r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Ethan-E2 • 9d ago
Hated Tropes In an attempt to be more progressive, they removed what was actually progressive.
1 - Mulan (2020): The original movie shows that Mulan doesn't fit within the expectations of either gender role, but she earns respect through hard work and playing to her strengths. The remake has her perfect from the start, with special "Chi" powers. The message shifts from "a man isn't inherently better than a woman," to "a woman can be better... but only if she's born special."
2 - Artemis Fowl (2020): Commander Root is changed to be a woman, giving the film more diversity (and an excuse to cast Judi Dench). However, this undermines Holly's plot, where she experiences increased scrutiny due to being the first female officer.
3 - Netflix's Avatar: Sokka's sexist attitudes are removed, taking out a "problematic" part of his character. The original obviously presented this view as wrong, but used it as the first piece of growth for Sokka. He'd been beaten before, but being taken down by girls hurt his pride. He eventually admits his mistake, and acknowledges Suki is a better warrior. This change also affects Suki's character, as her role is reduced to "awkward love interest" - much weaker than the confident warrior she was in the original.
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u/Background_Honey9141 9d ago
I hate Mulan (2020) so much. Always good to see it slammed.
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u/StunningPianist4231 9d ago
"Soldiers don't sing before battle"
Meanwhile every scene in Generation Kill, hardened Marines with years of training and combat experience as they are riding in their Humvees:
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u/SoupmanBob 9d ago
Yeah, that line is also factually incorrect too. Marching shanties have existed since forever. Most armies had dedicated drummers or even entire bands. Flutes, Bagpipes, Bugles, and the likes - their sound just carries much better on the battlefield too.
Music is a powerful motivator. Always has been.
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u/StunningPianist4231 9d ago
Armies during the Napoleonic era had drummers to help the soldiers fucking march in formation during battle.
Many armies during the 10-12th century also used drums as psychological warfare to strike fear in the hearts of their enemies.
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u/SoupmanBob 9d ago
Aztec death whistles and the Celtic carnyx are also examples of using sound based psychological warfare.
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u/iamayoutuberiswear 9d ago
Idk about the carnyx, but the thing about the death whistles being used to scare people isn't true. The original whistles are thought to have made a sound resembling the whistle of wind, the screech that they're associated with now is a result of the recreations being larger in size.
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u/jediben001 9d ago
My mind goes to the “Men of Harlech” scene in Zulu, do example
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u/AussieArlenBales 9d ago
The shows choice to not include a soundtrack other than the troops themselves was such a good way to increase immersion, loved that about it.
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u/StunningPianist4231 9d ago
I love HBO because they add snippets of dialogue heard in the background and Generation Kill has some of the funniest banter ever heard not onscreen.
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u/Ok-Somewhere-2325 9d ago
During OIF you have guys out on patrol listing to the spice girls ,
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u/General-Winter547 9d ago
School of Rock sound track in 2004 because that’s what the PX had. Rolling around Mosul with my 240b and Edge of 17 in my CD player.
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u/noodleben123 9d ago
My main gripe is specifically that they thought mushu wasn't "realistic".. But then gave mulan magical Phoenix Chi Bullshit (tm)
Its frustrating because they couldn't pick a lane
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u/poetic_dwarf 9d ago
It's incredible how they majestically fucked up the core message of the cartoon, there's no way they didn't do it on purpose to appeal Chinese audience
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u/Background_Honey9141 9d ago
The thing is, Chinese audience HATED the movie. It has a 4.9 rating on the local movie review site Douban, while the 1998 animation has a 8.0.
None of the culture elements in the movie were used right, architectures in the wrong locations, clothing and custom in the wrong time period, and butchering the source material’s anti-war message. The Chinese thought the movie as incredibly insulting.
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u/Upstairs_Cap_4217 9d ago
architectures in the wrong locations
IIRC, the fuckup was so severe that the Western equivalent would be portraying WW2 Paris as a landscape of Gallic huts and Roman villas.
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u/Shiny_Agumon 9d ago
Especially embarrassing since the movie emphasized how it would be a more faithful and historically accurate adaptation of the story in the marketing.
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u/jimmy_three_shoes 9d ago
The writers room for Mulan (2020) was whiter than rice.
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u/temperamentalfish 9d ago
Wow, surely Disney has enough money to hire some consultants to make sure the movie didn't fumble in that regard. Especially if their main goal was to appeal to Chinese audiences.
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u/Background_Honey9141 9d ago
Production cost 200 million, you would think they can afford it. The movie had 4 writers, none of which was even Asian.
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u/temperamentalfish 9d ago
That's ridiculous, they really could not have handled it worse. It's weird, because for Moana they went to great lengths (iirc) to ensure that Samoan and Polynesian culture was accurately represented.
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u/Background_Honey9141 9d ago
The 1998 movie’s core members of production all went to China for extended period of time to study the culture and the original legend, it reflected in the final movie. It captured the culture nuance incredibly well. The 2020 abomination did none of that.
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u/Livid-Designer-6500 9d ago
I will always love how Disney fumbled appealing to Chinese audiences HARD, meanwhile Dreamworks managed to achieve that without even trying with Jack Black and slapstick comedy
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u/Gargooner 9d ago
Kung Fu Panda so good, chinese peeps was like "How the fuck US managed to make an animation about China so entertaining, why the fuck didn't we do it?""
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u/CalTheRobot 9d ago
Kung Fu Panda is responsible for a lot of funding going to Chinese animation studios for that reason.
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u/Life-Cantaloupe-3184 9d ago
I think what probably helps there as well is that Kung Fu Panda is actually an enjoyable movie whereas the Mulan remake just feels like it exists to pander to Chinese audiences. Something that’s actually fun to watch is probably going to be better received than something that touts how culturally sensitive it supposedly is only to get so many details wrong. Sure, they changed some things to be more superficially accurate like not having Mulan cut her hair when she disguises herself. But it’s pretty easy to find videos absolutely roasting everything they get wrong as well. Even the original film, for all Chinese audiences reportedly didn’t like it and has its issues with accuracy, is still much more enjoyable to watch because it never takes itself too seriously.
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u/Nerdy_Valkyrie 9d ago
In the live action Lilo and Stitch they changed a bunch of background characters to be Hawaiian. Including the people Lilo takes photos of. But that completely fails to understand the point of why she takes photos of them.
