Good or New Movies Review

[Derp]

@GreenFlashlight said in Good or New Movies Review:

So, uh, Elsa sure does enter a lot of tight tunnels while singing about having confusing new feelings that nevertheless seem right and make her tingle, huh?

Have an upvote for causing a very near literal spittake.

[Ganymede]

I enjoyed Spies in Disguise. Fun, postmodern critique of boomer philosophies.

[Rinel]

@GreenFlashlight

Is it even queerbaiting at this point

[GreenFlashlight]

@Rinel said in Good or New Movies Review:

@GreenFlashlight

Is it even queerbaiting at this point

Yes. It's incredibly blatant subtext, but subtext is still all it is.

[Rinel]

@GreenFlashlight

I guess it's just that I view bait as something like a lure instead of, idk, a stick of dynamite tossed into the water.

[GreenFlashlight]

@Rinel said in Good or New Movies Review:

@GreenFlashlight

I guess it's just that I view bait as something like a lure instead of, idk, a stick of dynamite tossed into the water.

I consider it bait in that Elsa is coded very gay for people who know what to look for, and Disney is aware of but has refused to comment on Elsa's sexuality, meaning they want us to believe whatever we believe and to take those beliefs with us to the ticket stall. But they'll have her sing about figuring out she's not straight, they'll have her walk through tunnels and fog clouds both shaped like spread vaginas, they'll have a female character stroke her knee oops I mean stroke the scarf resting on her knee, they'll even have her sister say things like "I don't want to change who you are, I just don't want you to get hurt;" but they won't give her a girlfriend? Nah.

I mostly like this movie, a few nitpicks with pacing aside, but nah, it can fuck off with the queerbait.

[Arkandel]

@GreenFlashlight I'm not big on Frozen but to be honest I hadn't noticed any of those things or knew about them until your post.

However pigs will fly probably fly before Disney (of all studios) makes an major animated movie aimed at kids whose protagonist is gay. I don't even think they have the guts to make any of the supporting cast, either.

[GreenFlashlight]

@Arkandel said in Good or New Movies Review:

However pigs will fly probably fly before Disney (of all studios) makes an major animated movie aimed at kids whose protagonist is gay. I don't even think they have the guts to make any of the supporting cast, either.

I'm confused by your 'however.' Do you think I haven't noticed Disney will sell me a rainbow-colored Mickey Mouse cap during Gay Pride but won't give me a movie about a gay woman who has a girlfriend, or do you mean something else I'm overlooking?

[Ganymede]

@GreenFlashlight said in Good or New Movies Review:

I mostly like this movie, a few nitpicks with pacing aside, but nah, it can fuck off with the queerbait.

Can you tell me what so offends you about queer bait?

I’m an old hat at life and I’m curious.

[GreenFlashlight]

@Ganymede said in Good or New Movies Review:

Can you tell me what so offends you about queer bait?

I dislike being lied to, or at least being lied to by people who aren't willing to put in the effort to do it well.

I should probably say something more noble about the importance of representation, but that wouldn't be true. I don't like when people pretend to be my ally while refusing to back it up like they think I'm too stupid to notice how craven they are. I am stupid, but not so stupid I can't tell the difference between words and deeds, and it bothers me Disney thinks they can trick me into giving them money for saying they're doing things they aren't doing. That's all.

[TheOnceler]

Despite the consensus here, any queerbaiting in Frozen 2 is subtle enough that the vast majority of adults seeing it would have no goddam idea what you're talking about.

[GreenFlashlight]

@TheOnceler said in Good or New Movies Review:

Despite the consensus here, any queerbaiting in Frozen 2 is subtle enough that the vast majority of adults seeing it would have no goddam idea what you're talking about.

I don't understand your point. Is this meant to justify or excuse it, or what?

[Derp]

@GreenFlashlight said in Good or New Movies Review:

Is this meant to justify or excuse it, or what?

The point, I think, is that it's easy to find this sort of thing when you're focusing on it, even when it might not be there intentionally. It's just another sort of confirmation bias, wherein we can assign meaning to things that don't actually have them in order to justify our beliefs.

Look, my boyfriend and I saw Frozen 2 together too, and neither of us actually read anything into that either. I don't think that the vast majority of people would.

MSB is not representative of a vast majority of people, and the ones who notice it here are probably hyper-sensitive to such things in the first place.

Maybe it's intentional. Maybe it's not. But most people aren't going into Frozen 2 looking for queer iconography.

Personally, I don't consider it 'baiting', even if it is intentional. I consider it a step in the right direction, moving away from old stereotypes into at least some kind of new territory. All things in time.

[Ganymede]

@GreenFlashlight said in Good or New Movies Review:

I am stupid, but not so stupid I can't tell the difference between words and deeds, and it bothers me Disney thinks they can trick me into giving them money for saying they're doing things they aren't doing.

The only reasonable conclusion to suit your position is that you believe a production company should either have complete, unabashed representation or none at all. And I don't think that's a reasonable position to take.

[GreenFlashlight]

@Derp said in Good or New Movies Review:

Maybe it's intentional.

In the first place, I do not care about a person's intentions when compared to the outcomes of their actions. If you only accidentally hit me in the nose, does my nose stop bleeding once I know it wasn't your intention?

In the second place, it absolutely was intentional. The filmmakers cannot possibly be so bad at their jobs they don't understand the metaphors they themselves built from the ground up.

But most people aren't going into Frozen 2 looking for queer iconography.

It's not about what I'm looking for, it's about what the creators put in but either lacked the courage or couldn't obtain the permission to follow through on.

All things in time.

Then they can have my money and my support in time.

@Ganymede said in Good or New Movies Review:

The only reasonable conclusion to suit your position is that you believe a production company should either have complete, unabashed representation or none at all.

My position is, I don't think you should say you're an ally if you're not willing to do things an ally would do. Lying is generally a bad thing.

And I don't think that's a reasonable position to take.

I don't think it's reasonable to treat gay people like a taboo subject, but here we are.

[GreenFlashlight]

In other, late news, the new Star Wars movie is pretty alright. Not great, but given the troubles surrounding the production, I think it did the best it could. I was slightly confused by some of the visual metaphors, but I look forward to the inevitable video essays that will explain what I missed; whether they were actually intended to indicate something or were just supposed to be visually pleasing. The cast is great, the action is inventive, and there's some good signs they intend to move the property forward rather than jog in place.

[Derp]

@GreenFlashlight

Or, you could just be looking so hard that you're suffering a confirmation bias.

In this case, I think you're specifically pulling a Texas Sharpshooter. Draw a big circle around enough dots and you can find a pattern in anything.

[Arkandel]

@GreenFlashlight said in Good or New Movies Review:

In the first place, I do not care about a person's intentions when compared to the outcomes of their actions. If you only accidentally hit me in the nose, does my nose stop bleeding once I know it wasn't your intention?

I think you are taking this a bit too personally.

I don't mean Frozen. I mean this thread's comments.

[Groth]

@GreenFlashlight said in Good or New Movies Review:

My position is, I don't think you should say you're an ally if you're not willing to do things an ally would do. Lying is generally a bad thing.

When has Disney ever said they are an ally? Their only political position has ever been profit.

[Wizz]

Kind of amusing to me on this subject, I haven't seen it but my super-conservative and religious bro in law came back from Frozen 2 saying there was something "very weird" about it. I didn't ask him to clarify because...I usually regret asking that question, but I think it'd be funny if he thought so for the same reasons.