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[–]jacques1102 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Why do i have the feeling this is overhyping it and the way China can censor it will be to claim the 2 are friends?If there's a kissing scene of course disney will probably make a mil second one where the chinese can censor.

[–]makesyoudownvote 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

A recent report about a year ago has shown that for Disney censoring for Chinese markets doesn't actually pay off they expected it would. That's part of the reason why Disney has stopped doing it, and begun leaning into the opposite strategy. That's not to say that they won't still do it a bit, but the bad PR they receive for doing so actually hurts their bottom line more than the benefit of legally showing in China.

[–]Alienhunter糞大名 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Chinese markets have essentially locked the west out of access again due to Xi's new policy reforms and a trend to show more Chinese produced content.(There's only so many foreign movies allowed to be screened in the country each year and access is competitive.) Also rampant piracy tends to cut into anything beyond theater profits.

However Disney loses out not just on China but also pretty much the entirety of the Muslim world. Not that the movies are often banned per say but they'll get an R rating equivalent and that sinks a children's movie.

Also I think Disney by playing the culture wars loses out on a lot of potential domestic profits as well. The question is do they make more money by using this as marketing vs the money they lose from alienating large swaths of the domestic and foreign markets?

I've yet to hear a very coherent argument as to why token representation is so important? It's important for kids to see other kids like them? Hmm, kids love stuff like Tom & Jerry does that count as otherkin representation? Or do they literally not gaf and watch whatever they think is interesting.

I personally don't really care about the gay tokenism in these movies but I think it's underlying a problem in the industry where writers seem to think diversity alone is somehow a compelling plot point and they are focused on checking a bunch of corporate boxes rather than making something that is good on its own merits. Disney is pretty much notorious for this and I think it's sucked all the creativity out of their company and they basically just churn out endlessly uninspired content. Marvel movies have become stale and uninteresting and it has nothing to do with the random gay tokenism, and everything to do with poor direction and writing. Star Wars is the same, it's like they are the Squire of Gothos, they nailed the asthestics but understand nothing of the underlying substance and churn out visually appealing but ultimately souless films.

Unfortunately their animated department has also fallen prey to this. It's churning out endless uninspired sequels and safe corporately approved predictably developed films. Gone are the days they'd make something truly artistic like Fantasia. Now let's make yet another princess movie accept the princess has to save the man! (Roll reversal is so uninspired) And to say nothing of them remaking their animated movies as shot for shot live action movies.

Maybe the gay tokenism is their attempt to use the culture war as a way to shut down any criticism of their movies and bully people into feeling the need to go see them? That's about the only reason why I'd think they'd play it up so much in marketing.