Pixar's movies are failing because of a lack of diversity, and more diverse stories and abandonment of sequels is the only way to financially save the studio
https://www.comingsoon.net/movies/features/1299380-pixar-needs-fewer-sequels-more-diverse-stories
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>What made Pixar such a valuable company and what made its movies so popular initially was that they were different than other fare being produced at the time.
>There are several legitimate complaints about Pixar’s early years, including a lack of women and minorities both on screen and behind it and a deadlocked fear of ever pushing the status quo and making something that could even possibly offend someone, but in an almost ironic way, these could provide the exact solution to Pixar’s current dilemma.
>The best Pixar movies from the last decade — Soul, Coco, Inside Out, Turning Red — have all had women and/or people of color as protagonists. Exploring different cultures like Coco did gives a chance to break into a whole different realm of ideas, and working with more diverse people behind the scenes exposes whole new stories and ways of thinking that might not be the same as that of a white guy who could afford to go to CalArts for a degree. By broadening the scope of what’s offered, Pixar has a chance to do three amazing things at once. First, they can break cultural barriers by showing off different people and different points of view, showing a kid audience that people can be different without it being a bad thing. Second, they can also use this opportunity to further diversify the animation industry as a whole by hiring the people needed to bring these stories to life. Third, by offering something different than what else is on the market now, they can regenerate interest in their brand and pull themselves out of their slump.
> The best Pixar movies from the last decade — Soul, Coco, Inside Out, Turning Red — have all had women and/or people of color as protagonists.
except these were the worst
Anon, I don't you even like those films, but you'd have to be deeply disingenuous to say that shit when Incredibles 2, Toy Story 4 and Lightyear exists.
Can we just say Pixar, in general, has become a dumpster fire.
Coco was okay.
Coco was amazing
Turning Red was okay
Rest were shit
Coco and Inside Out were good
Turning Red was the worst, Soul ws meh, all other were great, but it's "despite", not "because of".
Coco and Inside Out were good films, the rest I agree were shit
Coco was emotionally manipulative patronizing dogshit written by a israeli lesbian from New York pandering to her housekeeper. How do more people not see through it?
Does a movie get better if a character has a different skin tone
Ratatouille is the best Pixar movie ever made. That is the peak of the studio and it was all downhill from there.
>we mandate that every movie have women and minority leads, and occasionally this hollow shell of a once-great studio makes movies that aren't complete dogshit, clearly that means that the reason these movies are slightly better is that they are led by women and minorities
Holy frick
Coco stole a real person's story.
>There are several legitimate complaints about Pixar’s early years, including a lack of women and minorities both on screen
You're right i always felt like a black toy in Toy Story or a nonbinary monster in Monster Inc would've made the movie much better
Soul was fricking ass
>luca was a failure
Wasn't that mainly due to its streaming release? It certainly wasn't worse than
>(Soul, Coco, Inside Out, Turning Red )
Yeah but they have to push the narrative it didn't do good because it's a story about white boys set in Europe
I think my biggest issue with recent Pixar is how minority-pandering is effecting fantasy character design. In Onward and Elemental, they try to make these creatures based off real-life, but it just ends up looking moronic and sometimes coming across as racist.
Or giving fantasy beings, real-life disabilities, but in an uncreative fashion.
>This being made of fire is using a wheelchair so you can be seen!
Ok, what is racist in Elemental? No, water is not representation of blacos.
In the racist designs case I meant for Onward. Elemental mainly does physical disabilities since the characters aren't humanoid enough.
Everything. Yes water is black. The whole ‘’waters come to break things and cause trouble” was so funny.
Doing this shit is stupid because the point of having non-human characters is that they're universal. What was stopping a black kid from feeling represented by Lighting McQueen or Nemo? They're retroactively admitting that up until now, no non-human character was supposed to be a minority.
I don't think they understand they can't have diversity because only people from a certain range of economic class gets to dedicate their lives to animation. These people don't have stories to tell and it shows
>a deadlocked fear of ever pushing the status quo and making something that could even possibly offend someone
lol
Wait. Isn't Elemental a movie with a Chinese immigrant female protagonist dating a black metrosexual from the gentrified city? Isn't it the most diverse movie Pixar has ever done?
Yeah definitely, and I would call it transgressive in its naked depiction of a family and culture demanding segregation. I mean it’s ultimate message is kosher but you really don’t lay ‘marry within your race’ on a character via her grandfather’s deathbed without that being challenging
It's already an original film about an interracial couple
They mean diverse in "less what if X had emotions" plots
Ah, so it's one those "animal protagonists are racist because they allow creators to skirt race politics" sort of articles.
