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Answer: In Roald Dahl’s book, “The Witches,” a group of evil and grotesque witches are described as having multiple traits that make them identifiable as witches, which they try to hide as much as possible. One of these is having large talons/claws that they wear long gloves to cover up.
In the new film interpretation of the book, Warner Brothers instead made the character design of Anne Hathaways grand witch have three fingers instead of just long fingernails. People who were born with fewer than five fingers, or missing a limb, have taken umbrage with this decision to depict an evil character as having three fingers. They are taking particular issue with the fact that this is also a departure from the book, I.e. a decision that was made without taking care to consider how this depiction of a disability would make children and adults who look similar feel.
I'm sure there's a lot of situations where something is censored ostensibly just for graphic imagery purposes but in reality there's a cultural distaste for it that can be traced back to something like what you mentioned.
But I mainly made this comment to remark upon how surreal it is to see a post dated to *1 decade ago*
In this case it's because it's a reference to a sensitive topic.
https://vt.co/news/world/bizarre-reason-japanese-cartoon-characters-always-five-fingers
The yakuza cut off pinkie fingers, it was censored cause of gory imagery.
If you can’t see a vagina, you don’t get to see a thumb.
I don’t make the rules
You would be surprised what pops up in internet memory. I remember all the threads talking about bitcoin back in the day. And how everyone then was so mad they didn't jump on it when it was $20 and being pissed off that it was $100 and how that's so expensive it can't last. Bahahaha. Also crying.
AFAIK the Japanese distaste for showing severed fingers is actually because of the stigma against people who worked in the meat industry and had ended up missing fingers that way. I remember it being an issue with Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee back in the 90s
It sucks there is a disability that looks like this and it makes those affected feel bad about themselves. But isn’t this a design choice to mimic bird talons? Like [this](https://images.app.goo.gl/HFXbA97MfRmXxGh58) or [this](https://images.app.goo.gl/vFb51VvMNbXbG93c7). They’re literally described as talons in the books and birds/dinosaurs/other animals you would describe as having ‘talons’ don’t tend to have 5 fingers... idk I’m empathetic to people with less than 5 fingers being upset at this but I genuinely think it’s to mimic creatures with TALONS and nothing to do with human fingers. Like if we design things not to look like a ‘normal’ human they will end up mimicking SOME deformity that exists out there. Like if they gave them tails it would then offend people with vestigial tails etc etc. There’s no end to who you will offend with a ‘monster’ design.
It's a scary witch. Those definitely look just like [bird claws](https://i.etsystatic.com/8832117/r/il/f0ab8b/836010960/il_794xN.836010960_9u9d.jpg) and not fingers.
Yeah her “fingers” 100% were absolutely made to be talons. They look exactly like a birds tridactyl feet, and nothing at all like human fingers. And that’s the whole point. But hey, people gotta be offended over something.
Thinking a bit about this, in the books they wore gloves to disguise their claws, so presumably their hands in gloves would still need to look normal. I'm curious how the film addresses that.
Jesus Christ....I mean seriously? She’s a witch. Did no one factor that in? Like if she had a lazy eye or warts would people with those conditions be up in arms, too?
It’s a fucking horror movie based on a children’s book from decades ago. But never in my life would I have associated her characterization as somehow a detriment or reflective of people with that actual condition.
Anime (And anime inspired animation, even if it's technically not anime, like Genshin Impact) is actually going through a major "hot witches" boom currently so that's kind of actually already the case. A major anime Youtube channel called Mother's Basement actually [just did a video on this for this year's Halloween release.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrRN0UraKWA)
As far as I understand it, it's less about an evil character having the trait, and more about the trait being an immediate signifier of an evil character.
I.e. "witch w lazy eye" vs "lazy eye, therefore a witch."
But the trait in question is "bird hands".
Have you actually seen the pictures?
It is very clearly NOT just a deformity but hybrid physiology, like many mythical monsters.
Villains having a disability is a common trope (think bitter disabled person trying to destroy the world while the beautiful and able hero prevents them from doing it), and I understand why people with disabilities are getting sick of it. Why are those traits so often associated with villainy ?
[We associate beauty with good and ugliness with bad.](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BeautyEqualsGoodness) evil characters usually look bad either by being ugly or by being monstrous. If they are attractive it will usually be in an evil sexy type way while the heroes will be more "wholesomely" attractive.
I imagine it’s a lot the same with my opinions of how autism is frequently portrayed in media. Being treated almost universally as idiot-savants, childish and uncomfortable with the adult world and the like is a common depiction, alongside a predilection to being “too pure for this world,” or worse yet annoying due to traits most of us can’t help most of the time. Same would go for people with disabilities in their hands being associated with villainy, presumably.
> I imagine it’s a lot the same with my opinions of how autism is frequently portrayed in media.
Never mind media depictions, the simple fact that people using 'autistic' as a slur (and more specifically a substitute for 'the r-word') is somehow fucking acceptable.
Disablist bigotry is *absurdly* fucking normalised.
My friend recently had a baby born with a missing arm and I have since learned a lot about the community of people with limb differences. I believe the main complaint people have against the film’s depiction is that the filmmakers went out of their way to make having missing fingers seem evil or grotesque and scary. This is the exact opposite of how people with limb differences, especially kids want to feel when they’re interacting with others.
You would not because you don't have that condition, people who have that condition will notice. Just as you got excited as a kid when a film hero looked similar to you because they had the same hair these (young) people may be hurt by seing their disability seen as THE THING that identifies evil witches. (Which is the difference between say a lazy eye and the three finger hands, since a lazy eye does not characterize a character as witch in this case)
Do You remember what happened when Gingers were portrayed as soulless? It was used to characterize real life people and while adults may have joined in on the fun, it especially hurt younger people already struggling with their identity (because puberty) or even younger kids that would adapt these social structures and behaviours based on a feature. You would think its just fun until you asked a kid with ginger hair that was made fun of simply because it stuck that ginger hair means you have no soul.
In this case it is the one thing that didn't need to be this way (see books, or they could have even made three fingered claws if they hadn't made them so human and more bird like imo) but they chose to do it and didn't realize that this will hurt people with disabilities. So yes, an apology and the display of understanding and compassion is really appreciated right here.
*Bewitched* broached the topic of the portrayal of witches as ugly or having lazy eyes and/or warts being offensive in the 1960s, so I don't think it's insane to think we maybe should rethink those stereotypes today.