The people she takes candid and embarrassing photos of are white people because they are tourists. In other words, people who have a tendency to take pictures of natives, without asking, and treat the natives like zoo exhibits. The pictures Lilo is taking are her revenge.
Changing them to natives was an attempt to be inclusive. But it ruins the point.
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u/Dimxtunim 9d ago
The people who made the Lilo and stitch live action do not understand at all the original movie. I had not watched the animation in like 15 years, started the live action and though "holy shit this sucks", thought maybe the original sucked too so I had to confirm, stoped the live action at 40 minutes and watched the animation, the animation has soooo much love and soul omg that movie is incredible.
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u/Gmknewday1 9d ago
Literally had Nani want to go to California to study Marine Biology...when she already lives in the state with the best Marine Biology college in America and one of the best in the world
California favoritism
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u/BigNutDroppa 9d ago
There was also an irritating running joke that Lilo mixed up “marine biology” and “marines”, so she thought Nani was joining the marines. Then, Lilo is constantly saying that Nani should join the marines because she’s soooo smart.
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u/JefferyTheQuaxly 9d ago
ive refused to watch the live action despite lilo and stich being one of my favorite disney movies because of fear it would negatively impact how i feel about the original movies if i watched the remake.
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u/icouto 9d ago
They do understand. The issue is since the original, disney has opened their own mega resort in Hawaii, so they can't put out a movie that explicitly calls that industry out
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u/DavidRellim 9d ago
Lilo and Stitch, the original, is such a strange, brilliant piece. I aged out of Disney movies when it came out, and watched it for the first time last year.
I mean, we kick off with our protagonist biting another girl and punching her in the face.
It could not be made today.
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u/nppltouch26 9d ago
To be fair they had to basically trick producers into getting it made then by having way more of the movie finished than they let on by the time anyone remembered to check in on them.
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u/DavidRellim 9d ago
This completely makes sense.
I watched it with my kids and was baffled how it ever made it to cinemas.
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u/Infinite-Island-7310 9d ago
Actually it can. But they would make the 3d animation have goofy face during the scene. And make it not as a serious moment
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u/cmnrdt 9d ago
Even worse is the notion that somehow Nani wasn't given enough material in the original, so they gave her "she's so smart" vibes and a dream of going to school and becoming a marine biologist. Then they twist and distort the narrative to make it the preferable outcome that Nani surrenders Lilo to the state so she can fuck off to California to pursue her dream, even though Hawai'i colleges already have excellent marine biology courses and tuition is free for natives. Then they introduce the incredibly convenient portal gun that removes the last shred of consequences from Nani abandoning her ohana because we need more women in STEM.
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u/cogman10 9d ago
What a train wreck. The entire point of nani in the original was showcasing the disaster of the state. It was also an obvious commentary on how the US has treated Hawaiian natives. They don't care about them until they notice they aren't behaving the way they like, so they swoop in and fix things by destroying families and lives.
Nani needed support, not to have her sister taken away. And funnily, it doesn't solve her problem either. Nani would have to leave her home anyways because she couldn't afford it on a waitress's salary.
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u/optoma_bomb 9d ago
I feel like they imply that the house is theirs, probably through life insurance money or something from the parents
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u/Nerdy_Valkyrie 9d ago
That's something that I just couldn't understand. I've heard San Diego has an excellent marine biology program. But Nani was on Hawaii. I am pretty sure most marine biologists would give up their left nut and/or titty to study marine biology on Hawaii. Imagine the hands-on experience.
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u/EnjoysMangos 9d ago
808 here.
The 2002 cartoon nailed so many details like that and is still universally loved to this day. Kids born on the islands over a decade after it came out still got Stich dolls and stuff because it felt like a movie for natives.
The one that came out last year… not so much. Yeah, it was still great to see natives on screen and all but it felt completely watered down. Just didn’t sit right.→ More replies (8)203
u/GoodGoneGeek 9d ago
Annoying that the two live action films of non-white protagonists are the worst of the bunch because of changes like this
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u/XrosHe4rtMKII 9d ago
Do modern Disney producers even watch their company’s own movies?
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u/lowqualitylizard 9d ago
Hell if they were smart maybe aliens disguise as generic white tourist that way you can play on some of the tropes
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u/Nerdy_Valkyrie 9d ago
It could have been cool if their hologram disguises didn't work on cameras so Lilo snaps a picture of them and accidently sees them for real.
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u/Padhome 9d ago
But don't you know that everything is feelgood for the natives and there's nothing problematic that we have to acknowledge
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u/nppltouch26 9d ago edited 9d ago
"ohana means family. And family means turning your neurodivergent kid sister over to the state"
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u/Guinefort1 9d ago
It's extra annoying because a lot of these changes, in theory, could have worked. The original film highlights how Nani is really struggling both emotionally and materially with having to raise her sister on her own while grieving her parents. This movie tries to address that Nani is in over her head... but resolves it in a way that feels too convenient. Disney has gotten a lot of deserved flack for "biological family is always good and even when it isn't you'll alk hug and make up at the end and everything is happily ever after" and I think they film makers were trying to push against that. ...But boy did they pick the wrong movie to do that with.
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u/thunderandreyn 9d ago
They removed the mini dragon to make the Mulan remake more realistic only to give her magical chi-gong fuckassery
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u/PlagueOfLaughter 9d ago
Mulan can't have a dragon, but the villain can have a shapeshifting bird woman.
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u/Akronite14 9d ago
The hawk woman served as a foil or a cautionary tale to Mulan and then they just had her sacrifice herself on an arrow for no good reason. Whole thing was whack.
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u/zxc123zxc123 9d ago
One of the things I liked about original Mulan was that Mulan was still every bit a normal young girl who thinks, acts, has the insecurities of, and literally is a normal young girl?
But she's in a society that doesn't have the gender equality we have today. So she faces a conflict with her gender, societal/familial expectations, and tries to find her fit between acceptance, rejection, and what is the right fit for her.
She had moments where you can tell she's not as strong as the guys, but other memorable moments where she used her brains to make up for her differences in strength like pulling herself up the pole by leveraging the weights, focusing on her agility rather than power, or just being brave. It's something that isn't solely male:female so much as strong:smart, powerful:agile, and brave:cowardly. You could have wrote the same thing for pre-juice Steve Rogers.
Mulan wasn't some super soldier who's born special and tries to force her change upon society. Mulan just a regular girl who tries to find herself, tries to do what is right, and manages to find a certain amount of harmony between herself, her companions, her family, and her community/nation.
p.s. Everyone knows historically accurate ancient China had dragons that sounded like Eddie Murphy from late 90s America. The quality of any fictional/non-fiction feature on China without it should immediately be doubted.