>lack of women and minorities both on screen and behind it
>The best Pixar movies from the last decade — Soul, Coco, Inside Out, Turning Red — have all had women and/or people of color as protagonists
>First, they can break cultural barriers
>Second, they can also use this opportunity to further diversify the animation industry as a whole by hiring the people needed to bring these stories
Nope. Explicitly about hiring more women and/or people of color and exclusively making stories about women and/or people of color.
>"The best Pixar movies from the last decade — Soul, Coco, Inside Out, Turning Red"
>"The best from last decade"
>Soul, Turning Red
>>"The best from last decade"
>>Soul, Turning Red
I mean, its not wrong, technically..
Do people really shit on Sovl? I though it was the best film from nu-Pixar.
I thought it was okay, but very contrived. Everything that happens is like they're making up the rules of death as they go.
Why did you leave out Coco and Inside Out
That's a lie.
The word "diverse" in the context of media always means "less whites"
>It's already an original film about an interracial couple
But still straight relationship
I think the article is right about "mundane stuff but alive" being cliche at this point and that Pixar needs to do other types of stories.
Nah, it can be done IF they stop with diversity nonsense. Make stories bold instead of bland.
Well it’s too late. If Elio flops then Pixar is going full sequel mode for the next decade. Think of all the movies they’ve produced that have sequel potential. They’re probably watering at the mouth thinking about it. It’s over already.
What about a story about the child of Asian immigrants and their generational trauma?
What is with Asian Americans and generational trauma. Why is it a trending movie story now?
Middle class Asian Americans suffer no real problems so they can only write about their parents pushing them to success, and that one time in elementary school when a kid made fun of their lunch for smelling weird. For some reason, kids telling them their food smells deeply traumatizes them. My mom was Russian and used to pack me smelly pickled Russian food. Kids told me it smelled all the time and I just laughed along with them and didn't care.
Asian Americans only have one story to tell. Pixar needs diversity of ideas, which means hiring poor people with life and real world experience to write their films, instead of sheltered upper middle class asians.
How about an Irish family that continually loses land and money due to alcoholism?
Impossible anon, that would set the Ginger Erasure Initiative back for another 10 years
They could be black Irish.
Nah, if we want to realistic it could feature philipinos the irish community in America has largely fused with them, at least in Cali.
It works on another level because black Irish is just something people made up to disguise mixed kids.
>not myyyy money
You aren't Walt Disney or Helen Pixar.
>black Irish
That actor was Irish.
Kino episode.
>and that one time in elementary school when a kid made fun of their lunch for smelling weird.
For me it was middle school
>Asian Americans only have one story to tell.
Blue collar Asians have been drowned out by white collar ones. It's why Chinatowns are on the decline.
From what i understand, they have overbearing moms.
Generational trauma is the reason you'll have holocaust survivor survivors now. Gib reparations.
Cause parents go through absolute hell to bring their kids here, usually from societies that are all about getting the previous generation's approval to do anything. Thing is not every Asian family is like that. Mine sure isn't. My grandfather lost his wife fleeing the commies but he made it crystal fricking clear to my mother he didn't want her to take over his deli. My mother became a doctor but she knows to let me figure out what I want to do.
At this point, I think a South Korean, Japanese or Chinese talking about their School system and their workplace culture has more to tell than anything an Asian American has to say, because they're really rough.
Asian families tend to be super close in terms of "you have no choice, you WILL take your parents into your home when you grow up and take care of them when they get old AND allow them to basically run your life and the lives of your children, even if they are abusive as frick".
Combined with the fact that a lot of Asian families put unspeakably high standards upon their kids in terms of education (IE they have to make 100% and A+ on all school assignments and anything less than absolute perfection is a failure and will be punished severely) and any sort of extra-curriculum activities (if they are even allowed to do them), in terms of "be the absolute best or else...." centric child abuse.
In short, you are expected to be 100% perfect in an Asian household or else you bring disgrace and ruin upon your family. And you have ZERO free will until BOTH your parents are dead, at which point you are expected to take out your anger at your parents controlling every aspect of your lives and having a blank check to abuse you every way possible, on your kids and grandchildren, to continue and perpetuate the cycle.
>CHING CHONG YOU WAN EGGROLL WIT FLIED LICE!
The main "generational trauma" I have seen witht the irish is the obsession with acquiring land. Of course the reason behind this is obvious.
If you think the Irish are some particular victims then you have successfully swallowed the propaganda of Irish American mythology
I mean they have been victimized for quiet a while, it only really ended after Kennedys death. I'm just tired of the Asian shit and was describing what I know.
I don't think Irish Americans invented Irish issues with land rights, anon.
