Star Wars 9: The Sky of Ricewalker: A senseless, incoherent nightmare.

BrawlMan

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Asita said:
Silvanus said:
Hawki said:
A lot of queer people like Disney. Probably because Disney went through a long phase of queer-coding the hell out of villain characters in order to show that they were really bad people, thus unintentionally creating representation.
...such as?
Scar and Ursula most prominently. Ursula was even aesthetically based on a famous drag queen.

More broadly, effeminacy and campness has been used to characterise antagonists in Disney from the start.

Scar is prominent in that regard? He always struck me as the mousy geek to Mufasa's star quarterback (or the Iago to his Othello). What am I missing that made him stand out as queer-coded?
Probably this part between 1:00-1:20.


I remember Korey and his friends on Double Toasted joked about the clip saying Scar acts like a gay guy on Broadway in Be Prepared.


I have the video to start at the 13 minute mark.
 

Silvanus

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Asita said:
Scar is prominent in that regard? He always struck me as the mousy geek to Mufasa's star quarterback (or the Iago to his Othello). What am I missing that made him stand out as queer-coded?
That he's tremendously camp.
 

Dreiko_v1legacy

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Asita said:
Silvanus said:
Hawki said:
A lot of queer people like Disney. Probably because Disney went through a long phase of queer-coding the hell out of villain characters in order to show that they were really bad people, thus unintentionally creating representation.
...such as?
Scar and Ursula most prominently. Ursula was even aesthetically based on a famous drag queen.

More broadly, effeminacy and campness has been used to characterise antagonists in Disney from the start.
Scar is prominent in that regard? He always struck me as the mousy geek to Mufasa's star quarterback (or the Iago to his Othello). What am I missing that made him stand out as queer-coded?
To me he always seemed like the jealous beta narcissist who couldn't square his view of himself with the lack of outside adoration. A posh elitist basically. Maybe the thing I interpret as narcissism is what others interpret as effeminate or somehow gay? Not sure about that.

As for Ursula, she always reminded me of my grandmother if she was evil due to her dimensions (she was a big woman haha), so I never had the slightest idea there was an actual drag queen that looked like a 70~ year old Greek old lady XD.


Johnny Novgorod said:
Silvanus said:
Hawki said:
A lot of queer people like Disney. Probably because Disney went through a long phase of queer-coding the hell out of villain characters in order to show that they were really bad people, thus unintentionally creating representation.
...such as?
Scar and Ursula most prominently. Ursula was even aesthetically based on a famous drag queen.

More broadly, effeminacy and campness has been used to characterise antagonists in Disney from the start.
Also 99% of anime.
Anime tend to go through a bit of cultural prism. The thing we see as effeminate is actually old school regal components. The idea being that the masculine folk were the ones who were low class and needed to be masculine in order to survive in battlefields or just regular fields doing all the farming, whereas the nobility could be all weak and effeminate cause they had no need to do that sort of work. Stuff like Freeza from DBZ might seem effeminate but he's actually just being regal in the correct context.

Silentpony said:
Marik2 said:
I thought Rose was put there to appeal to China, and maybe they got mad that a black guy was going to pair with her?
My understanding was basically this. And the black dude couldn't hook up with the white girl for the same reason - China.

Also if I recall for the Chinese movie posters, Disney purposefully moved Fynn to a corner, made him smaller, and lightened his skin tone so it was less obvious a black dude was in it.

Like I said earlier, they actually reduced the size of Finn's depiction in the Chinese posters of the movie. They clearly are taking China into account a lot here.
 

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Johnny Novgorod said:
Three movies of homoerotic tension between Finn and Poe, then nothing.
I'm a little annoyed at this.
(I'm not aiming this at you, I'm just taking on this point as a pet peeve against modern society.)

What exactly was the 'homo-erotic tension'? That they had banter, and were enthusiastically pleased to see each other survive an assumed fatal crash?

This seems like the perfect example of society's hypocrisy over masculinity and male roles - we're displaying toxic masculinity over our fear of displaying basic human affection for each other or emotional vulnerability lest it be seen as gay, yet the mildest of camaraderie is immediately announced as homo-eroticism. What the fuck? Is it any wonder we have trouble expressing non-sexual affection beyond an arm punch and playful insult?