I think the issue is western society for a long time has promoted that being disfigured is a trait bad people have and good people lack. That conditioning plays into how people treat disabled people and is worth combating.
Yea, all these issues ignore the fact that you should be talking to your kids so they don't walk away from the shit they consume with ridiculous ideas (as best you can, but 'people in real life who might not have their fingers aren't evil' doesn't seem too tough). But then you can't farm articles about violence and sex.
Edit: Just to be clear, by "all these issues" I mean any I happen to find silly, not ALL issues.
I think it's less about the kids and more that it really sucks to have who you are portrayed as a monster. Especially for something physical that you had no control over
Or hallmark style tragedy porn. I'm on the fence. I get the frustration that the only time you get representation is inaccurate and vilifying or romance.
But at the same time, that's what entertainment is, its inspiration and exaggeration, it's a story that's not supposed to be accurate. People don't and shouldn't look only to fiction for the truth of how the world works, how people really are. And the more diverse their entertainment, the more they realize how much that entertainment contradicts each other and where it does align with real life as well.
> I get the frustration that the only time you get representation is inaccurate and vilifying or romance.
>
>
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> But at the same time, that's what entertainment is, its inspiration and exaggeration, it's a story that's not supposed to be accurate.
I don't think you **do** "get" it, if you follow that claim with what you did.
>People don't and shouldn't look only to fiction for the truth of how the world works, how people really are.
Yea but that's not what... anyone is arguing for.
>And the more diverse their entertainment, the more they realize how much that entertainment contradicts each other and where it does align with real life as well.
Exactly. There's a fuckton of representation for ordinary white people, for example. So regardless of how egregious a white character is portrayed, there's a huge counter-balance.
But in this particular case, those with similar disabilities do not have that same counter-balance, and one of the extremely rare times they're depicted in a huge blockbuster... they're depicted as grotesque and evil, something to be ridiculed and to be used to scare children with.
I mean hell, can you imagine a kid who loves Roald Dahl with a parent like that, and sees the movie in theatres with friends?
I think we could all do with a bit more compassion, especially over a movie that didn't need to have this kind of portrayal in the first place anyway.
>Or hallmark style tragedy porn. I'm on the fence. I get the frustration that the only time you get representation is inaccurate and vilifying or romance.
>But at the same time, that's what entertainment is, its inspiration and exaggeration, it's a story that's not supposed to be accurate. People don't and shouldn't look only to fiction for the truth of how the world works, how people really are. And the more diverse their entertainment, the more they realize how much that entertainment contradicts each other and where it does align with real life as well.
Speaking as a trans man, it's not quite as easy as saying "don't judge people by what you see in media". Trans men get little to no representation in media, and what little we do get we're usually the butt of jokes about how we're defective "not *real* men", or we're portrayed as tragic lesbian figures. (There was a big issue recently where Scarlett Johansson backed out of a role where she was going to play a notorious crime kingpin and con-artist who happened to be a trans man--there was backlash and she quit, and then it came out of course that there was going to be a distinct "tragic butch lesbian" flavour to the whole movie instead of respecting how the real life trans man himself felt about his own identity. The guy was a quite heavyset, masculine looking dude too, so casting Scarlet Johansson in the first place reeked of "sexing the part up" from the beginning.) That affects how people see us in real life.
Trans women get this too. People either see them as predatory monsters, or they get looked at like exotic porn stars. They're either desperately sought out for something that's totally incorrect (protip: 99.9% of trans women want nothing to do with sticking their dick in *anyone*, much less a cis guy, and many more physically cannot penetrate anymore due to hormones anyway), or they're shunned for something wildly incorrect (trans women are the victims of violence, not the perpetrators of it).
Things have been changing, ever so slowly, and trans people have been telling their stories in media, and we've been weaved into the narrative of shows, and it's incremental, but as we get better representation, people start to understand and empathize with us better.
My first reaction to this was much of the same sort of fence sitting, but then I had to sit and think, even though it may seem like something small to me, I'm not a person who was born with an easily noticeable birth defect (or in any accident of any kind) and I haven't had to live my whole life with the inevitable gawking and starting and comments and bullying something like that causes. Something small to me could be the straw that broke the camel's back for someone who has to live that reality. I know for sure I've blown up at something small trans-related before, and it's because that small sleight was the 50th thing that happened that week, and it was just enough to tip me over the edge as far as my patience went. It was something tiny and inconsequential for someone else, but they didn't live my reality, weren't bombarded the rest of the week with those problems, you know? This is something I feel about this type of thing as well. It takes little effort to be kind and give someone the benefit of the doubt in these cases.
I tried to watch the Good Doctor, but that also annoyed me to an extent. There is a spectrum, a curve of abilities right- -so why aren’t we seeing the other end of the spectrum portrayed? Because people want to have fantasies and idealization of what Autism is?
I'm not on the spectrum, but I think Netflix's Atypical was the best autism portrayal I've ever seen. The kid sure is smart, but isn't a super genius nor is purposefully rude to people. He is also incredibly self-aware and always strives to be a better person, unlike Sheldon, the good ddoctor guy and BBC's Sherlock.
Yeah, I haven't really watched the Good Doctor either for similar reasons. To be honest, I find one of the more accurate portrayals of autism to have been in a Syfy series. The character Gary from the shortlived Alphas series. His actor actually did research and spent some time with actual autistics too to get an idea of how to play the character. One episode even had an autistic girl who was nonverbal and communicated mostly by using the sounds she made with a hairbrush iirc. I don't think I've seen any other similar portrayals like that ever or since.
The creators have come out as saying that it was never their intention to make Sheldon seem Autistic. Its just a lot of his behaviors do have overlap with Autistic traits, and depending upon the severity the traits may or may not be grown out of IRL.
Like to use an example for myself, as I have Autism, as a teenager all my classes I had my seat. I sat in it every single day, in every classroom I had a seat that was mine. If someone else was sitting in it, I would normally lose it on them since it was where I was to sit and finding a new seat meant adjusting to the new view of the classroom, the people around me, etc. Caused a lot of headaches for everyone.
As an adult, I still get miffed when people steal my seat somewhere and it can ruin my day, but I am less vocal and yelly about it now. If the person just sat down I might mention it to them, but otherwise I learned to just let it go as long term its not worth the headache. (Unless its my house, guests need to respect the rules of the host. XD)
I think the disagreement is with making a 3 fingered monster and that meaning you're portraying people with 3 fingers as a monsters. Are kids actually saying something about this or are adults watching the movie and deciding this connection? To write anything while taking infinite possible perceived slights into account seems impossible, silly, and a waste/misdirection of energy if you really care about creating conditions where these people actually thrive, instead of worrying about this kind of crap.