>the propaganda of Irish American mythology
Gringo Ment
Huge cultural difference between US and Asia compared to US and Europe. Even US and Africa are more similar, and I ain't talking about the blacks. Asia is hyper-conformist and China in particular has the much memed about three philosophies: "Everything sucks (Buddhism), everything was better before I was born (Confucianism), and frick you obey the law (Legalism)". This produces a mindset in families that the patriarchs/matriarchs are to be obeyed no matter what, up to and especially who you are friends with and who your spouses are. This creates massive arguments between first generation, second generation, and even third generation families; which spills over into Asian-American art as "I love my parent/grandparent but I wish they weren't such a hardass".
A good example of this is Jackie Chan Adventures. Great show, but you can see the generational conflict between Uncle (first gen patriarch), Jackie (second gen b***h boy), and Jade (who despite being fresh off the boat is third gen rebel).
never noticed that about Jackie Chan Adventures
It's actually an example of how to do the dynamic correctly, because everybody in that dynamic has strengths and weaknesses; and there's nothing meanspirited about it.
My vietnamese grandmother refuses to allow my little brother to stay with her in the city for his IT job cause my mother married a white guy instead of another vietnamese. Which is fricked up cause otherwise he's commuting 3 hours each way twice a week cause his workplace decided they wanted people in the office in at least some capacity and he can't just quit cause this is his first real job and he's only a couple months into his probation period.
why does she put her ethnicity over her family? It would be fine if she lived in Vietnam, but larping as "le traditional pure blooded person" is just moronic in the new world.
Just the way things are, I suppose. I remember my mother once telling my she got shit for dating a japanese guy when she was going through college. Apparently my grandparents used to be semi richgays before the north vietnamese army came through and confiscated all their wealth and forced them to flee.
Notice how these generational trauma with asian american always involve the female. It's because asian women despise their parents and culture and wish they were white. Their entirely generational conflict is a result of that.
What are Asians even escaping from? Nothing. Whites had to die in droves as settlers to make America what it was, blacks had to come from slavery, and Mexicans are escaping cartels. Asian Americans are literally not Americans.
Asians were escaping the commies.
Nobody wants to "escape" communism. They want to escape capitalism.
Back to Twitter, pinko.
Why the frick come to the US or Europe then?
No, they're not. Koreans aren't escaping anything.
>but muh Chinese
They just want to go to nice colleges in America, the UK, and Canada. They then cry when we don't want them. Most of them are spies.
Why would Asians want to escape 8x income growth in the span of 30 years? When my grandparents, retired geologist professors from Qingdao, visit the US, they say it’s like traveling back to the past. Where are the self-driving busses, they ask? The AI-run stores? The high speed trains? The gates you can open just with facial recognition? Why are there so many homeless people? Why are they still using 70’s infrastructure? They own a house here in America. A nice one with a yard and three bedrooms in the suburbs, yet it sits empty most year around. They would rather spend more time in tyrannical China. Crazy, right?
Tiger moms. No, not the furry ones you want to frick
The "Asian parents expecting perfection" meme caught up with reality and now all those Asian kids expected to be doctors or lawyers and get straight As are adults with chips on their shoulders
They aren't letting other asians make shit in the west without it. Intersectionality after all.
>What is with Asian Americans and generational trauma. Why is it a trending movie story now?
>Trending
Name 5
>crazy rich asians
>everything everywhere all at once
>half the ethnic lesbian shows made, pitched, or being greenlit atm
>reya the last who gives a frick
>moana too
>turning red (sell pictures of your "panda place" to strangers on the internet little girls)
>that unwatchable TV show aquafina made that beats the dead horse of tiger mom/annoying bumpkin asian grandparents so hard it's a fine slurry
For some reason they keep making this shit even though no one is watching, least of all the foreign market. Still "trending" according to the media angry chinX won't watch the latest gripping "my mom was... le strict!" shovelware. And no they will never figure out different countries and ethnicities don't give a shit about their regional enemies "stories" for why SEA inspired shit makes $0 in China and Korea.
Go home, Joshua Luna
In my defense, I also made a comic that was like Species plus Dawn of the Dead.
>What about a story about the child of Asian immigrants and their generational trauma?
As opposed to whitoids and their generational trauma? Sorry y'all hate your parents and want to stab them because your mom added some spice to your steak
Anon, any story about a white person that involves their parents (which is a shit ton of them) is about generational trauma. No one cries about it.
Sure, demented hapa, whatever you say.
>spicing a steak
I'd hate my parents too if they were this shit at cooking.
Konichiwa, dude!
BRILLIANT! Give this guy a 400 million movie contract, this will get us out of the mud.