Anyway.... surprise.
A scene showing a lesbian kiss has been cut from the Singaporean version of the Star Wars film The Rise of Skywalker.

The country?s media regulatory body said Disney removed the clip to avoid the film being given a higher age rating. It is PG13, which means parental guidance is advised for children under 13.

?The applicant has omitted a brief scene which under the film classification guidelines would require a higher rating,? a spokesperson from Infocomm Media Development Authority said.

In Singapore, same-sex marriage is illegal and sex between men is a crime that carries a penalty of up to two years in prison. The law is silent on sex between women, says the LGBT rights charity Stonewall.

Singaporean censorship guidelines state that films containing LGBT themes or content as a subplot may be restricted to viewers aged 18 and above, while films focusing on homosexuality may be hit with a 21-and-over rating.

Disney owns Lucasfilm ? the Star Wars production company ? and it is not clear whether the scene was removed in other countries. The Hollywood Reporter said multiple people who had seen the film in Dubai reported that the moment had been removed.

Disney has not responded to requests for comment.

The scene in Rise of Skywalker, the first same-sex kiss in the franchise?s history, was hailed as historic by some, but the fleeting moment between two peripheral characters was criticised as tokenism by those hoping for greater LGBT representation.
 

Ravinoff

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Marik2 said:
. Are they going to make a new trilogy where the cycle repeats itself where we get a new emipre, rebels, and force people to fight once again? I would rather much have a high budget tv show about knights of the old republic, considering that star wars would work so much better as an actual episodic television show about multiple factions, sacred lineages, and galactic politics.
I mean, that's basically the perpetual cycle of the Star Wars universe going right on back to KOTOR. There's always a Sith Empire, there's always a Republic, nothing changes technologically and it all repeats every hundred years or so.
 

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Ravinoff said:
Marik2 said:
. Are they going to make a new trilogy where the cycle repeats itself where we get a new emipre, rebels, and force people to fight once again? I would rather much have a high budget tv show about knights of the old republic, considering that star wars would work so much better as an actual episodic television show about multiple factions, sacred lineages, and galactic politics.
I mean, that's basically the perpetual cycle of the Star Wars universe going right on back to KOTOR. There's always a Sith Empire, there's always a Republic, nothing changes technologically and it all repeats every hundred years or so.
So basically this:


Or this:


If you're feeling that cynical.
 

immortalfrieza

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Just saw RoS. Honestly the only 2 things I could say I hated were Snoke's origins and Rey's parentage.

We did not need to know who Snoke was or where he came from. Snoke's purpose was to push Ben to the Dark Side and his death at his hands cemented it. Anything further is the kind of thing Star Wars movies leave for EU novels and such if they are brought up again at all. Having Snoke just be this thing Palpatine made to further his plans is not only cheap it also doesn't even address anything the haters were complaining they ever wanted to know about him to begin with. We still don't know anything about Snoke's creation, we don't know how he built the First Order, and we still don't know what his actual aims were or if they aligned with Palpatine's or anyone else's.

Rey's parentage was, beyond all doubt, the best revelation The Last Jedi could've given. Rey was awesome because she scraped herself up by her fingernails coming from nothing and with nothing but her own determination from childhood and became not only a hero, but the one who would ultimately decide the entire fate of the galaxy. Wow! I guess that means the sky's the limit for everybody now, anybody can be the ultimate hero or villain if they try! How inspiring!

Wait, nope, she's this special snowflake from a powerful bloodline, and of any they could have given her, Palpatine's bloodline. They've now continued the idea that has plagued the franchise that everybody's destiny is decided by birth and nobody will ever be worth anything especially not going to be the best of the best and save the galaxy unless they are born from the blood of someone who was important.

