patrick.net

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somewhat Woke-programming as far as girl power theme: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marvels

it has a budget of about $275 million ! ! !

Looks like The Marvels is going to be another Disney flop : https://www.showbiz411.com/2023/11/11/marvel-studios-has-its-lowest-opening-day-ever-with-the-marvels-breaking-a-record-it-didnt-want

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What is interesting is that Disney has been an "experience economy" provider since the 1930's.

Going back to the 1970s as a kid, watching Star Wars on the big screen was an immersive and memorable experience. And watching Battlestar Gallatica on Sunday nights.

Then came Raiders of the Lost Ark, and then late 1980s watching Star Trek Next Generation and being enthralled by Data and Worf.

Read more about how to sustain an "immersive experience", or "an experience (or memorable) economy" venue :

https://www.axios.com/2023/11/11/immersive-experience-sphere-las-vegas-sleep-no-more-van-gogh

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Even CNN is stating Disney's Marvel movies are consistently losing money

https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/13/media/marvel-movies-reliable-sources/index.html

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Death by...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tmxfVWDgMM

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/pricey-patty-monday-november-27-2023

Turley’s op-ed opens with Disney’s recently-filed annual SEC financial report. It was a stinker. But what most caught Turley’s eye was the report’s admission that — guess what? — messing about in controversy and politics might be hurting the company’s bottom line. The report wordily acknowledged that:

“We face risks relating to misalignment with public and consumer tastes and preferences for entertainment, travel and consumer products. Consumers’ perceptions of our position on matters of public interest, including our efforts to achieve certain of our environmental and social goals, often differ widely and present risks to our reputation and brands.”
Eureka! The geniuses at Disney discovered the long-lost concept of misalignment with customers. (And what would they do without euphemisms?) But seriously, why on Earth would any allegedly capitalist company set “environmental and social goals” that are misaligned with their customers? If directors know the ESG goals are misaligned with customers, but do them anyways, should shareholders get to sue the directors for sabotaging the company’s share price?

Add those to the list of unanswerable rhetorical questions.

Ultimately, citing article from last year, Turley suggested that Disney’s CEO Bob Iger might finally be trying to scale back a little on the woke politics. But I don’t think so. Or if he is, it’s only a little. Headline from last week:




Is it just me? Or did South Park just run an episode about this same exact thing?




It’s really too bad Disney can’t fire its customers and get new, woker ones aligned with its ESG goals. On a more serious note, this kind of story is what sometimes makes me think that a little depression might actually be good for this country. These companies must be swimming in so much money it makes them think they can ignore customer preferences. ...

Either way, now is the time for all of us to triple-down on Disney. Cancel everything! Let’s have an anti-Disney Christmas. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Patrick says

Turley’s op-ed opens with Disney’s recently-filed annual SEC financial report. It was a stinker. But what most caught Turley’s eye was the report’s admission that — guess what? — messing about in controversy and politics might be hurting the company’s bottom line. The report wordily acknowledged that:

The Marvels has recently been released and has made about $189 million worldwide (https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl247366145)

Its "girl power"- type movie.

The Marvels gross budget was $275 million.

Figure about 60% of ticket sales goes to Disney so worldwide the movie needs about $458 million from ticket sales. It only has $189 million after being released on November 10, and I don't see it reaching even $300 million at the end of next January.

So Disney likely will lose at least $100 million from The Marvels.

Disney has already project to lose $1 billion for its movie business for 2023 as of August 2023 as per this article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinereid/2023/08/04/the-four-flops-of-2023-that-cost-disney-1-billion/

And I don't think the movies are good advertisement (or investment for that matter) as far as bringing more people to buy Disney products and services like going to their amusement parks.

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https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2023/11/27/nolte-looking-back-at-disneys-year-of-flops/

Disney on Track to Lose Nearly $750 Million Across 13 Films in Historic Year of Box-Office Flops

And Disney's animation movie Wish came out this Thanksgiving holiday with a budget of $200 million.

It does not seem to have as much of a woke agenda, and has ticket sales of about $49 million worldwide. Its going to need about $350 million in ticket sales to break even, and I doubt it will.