So a story about an immigrant family an the representation of a Korean women dating a white male isn't diverse enough? Is this just someone thinking that diverse needs to mean black?
Also it was written by an Asian American who went to Yale. How is that any different then a white guy who went to Cal Arts? They need to let poor Latinos make their movies
Shirley you mean Latinx? Or are you transphobic
>>They need to let poor Latinos make their movies
>hand $5 to south american animators
>all they do is express their autistic love of Americana of the 20XXs
none of the characters even screech taco burrito burrito puto libre, how problematic!
Remember The Incredibles? Funny, well-made, wasn't just X with emotions. Wish we still got films on that level of quality.
Maybe Pixar should make movies that kids actually want to see.
Cars 4
Is it Dreamworks time to shine?
It was, but they screwed it up already
>Executives can't understand a romance film will not do well aimed at kids that think "Ew cooties!"
It was fine for Wall-E, Ratatouille, and Up.
>WALL-E
Also a space adventure movie
>Ratatouille
Mostly about the rat, not the romance
>Up
Only the beginning and some general themes, but it is an adventure movie mainly
NTA. I'll argue the romance plot in WALL-E is still a big part of the movie, alongside the plant subplot.
I agree on the other two, though.
Wall-E has the space novelty regardless, couldn't watch Elemental now but I'd doesn't seem to have any hook beyond the romance and the visuals (and it failed on the second for me).
The highest grossing romcom is My Big Fat Greek Wedding with 240 million dollars. How did Pixar expected to succeed by investing 200 million dollars into a romcom?
best take, Elemental didn't have enough going on other than the romance
An Irish themed movie sounds cool actually but your premise sounds depressing
I'm just trying to come up with sad stuff using my families history for ideas. What are your suggestions?
If you're genuinely interested in seeing Irish history and folklore used as theme and setting look into Cartoon Saloon's body of work, they have an entire Irish Trilogy.
Personally if I was going to do something Irish themed I'd stick to Ireland itself or Irish characters in NON-AMERICAN settings. You could do something interesting with Irish-Mexican relations, for instance. Lots of people are unaware of the ties between the two countries.
I only ever looked into it because of a very weird night out where a friend and I went to the local Latin club expecting Reggaeton (being Mexican-American ourselves) but everyone was dancing to Irish Rock instead. Turns out the club had semi-regular Irish rock nights.
You'd think fire people would be snacking on wood chips.
She's eating coal-nuts.
Nothing will ever be good enough
I mean, none of this is new, is it? The big animation companies have had an issue with their well-meaning presentation of minorities for decades. When it does work, it's more of an accident. And there was kind of a weird coincidental release of multiple cartoons where a minority character's story requires them to be a cuddly animal or something for a chunk of the run time.
A great way to avoid this would be for black people to make their own cartoons...with their own money.
... how was that a problem in Emperor's New Groove when everyone in that movie was the same ethnicity.
Why does every kind of vocal minority think they deserve some sort of special treatment because they are not white, and if they get some representation they complain that it's "too little, too late"?
It shouldn't matter what skin color a character in a movie has, as long as the story is good and the movie is well made. They're all just people, doesn't matter if they're white, not white, trans, gay or straight, they're all equally worthless and insignificant
I swear if i ever get to make movies or or tv shows, it's gonne be the most woke and inclusive story ever, but every character is played by a traditionaly attractive straight white actor, and will be a parody of it self
Jesus H. Christ, it annoys me to no end when people think they're special, because they're not
>I swear if i ever get to make movies or or tv shows, it's gonne be the most woke and inclusive story ever, but every character is played by a traditionaly attractive straight white actor, and will be a parody of it self
You're part of the problem. Stop feeding the nonsense.
bump
This. You can bend over backwards and sink your entire studio trying to appeal to minorities and it will never be good enough for them. Christ, people have already forgotten how much Mexicans b***hes about Coco when it came out or how Tiana wasn’t “black enough” to appease Black folk.
>Christ, people have already forgotten how much Mexicans b***hes about Coco
Isn't Coco the second highest grossing movie in Mexico (behind Super Mario Bros)? I don't recall Mexicans complaining about Coco itself, it was the fact that Pixar/Disney tried to trademark "Dia de los Muertos", which was the original title.
>Tiana wasn’t “black enough” to appease Black folk
I remember they complained about Tiana being a frog for most of the movie. The same complaint cropped up for Soul. I don't buy into either, but then again I didn't like those movies much to begin with.
It isn't "minorities" if all the whining comes from upper middle class white kids, DEI middle men, and ESG funders.