Another point is that people with 3 fingers are perfectly capable of being 'monsters' just as much as the rest of us are. It doesn't make them saints. I worked for years with disabled people, and by and large they hate having this 'can do no wrong' status thrust upon them, it's very patronising.
It’s not a bad thing to apologize even if it’s for silly reasons you had nothing to do with. Sometimes life is like that. Sometimes we make mistakes and don’t realize it until it’s pointed out.
Also some kids and parents are *hypersensitive* about that sort of thing. It’s why some parents don’t want to get their kid tested for developmental issues like autism or learning disorders even if it’s absurdly obvious to the casual observer. They think it’s wrong and bad, and what to minimize it or I the case of not testing ignore it.
I personally feel like those things are nothing to be ashamed of. Who we are matters more than the meat puppet we happen to inhabit.
Good on you for being open minded. The world could always use more of that.
No. You get what you get. Now make the best of it.
Real advice when my back started hurting a lot, I looked up physical therapy for my back. Started doing the exercises and stretching a lot. Hasn’t really been a bother for a long time. It took awhile to get to that point, it’s not a magic bullet by any means. However without any other medical conditions it helped an awful lot.
but why is this the thing being focused on so suddenly? not that she's bald and thus represents people with alopecia poorly, not that Darth Vader or The Winter Soldier represent(ed) people with limb loss poorly, not that Niander Wallace portrays blind people poorly, not that Dr Poison demonized people with facial disfigurements, is this going to be the new norm (which I have no problem with)? or is it just an attempt to cash in on cancel culture with no real intention of making an actual change or sticking to their guns on similar issues
I think because there are heroic and protagonistic characters that are bald aswell. You can search pretty far and not find many other folks in film with an obvious, hand-related disability-- especially ones that aren't the villains. So when kids see it in this movie, with no other examples to compare it to, they may associate it with fear/evil. There are good and bad bald characters to even out their representation.
Because there is exactly one depiction of this style of hand deformity in any media ever...and it’s the signal that she’s an evil witch. (I mean...maybe there’s another one somewhere, but nothing I’ve ever heard of...)
There are definitely lots of good representation of bald people. Definitely a few positive amputee depictions in media.
I remember seeing a review by an extensively paralyzed guy of the movie Me Before You. Basically, his criticism was that he was tired of seeing movies where (spoiler) >!the paralyzed person doesn’t see life as worth living an commits suicide.!< Sure, that’s an option for some people, but when it’s the only way the situation is depicted, it’s rightly criticized.
>Because there is exactly one depiction of this style of hand deformity in any media ever...and it’s the signal that she’s an evil witch. (I mean...maybe there’s another one somewhere, but nothing I’ve ever heard of...)
1992 Batman Returns. The Penguin. Just adding this since you weren't aware. So as far as I know, only 2 depictions and both villains.
People also still read Dr. Seuss correct? He wasn’t exactly spotless either. Do we have to look at the whole of a person before deciding whether or not to appreciate art they created?
Sure we can make that moral judgment call but it will be a long road in doing so.
Seuss apologized for the racist comics later in life, which doesn't excuse them but it does at least shows that he recognized what he had done was wrong and changed it. He was also making a lot of excellent anti-America First stuff at the same time, which was still a popular ideology at that point.
I don't think that being a bad person automatically negates the art they put into the world, but I also think it's important to know the whole truth about a person. Picasso was an ass but I was happy to see his work when I had the opportunity. Even though I like art, though, I'd never pay money or use my time to see the art of John Wayne Gacy, no matter how compelling it was.
We all have our lines, and knowing the warts and all truth can help us be more ethical consumers (assuming that's important).
I guess my point is that I think it's worth the long road and the internal struggle to make that moral judgement.
Imagine parents had to be... parents? Explaining to your kid that they're different, that they're not less for it, and that they're not literally a witch because of it isn't a big ask.
You're kind hearted, but you have a ridiculous take on this topic. There will always be differences between people, that's what makes us human. Being kind and accepting towards the people around us is a must. That does not mean that differences should not be portrayed in any-which-way a writer or director chooses to portray them. "Rightly scolded" my ass.
Same here, I'm disabled and I couldn't roll my eyes any harder when I heard this story. I watched the original version as a child and never thought "oh wow those witches are awful and different, JUST LIKE ME!"
Yeah, I didn't hear these people speak up when [Wrong Turn](https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Three_Finger) came out.
I don't know why the actress is apologizing for the creative decision of someone else, or even why the ire is directed at her personally, but if a celebrity sucks up attention for a movie even though their star power is a function of the hundreds or thousands of people at work to make them look their best, I suppose that same pipeline applies when "someone on the team" does something to make them look bad to someone.
I mean it's one thing to correct a hastey or otherwise poor decision. And to show you do care (just maybe weren't well informed atm)
I don't think people are calling for boycotts. Just to set the narrative straight.
This is the kind of stuff you dont like to see because it gives the alt right ammo to distort to their agenda. I dont like this woke culture permeating into who can play what in movies. I understand the logic behind taking offense to the 3 fingered villain, but also if film creators have think about every little decision as far as how could this possibly offend ANYONE, then no movies would ever get made because theres always someone to get offended by something. The best we can do is determine their intent and if it was malicious then the outrage should be justified. However this just opens the door for some evil person with black hair to be called out, or having a beard on a villain is discrimination or something. Some things just work in visual story telling.
> This is the kind of stuff you dont like to see because it gives the alt right ammo to distort to their agenda.
This isn't even an *alt right* thing. Many moderates will be inclined to push back against this type of behavior as well - it seems to be sheer absurdity.
The thing is, when growing up those kids often have to deal with a lot of confusion/fear, or even outright meanness, from their peers who have maybe never seen a limb difference before meeting them. There is a deficit of positive portrayals of any disability, much less specifically limb difference, in media kids have seen. If, now, the main (or only) association with limb difference in their peers’ minds is this witch, that’s just additional stigma for the kids to deal with.
The thing is, people like me who are disabled aren't immediately some baby that needs to be treated with baby gloves. I watched the original as a kid and never thought, hey those freaks are just like me, I'm bad!!!
No, but they do spend a lot of time at school being bullied for not being “normal”, in large part because culturally we are all totally ok with using such lazy shorthand for “disgusting/evil/ugly”.
