So Disney/Pixar’s new Toy Story movie, Lightyear, came up a bit short at the box office last weekend, taking in 50 million dollars, some 20 million dollars less than Disney was expecting. And homophobic culture warriors are over the moon, insisting that the poor performance of Lightyear was the result of the film’s alleged “wokeness,” with parents righteously outraged over a blink-and-you-might-miss-it kiss between two female characters.
Headlines on various right-wing media outlets were similarly overstimulated by this right-wing “win,” which they were happy to attribute to Disney’s “wokeism” on the Lesbian Question. LouderWithCrowder crowed “Disney’s ‘Lightyear’ Crashes and Burns Over Opening Weekend as Americans Reject Wokeism.” The Federalist declared that “After Disney Doubles Down On Sexualizing Kids, ‘Lightyear’ Falls Way Short At Box Office.” A site called HeadlineUSA proclaimed that “Disney Groomer Flick ‘Lightyear’ Disappoints at Box Office.”
Huh. Or maybe the real issue behind the lackluster box office is that the film’s premise was a little confusing? (It’s not about the characters in the Toy Story movies but rather it’s supposed to be the film that inspired little Andy in the first Toy Story to buy a Buzz Lightyear toy in the first place.) Maybe the Toy Story franchise is losing some steam 27 years after the release of the first film? Maybe Disney fans are just waiting until it’s ported over to the Disney+ streaming service?
I would say “who knows,” but the right-wing culture warriors are pretty sure they know: It was the lesbian kiss. What lesbian kiss? This lesbian kiss.
Breitbart’s John Nolte offered this explanation for Lightyear “tanking”:
So we have the most popular animated franchise in history, solid reviews, and a wide-open field with families raring to return to the movies… What could it be? What could it be?
Could it be that the child groomers at Walt Disney added homosexuality to this legendary franchise?
Could that be it? Could it be that adding same-sex sex to a kiddie movie is something people do not want to subject themselves or their kids to?
That less-than-a-second kiss counts as “same-sex sex?” Nolte must be kind of a weirdo in bed.
Nolte concludes that
if you’re a normal and honest human being, you know that [the kiss is] the answer. We’ve seen it before. Woke is so poisonous, toxic, hated, and repugnant that it killed Star Wars as a film franchise. …
If the child groomers at Disney want to lose $300 million and see their stock tank even further, decent people will find watching that a whole lot more entertaining than these shitty movies.
Leave it to The Federalist , though, to come up with an explanation that’s even more berserk than Nolte’s. As Federalist intern Elise McCue sees it, the film’s
underperformance at the box office … proves that no amount of media attention can mask the distaste many Americans have towards Disney since its dive into the deep end of wokeism.
But “Disney defendants” — I think she means “defenders” — can’t see
that the reason the entertainment giant is losing stake in American households is that many parents do not support the over-sexualization and indoctrination of their children.
How on earth is a brief, chaste, less-than-a-second kiss between two middle-aged romantic partners responsible for “over-sexualization of … children?“
Child beauty pageants “over-sexualize” children. Affectionate little kisses by middle-aged lesbian cartoon characters don’t. Not that McCue bothers to explain what exactly she’s talking about; she just powers ahead to a rather uninspired conclusion.
If Disney continues down this anti-family path, it can expect to see its place in the American household fizzle as inauspiciously as this last installation of the “Toy Story” franchise.
Meanwhile, those on the “woke” side of this manufactured controversy are busily owning the right wingers on social media.
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I suspect the real reason might be that people are getting a little jaded with studios milking to death franchises with pointless prequels and origin stories. The latest Despicable Me cash grab is suffering similar diminishing returns. And as far as I’m aware the minions don’t snog. (“Heh, bottom”)
Currently though 97% of major studio releases are sequels, prequels, or re-boots.
Jeebus flip Hollywood, would an original idea actually kill you?
There’s also the fact that this film has to make $400 million!!!; just to break even.
