“Woke” Disney and the Theory Behind the Classic Remakes Image

“Woke” Disney and the Theory Behind the Classic Remakes

By Alan Ng | October 11, 2019

Maleficent (2014)

The success of Alice led to Maleficent several years later. The story of Sleeping Beauty’s villain takes a “Wicked” turn as Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) is the misunderstood monster betrayed by a man who used and exploited her. Elle Fanning as Aurora at the end saves the day through her relationship with Maleficent and completely ignores Prince Philip’s true love’s kiss. Emphasis is given to the relationship between Maleficent and Aurora.

Wokiness: De-emphasizes the prince sub-plot and focuses the story on the two main female relationships.

Cinderella (2015)

Now on to Cinderella. Lilly James is the titular princess, and she turns in a more subtle performance of a stronger Cinderella than the animated feature. While bullied, she refuses to play the victim…sobbing and moping around the house waiting for a man to save her. It still holds true to its original story.

Wokiness: Cinderella sees herself not as a victim of her step-mother and sister and fights for her independence…and marries the prince.

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  1. Lynn says:

    I agree with your article on why Disney is remaking their classics and it’s because of this manipulation that I won’t see them.
    The classics were fine and I feel like telling Disney there’s no need for this apology tour your doing with these pointless remakes.
    In a sense they are apologizing for nothing because really Disney was just following the source material from fairytales as they were. I took no offense to what their original classics did and never will.
    Once upon a time it was about storytelling now it’s about opinion telling and that makes the story fall flat every time and they don’t age well.In fact the remakes feel too preachy.
    I’ll be glad when this remake trend is over and Disney remembers what they once were.
    They were once a source of inspiration but right now they are not except for something original that comes along in a blue moon.

    • S Explains says:

      Disney has a lot to apologize about in the sense that Disney has made a lot of racial insensitive movies/shows and remaking them is a sign of remorse. I do agree that some of the originals were just following some sort of twist on the original storylines but you have to understand Disney writes their own scripts and they know what their movies showcase better than the viewers. Some things are just inappropriate to put in a movie when all groups of people will see them.

      • no says:

        In a way I guess that makes sense but you completely dismissed what this comment was saying. Please re-read it and then bring up a reasonable argument.

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