Twenty years ago I would not have ever though that Disney was going to lose at least a $1 billion a year due to its movie business.

The CNBC article brings up that essentially the Disney streaming service is serving as a replacement to going to the movies.

Disney is shooting itself in the foot because new animation movies are just not enough to get people to the theaters.

A blockbuster new Star Wars movie would likely get people to theaters.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/27/disney-wish-disappoints-thanksgiving-box-office.html

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt11304740/

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https://babylonbee.com/cleanArticle/disney-awarded-dod-contract-after-making-more-bombs-than-lockheed-martin

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/deep-dives-friday-december-29-2023

🐭 Finally, my research into Covidian poo mania led me to a recent eyeball-popping Daily Mail story from last month. I can’t imagine how I could have missed it, since it hits on so many C&C subjects. The gist is, before you plan your next Disney World, trip, I implore you to consider this commonsense scatological advice:




Don’t worry, I won’t start up again. But I had to know if it was true! Further research revealed even more headlines fact-checking the explosive story — and it is true! From SFGate:

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Disney parks are like San Fran...over priced, Woke shithole ...

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Patrick says

Is that true? "Steamboat Willy" will be public domain?

HeadSet says

Is that true? "Steamboat Willy" will be public domain?

Yes indeed.
Disney copyright for Mickey Mouse ends on January 1, 2024, and legal battles lie ahead as Steamboat Willie character enters the public domain
Anyone is now free to copy, share, reuse and adapt Steamboat Willie and Plane Crazy – another 1928 Disney animation – and the early versions of the characters that appear within them, including Mickey and Minnie.
A vital caveat is that later versions of the characters, like those in 1940 film Fantasia, are not in the public domain and cannot be copied without a visit from Disney’s lawyers.

I never thought I'd see the day. Maybe they were so busy trying to shoehorn more interracial homosexuality into their new movies that they forgot to send out the bribery cheques to get copyright extended again.

Aaaaaaaannnnd....

Disney just hired a Pakistani Woman to take over Star Wars, vowing that Star Wars needs MOAR WOMEN! forgetting the last three bombs were all about a Mary Sue.

Disney must believe they're leading the next generation. Losing money now is not a problem for them?

GNL says

Disney must believe they're leading the next generation. Losing money now is not a problem for them?

Disney is more interesting in promoting Woke programming within its movies and shows on streaming and cable channels then interested in earnings and asset growth.

Disney might as well just make money as being part of Biden's Ad Council.
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https://notthebee.com/article/pixar-is-planning-on-major-layoffs-this-year-up-to-20-of-employees-could-be-dismissed

Pixar is planning on MAJOR layoffs this year, up to 20% of employees could be dismissed

Poor, poor woke Disney is having to make more major cuts. ...

https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/another-disney-cruise-worker-arrested-in-florida-on-child-porn-charges-19084001

Two Disney Cruise Workers Charged With Child Porn in Two-Week Span

Patrick says

Is that Gary Coleman in there?

https://www.piratewires.com/p/the-princess-and-the-girlboss

The Princess and the Girlboss

why is every new disney female protagonist being pigeonholed into the girlboss archetype?

Although Disney has never shied away from a certain amount of darkness in its animated feature films — this is, after all, the studio that notoriously introduced millions of traumatized children to the concept of seeing your parents murdered in front of you— the corporation has always had a particularly complicated relationship with its princesses. Decades before the first thinkpiece bewailing the sexist heteronormativity of Cinderella or the passive femininity of Sleeping Beauty, Disney was already in the habit of sanitizing the source material in its princess oeuvre, skipping over the gore, the grit, and the occasional not-so-happy ending.

Examples abound: the stepsisters in Disney’s Cinderella are ugly, cruel, and grasping — but they don't cut off their own toes to try to fit into the glass slipper, as in the original fairy tale. The Little Mermaid as told by Hans Christian Anderson was a devastating story of a girl who gives up everything (and eventually takes her own life), all for the love of a man who sees her only as a friend; in Disney’s hands, it became a tale of self-actualization and empowerment to a banging soundtrack of crustacean calypso. Snow White, the first ever animated Disney feature film, gave its villainous queen a less-macabre comeuppance even as it left the central theme of savage female intrasexual competition intact.

