this was v good
Nana G
god i never saw any of the new disney movies but i'm perversely glad the "fixing stuff" is as bad and hamfisted as i would have assumed
Justin Alexander
Instead of "let's go fly a kite" Mary Poppins Returns ends by literally disassembling the kite so that it can no longer fly in order to extract a stock certificate from it. I will die angry.
Sean Hannan
A really good companion video to this one is the Renegade Cut video on Late Stage Disney: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0lSoHNmMTA
Eric Lundquist
I want to share this with everyone now please
Jed Hovey
Another really good video, but I feel like it's also worth mentioning that part of the whole game surrounding wokeness is that in that world, no action of any kind can possibly be good enough. Pretty much all media, well intentioned or otherwise, made for profit or otherwise, has to make nods in that direction which will then be criticized for either not going far enough, neglecting some other salient point, using it to run interference for other self-serving motivations, etc. There's quite literally no end to it. Wokeness is sort of like an arms race, with everyone perpetually trying to be woker than thou, but even this kind of meta-commentary falls into the same trap, at least up to a point. Everything, absolutely everything is insensitive to someone, so it never ends. I'd have more sympathy if these criticisms were made out of genuine support for marginalized groups, and sometimes they are, sure, but most of the time it's first and foremost a way to gain cultural capital.
JordanL
This episode articulates so much of what I can't stand about these new Disney remakes but could never have articulated so perfectly. I feel so seen.
Will
Two words: DUMBO. SLAPS.
Will
Did anyone else catch the Jenny Nicholson reference??? #GirlChild
Sol Rabbit
The use of pop songs is on point as usual
Matthew Dunne
Ahh, this perked me right up from a downer. I particularly liked the point about the feather having been made white. And for Shenzi and Nala, I'm pretty sure that was literally the first time they spoke to each other in the film.
I’m just getting an error message on this :( x
John D Ruddy
Well done! Best of luck in Vegas!
Curt Clark
Lindsay remains the only one who can make me stay through the sponsor stuff. I know this has little to do with the discussion of Disney's social awareness problem, but I still maintain that if they're gonna keep live-actioning their movies up, they'd probably do better with the lesser-known or less successful stuff. I'm not coming out and saying Atlantis, Treasure Planet, and The Black Cauldron would be better as live-action movies (especially not Atlantis), but they could certainly benefit more from the authorial emergency surgery/vivisection Disney loves to take to their properties when they live-action them up.
E. Avery Beckett
The cut between renaissance-era animated Belle and the live-action Belle who ate shit after the beast launched a gigantic snowball at her face got a giant belly laugh out of me, I had to go back and watch it twice. I thought for sure that you were going to mention “Zootopia” somewhere, arguably one of Disney’s most nuanced and well-plotted takes on racial politics out of all of the company’s modern media. The “wokeness” you were referring to by and large ended up being more gender-focused, but man, would I love to see you say something about it. Love this subject, awesome video!!
Bonsha
"The hyenas being a race is not a good reason for them being bad anymore. How fix?" "I know! Give a reason why their race is bad, like they eat too much and take our <strike>jobs</strike> food!" "Brilliant and definitely progressive." Honestly, this wasn't hard to fix. Just establish a clan of good hyenas in the Pridelands and say Shenzi's clan is corrupted. Problem solved. The Lion Guard literally did this.
Connla Lyons
Behind the scenes trivia. The whole sequence with Danny devito at the end of Dumbo was a very late addition to the film. Requested and shot when the film was already in post. I look forward to your reaction to maleficent 2 "retconned destiny"
Elizabeth Anne
Also if the rumours are true about Disney remaking Pocahontas, I look forward to it doing mental gymnastics around its own racial insensitivities
Elizabeth Anne
Disney's totally gone IN on doing the whole 'fight song feminism' but addressing race commentary? Nah they're not ready for that conversation lbr
Mary Thompson
Will the Universal Language talk ever be available on Patreon? I’d love to hear it.
Karel P Kerezman
"Was all of Bollywood busy?" is where I gave in and laughed fully out loud. Another gem of a video!
Your my favorite boss babe, Lindsay
Xylem
This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill and I show you how thing bad.
This isn’t playing for me is that happening to anyone else?
Alfred van Zant
I can't hear "girl boss" without thinking of Pinky Violence exploitation movies. Now there's a video that'll never happen.
Will your talk about alien languages be recorded/will you adapt it into a regular video for this channel? Because that sounds interesting.
Can’t wait to see Woke Disney take a crack at a live action remake of Pocahontas. Also, great video ^_^
Lexie Lou
I love how some of the other videos about Disney have been kind of working up to this one, haha. Huge thanks to everyone working on this, thank you Lindsay, you're kind of one of my favourite people in the world. Hope you have a fun time talking about alien languages!
Ryan Morse
I didn't know Princess Weekes was involved! Very cool
No deffs having issues on the app :(
Crescent Minor
Er, if you're not even in the same country as Las Vegas, you may be wondering if LIndsay's talk about alien languages that sounds super interesting. I am.
Soraya The Admiral
I cried at "Where is my elephant son tonight?" 😂
De
I think it's called a placard. I don't know, that's just the word that surfaced in my mind. If we're never going to get another interesting movie again at least we can have interesting youtube vids about the dull soulless remakes. It could also be a nameplate, that just occurred to me.
Vladimir Barash
YES please more Shah Rukh Khan cameos. Want. Also, thank you for this video! I think it's a really cool engagement with postmodern art in a capitalist society. I'd love to see the flip side, too -- art that you see as successfully critiquing structural inequality and accepting it for what it is, not sweeping it under the rug.
Tsushi
I’m currently have some playback issues from mobile, dunno if that’s patreon’s fault, YouTube’s or my own phone/connection or something else. It doesn’t seem like anyone else is having an issue but I figured it’s better to at least check if anyone else had a similar issue or a solution?
L Strwbrry
my identification with you was complete and unwavering as you gritted your teeth through that ad plug. i feel the warm embrace of the corporate monster closing around me. love ya linds
Greg Walters
Dem music drops.
What a paradox. You've gotten so much out of the Disney remakes which get not but the surface statistics from their sources. The sources (time periods varying) would never give a second thought to future interpretation. You, Lindsay, have given simple voice to an elusive cultural puzzle piece. Being broke and being woke are just as bad, because both are cheap. That's so simple to explain I could cry.
Harry Thornton
On Burton!Dumbo: It's also worth pointing out that the name "Rocket to the Moon" is also the name of an actual old Disney attraction that once existed at the parks.
SkaveRat
Suddenly a lindsay video in my inbox. what a pleasant surprise. Also a very good video