Do you not think people were othered in the past?
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Yes, obviously (in different ways than they are currently), but as you say, it’s about the current problematic cultural context and the harm it causes.
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I too find the desire to make this kinda dopey. Makes me a little grumpy too ill admit. I’d be happy if they had new ideas. Maybe a version with Bugs Bunny saying “What’s up Doc” to the deceased Snow White ( or was she just sleepy?). I’d have said something earlier but I’m a little bashful. Making this paragraph of puns wasneezy.
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The Sleeping Beauty-type stories, “awakened by a kiss from some guy” is usually the cleaned-up version. The older versions are a lot worse.
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Thank you. I was gonna ask Otherbrother whether he tells ppl he attended the U of Heidelberg.
Back in the 80s, I went to a party where I met an early 20sish guy w/a U of Heidelberg duelling scar. We drank and talked fencing and How Fucked is Learning German When Yr a Native English Speaker.
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I have an old fairy tale book from my childhood fulla fantastic stories no filmmaker’s ever touched. Mom got me a book of Russian fairy tales, too, and they are weird. I had a book of Scandanavian fairy tales which were also pretty damn strange.
‘Course the OG Grimms’ tales are also frequently bloody/terrifying.
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My son was a the one who does fencing, not me. My scar story is far less interesting than that. It happened when I built a small engine powered by ice cubes for a college project.
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Disney is responding to Dinklage’s criticisms.
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I feel like I remember something about the term “dwarf” in Norse mythology didn’t refer to a short being, but a kind of giant. The film moment didn’t surprise me as much because that nugget of folklore was in my mind.
Now I need to go see if my brain just invented that…
Edit: The internet only tells me that initially their stature was not described, but four of them did hold up the corners of the sky. I’ll have get into my Edith Hamilton book and see what she recounts…
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That still sounds like a ahem cool story! 
I just took a few-weeks-long community center course w/mom when I was in jr high. We were the only ones left after about 3 classes! All those lunges scared off the rest. Our fencing teacher had trained with a mad Hungarian at Wayne State U who was also an olympic coach.
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Disney actually responded. “To avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film, we are taking a different approach with these seven characters and have been consulting with members of the dwarfism community. We look forward to sharing more as the film heads into production after a lengthy development period,” a spokesperson told the trade, which also reported that “the studio has been reimagining the dwarf characters since the earliest stages.”
Guess they were already aware it’s an issue and are trying to work the story differently - good for them.
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Still, the whole story is so weird and problematic it would be better if they just dropped the remake entirely snd made something new. The original is still there for anyone who wants it.
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The wicked queen asks who is fairest in the land, and it is revealed the answer is Snow White, who is kind and even-handed in everything she does. Jealous since her own judgments are so hated, the queen tries to have her killed, but she escapes and is taken in by a household of dwarfs who have also been excluded from the community and are now toiling in the kingdom’s gem mines. With her help, they and other miners overcome their differences and are able to organize a union to demand better working conditions and a proper share of the profits.
Prince Charming is sent to oppose the union but becomes quite taken with the kind young organizer. She likes him too but insists on putting the workers first. Finally the queen tries to poison Snow White with an apple, but the prince saves her with CPR, and now realizing the full injustice the monarchy is built upon renounces his role in it to join the mining community. Snow White distributes his treasures to everyone and then they set to building a new life together, and live happily ever after.
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Disney will never make this movie.
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Yeah I agree - However, so far every live action remake they do is a billion dollar vehicle with 2/3 of that from the overseas market - it would take something a bit more monumental than good taste to stop the train at this point sadly.
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Freedoms! (Them Dukes of Hazard Tooks of Shire boys always were a little wild.)
Which meant that the offices were no longer just traditional, but part of the power structure of the re-united kingdom. Plus, after the scouring of the Shire, there were graves full of people who disagreed.
Sam was the true commoner hero of the story. He was the only one who had the ring and willingly gave it up. (Bilbo also did that, but only with a huge push by Gandalf the Grey, perhaps his penultimate test.)
Of course, afterwards he got the Hobbiton mayor job, master of Bag End, and a ticket to the undying lands. (Not sure what happened to Rosie, his wife. Maybe hobbits share the gift/doom of Men, maybe not.)
Heh. Imagine the story if Aragorn was the Dread Pirate Roberts of Middle Earth?
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Wait, so are you saying Dwarves are canceled? Are we going to cancel elves and pixies too? Does the Dwarf Fortress guy need to delete his game?
I think maybe folks should take a deep breath. Maybe before becoming enraged at imaged slights, perhaps we should wait for something real to be angry about. If it’s a house with 7 little people played for laughs, then sure, let’s angrily get our pitch forks. If it’s a bunch of long bearded, axe wielding fantasy dwarves with a constitution and strength of 20, maybe you should stop looking for insults where there are none.
And just to be clear, I don’t want anything to do with whatever abomination Disney is cooking up in their necromantic reboot studies, but let’s hate this coming abomination of a film for reasons it will surely deserve.
‘The Last Ringbearer’ isn’t all that good as a story, but it gives an interesting reinterpretation of LOTR. It’s written from the perspective of the Orcs who are just humans and get targetted by genocide by Gandalf and the Elves for daring to try industrialization. Aragorn is a robber who Gandalf picks to be a figurehead king while Arwen has the real power. (Boromir picked the wrong travel companions…)
It’s available for free download as it’s very much not authorized by the Tolkien estate.
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Yeah, Merry and Pippin are about as aristocratic as you can be in the Shire; in practice, not very, since the hobbits seem to have a pretty flat social hierarchy. (As in, there are levels for sure, but the distance between those levels isn’t very big.)
Bilbo was independently wealthy even before he went off on his adventure and returned with plenty of gold and silver; while his mom was one of Old Took’s daughters, and no doubt got a big dowry, the Bagginses were wealthy and respectable on their own. Where their wealth came from is never discussed, but presumably they were landowners, landlords, and/or members of Shire’s “professional class”. Frodo, obviously, was his ward and heir.
And Sam, of course, is the son of Bilbo’s gardener, and later works as Frodo’s gardener. After they come back to Shire, he gets elected as the Mayor of Shire (basically for the rest of his life), and establishes a large and important family himself.
IIRC, Tolkien discusses this in one of his many, many letters; hobbits are metaphysically humans, so they die and pass from the circles of the world. It’s implied that Sam leaves once Rosie dies. Also - going to the Undying Lands explicitly doesn’t make mortals immortal. Bilbo, Frodo, and later Sam, will still die, but they probably live much longer than they would have in Middle-Earth, and more importantly, they can heal from their hurts and weariness and the hollowness left by the influence of the Ring there.
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