But there’s censorship, and then there’s social engineering — and so perhaps it was inevitable that the corporation which prohibits depictions of smoking alongside impalements and beheadings would also, eventually, decide that it wasn't enough just to do away with the darker or more sexually tinged elements of its fairy tales. The whole idea of princesses needed to be reimagined for the modern age, brought into compliance with an entertainment landscape ruled by the strong female character, a.k.a. women with hot bodies and great hair who otherwise behave just like men. Contemporary heroines weren’t looking for a happily-ever-after in the arms of a handsome prince; they were tough, smart, sexually adventurous, and possessed of the formerly male-coded inclination to solve their conflicts by punching things.

Hence, around the same time as the emotionally aloof female “badass” became a staple of the action movie genre, the Disney heroine also underwent a character makeover. Instead of waiting around to be rescued, the new princess would save herself, and sometimes her male love interest as well — although love was also increasingly uninteresting to her. Tangled, the first animated Disney film to feature the trope of the self-rescuing princess, was the leading edge of a vibe shift that not only ushered in a new spate of empowered princesses or princess-like figures (see: Brave, Moana, Frozen) but also two whole new categories of movie: the villain origin story (see: Maleficent, Cruella) and the live-action reboot, in which one of the animated Disney movies beloved by millennials was remade with a fresh new cast (and, often, a more politically correct aesthetic.) Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Mulan, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid: all were reimagined for more enlightened age… or, perhaps more accurately, for a generation of millennial parents who wanted to share these stories with their own children but couldn't stomach the unwokeness of the originals.

Fast forward ten years, and the old-school Disney princess isn’t just gone; she’s become an object of scorn and ridicule, including by the young women for whom headlining one of these films is the biggest of big breaks. When the live-action reboot of Snow White announced last year that it had found its titular heroine in actress Rachel Ziegler, Ziegler made no secret of her contempt for the 1937 original. Her Snow White, she told Variety, would be better: “She’s not going to be saved by the prince. And she's not going to be dreaming about true love. She’s dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be,” she said.

In short: the Disney princess is dead; long live the Disney girlboss.

Buried within all this self-congratulatory backpatting about the girlbossification of the princess is a sense that Disney — along with a certain subset of its millennial feminist fanbase — is trying to both eat its cake and have it, much in the same way Greta Gerwig did when she claimed that her Barbie movie was both “doing the thing and subverting the thing.” The problem is, the new Disney princess is neither subversive nor revelatory; if anything, she offers a decidedly one-dimensional vision of what a strong female character (and, by extension, women in general) can aspire to.

This is true even by comparison to the original Disney princess, who may be dated in her aspirations, or in her conception of femininity, but who isn't without complexity. Often, her journey involves various errors in judgment, mistakes made out of foolishness or hubris or both, and the challenges she overcomes on her way to happily-ever-after are at least partly self-inflicted. Snow White and Sleeping Beauty both end up comatose because of their painful naïvete. Ariel, the Little Mermaid, renders herself voiceless and disfigured for the sake of a crush. Even Mulan, in her original animated incarnation, has absolutely no skills as a warrior when she impulsively disguises herself as a man and joins the imperial army in her father's place; she has to be humbled before she becomes a hero. In short, the archetypal Disney heroine may be a damsel in distress, but she is not a pure victim — which is one crucial way in which the Disneyfied versions of these stories nevertheless preserve the spirit of the originals. Fairy tales weren’t just for entertainment; they were etiquette guides, with useful social lessons buried underneath all the magic and swashbuckling. Older Disney films wear their morals on their sleeve: Don’t be rude. Don’t be selfish. Be kind to animals and old people. Treat others as you want to be treated— and endeavor to do this even when they treat you like shit.

