I took my grandsons to see Snow White, ages 7 through 12. They rated it a “Seven” (out of ten) and were clearly not very impressed. Rotten Tomatoes the last time I checked was showing a 44% aggregate rating. I’m thinking that smaller budgeted movies targeting a niche audience may be the way to go now. But the film industry seems to be either tone deaf or too agenda driven to care. Of course there has to be a point where hemorrhaging cash cannot continue, one would think(?).
If you are a media giant, with massive stock-market stakes, is it POSSIBLE to be nimble and to downsize to a smart niche -- left, right or even middle? Even an (ttps://www.aardman.com/) approach requires help from giants. Then again, what happens if "The Chosen" previews beat "Snow White" this weekend?
Ha! I hope it does. And I’m a tad ambivalent about The Chosen. An aside: As for Snow White, I found the over the top digital effects as annoying as the deviations from the original storyline.
The story of Snow White comes from Germany and is one of many fairy tales compiled by the Grimms brothers in the 19th century. It is a morality story, as most are. The princess poisoned by a witch and believed dead who is preserved instead of buried can be interpreted in many ways but as I understand it, the princess is a symbol for the fall of man and restoration by Christ (the prince). The Disney version doesn't make that clear, but the last frame shows the revived princess and the prince gazing at a castle in the sky (or perhaps on a mountaintop). I always took it as Christ taking his Bride, the Church to glory with him. I cry every time I watch it. The new version misses the mark on many levels, but by ripping out the heart of the story, it was just another woman discovering she's as good as a man (if not better) and being the hero. When all the while the true hero is not only the princess (demonstrating courage through bitter times), the dwarfs who care for her (those who administer the sacraments to us) but most importantly the prince (Christ) who never gives up searching for her and gives her the kiss of love (saving grace) so they can live happily ever after (in eternity).
Certainly the Lord of the Rings has spawned many such interpretations. As for Snow White, I haven't read anything like it. Just always thought it my own idea, but perhaps few others see it as that. Typology has always been an interest of mine, mostly OT typology for Christ and his Church. Haydock's Bible Commentary cites it with many references to the Church Fathers and theologians.
There are always departures when movies are made of books. Some of what Villeneuve did with Dune was useful: giving more scope to Princess Irulan, for example, who is very complex and conflicted character whom Herbert never really did justice to in the books. But the conversion of Chani into a 21st century "girl boss" type was terribly tedious. If anyone should have been played up as a skeptic about Paul's growing power it should have been his mother Jessica, who knows as a fact that the Fremen religion has been manipulated deliberately. Villeneuve appears to have felt that modern audiences would not believe an entire oppressed people not having present-day religious attitudes, so he invented a split between "fundamentalists" and "skeptics" with Chani in the lead among the latter. And quite unnecessarily. If you include "Dune: Messiah" in consideration Paul's story is already a story about the dangerous passions that can be released by religion; it was not necessary to warp Chani into something unrecognizable and of altogether too 21st century by zeitgeist.
We have either become or we are becoming the Tower of Babble. For example: What is a woman? When a Supreme Court justice could not answer the question, it polarized the nation according to political views. Those who agreed with her were loud and everywhere, just like those who disagree were loud and everywhere.
It is not just the movie industry, as I understand, is mostly Disney that has most the flops. You should look in to video games. There are games cost hundreds of millions to make. Many have flopped. How big you may ask. The biggest flop in video game history so far was “Concord” once referred to as the future of PlayStation. It took eight years to make and cost estimate $200-400 million. After two weeks the few people that purchased it, got a refund and the game was pulled. Why? Insert politics and lack of ingenuity. Just like Snow White.
"But what if there is no common, shared, mainstream popular culture?"
Some years ago, a piece I wrote for a Christian culture website about raucous comedies was reprinted in a textbook called Common Culture, whose purpose was to help students think about the culture they swam in and articles like mine could be think pieces to provoke discussion and responses. Now the book's title seems . . . dated? Digital media exploded any common culture creating thousands of niches.
And this has made access to cultural production more democratic--so many YouTubers take eyeballs away from "mainstream culture" which the Russo brothers, of Marvel movies fame blame on the decline of blockbusters (I doubt this is the main reason but it does give kids and others cheap access to entertaining videos) but it also made The Chosen possible with a crowd-funded app launch, to create excellent content that finally broke the image of Christian entertainment as a mediocre faith ghetto.