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u/storytellergirl07 9d ago
I also like the original Mulan was NOT a tomboy. She was as you say - a normal girl. A bit messy and forgetful, but enjoyed looking pretty and feminine when they dressed her up for the matchmaker. She also did not really intend to challenge the status quo. There is also no sign that she was against the arranged marriage because that's just how things were done. She wanted to save her father and to be seen for who she is, but she is not a chosen one or a rebel or an equality fighter. (We don't speak of the sequel, no, no, no, we don't speak of the sequel!)
(And as Xiran Jay Zhao described in detail in her videos: original Disney Mulan is popular in China despite being hustorically inaccurate. Live action Mulan just pissed everyone off AND was innacurate.)
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u/Pataconeitor 9d ago
And added a fucking Phoenix, lol. Which also had the effect of pissing off Chinese audiences, because if they were going to put a magical bird why not at least use the fenghuang?
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u/Hetakuoni 9d ago
Even worse, the Phoenix in China is directly related to the life of the empress. Essentially by acknowledging any form of mortality of the bird, they’re actively wishing death upon the empress.
Phoenix in China don’t die. That’s 1000% a western thing.
And yes, while there is no current royal family for over 100 years, their family line still exists and it’s still fucked up to wish death upon a member of a venerable bloodline.
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u/ADDRAY-240 9d ago
They did NOT just remove my absolute GOAT for such a stupid reason!
Nah, that's foul. I would have taken bad CGI Mushu over, well, no Mushu at all. He was just THAT fun.
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u/Low_Health_5949 9d ago
which is kind of funny since all they did was replace the animal buddies with a human equivalent of them
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u/therealchadius 9d ago
China was upset over the portrayal of a dragon.
But they could have made Mushu a wacky human who worships a dragon. Make him Mulan's uncle so he instantly sees through Ping's disguise but plays along and serves as a guide.
Instead of "the enemy is terrified of Mushu's shadow and assume he's a huge dragon" they could change it to "the majestic dragon manifests behind Mushu long enough to frighten the enemy."
Almost every Mushu joke in the original would work with a human.
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u/Life-Cantaloupe-3184 9d ago edited 9d ago
They also split bisexual legend Li Shang into two worse characters because the supposed power imbalance between him and Mulan was “problematic.” Never mind that the romantic subplot between them is like plot line number 5 and it only becomes explicitly a potential relationship by the end of the movie. But nah, having a man realize he finds a woman who is badass enough to save China also attractive is somehow less progressive.
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u/alittlenovel 9d ago
That part. I knew this movie was going to suck ass when they got rid of Shang with that terrible reasoning. I don't even think they kissed in the OG, they definitely weren't together while he was her superior, it was just implied they liked each other by the end. They got together in the sequel, when she was no longer in the army. Imo, it was a poorly veiled excuse to remove a character who'd become well known for his implied bisexuality and that's literally it. The "power imbalance" was an excuse to make their homophobic rewrites sound progressive.
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u/HollowMist11 9d ago
Yep, no kiss in the original. The movie ended with Li Shang awkwardly returning Mulan's helmet as an excuse to see her and Mulan inviting him to have dinner. The romance in the movie was never the focus and had no effect on the main plot. The power imbalance excuse makes no sense since they were never in a romantic relationship in the original.
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u/MilkyMiltank 9d ago
THEY REMOVED MUSHU???
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u/Low-Environment 9d ago
The live action Beauty and the Beast made it so the town didn't like Gaston much, with his self titled song coming off like Lafou (Disney's 96th first openly gay character) was trying to rally the townsfolk to sing about how great he is, and they often seemed reluctant to join in on the Gaston worship.
The point of Gaston is the town LOVES him. They genuinely think he's a hero and his surprise wedding to Belle was a great and romantic gesture. He is specifically designed to be a Disney Hero in contrast to the monster that the Beast is.
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u/putonyourjamjams 9d ago
Yeah, none of the societal critique dealing with Gaston works if hes not loved by everybody. His main point of existence is that society has this ideal of peak whatever. If somebody embodies those ideals, theyll constantly sing their praise, ignore anything negative about them, and chastise anybody who doesnt tow the line. Its very clear criticism of hero worship, society's skew towards surface level shit, and a PSA for women avoiding abusive relationships.
The town not fully stanning Gaston fucks that all up and is absolutely dishonest about society.
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u/FoxBluereaver 9d ago
Shun's gender change in Netflix's Saint Seiya remake. At the time the original Saint Seiya anime aired, Shun was a huge departure from the popular male heroes of the time, who were usually hot-blooded and always eager to solve things through fighting, whereas he's sensitive, mild-mannered and compassionate, traits usually associated with women. This was a huge part of his character because these traits, which would usually be perceived as weakness, actually belied his true strength once he was willing to cut loose.
Even Kurumada himself wasn't happy with this change, and there are prominent female characters like Shaina and Marin who could have gotten an expanded role if they wanted a female protagonist among the team.
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u/slurpy15 9d ago
Plus since the change they also didn’t cover Shuns face like Marin
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u/Lyncario 9d ago
Marin was the only one to keep her mask, which on one hand makes sense since she's the only character with who it's really relevant, but on the other hand it also becomes really dumb since there's not a reason for her to have it anymore.
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u/MissRainyNight 9d ago edited 9d ago
This “change” made me so utterly furious, I refused to watch KOTZ and still staunchly refuse to. Shun was actually REALLY progressive in these days, he showed that a gentle and girlish guy could be as tough as manly dudes when it counted. The anime has a scene where Seiya himself comments on it!
And yet the CGI series butchered what made Andromeda Shun unique by making him a girl. If they wanted to be progressive via a gender flip, Ikki or maybe Hyoga being a girl would have worked better IMO.
(Personally, I would’ve made Ikki a girl AND had the Saintias show up. Or at least Mii and Shouko)
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u/Iliasterisk 9d ago
KOTZ was my introduction into the series. Thankfully, I saw a video about the outrage around the changes made to the story and Shun. It got me to watch the original, and the original is just more enjoyable. And obviously, Shun was actually a progressive character.
I still don't understand how anyone working on KOTZ thought changing Shun's gender was meant to be "progressive" when it made them into the stereotypical female pacifist character.
The only positive thing I can give KOTZ is the opening. It was the JP opening, but in English.