>these movies aren't doing well because they don't have enough Black folk in them
What the frick, do people actually think like this?
>do people actually think like this?
I think they are actually delusional over the whole inclusion matter. As in, they honestly believe in forcing it until the movies make the numbers they want them to do, so they can say "gotcha!".
Meanwhile, the suits just don't care as long as nobody is knocking at their door, and they earn some money while "looking inclusive". But, some point, they will get tired of the farse.
Self-destructive cultists.
Diversity in storytelling is different than diversity for wokeness
I hate Clod
I think you mean that you LOVE Clod, just like everyone else does
Are you telling me you didn't cheer for Clod along with the whole audience??
I very much doubt that.
that was my first thought. The movie is "technically" good, but the plot is so fricking mid, boring even
What about making PG-13 and R-rated movies?
They were gonna do one with 1906 but at this point I don't trust them at all to do something like that
Maybe you completely misread the article. Maybe they are arguing that Pixar needs to fail.
It already has.
No, their movies have failed. But the company can fail. Maybe it needs to.
I think Disney will fail before Pixar does, and yes I know who owns who.
Yeah, so, no, that's not possible. Disney as a name, Disney as a brand, Disney as a Theatrical Animation Studio. It's too ephemeral to die. Its life is pretty much tied to the parent company and it would take decades to die. Saying otherwise is just not understanding the market. Might Disney fire everyone within the Walt Disney Theatrical Animation branch of the company and replace them with new people? Sure, but the thing is that kind of happens all the time.
Pixar, on the other hand. It's not as sticky of a brand. It's a brand with an identity and it can die. One might argue it's already dying. Disney might be looking at Pixar as redundant. Might be looking to take it into the fold, cannibalize it until only Walt Disney Theatrical Pixar Animation exists. If "Pixar" doesn't mean "extra prestigious 3D specialists", what DOES it mean.
Disney is increasingly just a shell company, and their relationship with various brands - including their own - is identical to that between Alphabet and Google.
>Disney is increasingly just a shell company, and their relationship with various brands - including their own - is identical to that between Alphabet and Google.
If alphabet managed to lose control of major web service host infrastructure in a desperate bid to keep google afloat or something, yeah. If there is any truth in the rumored fire sale to pay out what they owe comcast for Hulu, then we'll see whole IP and divisions and physical Disney properties being bought and turned back around at them by their direct competitors.
Well then these worthless journalists should take them and their entire extended family and whole office to see Elemental. It's failing in the box office, it's everything they wanted, and they can't even be bothered? Embarrassing.
It doesn't matter if it's a sequel or not I don't want racemixing homosexual propaganda. I'm not brown, I'm not gay, and I'm only dating white women. Go away.
People have Black person fatigue. You can tell the elements shit I'd uninspired migrant propaganda with ugly designs that radiate israeliteness
Anon can you take your medication and say that again.
>Diversity
Why are people obsessed with that shit? Does it really matter at all?
Yes it does, its a good buzzword to throw in the mix and its perfect to justify both your lack of creativity and of personality
Might be surprised to learn that its not just straight white men who watch movies.
Pixar could desperately do with some actual diversity, but that's almost never what "diversity" means
Nothing wrong with trying to make your market as large as possible.
What IS fricked up is favoring certain groups over others and projecting false narratives onto said groups to gaslight them into believing they are perpetual victims and others into believing they are perpetual racists.
Everyone's overthinking this. Original movies will sell if the concepts appeal to a general audience. Talking animals is a safe bet, for example.
I honestly feel the problem with Soul is how much of a douche bag with no charm the protagonist is, and how the comedy falls short most of the time. Like seriously the only high point of the movie is showing how much he actually loves life, besides that there wasn't much going on for it. Even onward had more interesting parts.
Turning Red was actually a breath of fresh air, but I guess I may be mixing that with quality
I liked the Soul guy because I'm in a similar position in life
Diversity doesn't matter at all for financial success, but it's not a detriment either
DBZ solved racism already who cares
>make a movie about diversity
>it fails
>we need more stories about diversity
How about we go back to traditional stories for a change?
They don't need successful products, proxy investment companies of the US government pay well.
I've never heard of this site before. Why should I care about them now?
Are you kidding? ComingSoon is one of the oldest media news aggregators out there. They were originally launched in 2012 to collect and republish media stories from other websites but branched out early on to include press releases and original reporting. Editorial has been a big part of ComingSoon's success since it makes them stick out from the other news aggregators like iO9 and IGN.
>Comingsoon
>They were originally launched in 2012
No way, I seem to recall checking that site years earlier for trailers
They eat poop!
I have prostatitis! Little-known cartoons treat my prostate!