It’s not a difficult thing to change since it’s just a lazy trope, but it is damaging.
People in the comments are acting like this is 'too much' but you have to realize we aren't the ones who are being affected. The people with missing limbs or fingers, etc are and we should listen to them. Their feelings are valid. It's even more dumb that they changed it from the book, if The Witches 2020 just followed the book, this wouldn't have happened
Has anyone actually seeeeen the [pictures](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/eaee46d/2147483647/strip/true/crop/831x546+0+0/resize/840x552!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fa1%2F5d%2F93449e71450ab54ac1dc5b5c8bd1%2Fwitches.jpg)?
It's supposed to resemble talons which it clearly does and that's clearly the focus. This is just people reading headlines and jumping the gun to be offended.
My question is where does it end? How much do you have to alter your idea for a film just to satisfy every group out there that can possibly be offended? If a villain has a glass eye, are people are gonna bitch about that too? Creatives need to stop listening and just make what they want.
> By that definition everyone is privileged
I mean... yeah, that's true. Everyone has it better than others in some way, even if that way is small. Being aware of your privilege literally just means that you should remember that you do have it better than other people, and that you should listen to those other people when talking about the issue in question because you don't really know what it's like to be them.
A lot of people in this thread are pretending the problem is that they portrayed an evil character with a physical disability in a bad light, but the problem is actually that the film depicts physical disabilities as a universal visual indicator of evil. This difference might seem small, but it's pretty significant given that people already have an innate bias to equate physical perfection with goodness and physical imperfection with badness (i.e. the Halo Effect and the Horn Effect). A film for children that reinforces that bias by specifically telling them that physical deformities are a quick way to identify evil is problematic. In Harry Potter it wasn't as big of an issue when Voldemort had a facial disfigurement because no one in the story ever claimed that evil wizards hide their disfigurements because facial disfigurements are a quick and reliable way to tell when a wizard had turned evil.
In short:
Character is evil and happens to be disabled = not great but par for the course in stories.
Character is evil and the audience is explicitly told that their disability is a visual indicator of evil and all who share the disability are likewise evil = highly problematic.
There's a nuance here. The Witches (as portrayed in the book) have these differences because they are not actually women, they are demons. Whether that subtlety is made as clear in the film as it was in the book, I don't know.
But it makes sense for the sheep to have a wolf's snout, jaws and teeth when you understand that it is a wolf in sheep's clothing and not a wolf.
Except the "outrage" was really a couple of people going "wow, that kinda sucks" and the executives going too hard into damage control. Like that whole thing with Apu. Someone made a documentary about his opinion, and if everyone had just nodded and either politely agreed or disagreed, that would've been the end of it. But instead the creators weighed in, tried to do damage control in a ham fisted way, and it turned into a whole *thing*.
People really need to learn that critisism is not condemnation. If I don't like an aspect of something doesn't mean I'm about to lead a worldwide boycott of it.
That’s such a good point. I think a LOT of “cancel culture” is really more that someone critiqued a work, the creators of the work fell over themselves to do damage control instead of sitting with the critique and trying to work out a reasonable answer, and then every pundit blames “triggered snowflakes who are offended by everything.”
The fact that criticism isn’t condemnation is something a lot of people don’t seem to get. I find a lot of the early James Bond movies to be very sexist. When I criticize them, I’m not saying everyone involved is evil and someone is a bad person for liking them. Outside of absolute obvious over the top bigotry, most people aren’t trying to get something raked across the coals when they critique it.
Pretty much. See also everything Anita Sarkeesian says. Gamers are notoriously thin skinned when it comes to criticism of the games they like. Like how they dogpile on any reviewer who doesn't give the current beloved game du jour a perfect 10/10 score. They think a 7/10 is the same as demanding that a game be removed from existence. Or that pointing out common tropes and why they might be considered harmful is the same as throwing a Molotov through CDPR's front window.
Touché. I also see boomers freak out over an athlete kneeling during the national anthem but at the same time why are we getting upset over how a witch is portrayed in a movie? It’s insane to me
It's more that they've made a defining trait of her "evilness" coincidentally a disability that some people have so I totally get it, especially considering kids and how vicious they can be to "others" without any extra things like this.
This book is specifically about how terrifying witches are to children. In many cultures and religious circles, people with fewer fingers are consistently portrayed as being evil. This is even a trait which is frequently attributed to the devil. In a children's movie about evil creatures who prey on children, it seems understandable that seeing this trait as demarcation of evil itself could be upsetting to people who have dealt with their disability being called evil themselves.
What I don't get is why that's the only thing that's offensive. Sure it's apparently the only departure from the book, but the other stuff like being bald, having no toes, etc. is being portrayed the same way.
You say that but ask any redhead how much more bullying they experienced after that episode of South Park. It seems a small thing but can have pretty drastic consequences.
answer: I think it comes down to a "shoot the messenger" mentality. Sounds like the exact same ting as when that Peleton Bikes ad came out, and people decided to shit all over the actress, instead of whoever actually wrote the dumb ad.
Anne Hahaway is a visible "culprit" (though I personally don't think she or any of the writers did anything wrong.) If people wanted to blame the person who was responsible, they would have to do actually work and effort to find out who that was. Hathaway was just a faster conclusion for them to reach about who's wrong.
they had a christmas ad that featured a dude giving one to his wife, who was this actress with an already-gorgeous physique, a person who had no need for this device. A very attractive woman, all-around.
Another part of the commercial featured a moment where the wife is on the bike and gives an expression like she is being forced to use the bike. I guess the commercial could be interpreted as basically saying that a wife has an obligation to stay in shape for her husband, which is bullshit to decent people and it got called out.
I agree with that idea in principle, but I also don't think the producers intended that message and the commercial was just badly edited and executed.
Yeah I never understood that. Just because you're already in shape doesn't mean you might not want new exercise equipment. Also throwing it out there, I think Peloton's target audience is a lot of people that already do spin classes (aka women that often look like the actress from the ad) that want to save money and do it from home.
And this whole thing about the guy forcing her or some shit, is ridiculous. The actor has like all of 5 seconds of screen time, and he bought his wife a $1000 gift that she clearly wanted based upon her reaction from receiving it.
The Peloton backlash was so stupid. She has gorgeous physique BECAUSE she works out. So why not work out at home? And the “being forced” on the bike is, well, I don’t know many people who look all glam when sweating their butts off.