The current streaming wars for "mainstream" entertainment corporations is a financially disastrous project. Disney's predicament is only the most dramatic but Max, Paramount, Peacock, and others cannot survive long term after the media companies placed all their chips on streaming. A reckoning is coming.
Finally, my response to the four Tmatt's question of what options would have worked for a Snow White reboot adapted from where I addressed in a Facebook post: The original masterpiece impressed even C.S. Lewis who saw it with friends and marveled at Disney's storytelling saying something like, "Imagine what he could do if he was educated?" Meaning I guess, if he had the cultural/literary background to plumb the depths--which sounds like option 4, the Pageau approach. But the original was both an artistic breakthrough, the first animated feature film and that evokes a true fairy tale sense while being hard to remake as a shot-for-shot filming, as in Beauty and the Beast--Disney's later animated fairy tales would go on to improve on characterization and technique without losing the stories' charm and wonder but Snow White's squeaky voice and limited emotional range, through a breakthrough at the time, wouldn't hold up to an updated version. I'm not sure a contemporary update with the classic sensibilities is possible from any of the major studios--the gospel of feminism is too deeply entrenched to retain the qualities to make her the "fairest of them all."
But one exception occurs to me--the live action 2015 Cinderella, directed by Kenneth Branagh, does justice to the original while adapting to photo-realistic storytelling. I think it's the only time Disney wasn't apologetic in adapting one of its classics (see: Malificent for a more typical revisionist take).
Thank you for this thoughtful response. My takeaway: Right now, studios are pouring MONEY into this problem, expecting blockbusters that are now going to be very rare. The focus should be on creativity in words and images, from people who understand the niches that are their targets. “The Chosen” is an example. Is the common culture now YouTube, a buffet of niches?
Another element to mention here is that the Disney live action remakes were already on a downward arc before it became another front in the culture wars. They were dependable money printing machines for a while (Beauty and the Beast, jungle book, lion king, Cinderella, etc), but were running out of steam (Dumbo, pinocchio, little mermaid). None of these latter were box office disasters, though they lost money. Little mermaid caused some upset among the anti-woke by casting a person of color in the lead, but, again, wasn't a catastrophe. I wonder if that gentler descent would have continued if snow white herself hadn't given that female empowerment interview. Or I wonder if it's a gauge of the rise of anti-woke since the little mermaid (2023) that it wasn't punished so severely.
Terry, thanks for the article. Welcome back to the "top side of the world." I'm curious when I think about our nation's divisions, so well described in David French's book. Historically, we were divided by "zip codes" in the American Civil War (Union vs. Confederacy). Is this a recurring theme in our culture? When we were last not divided by political party, it was because the political parties had barely a nickel's worth of difference between them. The difference between Nixon and Kennedy was quite negligible. I don't know where things go from here. But, I liked the old Snow White for what it's worth. I took my oldest to see it in the theater when she was but 3 years old. The witch scared her something fierce! I was unprepared for that. Welcome back.
In the Civil War of the 1860s we were divided by state, although some CSA states did have significant anti-secession minorities. That's not the case today; the divisions are much more granular, and there are still very divided areas even at neighborhood levels-- I counted about equal numbers of Trump and Harris signs last fall in the part of St Pete where I live. Today there are no natural borders by which the nation could split apart. Even very "red" states contain large numbers of Democratic voters, and visa-versa in "blue" states.
The major divisions today are urban vs. everyone else -- red vs. blue zip codes. The blue zones, of course, contain almost all of the elite forms of mass media.
Well, this elides the suburbs which are a buffer between "blue" cities and "red" rural areas. They swing one way or the other depending on the specifics of the election year. And again, there's no way to divide the nation up on this basis. Cities need rural hinterlands and rural hinterlands need cities- even if hubristic people in each think they could do quite well without the other.
I took my grandsons to see Snow White, ages 7 through 12. They rated it a “Seven” (out of ten) and were clearly not very impressed. Rotten Tomatoes the last time I checked was showing a 44% aggregate rating. I’m thinking that smaller budgeted movies targeting a niche audience may be the way to go now. But the film industry seems to be either tone deaf or too agenda driven to care. Of course there has to be a point where hemorrhaging cash cannot continue, one would think(?).
