Disney fans find some of the Mouse House's older content "outdated" and "offensive," wishing it would make new shows and films rather than rehashing its classics.
Almost 50 percent of respondents to a Newsweek poll agreed that if Disney was going to reboot its vintage content, it should update plots to align with modern values.
This goes against recent backlash which has accused Disney of going "woke" by altering storylines of rebooted films such as the live action remake of The Little Mermaid, which cast Black actress Halle Bailey as the main character, Ariel. Disney also faced criticism for casting Rachel Zegler who is of Polish-Colombian descent as Snow White in the live-action remake of the 1937 animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Disney also changed the seven dwarfs in that story to "magical creatures" of different ethnicities and genders and only one of the actors has dwarfism.
The poll was conducted for Newsweek by Redfield and Wilton Strategies on August 22 and 23 with a sample size of 1,500 eligible voters in the U.S.
It asked a range of questions including, whether "classic Disney films contained outdated, offensive stereotypes." Only 26 percent of respondents strongly disagreed or disagreed with the statement, while 45 percent strongly agreed or agreed with it.
NewsletterAnother 30 percent had no feelings on the subject or did not know.
"Historically, Disney has committed every form of offence. Racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia: it's there throughout the Disney canon. In places it's explicit, like the tropes of non-consensual kisses with unconscious princesses, in others it's implicit, such as their long history of queer-coded villains with disfigurements," Hannah Yelin, reader of media and culture at Oxford Brookes University, told Newsweek.
Yelin, the author of Celebrity Memoir: From Ghostwriting to Gender Politics, added that in recent years, "Disney has visibly attempted to tackle these issues in their remakes [...] but a mass entertainment corporation like Disney will always put profit over progress."
The Newsweek poll also asked: "Do you support or oppose remakes of Disney classics which change the plot and storyline of the original film to modern tastes and morals?"
Responses were overwhelmingly in favor of updating storylines, with 44 percent agreeing and 24 percent opposed to such changes.
In regards to whether Disney was on to a winning formula by rebooting its older content, 36 percent of respondents wanted the company to focus on telling new stories. Twenty percent thought Disney should remake classic films, and a further 28 percent said the company should a bit of both.
Disney would face an "impossible" task to ensure its vintage titles met today's standards, according to Alexander Ross, author of The Evolution of Hollywood's Calculated Blockbuster Films: Blockbusted.
"What would be even worse would be to ban the 'inappropriate; elements. We need to see these within a historical context [as a] reflection on the times. They shed light on our past, however unpleasant," Ross told Newsweek. "With the now usual advisories, they should remain accessible to those who are interested. We need to continue engaging with these, the worst thing that could happen would be to shut down the debates."
Ross was referring to Disney's decision to put advisories ahead of older shows and films on its streaming service, Disney+, warning of potentially offensive content and even putting age restrictions on beloved titles such as Dumbo, Peter Pan and The Aristocats.
"Whether Disney can sanitize some of the problematic IP [intellectual property] in order to commercialize it is an entirely different matter. Some of their older IP, going back to their earlier, classic animation films is very valuable and adds hundreds of millions to the value of the studio's library," Ross added. "Does re-tooling it to make it acceptable and relevant to new generations make sense? Absolutely."
But for discrimination attorney, Andrew Lieb, the quickness at which people call for boycotts if something is deemed 'too woke' or at the other end of the spectrum, 'too offensive', misses the opportunity to uplift the communities which once may have been a target of the offensive stereotypes.
"Yeah, sure Disney has offensive older content… we should learn from it and celebrate how much more evolved we are today. So, it's imperative that society both embraces our past and enhances our future," Lieb told Newsweek.
"That is not to say that, as an attorney, I wouldn't advise Disney to have a prominent disclaimer in the front of all of its historic content that is being released today," he said. "This disclaimer should explain that the content is from a different era where different normative behavior was considered acceptable, but that Disney does not endorse the content as acceptable to have been created today."
"We need to balance changing times and how we got here," Lieb added. "Let's just live in the reality that some things were great at the time, but that time also offended a lot of people and those people need to now be uplifted and celebrated."
Yelin shared a similar view.
"In our polarised discursive landscape, where outrage is oxygen, these shifting representations have been a site of culture wars which have sought to benefit from a nostalgia for times when those with power could punch down with impunity," she said.
"The huge global reach of these representations means they also play a role in contributing to our cultural norms. If these are beginning to offer diverse casts free of stereotyping, more to the good. Ultimately, cultural texts like Disney films both reflect and shape the society in which they are made."
Update, 08/29/2023, 7:33 a.m. ET. This story was updated to include comments from Hannah Yelin.
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