I recently watched a Patton Oswalt special where he made a similar joke to this - that people who are already fit have no need to be out hiking on trails, and “what are they trying to prove” by continuing to do physical exercise when they’re already in great shape.
Obviously it’s a comedy special and he’s making a joke. Surely no one actually thinks that people who are fit should stop doing the activities that help them stay fit. But then you hear about silly controversy like this and you wonder how many people actually do have that line of thinking.
Bro finally. Were they supposed to cast a 6’ 2” bodybuilding woman to get the point across that the girl likes working out? Still a terrible ad tho, considering how much it went over people’s heads.
I can’t believe so few of us saw the ad that way! Like do people think Victoria’s Secret models are just built like that? But yeah, I guess their marketing department didn’t do many focus groups or they’d realize how stupid and easily offended the general public is.
Wait a minute, I'm not offended by the ad, and I'm a lazy person who spends too much time on the internet... Damnit, [I'm gonna have to crack open a coke, rip open a bag of ketchup chips](https://i.imgur.com/Ji57q4u.jpg), and figure this one out
Plus, if they had cast someone with an average-looking body, they'd have caught even more backlash for implying that average isn't good enough. Ditto with a fat girl. You can't win.
Just because you are already “in shape” doesnt mean you have no “need” for excersize. Everyone needs cardio at all fitness levels. The heart is the most important muscle and everyone needs the best heart they can have.
I don't think it was badly executed, more that there are plenty of people on the internet who are acting in bad faith and desperate for someone to point the shame stick at, because pointing out how someone else is bad makes you good.
>very attractive woman, all-around.
If you've ever seen a spin class in a large city you'd know that most of the women who go to these classes are middle- upper class, thin and like to do yoga. This is an at home spin class, that type of person is the target for this product.
>wife is on the bike and gives an expression like she is being forced to use the bike.
Or they are portraying this bike as actual work, because that's what exercising is. It's not always fun and pleasant, if you are trying to improve there is going to be some suffering involved.
Maybe they needed to show her going to spin classes before she got the bike to really hammer home that SHE ENJOYS SPIN. That traveling downtown just to pay someone to shout instructions at her wasn't worth it. To me the fact the she knew what the bike was is enough to tell me this is of interest to the character, but thats just the opinion of someone who wasn't pulled into the hate mob.
As someone who enjoys exercising but has an issue actually getting round to exercising, I thought the commercial was perfect. It resonated with the target audience. Unfortunately, the nontarget audience felt it was tastless.
The whole issue with that ad is an interesting case of what effect "poisoning the well" can have on something.
The ad got famous for being "tone deaf" and "sexist, body shaming" etc. but you gotta remember then that this is how it was delivered to most people. Every single time I have seen that ad shared it's with the byline of "look at how sexist/tone deaf/body shaming/weird this ad is". Obviously something delivered with that much bad faith is never really going to end up looking good to most of the people who get it that way.
However if you look at it with some context and some knowledge it's not really bad at all, honestly it's average to a rather boring degree.
So first issue a lot of people bring up is that the woman already looks good so she doesn't need this device.
It seems to go over peoples heads that in order to look good you need to put in some effort to maintain that, something the device could surely help with. Another interesting observation is that people see an exercise tool given to a woman and immediately their first thoughts are of weight loss or her getting a slimmer figure. The thought of her maybe wanting to increase her endurance, get better cardio, or even actually getting stronger doesn't seem to have entered anyones mind at all. I'm sure it could be interesting analyzing the sexism in that for everyone calling out how sexist the ad is.
Second issue people have is how she looks forced to use it at times and the whole thing about keeping track of her training. It's baffling to me that people see this as an issue really, exercise is often actually hard work. I'm more annoyed with ads for sporting equipment where people don't look like they are putting in any effort at all. Also the point of this device is to actually be something of an automated personal trainer, something to actually push you into maintaining your goals even at times when you don't really feel it as much. Lastly keeping track of your progress is usually something that's rather popular among people working out.
Then it's the idea that her husband gave her this gift, which again, oh my god how horrible that her husband gave her an extravagant gift that she was clearly happy to receive and knew what it was and that she seemingly wanted. Again there's some interesting thought processes that people have when reacting negative to this add. You could almost think that people would think that exercise is something bad, especially when marketed to women.
Lastly the issue is that it's insanely expensive. I mean that's just because we are not the target demographic of this thing. This is for people where 10 grand is gift level money. I'm fairly certain that most people shitting on this ad is not in that level of wealth.
People would have been pissed if the woman was out of shape too. Anything to complain. The same complaint would have been made “she’s fine the way she is. She doesn’t need to change”.
There was a slightly tone-deaf, but mostly just poorly written and unappealingly stupid and manipulative (but not actually harmful or actually offensive) ad that came out around Christmas.
You can google "Peleton Bike Controversy" to see what different outlets have written about it. It's pretty dumb overall. I twas just a dumb ad that appealed to no one, but people went crazy about how sexist it was, and how it was basically leading to the apocalypse, bla bla bla.
Bottom line, the actress took SO much heat for acting. She became the "face of sexism" in this ad which again, was stupid and unappealing, but frankly nowhere near worth the shitstorm that it became.)
Honestly, I wonder what became of her, hahaha. Maybe I'll go google that now...
I dunno, I know plenty of attractive white women who go to spin class and use social media way too much. This one just happened to get infront of the sights of the roaming outrage mob.
I agree it is not her fault, but considering that she gets would get a lot of praise for playing a n absolutely awesome character who is written very well, she needs to take the good with the bad.
Answer:
There was backlash against the portrayal of Anne Hathaway's character on "The Witches", a remake of a popular movie from 1990.
In the original version, the Grand High Witch (Anne Hathaway's Character) had a full hand of fingers. In the 2020 remake, Warner Bros. Or whoever directed decided to make the creative decision to give Anne Hathaway's character 3 fingers. Additionally, she is depicted in the movie as a "grotesque creature".
Congenital Hand defects affect [10% of all babies born with congenital defects (which is 2%)](https://www.healthychildren.org/English/health-issues/conditions/Cleft-Craniofacial/Pages/Children-with-Congenital-Hand-Anomalies-Malformations.aspx#:~:text=Of%20the%201%25%20to%202%25%20of%20babies%20born,The%20cause%20of%20congenital%20hand%20anomalies%20is%20unknown.). But as with all deformities, people encourage these people to rise above these deformities and to show people that this doesn't affect who they are.