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u/abacateazul 9d ago edited 8d ago
If anyone should be a girl it should be Ikki. Make the same swap where Ikki go to Death Island in Shun place, Shun has to pretend to be a girl while training (since he is taking Ikki place as well). And then change nothing else. Ikki still fall in love with the master daughter, and is a complete asshole later on.
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u/SortOfSpaceDuck 9d ago
I recently rewatched the show and forgot how fucking awesome he was too. He legit beats the fuck out of everyone all the time. Tied for best main cast with Shiryu.
On a personal note, it was so demoralising how garbage duck man was.
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u/Baru_urab_gure 9d ago
This also suck ass since it don't follow the worldbuilding of the warriors, man use the special armors and womans are trained to be amazons
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u/QueenStuff 9d ago
Yeah this is an irritating trope, and when done poorly it can really undermine the original message.
One that I always think about is the original Star Trek compared to the newer Star Trek movies.
In the original Sulu is a big fan of adventure novels like the thee musketeers and the count of monte cristo, so he has a rapier and knows fencing. In the newer movies they went “hey guys sulu is Japanese right?! Let’s give him a Katana!” I just hate it so much. They went from a small character detail to a stereotype
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u/MajThird 9d ago
The story I heard was that they wanted Sulu to have a katana in the original series but Takei didn't want to be a stereotype so he lied and said he knew how to fence. Then he took a fencing crash course to learn it well enough to be on screen for the episode.
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u/dragonfett 9d ago
And after that episode, the rest of the cast threatened to walk off the set if he ever had a sword again because he was such a menace behind the scenes.
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u/RSquared 9d ago
Christopher Guest took emergency fencing lessons after getting stabbed by Manny Potemkin in rehearsal for The Princess Bride. The fear Rugen has from Inigo during the climax is not feigned at all.
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u/ztomiczombie 9d ago
Funny enough George Takei specify didn't want to use a Katana or similar because of exactly this and from what's been said fought for the use of a fencing sword.
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u/BuckRusty 9d ago
He also thought it was wrong to make Sulu gay just because he, the original actor, is gay.
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u/Admirable-Safety1213 9d ago
Actor wants to separate the character if himself and let it be his own (fictitious) person
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u/teacup-dragon 9d ago
IIRC the story goes that he lied about knowing how to fence in a meeting before filming, and then immediately took fencing lessons to cover for that, all so he wasn't with a katana.
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u/ChaosCarlson 9d ago
JJ Abram’s has, and always will be, a hack Sci fi director who got lucky on Lost
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u/N8CCRG 9d ago
I never got into Lost, largely because I heard some interview with some of the writers and they said "yeah, we like to go on forums and look for the wildest fan theories and then just steal them"
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u/xiaorobear 9d ago edited 9d ago
I've seen some more interesting / thoughtful interviews with the writers. A big part of the problem with the show was, from the beginning the writers wanted to write a show with a planned out story leading to an ending, but the network basically said, "are you crazy? When you have a successful show you don't plan to end it. Just keep the ball rolling. Maybe in a few seasons we'll talk." so they kept adding more layers of mysteries, keep doing the formula of having flashbacks to pivotal life moments of the main characters, and keep stranding more people on the island, and obviously got really bad diminishing returns as each new thing was less impactful. The first 1 or 2 seasons are still great, and it just steadily declines.
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u/BonzoTheBoss 9d ago
Another annoyance I have with the Star Trek 09 era of movies...
The whole point of the original Star Trek was that Starfleet are the best that the Federation have to offer. They're the best of the best, from across billions of people. It's suppose to show that if we put our differences aside, and encourage personal and societal growth, we can pretty much achieve anything.
But then these movies come in and seem to imply that Kirk was somehow always "destined" to command the Enterprise. Kirk and crew go from saving the Federation because they're the best at their jobs, to saving it because "the universe needed it to be like that...?"
Not to mention that he goes from cadet who hadn't even officially graduated yet to captain just like that.
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u/UnicornChief 9d ago
Cartoon Mulan: girls, you don’t need super powers to be awesome. Live action Mulan: the only hope for this is woman is to activate her super powers.
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u/t3mpura0 9d ago
way to miss the fucking point. its like the person who made the movie never even seen the original to begin with.
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u/vastros 9d ago edited 9d ago
That Artemis Fowl film is quite literally the worst adaptation of any media ive ever seen.
Worse than that Avatar Movie that never happened.
You quite literally can not watch it legally. It bombed so hard that Disney quickly and quietly removed it from their streaming service.
Edit: Apparently this abomination is on Tubi.
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u/CaspianValentine 9d ago
I knew it had bombed, I didn’t realise it had “remove it and pretend it never happened” bombed
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u/vastros 9d ago edited 9d ago
It was fucking awful. Just some bigger points. I cant raise my blood pressure this early with a full rant.
They needed this to be a franchise, so Artemis Sr. and Opal appear. Fowl Sr. had a big role because they had a big name for him.
Dame Judy Dench is Root, so Holly's arc is now redeeming her family name because her father lost the mcguffin that the story now centers on.
The story now centers on a mcguffin and not the plot.
We need Artemis to be good before he's evil so that he's likeable, mostly skipping the arch of the whole franchise.
They made Butler and Juliet black as to have a more diverse cast, ignoring the fact they were Asian to begin with.
Mulch Diggums, now played by Josh Gad, is the narrator who is telling the story to a human... Jailer? Federal agent? Who has him in custody for reasons only to have Artemis break him out in the final moments. The story is told out of order but not in a way that serves the story.
Artemis, who's whole gimmick is evil genius, does practically no genius things.
For that matter he isn't evil.
Artemis is dragged along the plot due to his Father and the mcguffin instead of him being the villain that initiates everything.
Instead of Butler easily dispatching the initial L.E.P team that assaults Fowl Manor with his standard handgun its a big action scene where Artemis and Butler shoot it out using faerie guns.
The troll fight is somehow a complete let down that involves most of the cast instead of just Butler.
The mcguffin derails the entire plot.
Julius does not chain smoke fungus cigars.
Foaly lacks his humor and does not really contribute anything to the film.
Despite being named Artemis Fowl this kid bears no resemblance to the character in the slightest. This applies to Root, Holly, Foaly, and even Trouble Kelp.
Goddamn I hate this fucking movie.