Imagine what someone with a fresh idea and a modicum of actual talent could do with that.
https://collider.com/best-low-budget-films-into-blockbusters/
Now anyone who even acknowledges the existence of LGBTQ+ people is considered a groomer. This is not going to end well.
Most likely, the real reason the film didn’t do well is that it just didn’t attract an audience? I’m actually happy that LGBTQ+ issues are getting more acceptance and visibility and I don’t think that would be a problem for any film, even if a kids film.
Not releasing the movie to streaming services hurt its boxoffice take. It’s long term profits are going to suffer when it’s exclusively available on Disney Plus starting August 1st. It doesn’t matter how much content you hold hostage Disney and other companies that pull this crap, if people refuse to get your over priced subscription service, this just makes them more bitter, cynical, and unwilling to subscribe. This is why Lightyear is doing badly. Over the course if the pandemic cinemas failed, people got into the habit of not going to the movie theaters to watch movies, instead opting for the more convenient streaming options(or piracy). Also people are sick of the exclusive content driven streaming services that have nothing else to offer.
Also calling LGBTQ+ people and allies “groomers” is blood libel, which is a form of a stochastic terrorism.
@Michael Quinn Sullivan:
I wouldn’t exactly call 6.47 million people “no one”.
@The Federalist:
Seeing any kiss on the lips whatsoever is “over-sexualization” of children? That’s … incredibly prudish. Were even the 1950s television censors this prudish, or could the sitcom mommy and daddy have a closed-mouth kiss as long as they slept in separate beds?
@various:
I have a new looming problem: pretty much all of the taxi companies that had been operating in this area aren’t any more (and the particular one I was using is outright kaput; when I tried to call them a couple nights ago all I got was “this number is not in service; please hang up and try your call again”). There is a single exception. I have that exception added to my phone contacts, now, but the problem is that the near-collapse of the local taxi industry has left that one remaining one so busy there are hour-plus wait times pretty much throughout their operating hours.
Under these circumstances, and without reliable access to rides from people I know (let alone a vehicle to call my own), how do I safely get refrigerated and frozen foods home?
Als this might have to do with the fact that taking the kids to the movies is the cost of a small mortgage, and what with inflation, ain’t nobody got any money. I know I wanted to go see the dinosaurs with my nieces and nephew and couldn’t because I ran out of disposable money before it’s release date.
It is interesting that everytime a movie that isn’t exclusively about a heroic white guy doesn’t make money at the box office these guys start crowing about “wokeness”, which I don’t think they understand the meaning of that word. Anyway, this one does have a heroic white guy so it’s not a good for these guys that it bombed because maybe the reason it did is that women and PoC are spoiled for movies that represent them, and decided they weren’t going to spend their money on it. Disney might decide to pull back on making movies about heroic white guys in the future.
Anyway, there’s a bajillion reasons it didn’t make as much money as the creators wanted, and I have simply reached the point in my development where I’m no longer reading reviews from white guys about movies or tv shows. I’m just really exhausted by them. I’m ready to hear from more progressive, or independent critics, now.
@ lakitha
Totally O/T, but a little while ago you posted a comment in response to one of mine that was really interesting and helpful; and I got waylaid before I could respond. So I do apologise; that was very rude of me.
As partial recompense, I very much agree with what you just said there.
I have to wonder how angry these same conservatives will be when the next big budget Disney film comes out that features a gay couple, and is a whopping success. Truly if movies failed for including gay relationships, they would not be very common now would they? Oh not to mention all those children cartoons that feature a gay character now and don’t get canceled for it. It seems that One Million Bigoted Loser Moms can’t get anything done can they?
Not my job to support mediocre films with easily edited out lgbtq+ members.
The elephant in the room here, though, is obviously COVID. It’s remarkable that they convinced over six million people to get into an unventilated cramped room with 200 other people for 2 hours during a pandemic, rather than surprising that it wasn’t even more. The lockdowns might have ended but everyone has not forgotten all about the virus and moved on, and not everyone’s risk-comfort level is such that they will be going back to cinemas quite yet.
