They used diversity specialists on Moana, Coco, etc. It doesn’t keep them from using the culture. Frankly, today you probably need one these days. The specialists don’t get to veto the main idea.
Coco was a terrific movie. I rather doubt the diversity specialist hurt it. I bet they made it better.
Did he do a poll or anything? Ask anyone? Or just assume that since “I got mine jack” he is “King Dwarf”, speaking for them all?
You know what… I am not a dwarf, and i don’t speak for any dwarfs at all, but i think the animated “snow white” was really harmful to dwarfs, and it’s kind of an unfortunate movie in a lot of other ways.
I don’t know what the new one will be like, but it would be hard for it to be worse.
I know that no one actually cares what he actually said but the link to the podcast and the time stamp of where the statement is made has been provided in this thread. But never let facts get in the way of pontifications!
It was an off hand off the cuff comment, as part of a wide ranging conversation, not even aware that Disney was doing the movie, just riffing on the complexities of “correctness” and sensitivities actually in a pretty thoughtful way. What it was NOT was cancel call on Disney or a demand of any sort. Pretty sure he was shocked that the one line part of that podcast resulted in such a kerfluffle.
Can you re-link? (If it’s not too much of a pain.)
About 50 minutes in as a good lead in for context and then listen for two or three. Or even eight. It’s a good conversation.
54 is the actual line I think.
Thanks!
Yeah, I read it several times. So? It may have been “off the cuff” but it caused a small media storm (see the headline and title here). And he never walked it back to say- yeah, it’d a great film, and i hope my fellow short people get plenty of work. It ended up being pushed as a attack on Disney. The perception IS the reality… and he has had a long time to correct any perception. And he does say “Have I done nothing to advance the cause?” And he meant the cause of the short people, and no, he has done NOTHING to advance the cause.
So, yeah if his comments- and there were several,-had been ignored then no big deal.
This is such a bizarre take. No, he’s not trying to advance the cause of dwarfs who are also actors. He’s trying to advance the cause of dwarfs.
When i lobby on behalf of Jews, or women, which i have done, I’ve never done it specifically to advance the cause of Jewish or female actuaries. What a crazy narrow perspective.
And it’s hard for me to imagine that “snow white and the 7 dwarfs” isn’t profoundly frustrating to a very large fraction of dwarfs, who hope to be viewed as human beings and not as funny magical creatures who can support the beautiful maiden, like speaking birds and bunnies.
Wouldn’t it help if we didn’t use the same word (“dwarf”) for human beings and folkloric creatures?
Huh. Where did you read it?
I could never find a transcript. I “had” to listen.
Nah, Mr. Dinklage had no obligation to get involved in the shitstorm. I suspect he had an edible and laughed about the craziness.
Personally though while I am not surprised that no one of the Disney team actually listened to what he had really said, I am surprised that no one of the team reached out to him as a public gesture.
The issue or non issue is true or not true regardless anyway. It is just that misattribution when accurate information is known seems … wrong? lazy? Something.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it’s the same word, honestly. But i was thinking the show could be improved if it were recast as “snow white and the seven badgers”.
I see no such indications.
What I’m wondering is if you think it still would have been as harmful if the characters in the movie had been called “gnomes” or “swarbs” or some other word, with no other changes. Or if we didn’t use the word “dwarf” to refer to real-life human beings of short stature. That is, does the harm just come from using the same word for both, or from something else?
Well, there’s still the whole thing where the prince falls obsessively in love with a dead body and kisses it.
But yes, if the sidekicks had been gnomes, or badgers, i don’t think it would be as embarrassing to dwarfs.
huh? That is absolutely not what is in the film, It seems to get repeated ad nauseum. They first meet and fall in love well before any fruit based unpleasantness.
Or sneezy, or grumpy, or sleepy, or happy, or bashful….
Yes, but when he comes to see her at the end, everyone assumes she’s dead, and there’s no way he got consent to kiss her.
People kiss goodbye to corpses all the time in many cultures. This was no Jimmy Saville situation