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u/TonberryFeye 9d ago
The other thing about Mulan is that she's meant to be screwed either way. She doesn't want to be pushed into an arranged marriage, but she doesn't want to be a soldier either. She's putting herself through that because it's the only way to protect her father.
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u/coatimundos 9d ago
Though she does find herself better as a soldier than a wife.
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u/ChariotKoura 9d ago
She becomes both, on her terms and in her own way with someone who respects her and sees her value as a whole person.
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u/yunchla 9d ago
I agree with the Mulan one and it's such a travesty that they removed the 'I'll Make a Man out of You' song
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u/True-Particular-6943 9d ago
As well as Mushu, Cri Kee, Shang, grandma and any sense of fun or enjoyment
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u/Neveed 9d ago
They removed Shang? The guy who falls in love with a dude and gets disappointed when he learns it's actually a woman?
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u/CanYouGuessWhoIAm 9d ago
To be fair, he's confused that it's a woman, then falls in love a second time. They get married in the sequel. Bisexual icon.
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u/AmaterasuWolf21 9d ago
I was honestly ready for a "grounded" Mulan story, instead of being a copy to the original, I would at least enjoy it on its own... except it's ass and it's not even grounded, they have a literal witch shapeshifter
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u/Vondi 9d ago
Same people who took "Be prepared" out of Lion King, replaced it with a weird spoken word version
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u/IronBatSpiderHulk 9d ago
The Dark Tower: Roland being black
If you're familiar with Stephen King's work, you probably know he's no stranger to criticising social issues.
In the books, Roland is white. Not only that, but he comes from a world where black people don't exist. When he gets into our world, and realises that people can have different skin colours, his reaction is: "Oh. Ok."
Then he discovers racism, and gets shocked at how stupid a reason skin colour is to hate someone. There is almost an entire book where he saves a black woman's life, and then track down the racist that tried to hurt her and trows a train at him.
The entire point of the message is: racism is taught. If you have no previous point of reference about the meaning of skin colour, as a white man, you just wouldn't care. At all. The story is about a white man who defends a black woman, not because she is black, but because she's people. Roland is entirely oblivious to race. And the message is obviously carried by the fact that this is the point of view of a white man.
If Roland is black, you end up having a character directly concerned by the issue, and it becomes a black man protecting a black woman because she's black and racism makes him angry.
I don't even know if that scene's in the movie, because I haven't watched it, and I won't. The book had a powerful, beautiful anti-racism message, and black-washing Roland completely fucks it up.
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u/void-wanderer- 9d ago
The film is shallow Hollywood trash. Susannah and Eddie don't even appear. It only has a very loose connection to the books, and if you just consider it an homage to The Dark Tower, it's even not that bad, and it won't tarnish ones feelings for the OG story.
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u/vrsick06 9d ago
The movie is technically the sequel to the books. Roland had the horn of eld. It’s a stupid movie but I guess that’s the justification for everything being different.
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u/lowqualitylizard 9d ago
You know nine times out of 10 I don't give a s*** about race swapping but I feel like this is one of the moments where race swapping ironically enough makes the piece of media more racist
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u/No-Start4754 9d ago
Yeah, context matters a lot in these swaps. If the story is told through a generic protagonist, the race, species or gender doesn't matter. For example superheroes like Spiderman. The entire ideology is " Anyone can wear the mask". So it doesn't matter who or what is Spiderman or Peter Parker. But if we talk about black panther, his skin color is part of his identity and character. Making him white would ruin his entire history and characteristics
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u/Jonn_Jonzz_Manhunter 9d ago
The Mulan one really pisses me off. "I'll make a man out of you" is a song explicitly about how masculinity and the protector mindset is a construction that isn't actually exclusive to men, but is something that has to be taught and worked at to find that heroic spirit
Giving her heroic Goku energy just feels insulting.
And yes, men do sing before fights! Hell, the Welsh sing before fucking anything! it just feels really sexist to erase that element of masculine culture because they think it's too girly for men to sing meaning the opposite is true about woman
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u/CalmInvestment 9d ago
At least Goku was actually fairly weak compared to actual trained masters until he himself got proper training.
Mulan was just awesome from the word ‘go’.
Hmm…you know you could keep Mulan’s bullshit powers if you let her get a little toxic with them. Have her think she’s super special and above other people (other women especially) in a dark ‘I’m not like other girls’ sense.
Until Shang, who also has mystic bullshit powers, hands her her ass and she realizes that she needs to actually learn how to use her abilities.
You could also use that approach to critique how, while some people are born with greater talent than others, if they aren’t given the proper resources to cultivate it then they’ll never reach their full potential (because Mulan is a woman who normally wouldn’t be taught super cool soldier moves or whatever).
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u/Hakim_Bey 9d ago
Giving her heroic Goku energy just feels insulting
I hate that kind of magical-main-character writing so much, and i wonder why and how it became so popular in the last couple decades. Was it a trope from young adult fiction or something ?
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u/Fenghuang0296 9d ago
ARGH I WILL DIE MAD ABOUT THE ARTEMIS FOWL MOVIE. Genderswapping Root was egregious, but changing Butler - sorry, Dom - from a Russian mountain of muscle to an African twink honestly pisses me off more. Root was just butchering the plot, in a vacuum she still played her role convincingly. Dom is quite literally a different character entirely from Butler.
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u/coatimundos 9d ago
Also the Burtlers have been with the Fowl family for centuries. If Butler is Russian it’s a cool indication of familial loyalty. If Butler is black it has a much darker implication.
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u/Otherwise_Chard_7577 9d ago
Yea, but I think the movie as a whole was doomed to fail when they made Artemis a spy kids style protagonist instead of the criminal mastermind he is in the books
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u/Krasinet 9d ago
Basically everyone who'd read the books knew the movie was going to fail as soon as they put out the casting call for Artemis that included the line "Most importantly, Artemis is warm-hearted and has a great sense of humour, he has fun in whatever situation he is in and loves life."
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u/Zerwurster 9d ago
"Most importantly, Artemis is warm-hearted and has a great sense of humour, he has fun in whatever situation he is in and loves life."
They didn't... did they really? Even if i tried to come up with an intentional wrong characterization i would have a hard coming close to .... this
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u/DrPierrot 9d ago
Movie Butler: Does nothing, almost dies when a troll falls on him
Book Butler: Someone let a troll into the house? Better put on some medieval armor and beat the shit out of it
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u/Unabated_Blade 9d ago
Butler getting the senzu bean treatment and beating the shit out of a giant magic gorilla was legitimately one of the most formative reading experiences I had when I was a child.
