Walt Disney Co on Friday said that remarks by activist investor Nelson Peltz criticizing the company for making movies dominated by female and Black actors is evidence that he shouldn’t be on Disney’s board.
Peltz, whose fight to join Disney as a director has become one of the year’s most bitter and closely watched board battles, in an interview with the Financial Times said Disney’s films have become too focused on delivering a message, and not enough on quality storytelling. He specifically took issue with “The Marvels” and “Black Panther.”
“Why do I have to have a Marvel that’s all women? Not that I have anything against women, but why do I have to do that?" Peltz said in the interview, published on Friday. "Why can’t I have Marvels that are both? Why do I need an all-Black cast?”
Asked about Peltz’s remarks, a Disney spokesperson responded: “This is exactly why Nelson Peltz shouldn’t be anywhere near a creatively driven company.”
Where the sex or amount of melanin someone has isn’t a defining characteristic of the story, it just shouldn’t matter if you swap genders or whatever assuming similar levels of acting ability. Disney I generally see as a corporate whore, but good on them for sticking to this. Fuck you peltz.
While I agree with what you’re saying, Disney didn’t change the gender or racial identities of the characters he’s complaining about.
Ms. Marvel, Monica Rambeau, and Carol Danvers as Captain Marvel are all very well cast for their roles. They’re practically plucked out of the pages of the comics, and match on race and gender identity from the source.
And Black Panther is about a super hero protector of a nation of black people. The answer to this racist’s question is literally in the name of the movie.
Fun trivia: Nick Fury is a white guy in the comics, but the MCU version with Jackson is so iconic I don’t think anyone but the most die hard racist + comic nerd intersection people still complain about it.
I had forgotten that he was a white guy so I went to look up the character… and was surprised to find out that they actually turned Nick Fury into Samuel L. Jackson in the comics 7 years BEFORE casting him to play the character.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Fury_(Marvel_Cinematic_Universe)
Fun trivia: The Ultimate comic universe actually introduced a black Nick Fury nearly 10 years before Jackson played him on the big screen.
Even more fun fact, the Ultimate version was literally modeled after Sam Jackson so it came full circle.
Changing the design of a beloved character was always met with criticism and skepticism. When James Bond was made blonde by casting Daniel Craig there was as much of an uproar amongst the fan base as when Ariel was made black.
If a movie is good, people will accept the design changes, if the movie is bad people will blame the design changes. And some people just never get over the design changes and will refuse to give it a chance.
The discussion is just a bit more heated because of the current social and political climate. But that’s mostly by people who don’t even care about the movie and just use the topic to stir the pot.