I’ve no real interest in seeing Elemental, but apparently it is good but was underserved by Disney’s marketing department. Where instead of focusing on how it’s a story about a second generation immigrant woman wanting to respect the challenges their family undertook to establish a new life in a city that wasn’t built with them in mind, while also wanting to go and establish a new life for themselves rather than inheriting the family business and staying in one place (and getting a boyfriend from outside of the community whom her dad disapproves of due to not very subtle racism reasons), they decided to focus on the visuals and the inevitable comparisons to Zootopia.
Oddly similar to Nimona’s original situation before getting picked up by Netflix, in that as a lgbtq-focused movie Disney reportedly canned it (allegedly) they weren’t able to market it to as many folk as generically as possible. But while Nimona had to be rescued by another studio, a big chunk of Elemental’s plot “had” to be glossed over in by the marketing team with the supposed goal of making it appeal to EVERYONE, rather than focusing on the specific story it was trying to tell that’d still be relevant to a good sized chunk of the audience the same way similar themes in Turning Red were.
Trying to appeal to everyone is something morons and cowards do
I don’t want stories that are “For everyone” because art that is “For everyone” is garbage. It’s shit. It’s spineless bullshit that’s so whitebread even Ned Flanders would be bored by it
Stories need to be about something and be for someone.
Otherwise you might as well just let an AI write them
Absolutely. Stories should be written with purpose, and with an audience in mind. Not to mention, it’s important to have stories that one might not particular connect with fundamentally, because as humans we are wonderfully diverse and it’s good to celebrate that with perspectives we might not have previously considered. I like stories “not about me” just as much as stories intended for my self-identity things.
The article is a little funny though, inasmuch as it’s focusing on “Disney telling stories that only perform ‘pretty good’ instead of Exceptional”. It’s wild that we’re writing under the framework of an animation studio “establishing dominance” and who’s “on top”. Honestly, if more studios get to share the spotlight to tell different stories, that’s ultimately a better outcome.THIS
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People who are normal and not bigots can still enjoy stories that aren’t specifically made for them.
To me I saw the trailer for Elemental and was like “These are personifications of the elements but don’t worry, they’re heterosexual” and I felt so bored by it because we’ve seen that movie over and over and over. The immigrant story sounds interesting but none of that is present in the marketing.