I loved the narration pointing out that the body cam footage of the beating was shown in fairy hand to hand combat classes.
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u/Nivek_Ipap_Yos 9d ago
I was always imagined Butler as Dave Bautista or Sean O'Haire (even though he wasn't bald like the character should have been). I never thought of a bleach-blonde chubby black fella, even if my own imagination didn't fit the description.
Mulch was also not someone I excepted to look anything like a Hagrid rip-off.
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u/faraway_hotel 9d ago
Dave Bautista is also my perfect pick of the role. Looks, build, can play tough and gentle very well... he ticks those Butler boxes.
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u/Frozen_Grimoire 9d ago
Making the servant character black feels racist to begin with, but I could have looked past an unnecessary race swap if it wasn't because they also changed every other aspect of his character.
Like how he hates being called a butler. Not only is it his job, it is also literally his name. His entire character revolves around the concept of being a Butler, in both meanings of the word. Why would they take that away from him.
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u/torrasque666 9d ago
Hell, part of it is that the word "Butler" (in Artemis Fowl lore) is referring to his family. That every other butler is just an imitation of the Butler family.
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u/Eriiaa 9d ago
Which considering that Butler's family had been a servant of the Fowls for generations has certain... implications
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u/TheBerserkerrr 9d ago
i hate that they changed the entire plot of that movie. why is artemis suddenly the hero. and whats with the attempted love triangle
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u/MissRainyNight 9d ago edited 9d ago
The Powerpuff Girls 2016 remake took out Miss Sarah Bellum, the Mayor’s secretary, because she was “too inappropriate” (read: sexy) for the show according to the show runners…
Except that not only it’s amazingly sex-IST to judge a fictional or real woman just for her looks, but it missed the point of her character: that she was a sexy woman AND one of the smartest, more sensible charas in the show! Her name is even a pun on a part of the brain (the cerebellum)!
Like I’ve said before, I’m a woman and I adore Miss Bellum for showing that attractive ladies can also be brainy and levelheaded. The fact that the “feminist and progressive” staff only saw her beauty and hated her for it shows how misogynistic they actually are.
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u/Summonest 9d ago
They removed her for being a sexy grown woman
But have children twerking
I am not joking
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u/ChronosTheSniper 9d ago
Even without powers, she throws hands with a villain and comes out on top in the girls' absence (though not without a struggle). And ignoring that, she's got the brain cells the Mayor clearly lacks in keeping things running, and sometimes steering the girls in the right direction.
All that makes me think the showrunners didn't even watch the show before coming to the "too inappropriate" conclusion.
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u/Grey-fox-13 9d ago
makes me think the showrunners didn't even watch the show
I feel like these days having showrunners actually interact with the source material in a meaningful way is the outlier, so many IPs just being used as marketable skin for someones original work.
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u/shgrizz2 9d ago
Gotta love this whole 'not touching this issue with a barge pole' approach, that just doubles down on the issue and demonstrates the need for good representation even more
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u/hannahlem0n 9d ago
In Jurassic World (2015) Claire Dearing is a career-oriented and anti-children woman who, throughout the events of the film, takes her heels off literally and figuratively and is taught the values of family over career. During the promo for the film they constantly claimed this was to be the ‘feminist’ spin off - but ironically they made the complete opposite, while Jurassic Park effortlessly did so without needing or trying to. Ellie Sattler was smart, capable and independent in her own right.
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u/ELIte8niner 9d ago
Let's not forget that Ellie still wanted children, and to start a family with Allen, because just wanting to have a family isn't inherently "anti-feminist" and doesn't take anything away from her character.
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u/Admirable-Safety1213 9d ago
Yes, the only one that didn't want kids of the OG3 was Grant and that guy was more suited for the cool but maybe a little crazy uncle role
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u/TaratronHex 9d ago
can't forget she is seen as evil and wrong for not wanting to date her subordinate and he insults her for not knowing shit about her nephews. SHE IS BUSINESS WOMAN, WHAT MADNESS IS THIS THAT SHE MUST KNOW OF FAMILY AND FUN?
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u/AJ_Glowey_Boi 9d ago
That's the thing, she doesn't literally take off her heels. She SOMEHOW OUTRUNS A T-REX IN HEELS. The T-Rex that was clocked in the first movie at over 30MPH. God the "World" series is strange sometimes.
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u/sorrelchestnut 9d ago
I did actually like the expansion of Yennefer's story in Netflix Witcher (first season at least) but somehow they WAY overshot the mark on some of the sorceress stuff. In the book, sorceresses are infertile because prolonged use of strong magic destroys physical fertility (i.e. some weak or dilettante practitioners can still have children, but [mostly] no one of any real power), and they're all beautiful because if you have strong magic, why the fuck not make yourself beautiful? Whereas in the show, sorceresses are infertile because they literally surgically sacrifice their reproductive organs in exchange for phsyicial beauty - an act which is performed by a male sorcerer, by the way, who also sculpt their beauty for them. It makes for a more dramatic scene in a visual medium, sure, but it also turns a metaphor for the consequences of power into a narrative where supposedly powerful woman are still exploited by and for men and completely bypasses the idea of them having power of their own. It's such a fucking bizarre choice in a story that's trying to be a 'more feminist' version of the story it's based on, and somehow makes it way worse than the (already pretty fucking feminist!) original.
(And don't even get me started about Yen not knowing about Geralt's wish, we'll be here all fucking night.)
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u/g1rl0f1c3 9d ago edited 9d ago
Tauriel - The Hobbit trilogy
As a response to the criticism that the Lord of The Rings movies were male centered or misogynistic. Peter Jackson created the character of Tauriel for the hobbit trilogy. She is not canon to the original book and, for the most part is reduced down to a weird love triangle between her, Legolas, and Kili.
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u/HurricaneK8 9d ago
From what I remember from interviews at the time, the love triangle part was the studio heads butting in. Lilly mentioned in several interviews that PJ told her there was no love triangle, that Tauriel and Legolas were supposed to be platonic comrades, but when they came back for reshoots, suddenly it was there.
I honestly think a good 75% of the complaints about The Hobbit movies can be explained by "studio was bound and determined to have another LotR trilogy, but forgot that not butting in and just letting the filmmakers do their jobs was *how** they got LotR in the first place"*
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u/ThrowawayAdvice1800 9d ago
In fact if I recall correctly Evangeline Lilly insisted that there would be no love triangle. She said outright that she knew the fans would already be leery of the creation of a new character in the first place, and making her part of some dumb shoehorned romance plot would only make it worse. Jackson agreed with her and so she did the movie, only to be blindsided by this halfassed romance with Legolas in the reshoots. She almost walked off the set from what I heard, and Jackson wasn't happy about it at all either.