However, unlike SOME people, I'm not going to hate on a movie because of 1 or 2 plot points I hate, particularly a couple plot points that aren't really significant anyway. Otherwise, I liked it. It was fine, the worst in the trilogy bar none, but watchable. When "watchable" is the best thing you can say about a STAR WARS movie of all things something has broken somewhere along the line on their end. Had they simply followed through on the plot points of The Last Jedi rather than trying to throw out or retcon most of them the movie would've been much better. All I can do, all anyone can do, is hope for improvements somewhere along the line.

Star Wars is not dead, that much is for sure.
 

Dreiko_v1legacy

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immortalfrieza said:
Just saw RoS. Honestly the only 2 things I could say I hated were Snoke's origins and Rey's parentage.

We did not need to know who Snoke was or where he came from. Snoke's purpose was to push Ben to the Dark Side and his death at his hands cemented it. Anything further is the kind of thing Star Wars movies leave for EU novels and such if they are brought up again at all. Having Snoke just be this thing Palpatine made to further his plans is not only cheap it also doesn't even address anything the haters were complaining they ever wanted to know about him to begin with. We still don't know anything about Snoke's creation, we don't know how he built the First Order, and we still don't know what his actual aims were or if they aligned with Palpatine's or anyone else's.

Rey's parentage was, beyond all doubt, the best revelation The Last Jedi could've given. Rey was awesome because she scraped herself up by her fingernails coming from nothing and with nothing but her own determination from childhood and became not only a hero, but the one who would ultimately decide the entire fate of the galaxy. Wow! I guess that means the sky's the limit for everybody now, anybody can be the ultimate hero or villain if they try! How inspiring!

Wait, nope, she's this special snowflake from a powerful bloodline, and of any they could have given her, Palpatine's bloodline. They've now continued the idea that has plagued the franchise that everybody's destiny is decided by birth and nobody will ever be worth anything especially not going to be the best of the best and save the galaxy unless they are born from the blood of someone who was important.

However, unlike SOME people, I'm not going to hate on a movie because of 1 or 2 plot points I hate, particularly a couple plot points that aren't really significant anyway. Otherwise, I liked it. It was fine, the worst in the trilogy bar none, but watchable. When "watchable" is the best thing you can say about a STAR WARS movie of all things something has broken somewhere along the line on their end. Had they simply followed through on the plot points of The Last Jedi rather than trying to throw out or retcon most of them the movie would've been much better. All I can do, all anyone can do, is hope for improvements somewhere along the line.

Star Wars is not dead, that much is for sure.

I don't think you needed to know Ray's parentage to notice that she isn't just the average snowflake due to her ability to do good at things that require lots of practice and experience on her first try.

Even if she wasn't from a jedi bloodline, the narrative still would be that you could become a hero irrespective of your birth....as long as you were perfect at everything you ever did from the beginning with no experience. It'd perpetuate the myth that you can "pick yourself up by the bootstraps" and that if you're not piloting random half-decaying spaceships perfectly on your first try you just are being a loser.

At least now it somewhat make sense why this random person was so talented at everything without earning it. Her ancestors earned it for her.
 

immortalfrieza

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Dreiko said:
I don't think you needed to know Ray's parentage to notice that she isn't just the average snowflake due to her ability to do good at things that require lots of practice and experience on her first try.

Even if she wasn't from a jedi bloodline, the narrative still would be that you could become a hero irrespective of your birth....as long as you were perfect at everything you ever did from the beginning with no experience. It'd perpetuate the myth that you can "pick yourself up by the bootstraps" and that if you're not piloting random half-decaying spaceships perfectly on your first try you just are being a loser.

At least now it somewhat make sense why this random person was so talented at everything without earning it. Her ancestors earned it for her.
Don't perpetuate the myth that Rey was just this "great at everything" Mary Sue, she wasn't and nobody with any sense thought she was. Rey DID in fact pull herself up by her bootstraps, fail repeatedly, (in particular The Last Jedi is basically "Everybody fails at everything: the movie" and Rey is no exception) and earn everything she has. Rey is the main protagonist, they're always much better at everything than everybody else including previous protagonists except maybe the main villain and if they aren't they pick it up near instantly and become better than everybody else in like 5 seconds, that's what makes them the protagonist. Every story has always been written around making the main protagonist either absurdly lucky, absurdly good at most things if not everything, or both nearly always with little to no justification. Rey being a Palpatine not only cheapens Rey's status as a protagonist but throws away the message that anyone can be good or even exceptional if they really try. Rey being an average snowflake yet still managing to achieve what she does would've been inspiring, not a sign of a Mary Sue.