As for streaming, bleh. Bit by bit, it is becoming impossible to participate in modern society without a middle class income, expensive urban digs, and a credit card. Things no longer available to me, or presumably anyone with my income, in timeline format:
199x-present: high-speed internet (must either be in a $2000/mo or more zipcode or pay through the nose for mobile data; DSL in lower-rent exurbs won’t cut it)
200x-present: job prospects beyond McJobs (which means, jobs that would make moving to a big city affordable, so if you weren’t born into a big city or you didn’t get such a job straight out of school, no big city for you … ever. Unless you were born into money itself, of course.)
2015-present (ramping up steadily): ability to be up to date on current TV happenings when attempting to socialize. It started with putting some “water-cooler shows” on premium cable instead of the OTA networks, and accelerated with this recent trend of putting lots of stuff exclusively on online streaming. Premium cable was expensive; living anywhere with good enough internet for streaming is way more expensive, and streaming requires paying on credit, too.
2019: non-emergency medicine (moved behind the same “expensive non-exurban zipcode wall” as high-speed internet has always been behind, from what I’ve heard)
2020: not missing major movies when they come out, as during the pandemic some debuted and had their whole theatrical runs during lockdowns, so no streaming = no movie for you until the blu-ray came out. Meanwhile any social environment becomes a minefield of spoilers … good luck avoiding stepping on any for eight months or so other than by becoming a hermit. And by the time the one’s blu-ray shows up, there’s now another one in the same limbo.
2021: intercity bus service (so, now any travel at all requires owning your own car and/or paying for plane tix, aka having at least a high five figures income)
2022: intracity taxi service in smaller cities (drastically reduced and hour-plus wait times)
I’m wondering what’s next to be taken away from people living outside major metro areas? Emergency medicine as well as non? Any internet at all? Phone service? Electricity? Heat? Clean drinking water? First-born sons? Souls? The billionaires really don’t seem to want us to be a part of society any more. Maybe it’ll be the camps for us sometime around 2025?
These are just shitty people, who have nothing inside themselves, and desperately embarrassed about it. After all, hatred and self-loathing don’t count.
This. And I am still salty about the time they tried to copyright Día de Muertos (for Coco).
Nobody’s got money to take the whole family to a confusing prequel(?) that’s a sequel (?) to movies that came out decades ago when they know they can see it as many times as they want on Disney+ in a few weeks, along with all the other stuff. You could buy gas or food or something with that money instead.
The US average ticket price is $9.17, so even allowing for kids’ prices and matinees… yeah. ONE ticket to ONE showing costs more than a month of D+ and way more in metro areas. Gas is average $5/gallon, so your $9 will get you to work and back for a while.
It’s just franchise fatigue. I saw an ad for Lightyear and felt worse than bored at the prospect.
On the other hand I’ve hugely been enjoying Better Call Saul, The Boys and feel some trepidatious excitement for The Rings of Power, and only one of those is a completely original story (and that a spin off), so maybe it’s just much of Disney’s output in particular that I’m finding stale.
@Alan Robertshaw:
Currently though 97% of major studio releases are sequels, prequels, or re-boots.
Jeebus flip Hollywood, would an original idea actually kill you?
It would threaten the notion that All Stories Anywhere Belong To The Mouse.(That’s also why original ideas with potential have a way of getting subsumed into name-brand franchises; I’m told that an original black-comedy fashion-themed crime film that could have been fun on its own terms got mutated into “Cruella DeVil could be a tragically put-upon fusion of Harley Quinn and Vivienne Westwood, right? Edgy black-and-white theme, right?”)
There’s also the fact that this film has to make $400 million!!!; just to break even.
One of Mario Bava’s most impressive cinematic achievements was budgetary. Disciplined in creating artful and critically-acclaimed crime, horror, and fantasy films In A Cave With A Box Of Scraps (and In A World where practical effects were all they had), Bava managed to put together a big glossy comic-adaptation popcorn blockbuster film at a fraction of the allotted budget—I’ve heard figures for Danger: Diabolik ranging from two-thirds to one-seventh. (The studio intended to launch a franchise, but Bava believed in hoisting evildoers by their own petard—hence the film’s ambiguous ending.)