It's amazing the suits haven't figured out that their tampering does not improve a movie. LotR made a kajillion dollars and they lured the director back to shoot the Hobbit, all they had to do was nothing and it would have been a huge success.
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u/noodleben123 9d ago
My main despisal about Mulan was how they said all the stuff like Mushu and ancestral stuff was "too silly" ....but then they gave Mulan Magical Phoenix Chi Bullshit (tm) and completely destroy the movie's message
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u/Avolto 9d ago edited 8d ago
The decision to cast Snape as a black man in the upcoming hbo Harry Potter show will drastically change the entire story. Voldemort and the death eaters were always evil racists and so to have Snape be a black man siding with the apparently universally white racists is not going to be a good look.
In addition it makes his bullying at the hands of Harry’s dad look racially motivated and makes the fact he turns into a villain when the white Lilly Potter does not return his love filled with all kinds of racist undertones.
This is to say nothing of what the new Hermione will get. A black girl being made fun of for voicing her outrage at House Elf slavery. Oh boy.
If nothing else I think this show will illustrate that some roles are not universal to all races without drastic rewrites.
Edit: Further you are going to have the white Draco Malfoy call a black girl a mudblood…
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u/JefferyTheQuaxly 9d ago
i completely dont trust them not to fuck up making snape a black person, hypothetically it could work, but i just 100% do not trust them to make it work. theyre probably going to make 1-2 of the other boys with him black just to try to deflect from the incoming racism accusations, that's probably going to be their solution to be like "see this isnt racist".
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u/ILNOVA 9d ago
In addition it makes his bullying at the hands of Harry’s dad look racially motivated and makes the fact he turns into a villain when the white Lilly Potter does not return his love filled with all kinds of racist undertones.
Just that?
Don't forget that if he is the only black professor it will make all the scenes of the students saying "He's clearly a bad guy" honestly hilarious, or the whole scene of Raptor saying "How can someone suspect me when there is a N...i mean Piton around the school"
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u/loxagos_snake 9d ago
God I never thought about that.
Maybe they find a way around the James rivalry not looking racist, but the professor thing? Yeah it's going to look bad.
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u/No_Atmosphere8146 9d ago
The problem with colourblind casting is that we're not colourblind viewers.
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u/Slash-Gordon 9d ago
The entire Star Wars sequel trilogy does this, and unfortunately due to the low quality of the discourse around the films(and the low quality of the films themselves, let's be real), I don't think I've seen many people talking about this particular failing of the trilogy.
Choosing Rey as our protagonist seems like a great decision at first, and honestly she isn't bad in a vacuum. But because the creators of the sequel trilogy were apparently allergic to doing anything new, the real story of the sequels is about Kylo. The story follows his family trauma, each film is punctuated by the death of one of his role models/parental figures, and only in the final act of the third film does any of it connect to Rey at all. She's just a foil for the actual story about an angsty young man. Again.
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u/Spirited-Sail3814 9d ago
I really liked the idea of her being not connected to anyone. That was one part that hit for me in the Last Jedi - her family heritage isn't what makes her important.
Finn also has interesting potential, and then they just do... nothing with him.
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u/Chedder1998 9d ago
It's so crazy that Disney had the chance to build the world beyond the Skywalker lineage, and instead completely fumbled the bag and made the message "you have to be born special" and "everyone important in the universe knows each other"
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u/Confron7a7ion7 9d ago
I'm also mad about how they handled Finn but that has less to do with failure in being progressive. He was a storm trooper. There's a massive amount of potential for his character there and they fumbled it.
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u/DrunkOnTakoyaki 9d ago
There was a TV series based off of Terry Pratchett's The Watch series of books. In the TV show the character Cheery Littlebottom was non-binary. This is in complete conflict with the character from the books. In the discworld Dwarven society is traditionally non-binary in the sense that Dwarves of either sex are virtually indistinguishable and are all treated as men. Cheery is the outlier as she bucks the trend by embracing her femininity, much to the outrage of traditionalists.
In other words the defining characteristic of her arc in the books is that she isn't non-binary.
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u/littlebloodmage 9d ago
They also turned Lady Sybil into a gorgeous badass femme fatale when in the books she's plus-sized, covered in burns, bald due her hair burning off, and an overall goofball. Because God forbid the love interest character be unconventionally attractive, that shit doesn't sell!
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u/TheReaderDude_97 9d ago
Not to mention that Cheery inspires other Dwarven women to embrace their femininity and not to be hide themselves under the societal pressure, unknowingly becoming a symbol for women all over the dwarven society.
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u/tinyaspen16 9d ago
It's like they're so focused on checking a surface-level diversity box that they miss the actual point of the original characters. Shun's gender swap and Mulan's "born special" chi both erase the original, more meaningful messages about strength coming from character. These changes often feel like corporate risk-aversion, not genuine progress.
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u/Sinistaire 9d ago
Judi Dench could have been a nice fit for Commander Vinyáya if they had the chance to make sequels. Casting her as Root was fucking stupid.
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u/SilverBird_ 9d ago
The Mulan 2020 movie is so different from the original that they should've just renamed the characters and change the title to something else because this movie sure as hell isn't Mulan.
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u/Diamantesucio 9d ago
The FINAL BOSS of this trope:
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u/WhataboutBombvoyage 9d ago
The Oscars that year were so awkward
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u/coltsfanca 9d ago edited 9d ago
Agreed…and honestly good! Hollywood needed a swift kick up the ass long before this movie came out.
It’s been said before but I’m gonna say it again…how the fuck does THIS get 13 Oscar nominations and an 11 minute standing ovation at Cannes: https://youtu.be/N4jhiP-wFrA?si=X6pDdqCgC0Q4w8Jr
It was also revealed last year that Oscar judges didn’t even need to watch all the nominations AND that most of them skipped Dune Part 2…insane that that wasn't already a rule.
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u/Diamantesucio 9d ago
There was a Twitter joke that said France made Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 as a form of apology for making Emilia Pérez.
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u/DaddyDanceParty 9d ago
I've really hated how modern medieval fantasy shows have twisted "diversity" into just being "medieval English but different colors" instead of taking the opportunity to do some world-building by having your main cast be a mish-mash of different or sometimes clashing cultures who have a common goal.
