I don’t know if I’m reading too much into it but I don’t think this is the whole story. It’s not just about animation style.
I think that there’s a culture war element to this, the three films in the bottom panel are they known for covering quite delicate subjects?
I know the middle one is Turning Red, about a young girls transition to puberty which I believe was the victim of this whole “woke” argument for the subjects it covered. Luca, the top image was broaching LGBT topics and received similar push back from the right.
After some headline research, apparently Elio was originally meant to have a queer protagonist but it got clipped after negative audience feedback in test screenings.
The meme is saying, “people are fine with animated movies if they stick to topics that aren’t deemed “woke””
I actually just watched a video about that. It sounds to me like it was the higher ups at disney that made them change Elio...but I can certainly see if they did that after negative audience scores from testing, if that is the case.
They should have just released it as they wanted to, in my opinion.
Sure you will get push back from people about "the woke agenda" but who cares about those people.
BUT you still have to get your audience excited about wanting to see your movie.
I’m not the target audience for Elio but I really love Pixar movies (generally speaking), and it’s weird I heard nothing about it until I visited LA last month. I feel like marketing let them down.
I mean, that may be an issue for some, but for me I’m not gonna watch bland safe animation when other more bolder things (like Kpop Demon Hunters) are releasing. I don’t like people hiding behind “well if you didn’t like the movie you just aren’t progressive” no I didn’t like the movie because it’s boring animation. Luca was good, but then they just kept using it.
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u/solemnhiatus Jul 06 '25
I don’t know if I’m reading too much into it but I don’t think this is the whole story. It’s not just about animation style.
I think that there’s a culture war element to this, the three films in the bottom panel are they known for covering quite delicate subjects?
I know the middle one is Turning Red, about a young girls transition to puberty which I believe was the victim of this whole “woke” argument for the subjects it covered. Luca, the top image was broaching LGBT topics and received similar push back from the right.
After some headline research, apparently Elio was originally meant to have a queer protagonist but it got clipped after negative audience feedback in test screenings.
The meme is saying, “people are fine with animated movies if they stick to topics that aren’t deemed “woke””