If you are a media giant, with massive stock-market stakes, is it POSSIBLE to be nimble and to downsize to a smart niche -- left, right or even middle? Even an (ttps://www.aardman.com/) approach requires help from giants. Then again, what happens if "The Chosen" previews beat "Snow White" this weekend?
Ha! I hope it does. And I’m a tad ambivalent about The Chosen. An aside: As for Snow White, I found the over the top digital effects as annoying as the deviations from the original storyline.
The story of Snow White comes from Germany and is one of many fairy tales compiled by the Grimms brothers in the 19th century. It is a morality story, as most are. The princess poisoned by a witch and believed dead who is preserved instead of buried can be interpreted in many ways but as I understand it, the princess is a symbol for the fall of man and restoration by Christ (the prince). The Disney version doesn't make that clear, but the last frame shows the revived princess and the prince gazing at a castle in the sky (or perhaps on a mountaintop). I always took it as Christ taking his Bride, the Church to glory with him. I cry every time I watch it. The new version misses the mark on many levels, but by ripping out the heart of the story, it was just another woman discovering she's as good as a man (if not better) and being the hero. When all the while the true hero is not only the princess (demonstrating courage through bitter times), the dwarfs who care for her (those who administer the sacraments to us) but most importantly the prince (Christ) who never gives up searching for her and gives her the kiss of love (saving grace) so they can live happily ever after (in eternity).
I’ve heard the heavenly vision viewpoint before. Has anyone written about that?
Certainly the Lord of the Rings has spawned many such interpretations. As for Snow White, I haven't read anything like it. Just always thought it my own idea, but perhaps few others see it as that. Typology has always been an interest of mine, mostly OT typology for Christ and his Church. Haydock's Bible Commentary cites it with many references to the Church Fathers and theologians.
Re: Is there a “safe” strategy in the current pop-culture scene, a surefire way to produce products that will sell in the digital-niche marketplace?
The Dune movies have done OK.
Yes. Strong preexisting story and they risked staying pretty close to it. No one said there would be NO wide blockbusters.
There are always departures when movies are made of books. Some of what Villeneuve did with Dune was useful: giving more scope to Princess Irulan, for example, who is very complex and conflicted character whom Herbert never really did justice to in the books. But the conversion of Chani into a 21st century "girl boss" type was terribly tedious. If anyone should have been played up as a skeptic about Paul's growing power it should have been his mother Jessica, who knows as a fact that the Fremen religion has been manipulated deliberately. Villeneuve appears to have felt that modern audiences would not believe an entire oppressed people not having present-day religious attitudes, so he invented a split between "fundamentalists" and "skeptics" with Chani in the lead among the latter. And quite unnecessarily. If you include "Dune: Messiah" in consideration Paul's story is already a story about the dangerous passions that can be released by religion; it was not necessary to warp Chani into something unrecognizable and of altogether too 21st century by zeitgeist.
Amen to all of that.
Hello Terry.
We have either become or we are becoming the Tower of Babble. For example: What is a woman? When a Supreme Court justice could not answer the question, it polarized the nation according to political views. Those who agreed with her were loud and everywhere, just like those who disagree were loud and everywhere.
It is not just the movie industry, as I understand, is mostly Disney that has most the flops. You should look in to video games. There are games cost hundreds of millions to make. Many have flopped. How big you may ask. The biggest flop in video game history so far was “Concord” once referred to as the future of PlayStation. It took eight years to make and cost estimate $200-400 million. After two weeks the few people that purchased it, got a refund and the game was pulled. Why? Insert politics and lack of ingenuity. Just like Snow White.
Some responses:
"But what if there is no common, shared, mainstream popular culture?"
Some years ago, a piece I wrote for a Christian culture website about raucous comedies was reprinted in a textbook called Common Culture, whose purpose was to help students think about the culture they swam in and articles like mine could be think pieces to provoke discussion and responses. Now the book's title seems . . . dated? Digital media exploded any common culture creating thousands of niches.
And this has made access to cultural production more democratic--so many YouTubers take eyeballs away from "mainstream culture" which the Russo brothers, of Marvel movies fame blame on the decline of blockbusters (I doubt this is the main reason but it does give kids and others cheap access to entertaining videos) but it also made The Chosen possible with a crowd-funded app launch, to create excellent content that finally broke the image of Christian entertainment as a mediocre faith ghetto.