Further Fun Fact: despite what the English trailer narration implies, Diabolik was a rarity among swinging 60’s adventurers in that he maintained a faithful monogamous relationship—just ask Eva! This may have something to do with his being the brainchild of two women: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabolik
I find this whole “woke” thing disturbing.
Anytime anyone who isn’t conspicuously straight white male or meant to please straight white males shows up in any popular media, aggrieved howls of “WOKEWOKEWOKE” surge through cyberspace. So in order to succeed in the “Get Woke Go Broke” paradigm, a Y chromosome and an absence of melanin is required for every character in every franchise everywhere ever? The heinous offense of looking like me is the kiss of death for any show that dares display such perversity on the screen?
I find that there is one benefit to the woke phenomenon, at least. In my eyes, when anybody bloviates about the evils of wokeism, they instantly hang a placard around their neck boldly declaring “I’m a fuming bigot and proud of it.” That makes identifying the wankers pretty easy.
Also: nobody tell these Fake Geek Boys about Darna (http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/d/darna.htm), the Philippines’ combination Wonder Woman, Supergirl, and Shazam—who’s been headlining over seventy years’ worth of superhero films.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7dAnAt78sU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWyRdSjMRxg
Among other things, I think they really flubbed the promotion on this. I confess I am an avid Disney+ watcher, and there was so much Lightyear-related content being pushed on that platform, I had just assumed that the movie was being released to there. As it was on my meh-maybe-someday-I’ll-watch list, I did not realize my error until I started seeing stories about it underperforming.
So, from my point of view, they have gotten themselves to the point where they are putting the onus on viewers to do their own research as to where they need to go to view new content.
@moregeekthan:
Among other things, I think they really flubbed the promotion on this. I confess I am an avid Disney+ watcher, and there was so much Lightyear-related content being pushed on that platform, I had just assumed that the movie was being released to there. As it was on my meh-maybe-someday-I’ll-watch list, I did not realize my error until I started seeing stories about it underperforming.
I’m reminded of how Disney utterly dropped the PR ball for John Carter, whose blurbs should’ve come gift-wrapped: “Before Star Wars or Star Trek, there was Barsoom!” and “From the creator of Tarzan!” would be no more than literal truth. They weren’t about to use the title of the original book, A Princess of Mars, because they didn’t want to taint their SF action film with girl cooties; girl princess movies are over there, and boy superhero films are over here, and there’d better not be any cross-contamination. But who has the word “Mars”—which would at least indicate that we’re talking an SF movie—copyrighted?
“If Disney continues down this anti-family path…”
The offending characters in question are literally a married couple with a kid, no?
As for the movie itself, my interest is pretty minimal, but I will probably watch it when it’s available on Disney+.
No. That’s too logical and reasonable. It’s obviously the lesbians. Also, the woke Democrats forcing Disney to cast Chris Evans instead of a very bored and done Tim Allen.
This is no doubt skewed by the parts of the internet I frequent, but the only comments I’d seen on this movie were from people who saw the poster image of a slightly-more-realistically-rendered Buzz and said “oh, another white boys’ power fantasy, looks like I’ll be giving this a miss.” Maybe Disney ought to have led with the lesbians. But I agree it’s probably Hollywood’s insistence on decreeing success or failure based on the opening-weekend theatrical box-office only, even though video rentals became a thing decades ago and streaming and downloads have only increased the home-viewing part of the market.
The target audience for any Toy Story movie children under five and their parents and any family that I know that has young children are just trying to keep their heads above water financially, and in addition many of them are still hesitant about indoor activities, both because their kids are not fully vaccinated (the covid-19 vaccine was just approved for children under five in the US), and because a lot of kids are still learning how to behave in situations with a lot of strangers, since that part of their socialization was curtailed by covid.
This seems pretty spot on.
I lean towards everyone just being tired of the franchise with a dash of no one wants to take their child to a theater because of cost + fear of Covid. I’m guessing the new Downton Abbey movie will share a similar fate.