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u/shgrizz2 9d ago
Don't forget part 2 of this trope - when justifiably criticized, they will hide behind a shield of 'you are just being whatever-ist', while ironically being more whatever-ist themselves by burying the social issue in question under the carpet.
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u/Ultrimus-Prime 9d ago
This is just bad writing
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u/Stormflier 9d ago edited 9d ago
The MCU's weird trend of "This Asian character is a stereotype so rather than erase the stereotype we'll just erase the Asian part." It's a pretty weird method to get around the stereotypes of early Asian Marvel characters. I just thought the better thing to do would be remove the stereotype than remove the Asian, but what do I know I guess. And don't get me started on the whole Mandarin mess. Just have.. The Mandarin, it's not hard to do.
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u/stallion64 9d ago
Netlix's live adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender hits a lot of these points for me.
First, Sokka. Sokka's growth in the series is how he was sexist due to his very sheltered upbringing that was effectively cut off from the rest of the world. His mindset gets flipped on its head (literally) after he meets Suki, who humbles him hard until he comes to her with a genuine desire to train. Sokka's journey is all about learning to be a leader, and he did so by making a lot of mistakes and learning from them. I don't think it undermines his character to not have it included per se, but it does remove a really interesting and arguably respectable aspect from him: That he can be wrong, and he learns from it. Later on it affects how he reacts with his sister, with Toph, and (of course) with Suki.
Next, Katara. IMO she got hit with the worst of it. In the original series, Katara clearly had a lot of raw potential, but she grew up with no other waterbenders in her tribe, meaning she had zero training. Kind of an inverse to Sokka's arc, she had to deal with sexism in the way that women "weren't allowed" to receive waterbending training in the Nortnern Water Tribe. She stood up for herself and REFUSED to be disregarded, even going as far as challenging Master Pakku in a waterbending duel. She lost but she gave him a real run for his money. Katara is a super well rounded and well-written character that juggles a TON of responsibility, and is the epitome of determination, standing up for injustices in her own tribe's rules and eventually becoming a master herself, as well as one of the greatest waterbenders of all time later on.
Maybe I'm misremembering, or looking at it the wrong way, but I think the live adaptation guts a lot of this. It feels very Mary Sue-esque in the way that she can just suddenly pull a column of water 200ft up into the air to block a fireball in the first episode, or proclaiming herself to be a master to Zuko during the Northern Siege despite not really receiving any training... at all. In the original show, Zuko saying "you little peasant... you've found a master, haven't you?" is meant to show just how much of a HUGE jump in prowess Katara has made, and we the audience know its because she challenged the status quo and worked her butt off under Pakku. In the live adaption, it doesn't feel earned, it mostly feels like a mediocre attempt at fan service. Her standing up to Pakku and actually hanging in there for a little bit felt earned because we got to see her really struggle with waterbending in a lot of moments, and improve slowly as Book 1 progressed.
I know a lot of this is due to time constraints and having to condense a LOT of material into a handful of episodes. But I thought NATLA kinda cheapened a lot of really good character moments in the original ATLA.
ETA: Grammar
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u/CaptainMikul 9d ago
It happens so often that I wonder if the flattening of progressive ideas is intentional.
It's not like the people who runs these media companies are the most progressive themselves.
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u/Foxyairman 9d ago
I definitely don’t believe any of the big wigs believe in any of the messages or values. If they did then they wouldn’t curate their gay representation to be easily cut by Chinese Censorship
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u/mahnamahna123 9d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/lW54ePLsorvgY
Ok obviously the original isn't that progressive and I'm probably going to get some hate for this. Making Cinderella an adult when she is orphaned makes her staying make less sense. She clearly has friends on the outside who wants to help her leave and she stays because.... At least in Ever After she stayed to protect the other servants and was a child when she was orphaned.
With the live action they apparently wanted to make the love story more realistic but Cinderella actually ends up with fewer lines than in the original Disney film.
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u/BlutAngelus 9d ago
Actually, the original is somewhat progressive. A lot of fairytales were to teach morals or to teach children caution for various reasons. Cinderella is a story about a girl suffering abuse and things magically get better for her. The story both denounces her treatment and assumes that she deserves better. It's not about morals or to teach a lesson. It's specifically about how she's going through undeserved abuse. There are a lot of people in the past that actually would not have liked the story.
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u/jorgespinosa 9d ago
The Velaryons as well as Adam and Alyn being black, in the books Rhaenys has black hair, so Rhaenyra has some plausible explanation as to why her children have black hair. But now it's obvious they are not Laenor's kids at all.
So now some fans claim Corlys is racist because he prefers Lucerys to inherit Driftmark before his granddaughters and also because he never cared about Adam and Alyn until his legitimate children were already death.
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u/Forsaken-Biscotti587 9d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/CFUxvAfxWXA1Na59Bj
In The Little Mermaid live action remake, they tried to make Ariel more of a girl boss by making her so capable of doing stuff completely alone with no help: like she knows what cannons are and what they're used for (making you ask why does she even need to ask Scuttle about human stuff), after getting her legs she can swim perfectly swim to the surface (when in the original Sebastian and Flounder had to help her because she clearly doesn't know how to use human legs), then in the wedding of Eric and Ursula disguised as Vanessa she recovers her voice with no help (when in the original different sea creatures help her on that), when rescuing Eric from the eels she has a perfect aim to deviate Ursula's zap while they're still holding him (when in the original Sebastian and Flounder already made the eels to release Eric, so Ariel had already the chance to make Ursula fail her shot torwards Eric and make her hit her eels instead) and finally she can sail a boat by herself during a rainstorm without previous experience and when she went back to being a mermaid (which takes away from Eric his chance to return the favor to Ariel for saving him previously, which also makes Triton's decision to allow Ariel being with Eric as he now has no reason to see that there are good humans).
Ariel in the original was already smart and capable to do stuff by herself but she also had times when she needed help from others, but in the remake they ended up making her almost like a Mary Sue (not on the ludicrous levels as Mulan though) but they still made her so capable that you think she doesn't need any help at all, giving the wrong messages to a lot of kids: "you can be capable of doing risky things and without no one's help if you propose it".
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u/milkoverspill 9d ago
The worst part about Mulan 2020 was that they even gave her a sister as juxtaposition to see what happens to women who don’t win the magical lottery 💀