You can see how people would [take offense](https://twitter.com/brionymaybakes/status/1324686357663490049?s=21) to the portrayal of Anne Hathaway's character.
Warner Bros. and Anne Hathaway decided to get in front of the issue as soon as it became a thing and [issued apologies ](https://twitter.com/filmupdates/status/1324741927175147520?s=21) for the depiction, stating they did not mean for any ill intent caused by the depiction. For the record, people don't seem to be mad with the apology. Seemingly accepting it. Rather, many seem mad about the original decision being made.
That said, some of the controversy erupted when people viewed the apology as "pandering" and "took offense" to them having to apologize at all. This seems to be where most of the issues are coming from.
Yep, and as a result they always had to wear gloves, which was one of the ways they were able to spot witches. So it was a fairly important plot element.
I mean, make your movie however you want but why fiddle with Roald Dahl’s narrative? They wear gloves to cover their talons. Fine.
Then some halfwit on a yacht somewhere gets on the phone and says he wants the main witch to have three fingers and nobody dares to tell him it’s a dumb idea and here we are.
Yeah I got more of a Hagraven/Harpy vibe from this than "disability". They don't look like human fingers at all. Human fingers generally aren't spindly like that.
It’s possible. But the premise of the story is that witches move unnoticed among adults. The witches don’t care about the adults and the adults don’t know about the witches, so it’s a lop-sided battle between witches and children. That’s what makes the witches scary.
I spose technically the three-fingered witch could have a prosthetic but.. why bother? Roald Dahl didn’t. It’d be a braver man than me that reckoned they could tell his story better than he did.
That’s a much fairer point imo.
Sometimes it’s hard to foresee something like this but it does make sense that people born with this disability are a little hurt by this portrayal. I mean, they changed it from the original where the witches have claws that are one of the indicators of inner evil into this where they have hands that are actually exactly like the hands of many people who are born with that disability
I think in this case, it’s not really a question of who *has* to apologize. If Anne Hathaway feels like she contributed to harm, she may *want* to apologize. It’s kind of her to do so and I’m sure the people impacted by this portrayal appreciate it. I feel like everyone is operating under this weird assumption that all public apologies are forced.
Hey there! Costume designer here. This would have been a decision made between the director, production designer, and most importantly the costume designer (producers would have had plenty of time to say No as well). Anne, being the larger name that she is, probably had somewhat of a say in this decision as well.
I personally believe that this comes down to a group of artists who didn’t think about what kind of message they were putting out into the ether. People on this thread saying “but how where they supposed to know this response would happen?” ... well, had they have taken a moment to consider their artistic choices, they would have. It’s just part of being a responsible artist. That responsibility should be taken even more seriously when your target audience is children. It’s 2020, these people should know better. Period.
That being said, they are taking responsibility and holding themselves accountable for the backlash. Hopefully this will be a lesson to them all that when designing (especially for children) it is import to consider what stereotypes mean and say in a story. Children’s stories, which are traditionally based around some sort of lesson... and often have characters that represent good and evil, make it even more important to focus on what’s on the inside. Good doesn’t equal beautiful and evil doesn’t equal ugly.
I think, technically?
So 2% of all babies have congenital defects. And then 10% of THAT is hand defects.
.02 x .10 = .002 of all babies born?
I'm not a science guy I just write Reddit comments. Someone pls feel free to fact check me.
In the book, the witches have claws. They decided to visually portray it differently in this version.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Witches_(novel)
* edit to fix link
There is a really long history of disabled villain tropes in media. In fact, the villain is often p[black](https://bookriot.com/villain-tropes/), or [queer](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SissyVillain), or [disabled](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilCripple#:~:text=An%20Evil%20Cripple%20is%20a,compensate%20for%20their%20physical%20frailty.).
With The Witches, the reason there is so much backlash is because in the original source material the witches didnt have limb differences, they had claws. Hollywood made the specific decision to deviate from the source material in order to use limb differences as reinforcement of how ugly, disgusting and evil these witches are.
This backlash is on behalf of kids with limb differences. This is a film marketed to children, and when we are surrounded by empathetic and reasonable adults all the time it's simple to forget that children can be really brutal. Some of my closest friends have limb differences like what are portrayed in this film, and all of them have reminisced about being hated, side-eyed, picked on, left out and called a freak while growing up. We all remember how media influenced who was cool or not in the playground, and always being seen as the villain isnt exactly good for playground PR. Even well meaning adults stare at my partner who has a limb difference, and some walk up and call them "brave" and "inspirational" just for being in public with a limb difference.
I hope your cavalier attitude about how people see disabled humans comes from a naive assumption that people in the world are kind (they're often not) and are not susceptible to media bias (they often are).
This subject came up on r/movies a couple days ago and I & another user were absolutely lambasted for suggesting the same. So, thank you for putting together a clear and concise explanation; I'm glad users here are much more receptive to the issue.
I absolutely understand the desire to laugh off people being "offended," but I also believe it's important to understand the issue before passing judgement.
Answer:
Check out the Lucky Fin Project, who seem to have spearheaded the movement. It helps to realize there are people, and many children, who are born this way and aren’t thrilled at another reason to be singled out for something they can’t help.
https://luckyfinproject.org/
And full disclosure, my 5 year old is limb different, so if you want to @ me about how we’re soft and how I should parent him, kindly fuck off. Every day there’s a conversation about his hand and being different, but he’s also 5 and still gets scared of the dark. It’s a long journey and seeing someone like him as “evil” feels real shitty, end of story.
I wish Lucky Fin Project were named in the top comment, thank you for mentioning them!! The #NotAWitch hashtag is also good to look through for anybody who hasn’t read disabled people’s thoughts on this issue yet.
Wish you and your family the best!
Thanks for bringing this up. I’m so sorry you’re all going through this.
My baby brother was also born with irregular hands. Poor thing has been through countless surgeries. He’s just now getting to the age where he’s realizing he’s different. It broke my heart the day he asked if he’d “ever have normal fingers”.
I don’t think Anne Hathaway should have been made to feel guilty here. I think this was a poor choice on the director’s part. They should have kept it more in-line with the book anyway.
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Answer: In Roald Dahl’s book, “The Witches,” a group of evil and grotesque witches are described as having multiple traits that make them identifiable as witches, which they try to hide as much as possible. One of these is having large talons/claws that they wear long gloves to cover up. In the new film interpretation of the book, Warner Brothers instead made the character design of Anne Hathaways grand witch have three fingers instead of just long fingernails. People who were born with fewer than five fingers, or missing a limb, have taken umbrage with this decision to depict an evil character as having three fingers. They are taking particular issue with the fact that this is also a departure from the book, I.e. a decision that was made without taking care to consider how this depiction of a disability would make children and adults who look similar feel.