Nope! You have to be born special or you'll never achieve anything of significance, at best you'll be a stepping stone for those who are. That's the message Rise of Skywalker gives.
 

Smithnikov_v1legacy

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Ya know, this has to be the first movie I've went to in a theater at least where I was able to predict 100% what would happen next, and yes, that includes Rey and the Emps's connection.

I can't give it a failing grade because, despite the nonstop safety and retreads, I wasn't bored at all during it and was at least entertained, but that's as far as I can go. C-
 

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immortalfrieza said:
Nope! You have to be born special or you'll never achieve anything of significance, at best you'll be a stepping stone for those who are. That's the message Rise of Skywalker gives.
Congratulations, you just pointed out the main problem with Naruto, Shaman King (manga version), Legend of Korra Season 2&3, and that stupid twist with Terry McGinnis being Bruce Wayne's son/clone (fuck you, Amanda Waller for not staying out of other people's lives) in that episode of Justice League (an episode I refuse to acknowledge)! I agree with you. With that said, I don't find Rey/Palpatine bloodline nearly as insulting. Though, in an earlier post, I mentioned how it's hypocritical of Disney to pull this off, while making EU non-canon due to hating similar plot twists in those novels and comics. What makes them so special? And this is coming from a fan of Rise.
 

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Asita said:
Scar is prominent in that regard? He always struck me as the mousy geek to Mufasa's star quarterback (or the Iago to his Othello). What am I missing that made him stand out as queer-coded?
Here's the thing though. Look at Scar's actually behaviours and mannerisms. Is he "mousy", is he a "geek" (bear in mind that this is 1994, before the mainstreaming of geek culture so being a "geek" had very particular associations).

Scar isn't socially awkward, in fact kind of the opposite. He isn't shy. He's always melodramatic. The way he speaks is theatrical and flamboyant, his movements are expressive and exaggerated. He's not outside of conventional masculinity because he's a beta shyguy, he's excessive, he's over-the-top, he's inappropriate. In other words, he's camp.

This basically applies to most Disney villains from the period. Even Frollo, who is basically the only Disney villain I can think of who is motivated by his explicitly sexual lust for a woman, is also pretty camp (not as camp as Scar though). That's because Disney wasn't using this aesthetic to indicate that Scar was secretly a big gay, they were using it to show that he was a bad guy.

But it also made him a fun and likeable character, which is what queer audiences responded to.

I think comparing the 1994 Lion King and the 2019 Lion King is really interesting in terms of Disney's treatment of queerness and its queer audience. 1994 Disney queer-coded Scar because they wanted a villain character with a strong personality, who would be fun and over the top. 2019 Scar lacks any of that likeability, he's just a boring douche who the narrative goes out of its way to aggressively no-homo. Instead, we get WeHo Timon whose overt gayness is 100% intentional (but never actually stated), and who is basically just there as a stand-in for the queer audiences.

Basically, Disney is clearly uncomfortable with how its queer-coding of villain characters might look to a modern audience, but clearly hasn't worked out that "sassy comic relief" or "gay best friend" are far more offensive as stereotypes than "camp villain". A huge amount of queer cinema is the deliberate celebration of camp villains, it can be done in a way that's fun and empowering. What Disney has been doing with its queer characters recently isn't empowering.
 

Dreiko_v1legacy

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immortalfrieza said:
Dreiko said:
I don't think you needed to know Ray's parentage to notice that she isn't just the average snowflake due to her ability to do good at things that require lots of practice and experience on her first try.

Even if she wasn't from a jedi bloodline, the narrative still would be that you could become a hero irrespective of your birth....as long as you were perfect at everything you ever did from the beginning with no experience. It'd perpetuate the myth that you can "pick yourself up by the bootstraps" and that if you're not piloting random half-decaying spaceships perfectly on your first try you just are being a loser.