The current streaming wars for "mainstream" entertainment corporations is a financially disastrous project. Disney's predicament is only the most dramatic but Max, Paramount, Peacock, and others cannot survive long term after the media companies placed all their chips on streaming. A reckoning is coming.
Finally, my response to the four Tmatt's question of what options would have worked for a Snow White reboot adapted from where I addressed in a Facebook post: The original masterpiece impressed even C.S. Lewis who saw it with friends and marveled at Disney's storytelling saying something like, "Imagine what he could do if he was educated?" Meaning I guess, if he had the cultural/literary background to plumb the depths--which sounds like option 4, the Pageau approach. But the original was both an artistic breakthrough, the first animated feature film and that evokes a true fairy tale sense while being hard to remake as a shot-for-shot filming, as in Beauty and the Beast--Disney's later animated fairy tales would go on to improve on characterization and technique without losing the stories' charm and wonder but Snow White's squeaky voice and limited emotional range, through a breakthrough at the time, wouldn't hold up to an updated version. I'm not sure a contemporary update with the classic sensibilities is possible from any of the major studios--the gospel of feminism is too deeply entrenched to retain the qualities to make her the "fairest of them all."
But one exception occurs to me--the live action 2015 Cinderella, directed by Kenneth Branagh, does justice to the original while adapting to photo-realistic storytelling. I think it's the only time Disney wasn't apologetic in adapting one of its classics (see: Malificent for a more typical revisionist take).
Thank you for this thoughtful response. My takeaway: Right now, studios are pouring MONEY into this problem, expecting blockbusters that are now going to be very rare. The focus should be on creativity in words and images, from people who understand the niches that are their targets. “The Chosen” is an example. Is the common culture now YouTube, a buffet of niches?
Why watch Snow White when I could watch
Pink Floyd at Pompeii - MCMLXXII/Carlo Acutis: Roadmap to Reality (double feature)
Colorful Stage! The Movie: A Miku Who Can't Sing
But I'm weird so...
Another element to mention here is that the Disney live action remakes were already on a downward arc before it became another front in the culture wars. They were dependable money printing machines for a while (Beauty and the Beast, jungle book, lion king, Cinderella, etc), but were running out of steam (Dumbo, pinocchio, little mermaid). None of these latter were box office disasters, though they lost money. Little mermaid caused some upset among the anti-woke by casting a person of color in the lead, but, again, wasn't a catastrophe. I wonder if that gentler descent would have continued if snow white herself hadn't given that female empowerment interview. Or I wonder if it's a gauge of the rise of anti-woke since the little mermaid (2023) that it wasn't punished so severely.
In a way, are you describing Disney leaders struggling to produce SAFE products that market their past?
Terry, thanks for the article. Welcome back to the "top side of the world." I'm curious when I think about our nation's divisions, so well described in David French's book. Historically, we were divided by "zip codes" in the American Civil War (Union vs. Confederacy). Is this a recurring theme in our culture? When we were last not divided by political party, it was because the political parties had barely a nickel's worth of difference between them. The difference between Nixon and Kennedy was quite negligible. I don't know where things go from here. But, I liked the old Snow White for what it's worth. I took my oldest to see it in the theater when she was but 3 years old. The witch scared her something fierce! I was unprepared for that. Welcome back.
In the Civil War of the 1860s we were divided by state, although some CSA states did have significant anti-secession minorities. That's not the case today; the divisions are much more granular, and there are still very divided areas even at neighborhood levels-- I counted about equal numbers of Trump and Harris signs last fall in the part of St Pete where I live. Today there are no natural borders by which the nation could split apart. Even very "red" states contain large numbers of Democratic voters, and visa-versa in "blue" states.
The major divisions today are urban vs. everyone else -- red vs. blue zip codes. The blue zones, of course, contain almost all of the elite forms of mass media.
Well, this elides the suburbs which are a buffer between "blue" cities and "red" rural areas. They swing one way or the other depending on the specifics of the election year. And again, there's no way to divide the nation up on this basis. Cities need rural hinterlands and rural hinterlands need cities- even if hubristic people in each think they could do quite well without the other.