Disney Princesses

Finally we have the first trailer for the live-action remake of Mulan. Looks great so far, and I liked seeing Rosalind Chao as the mother. I'm a little confused by the scenes of Mulan fighting with long hair, though. She's not going to chop it off to disguise herself? Well, it does look like the soldiers are wearing some kind of headgear while in the army, but that still doesn't explain the scenes when she's letting her long hair flow free. Is she going to be revealed as female and allowed to stay and fight? Is she going to be like Joan of Arc? Not sure how the witch villain figures into this yet. We'll see I guess.

I don't miss Mushu the dragon. I HATED the stupid comic relief sidekick characters in Mulan, Aladdin (yes that means I hated the Genie), and other Disney films of the time. I found them belittling and demeaning to the main story. I don't really remember the songs in Mulan, either, so I don't really care if it's musical at all. It could be like the CGI Jungle Book, where they did just a couple of songs, but mainly the story was serious and dramatic. Really want this Mulan to be good. I wonder if we'll get new Disney dolls next year. Anything's better than the current Hasbro-made princess dolls with the fucked up tiny shoulders. Whereas Mattel's Barbie had a waist problem, Hasbro has its own issues with distorting human bodies.

Anyway, there was also an announcement about a black actress to play Ariel in the new Little Mermaid, followed by a racist backlash. So stupid! And trying to argue that she was Danish? She lives in the fucking water; she's not a land dweller, of any human country! And since Disney totally changed the story and ending from Hans Christian Anderson, there's no fucking need to use that source material for determining the character's race. (It's like saying Disney should go back to the Ice Queen roots instead of the new story they made in Frozen.) A mermaid is a magical being like a unicorn or fairy or even the sea witch Ursula. Anything is possible for a magical being, and there can also be different versions of the same being, such as the difference between European dragons and Chinese dragons. If the setting is the Caribbean, why can't Ariel be black? Tired of the pointless outrage.