At least now it somewhat make sense why this random person was so talented at everything without earning it. Her ancestors earned it for her.
Don't perpetuate the myth that Rey was just this "great at everything" Mary Sue, she wasn't and nobody with any sense thought she was. Rey DID in fact pull herself up by her bootstraps, fail repeatedly, (in particular The Last Jedi is basically "Everybody fails at everything: the movie" and Rey is no exception) and earn everything she has. Rey is the main protagonist, they're always much better at everything than everybody else including previous protagonists except maybe the main villain and if they aren't they pick it up near instantly and become better than everybody else in like 5 seconds, that's what makes them the protagonist. Every story has always been written around making the main protagonist either absurdly lucky, absurdly good at most things if not everything, or both nearly always with little to no justification. Rey being a Palpatine not only cheapens Rey's status as a protagonist but throws away the message that anyone can be good or even exceptional if they really try. Rey being an average snowflake yet still managing to achieve what she does would've been inspiring, not a sign of a Mary Sue.

Nope! You have to be born special or you'll never achieve anything of significance, at best you'll be a stepping stone for those who are. That's the message Rise of Skywalker gives.

Usually, when you have such a character, they go through character growth that bequeaths them those skills in some fashion. They go train up a mountain with a sage or they grow up in a magic family or something. Anything. She just kinda...is instantly better at using lightsabers than the evil emo dude despite him having practiced at using them since childhood. That's not the same as someone simply picking up their usage really fast or being extraordinarily talented. This bypasses the entire process. Same with being able to somehow reverse engineer the jedi mind trick process from having it be done to her without any explanation at all. That's not merely being talented. There's something more than that at work there.

Also, most interesting main characters tend to not start out that way, as well. They tend to suck for a long while until they surpass everyone at the end. So to imply that this is just how all protagonists just are is ridiculous on its face (or reveals the speaker to not have seen very many things). When you have someone start out as a main character who is instantly the best that ever existed, you DO need some form of justification for that to make sense, hence why you can't have her being just a random nobody. Most stories tend to use flashbacks where you see the character earnings their skills in their past or something. They don't just omit that very important part and imply it makes sense for the protagonist to be that skilled without explanation.

And yeah, of course she picked herself up by her bootstraps, but pretending everyone else would have an equal rate of success at doing the same by painting her as a nobody (and by extension that it's their fault if they fail cause an "average person" like Rey was able to so they should be able to as well) is a fallacy and is the issue I'm pointing out here. It's worse to imply that than to imply only someone of exceptional pedigree can achieve what she has.

Do you remember how Finn did when he picked up a lightsaber during the first movie? That's about what you can expect from an ACTUAL average nobody lol.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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Kwak said:
Johnny Novgorod said:
Three movies of homoerotic tension between Finn and Poe, then nothing.
I'm a little annoyed at this.
(I'm not aiming this at you, I'm just taking on this point as a pet peeve against modern society.)

What exactly was the 'homo-erotic tension'? That they had banter, and were enthusiastically pleased to see each other survive an assumed fatal crash?

This seems like the perfect example of society's hypocrisy over masculinity and male roles - we're displaying toxic masculinity over our fear of displaying basic human affection for each other or emotional vulnerability lest it be seen as gay, yet the mildest of camaraderie is immediately announced as homo-eroticism. What the fuck? Is it any wonder we have trouble expressing non-sexual affection beyond an arm punch and playful insult?
I'm really just voicing my girlfriend's disappointment. She ships them (and Reylo) and kept nudge-nudge/wink-winking every time the movie focused on them. Especially when Poe gets catty about Finn and whatever he "never told" Rey.

There's also the fact that Disney would never put anything same-sex front and center, so suggestive nudges have to suffice.
 

Asita

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evilthecat said:
Asita said:
Scar is prominent in that regard? He always struck me as the mousy geek to Mufasa's star quarterback (or the Iago to his Othello). What am I missing that made him stand out as queer-coded?
Here's the thing though. Look at Scar's actually behaviours and mannerisms. Is he "mousy", is he a "geek" (bear in mind that this is 1994, before the mainstreaming of geek culture so being a "geek" had very particular associations).