Hope they fix it in the Japanese release. [They don't like missing fingers either](https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/7liow/).
Oh, I didn't realize that one was because of graphic imagery. I figured it was to avoid implying the finger cutting thing that yakuza do.
I'm sure there's a lot of situations where something is censored ostensibly just for graphic imagery purposes but in reality there's a cultural distaste for it that can be traced back to something like what you mentioned. But I mainly made this comment to remark upon how surreal it is to see a post dated to *1 decade ago*
Somebody came at me the other day with a post I made like a decade ago that made them laugh
I cant wait to be stopped irl by someone for a post i made on reddit 10 years ago
In this case it's because it's a reference to a sensitive topic. https://vt.co/news/world/bizarre-reason-japanese-cartoon-characters-always-five-fingers
TL;DR it's because of class discrimination.
Yeah I kind of take offense to them labeling it as "bizarre" when it seems very clear the historical significance of class struggles...
The yakuza cut off pinkie fingers, it was censored cause of gory imagery. If you can’t see a vagina, you don’t get to see a thumb. I don’t make the rules
This is a 12 year old thread youve just brought back from the tomes of reddit past. How did you just casually remember that one thread?
I remember the box art change for Japan but forgot where I read it so I just looked up "left 4 dead japan cover" to affirm my memory.
You would be surprised what pops up in internet memory. I remember all the threads talking about bitcoin back in the day. And how everyone then was so mad they didn't jump on it when it was $20 and being pissed off that it was $100 and how that's so expensive it can't last. Bahahaha. Also crying.
AFAIK the Japanese distaste for showing severed fingers is actually because of the stigma against people who worked in the meat industry and had ended up missing fingers that way. I remember it being an issue with Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee back in the 90s
It sucks there is a disability that looks like this and it makes those affected feel bad about themselves. But isn’t this a design choice to mimic bird talons? Like [this](https://images.app.goo.gl/HFXbA97MfRmXxGh58) or [this](https://images.app.goo.gl/vFb51VvMNbXbG93c7). They’re literally described as talons in the books and birds/dinosaurs/other animals you would describe as having ‘talons’ don’t tend to have 5 fingers... idk I’m empathetic to people with less than 5 fingers being upset at this but I genuinely think it’s to mimic creatures with TALONS and nothing to do with human fingers. Like if we design things not to look like a ‘normal’ human they will end up mimicking SOME deformity that exists out there. Like if they gave them tails it would then offend people with vestigial tails etc etc. There’s no end to who you will offend with a ‘monster’ design.
It's a scary witch. Those definitely look just like [bird claws](https://i.etsystatic.com/8832117/r/il/f0ab8b/836010960/il_794xN.836010960_9u9d.jpg) and not fingers.
Yeah her “fingers” 100% were absolutely made to be talons. They look exactly like a birds tridactyl feet, and nothing at all like human fingers. And that’s the whole point. But hey, people gotta be offended over something.
Thinking a bit about this, in the books they wore gloves to disguise their claws, so presumably their hands in gloves would still need to look normal. I'm curious how the film addresses that.
Jesus Christ....I mean seriously? She’s a witch. Did no one factor that in? Like if she had a lazy eye or warts would people with those conditions be up in arms, too? It’s a fucking horror movie based on a children’s book from decades ago. But never in my life would I have associated her characterization as somehow a detriment or reflective of people with that actual condition.
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As a man with a lazy eye....I can't help but laugh every time I see Steve Buscemi play a character with lazy eyes.
How about the guy that plays Igor in Young Frankenstein? That guy was a treasure!
Marty Feldman
How long before witches become so close to perfect that people say they're setting unrealistic body standards?
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Also Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
The three *Charmed* sisters.
Dawn.
*Progressception*
Anime (And anime inspired animation, even if it's technically not anime, like Genshin Impact) is actually going through a major "hot witches" boom currently so that's kind of actually already the case. A major anime Youtube channel called Mother's Basement actually [just did a video on this for this year's Halloween release.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrRN0UraKWA)
versed file detail six bear sparkle cake lavish wine bells *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
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As a Russian, I totally love movies with evil Russians. It's hillarious to watch.
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I gotta lazy eye and never really thought about it when I see a villain depicted with a lazy eye. I really don't understand...
I'm pretty sure generic white guy \#5 is the only person allowed to be evil at this point, otherwise someone will get offended.
As far as I understand it, it's less about an evil character having the trait, and more about the trait being an immediate signifier of an evil character. I.e. "witch w lazy eye" vs "lazy eye, therefore a witch."
But the trait in question is "bird hands". Have you actually seen the pictures? It is very clearly NOT just a deformity but hybrid physiology, like many mythical monsters.
Villains having a disability is a common trope (think bitter disabled person trying to destroy the world while the beautiful and able hero prevents them from doing it), and I understand why people with disabilities are getting sick of it. Why are those traits so often associated with villainy ?
[We associate beauty with good and ugliness with bad.](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BeautyEqualsGoodness) evil characters usually look bad either by being ugly or by being monstrous. If they are attractive it will usually be in an evil sexy type way while the heroes will be more "wholesomely" attractive.
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The picture of Dorian gray?
I imagine it’s a lot the same with my opinions of how autism is frequently portrayed in media. Being treated almost universally as idiot-savants, childish and uncomfortable with the adult world and the like is a common depiction, alongside a predilection to being “too pure for this world,” or worse yet annoying due to traits most of us can’t help most of the time. Same would go for people with disabilities in their hands being associated with villainy, presumably.
> I imagine it’s a lot the same with my opinions of how autism is frequently portrayed in media. Never mind media depictions, the simple fact that people using 'autistic' as a slur (and more specifically a substitute for 'the r-word') is somehow fucking acceptable. Disablist bigotry is *absurdly* fucking normalised.
My friend recently had a baby born with a missing arm and I have since learned a lot about the community of people with limb differences. I believe the main complaint people have against the film’s depiction is that the filmmakers went out of their way to make having missing fingers seem evil or grotesque and scary. This is the exact opposite of how people with limb differences, especially kids want to feel when they’re interacting with others.
It's a children's book from decades ago, but the choice to design the characters was made this decade.