The girlbossification of Disney princesses dispenses with such facile lessons in the name of feminism. The new Disney heroine takes no shit, but also has no flaws, and hence doesn't make the sort of bad choices that might lead to personal growth. She doesn’t even have a normal hero’s arc, because nothing is ever her fault; her only problem is everybody else, the haters and losers, conspiring to keep her down. The live-action remakes of Disney’s animated classics are especially stark illustrations of what happens when you empower a character at the expense of her enlightenment: the new Ariel, for instance, suffers from amnesia after she trades her voice for legs and a shot at love. With no memory at all of what she's done or why, there is no uncomfortable reckoning with the foolishness of her choice. The new Mulan never has to suffer the humiliation of realizing she's in over her head; the live-action movie styles her as a gifted warrior whose only true adversary is the patriarchy that fears a powerful woman.

What’s especially disappointing about this is that when you think about it (which I have, probably too much), there's nothing wrong with these characters as originally styled, even the ones who rank at the bottom of those circa-2010s Buzzfeed lists of the Most Feminist Princesses. Take Snow White, who is certainly not a girlboss, but nor is she some kind of loser. She maintains a sunny disposition despite being abused by her evil stepmother; she's resourceful and resilient; she even earns her place in the home of the dwarves by cooking, cleaning, and keeping house. And while she’s not a powerful leader, she is nevertheless a good and civilizing influence on the people around her, all of whom understand that there’s value in what she has to offer. Sure, she can’t throw a punch to save her life, but the whole point is that she doesn't have to; the things that make her a threat to the evil queen — her beauty, her charm, her willingness to care for others who care for her in return — are also the assets that make her beloved, that make other people want to help her. In a world where it’s become de rigueur for the princess to rescue herself, there's something refreshing about a story where a person's survival is less about having a particular set of skills and more about having earned the trust and love of the people around her.

Contrast this with Zeigler’s Snow White, who lusts only for power and apparently sees no value in love, connection, companionship, or care. I could point out that people like this tend to make for terrible leaders, let alone role models, but what really grates is the utter lack of imagination on display. Disney has anointed itself the engineer of a whole new generation of female heroines — and yet the only way they can think to make a woman strong is to make her more masculine, or less human, or both.

— Kat Rosenfield

https://genesiustimes.com/breaking-disney-names-p-diddy-new-ceo-citing-appeal-with-children/

UkraineIsTotallyFucked says

Nooooooo. If this happens, it would cut the audience to a 1/4. No way. Disney is stupid and obnoxious, but they aren't this stupid. I don't believe this for a second.

Patrick says

Contrast this with Zeigler’s Snow White, who lusts only for power and apparently sees no value in love, connection, companionship, or care. I could point out that people like this tend to make for terrible leaders, let alone role models, but what really grates is the utter lack of imagination on display. Disney has anointed itself the engineer of a whole new generation of female heroines — and yet the only way they can think to make a woman strong is to make her more masculine, or less human, or both.

Woke Females have no Hero's arc.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/three-ways-friday-march-29-2024-c

Politico ran a story yesterday under the goofy headline, “The Disney-DeSantis détente is here.” Haha! By “détante,” Politico meant “DeSantis beat Disney like a drum.” And by “is here,” Politico mean it is a fait accomplí.

As a reminder, the trouble began in 2021, when Disney officially supported pushing pornography in Florida’s classrooms. The entertainment giant also insisted that elementary-school kids should be taught about alternative sexual lifestyles. Florida’s legislature disagreed with all the mega-corporate activism, and responded censoriously by stripping Disney’s special tax status, taking away its own home-ruled company county, and setting up a Governor-appointed board to supervise the whole mess. ...

Most corporate media described Disney’s spanking as a tie. But for a change, the Wall Street Journal played the story straight:




That’s better. DeSantis—100; Disney—0.

https://nypost.com/2023/11/06/business/disney-theme-park-guests-are-pooping-while-waiting-for-rides/

Riders at Disneyland and Disney World have been defecating while standing in line, according to witnesses who reported the grotesque sight on social media.

“I am in the queue for [Rise of the Resistance at Disney World] – someone let their kid take a dump on the floor and then they just walked out and left it- WTF?” wrote one poster on Reddit.