Scar isn't socially awkward, in fact kind of the opposite. He isn't shy. He's always melodramatic. The way he speaks is theatrical and flamboyant, his movements are expressive and exaggerated. He's not outside of conventional masculinity because he's a beta shyguy, he's excessive, he's over-the-top, he's inappropriate. In other words, he's camp.

This basically applies to most Disney villains from the period. Even Frollo, who is basically the only Disney villain I can think of who is motivated by his explicitly sexual lust for a woman, is also pretty camp (not as camp as Scar though). That's because Disney wasn't using this aesthetic to indicate that Scar was secretly a big gay, they were using it to show that he was a bad guy.

But it also made him a fun and likeable character, which is what queer audiences responded to.

I think comparing the 1994 Lion King and the 2019 Lion King is really interesting in terms of Disney's treatment of queerness and its queer audience. 1994 Disney queer-coded Scar because they wanted a villain character with a strong personality, who would be fun and over the top. 2019 Scar lacks any of that likeability, he's just a boring douche who the narrative goes out of its way to aggressively no-homo. Instead, we get WeHo Timon whose overt gayness is 100% intentional (but never actually stated), and who is basically just there as a stand-in for the queer audiences.

Basically, Disney is clearly uncomfortable with how its queer-coding of villain characters might look to a modern audience, but clearly hasn't worked out that "sassy comic relief" or "gay best friend" are far more offensive as stereotypes than "camp villain". A huge amount of queer cinema is the deliberate celebration of camp villains, it can be done in a way that's fun and empowering. What Disney has been doing with its queer characters recently isn't empowering.
Still not sure I see it, but I suppose that's half the game, so to speak. Thank you for taking the time to explain the nuance to me.
 

Eacaraxe_v1legacy

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Dreiko said:
Do you remember how Finn did when he picked up a lightsaber during the first movie? That's about what you can expect from an ACTUAL average nobody lol.
Manage to hold his own against a Stormtrooper while using a weapon he's only touched for the first time, then at the end of the movie, not get insta-gibbed by the rampaging pseudo-Sith? That's pretty goddamn good, actually, with a clear narrative through-line that has establishment, set-up, and pay-off for what is more or less a complete character arc in the course of a single film.

Far more telling is the fact Finn's only allowed to do cool stuff in service to Rey's story-line, or when she's not in the scene. Any time Rey's around, Finn (like everyone else) just seems to lose a couple dozen IQ points.
 

PsychedelicDiamond

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evilthecat said:
Asita said:
Scar is prominent in that regard? He always struck me as the mousy geek to Mufasa's star quarterback (or the Iago to his Othello). What am I missing that made him stand out as queer-coded?
Here's the thing though. Look at Scar's actually behaviours and mannerisms. Is he "mousy", is he a "geek" (bear in mind that this is 1994, before the mainstreaming of geek culture so being a "geek" had very particular associations).

Scar isn't socially awkward, in fact kind of the opposite. He isn't shy. He's always melodramatic. The way he speaks is theatrical and flamboyant, his movements are expressive and exaggerated. He's not outside of conventional masculinity because he's a beta shyguy, he's excessive, he's over-the-top, he's inappropriate. In other words, he's camp.

This basically applies to most Disney villains from the period. Even Frollo, who is basically the only Disney villain I can think of who is motivated by his explicitly sexual lust for a woman, is also pretty camp (not as camp as Scar though). That's because Disney wasn't using this aesthetic to indicate that Scar was secretly a big gay, they were using it to show that he was a bad guy.

But it also made him a fun and likeable character, which is what queer audiences responded to.

I think comparing the 1994 Lion King and the 2019 Lion King is really interesting in terms of Disney's treatment of queerness and its queer audience. 1994 Disney queer-coded Scar because they wanted a villain character with a strong personality, who would be fun and over the top. 2019 Scar lacks any of that likeability, he's just a boring douche who the narrative goes out of its way to aggressively no-homo. Instead, we get WeHo Timon whose overt gayness is 100% intentional (but never actually stated), and who is basically just there as a stand-in for the queer audiences.

