Speaking to outlet “El Pais,” John Musker, the genius Disney creator behind some of its greatest hits, from “The Little Mermaid” to “Moana,” called out Disney’s drift toward putting a woke political message first and the important elements of a movie, such as the plot and the character, second. Musker said that if a movie is to include a message, it ought put that well after making the movie a good one.
Musker’s comments, as background, come as critics allege that Disney’s woke drift to the left, particularly in the messaging of its movie and in its fight with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, is the reason for its serious troubles at the box office. And Disney is facing serious box office woes: in 2023, seven out of its eight major releases flopped with audiences,
Musker, speaking to El Pais about the movies and wokeness, noted that with Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog” movie, which takes place in the Bayou and has mainly African-American characters, they weren’t trying to be “woke,” even if the movie made it look like that. He said, “We weren’t trying to be woke, although I understand the criticism.”
Continuing, he described what set the classic films of Disney’s heydays apart from today’s, saying that back in the day, Disney cared about putting the quality of the movie first. He said, “The classic Disney films didn’t start out trying to have a message. They wanted you to get involved in the characters and the story and the world, and I think that’s still the heart of it.”
He then explained what has to happen with a movie for it to be a good one, saying that even if political agendas are not excluded, the movie needs good characters that are compelling and relatable. He said, “You don’t have to exclude agendas, but you have to first create characters who you sympathize with and who are compelling.”
Then, commenting on what Disney must do to recover, Musker said that the political message of films needs to be put behind created a good story and great characters. As he put it, “I think they need to do a course correction a bit in terms of putting the message secondary, behind entertainment and compelling story and engaging characters.”
He also spoke about how Disney butchered its live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid” by putting the wrong things first and excluding the important parts of the story, namely the “father-daughter story” that is a key ingredient of the successful, animated version.
He said, “Companies are always like, ‘How do we reduce our risk? They like this, right? We’ll just do it again and sell it to them in a different form.’ Or they think, ‘Well, we could make it better.’ I think there was a question even with The Little Mermaid. They didn’t play up the father-daughter story, and that was the heart of the movie, in a way. And the crab — you could look at live animals in a zoo and they have more expression, like with The Lion King. That’s one of the basic things about Disney, is the appeal. That’s what animation does best.”
Musker is far from the only one to call out Disney for ruining its intellectual property with woke nonsense. Conservative podcaster and commentator Megyn Kelly did so as well in her Sirius XM show, blasting it for its woke flops. Watch her here:
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