Basically, Disney is clearly uncomfortable with how its queer-coding of villain characters might look to a modern audience, but clearly hasn't worked out that "sassy comic relief" or "gay best friend" are far more offensive as stereotypes than "camp villain". A huge amount of queer cinema is the deliberate celebration of camp villains, it can be done in a way that's fun and empowering. What Disney has been doing with its queer characters recently isn't empowering.
I guess the most obvious example for Disney's tendency to give their villains stereotypically gay traits is Ratcliffe from Pocahontas:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSfYrPdTKVA

He's easy to forget, because Pocahontas is easy to forget, but he illustrates the point pretty well. Those gay traits seem very archaic themselves from a modern perspective but you know, then again, the 90s where a while ago. Regardless of that, when it comes to actually representing the queer population Disney will, sooner or later, have to face the fact that that means actually depicting queer relationships. There's absolutely no point to just stating that a character is gay and maybe having him look at a character of the same gender with a lovesick expression once or twice. Just fucking show a gay relationship. It's not really all that different from depicting a straight relationship. Have husband and husband instead of husband and wife. That's it.

As long as they are incapable of depicting something as innocent as a healthy relationship out of fear of alienating people either at home or abroad it's reasonable to assume that they have absolutely zero interest in representing that part of the population. That whole "LeFou is gay, Lando Calrissian is pansexual, there's a guy talking about having had a date with a men in a self help group" shit is just... nothing. It's meaningless. It's not representation, it's just vague acknowledgement. Healthy representation is when gay love isn't depicted any differently from straight love.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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Eacaraxe said:
Dreiko said:
Do you remember how Finn did when he picked up a lightsaber during the first movie? That's about what you can expect from an ACTUAL average nobody lol.
Manage to hold his own against a Stormtrooper while using a weapon he's only touched for the first time, then at the end of the movie, not get insta-gibbed by the rampaging pseudo-Sith?
Fighting off a stormtrooper is like swatting a fly in the Star Wars universe.
As for fighting the pseudo-Sith... Kylo's already tired and wounded when the fighting begins, and even then manages to put Finn in a coma. Not that any of this matters. Finn's one of the leads in YA shtick. He was always going to be lucky and just good enough to survive anything.
 

Squilookle

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immortalfrieza said:
Just saw RoS. Honestly the only 2 things I could say I hated were Snoke's origins and Rey's parentage.

We did not need to know who Snoke was or where he came from. Snoke's purpose was to push Ben to the Dark Side and his death at his hands cemented it. Anything further is the kind of thing Star Wars movies leave for EU novels and such if they are brought up again at all. Having Snoke just be this thing Palpatine made to further his plans is not only cheap it also doesn't even address anything the haters were complaining they ever wanted to know about him to begin with. We still don't know anything about Snoke's creation, we don't know how he built the First Order, and we still don't know what his actual aims were or if they aligned with Palpatine's or anyone else's.

Rey's parentage was, beyond all doubt, the best revelation The Last Jedi could've given. Rey was awesome because she scraped herself up by her fingernails coming from nothing and with nothing but her own determination from childhood and became not only a hero, but the one who would ultimately decide the entire fate of the galaxy. Wow! I guess that means the sky's the limit for everybody now, anybody can be the ultimate hero or villain if they try! How inspiring!

Wait, nope, she's this special snowflake from a powerful bloodline, and of any they could have given her, Palpatine's bloodline. They've now continued the idea that has plagued the franchise that everybody's destiny is decided by birth and nobody will ever be worth anything especially not going to be the best of the best and save the galaxy unless they are born from the blood of someone who was important.

However, unlike SOME people, I'm not going to hate on a movie because of 1 or 2 plot points I hate, particularly a couple plot points that aren't really significant anyway. Otherwise, I liked it. It was fine, the worst in the trilogy bar none, but watchable. When "watchable" is the best thing you can say about a STAR WARS movie of all things something has broken somewhere along the line on their end. Had they simply followed through on the plot points of The Last Jedi rather than trying to throw out or retcon most of them the movie would've been much better. All I can do, all anyone can do, is hope for improvements somewhere along the line.
100% agree with you here about Rey's parent reveal in RoS being a huge mistake for those exact reasons, but as for your theory on protagonists being better than everyone else, I'm gonna have to go with Dreiko here where they say:

Dreiko said:
Usually, when you have such a character, they go through character growth that bequeaths them those skills in some fashion. They go train up a mountain with a sage or they grow up in a magic family or something. Anything. She just kinda...is instantly better at using lightsabers than the evil emo dude despite him having practiced at using them since childhood. That's not the same as someone simply picking up their usage really fast or being extraordinarily talented. This bypasses the entire process. Same with being able to somehow reverse engineer the jedi mind trick process from having it be done to her without any explanation at all. That's not merely being talented. There's something more than that at work there.

Also, most interesting main characters tend to not start out that way, as well. They tend to suck for a long while until they surpass everyone at the end. So to imply that this is just how all protagonists just are is ridiculous on its face (or reveals the speaker to not have seen very many things). When you have someone start out as a main character who is instantly the best that ever existed, you DO need some form of justification for that to make sense, hence why you can't have her being just a random nobody. Most stories tend to use flashbacks where you see the character earnings their skills in their past or something. They don't just omit that very important part and imply it makes sense for the protagonist to be that skilled without explanation.

And yeah, of course she picked herself up by her bootstraps, but pretending everyone else would have an equal rate of success at doing the same by painting her as a nobody (and by extension that it's their fault if they fail cause an "average person" like Rey was able to so they should be able to as well) is a fallacy and is the issue I'm pointing out here. It's worse to imply that than to imply only someone of exceptional pedigree can achieve what she has.
Rey's Mary-Sue qualities were well documented in The Force Awakens. It got better with each subsequent film, but in TFA she really did come across as a classic example of the trope. Protagonists are supposed to be flawed from the outset. That's one of the biggest building blocks of a well-rounded character. Sometimes they are the ONLY character with a deficiency (Think Hiccup in How to Train your Dragon, Forrest Gump, virtually any Hitchcock protagonist, for instance). The story does not follow them because they are good at something, it follows them because theirs is the most interesting journey to experience the plot through.

Remember, C-3PO and R2D2 in the desert is based on The Hidden Fortress, about a headstrong princess and a general travelling through enemy lines to avoid a trap. But they aren't the main characters. Instead the focus is on the two bumbling, idiotic peasants with them. THEY are the protagonists because they have the most change, they get the best perspective on what goes down, and they have the most interesting things to say about events they barely understand.

Since people are talking about The Lion King, that's also a pretty good example. You wouldn't see the child Simba just up and murder Scar as soon as he betrays Mufasa, would you? of course not, he's puny, lazy and self centred at the start of the movie. He grows into the hero by the end of the film. But he is always the protagonist.
 

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Johnny Novgorod said:
Eacaraxe said:
Dreiko said:
Do you remember how Finn did when he picked up a lightsaber during the first movie? That's about what you can expect from an ACTUAL average nobody lol.
Manage to hold his own against a Stormtrooper while using a weapon he's only touched for the first time, then at the end of the movie, not get insta-gibbed by the rampaging pseudo-Sith?
Fighting off a stormtrooper is like swatting a fly in the Star Wars universe.
As for fighting the pseudo-Sith... Kylo's already tired and wounded when the fighting begins, and even then manages to put Finn in a coma.
Lightsabers are supposed to be very difficult for someone untrained to handle, though. That was one of the things Ben Kenobi had to teach Luke in Episode IV, IIRC. With no weight and minimal to no tactile feedback, anyone not familiar with a lightsaber is going to flail it around like an idiot because of how much differently it moves compared to...basically anything else.

Side note: having only watched TFA, do they ever explain how the fuck that goggle-eyed alien bartender came to have that saber in the first place? It was Anakin's, Obi-Wan kept it after the prequels and gave it to Luke in IV, but Luke lost it when Vader cut his hand off in The Empire Strikes Back and it falls down the Giant Doom Hole. Hence why Luke has a green saber with a different design in RotJ, which Vader even comments on at one point.