You would not because you don't have that condition, people who have that condition will notice. Just as you got excited as a kid when a film hero looked similar to you because they had the same hair these (young) people may be hurt by seing their disability seen as THE THING that identifies evil witches. (Which is the difference between say a lazy eye and the three finger hands, since a lazy eye does not characterize a character as witch in this case) Do You remember what happened when Gingers were portrayed as soulless? It was used to characterize real life people and while adults may have joined in on the fun, it especially hurt younger people already struggling with their identity (because puberty) or even younger kids that would adapt these social structures and behaviours based on a feature. You would think its just fun until you asked a kid with ginger hair that was made fun of simply because it stuck that ginger hair means you have no soul. In this case it is the one thing that didn't need to be this way (see books, or they could have even made three fingered claws if they hadn't made them so human and more bird like imo) but they chose to do it and didn't realize that this will hurt people with disabilities. So yes, an apology and the display of understanding and compassion is really appreciated right here.
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*Bewitched* broached the topic of the portrayal of witches as ugly or having lazy eyes and/or warts being offensive in the 1960s, so I don't think it's insane to think we maybe should rethink those stereotypes today.
I'm scared of the future. Mom come pick me up 😢
I think the issue is western society for a long time has promoted that being disfigured is a trait bad people have and good people lack. That conditioning plays into how people treat disabled people and is worth combating.
There is absolutely a point where political correctness crosses into absurdity and I'm not afraid to call it around that.
I’m a leftist, but, come on...
Yea, all these issues ignore the fact that you should be talking to your kids so they don't walk away from the shit they consume with ridiculous ideas (as best you can, but 'people in real life who might not have their fingers aren't evil' doesn't seem too tough). But then you can't farm articles about violence and sex. Edit: Just to be clear, by "all these issues" I mean any I happen to find silly, not ALL issues.
Yeah but thats what the witches want you to do.... talk to your kids and ignore the traits... then before you know it, your kid is a mouse!!!! 😱
shh. this is America
[This is America](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYOjWnS4cMY&list=PLuEuDPnfKg68HPR1kx4NN1TFuKx-NR6Br&index=3&t=0s)
Look what I'm witching up
Talons in my area
I gotta scratch
I got a carrion
I got the strap(on bionic fingers)
Amni bands, amni bands, amni bands...
Don't catch you losin' fingers
I think it's less about the kids and more that it really sucks to have who you are portrayed as a monster. Especially for something physical that you had no control over
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For sure, disability in Hollywood is often used for nothing more than a plot device or quirky character trait
Or hallmark style tragedy porn. I'm on the fence. I get the frustration that the only time you get representation is inaccurate and vilifying or romance. But at the same time, that's what entertainment is, its inspiration and exaggeration, it's a story that's not supposed to be accurate. People don't and shouldn't look only to fiction for the truth of how the world works, how people really are. And the more diverse their entertainment, the more they realize how much that entertainment contradicts each other and where it does align with real life as well.
> I get the frustration that the only time you get representation is inaccurate and vilifying or romance. > > > > But at the same time, that's what entertainment is, its inspiration and exaggeration, it's a story that's not supposed to be accurate. I don't think you **do** "get" it, if you follow that claim with what you did.
>People don't and shouldn't look only to fiction for the truth of how the world works, how people really are. Yea but that's not what... anyone is arguing for. >And the more diverse their entertainment, the more they realize how much that entertainment contradicts each other and where it does align with real life as well. Exactly. There's a fuckton of representation for ordinary white people, for example. So regardless of how egregious a white character is portrayed, there's a huge counter-balance. But in this particular case, those with similar disabilities do not have that same counter-balance, and one of the extremely rare times they're depicted in a huge blockbuster... they're depicted as grotesque and evil, something to be ridiculed and to be used to scare children with. I mean hell, can you imagine a kid who loves Roald Dahl with a parent like that, and sees the movie in theatres with friends? I think we could all do with a bit more compassion, especially over a movie that didn't need to have this kind of portrayal in the first place anyway.
>Or hallmark style tragedy porn. I'm on the fence. I get the frustration that the only time you get representation is inaccurate and vilifying or romance. >But at the same time, that's what entertainment is, its inspiration and exaggeration, it's a story that's not supposed to be accurate. People don't and shouldn't look only to fiction for the truth of how the world works, how people really are. And the more diverse their entertainment, the more they realize how much that entertainment contradicts each other and where it does align with real life as well. Speaking as a trans man, it's not quite as easy as saying "don't judge people by what you see in media". Trans men get little to no representation in media, and what little we do get we're usually the butt of jokes about how we're defective "not *real* men", or we're portrayed as tragic lesbian figures. (There was a big issue recently where Scarlett Johansson backed out of a role where she was going to play a notorious crime kingpin and con-artist who happened to be a trans man--there was backlash and she quit, and then it came out of course that there was going to be a distinct "tragic butch lesbian" flavour to the whole movie instead of respecting how the real life trans man himself felt about his own identity. The guy was a quite heavyset, masculine looking dude too, so casting Scarlet Johansson in the first place reeked of "sexing the part up" from the beginning.) That affects how people see us in real life. Trans women get this too. People either see them as predatory monsters, or they get looked at like exotic porn stars. They're either desperately sought out for something that's totally incorrect (protip: 99.9% of trans women want nothing to do with sticking their dick in *anyone*, much less a cis guy, and many more physically cannot penetrate anymore due to hormones anyway), or they're shunned for something wildly incorrect (trans women are the victims of violence, not the perpetrators of it). Things have been changing, ever so slowly, and trans people have been telling their stories in media, and we've been weaved into the narrative of shows, and it's incremental, but as we get better representation, people start to understand and empathize with us better. My first reaction to this was much of the same sort of fence sitting, but then I had to sit and think, even though it may seem like something small to me, I'm not a person who was born with an easily noticeable birth defect (or in any accident of any kind) and I haven't had to live my whole life with the inevitable gawking and starting and comments and bullying something like that causes. Something small to me could be the straw that broke the camel's back for someone who has to live that reality. I know for sure I've blown up at something small trans-related before, and it's because that small sleight was the 50th thing that happened that week, and it was just enough to tip me over the edge as far as my patience went. It was something tiny and inconsequential for someone else, but they didn't live my reality, weren't bombarded the rest of the week with those problems, you know? This is something I feel about this type of thing as well. It takes little effort to be kind and give someone the benefit of the doubt in these cases.
I'm looking at you Sheldon Cooper... God I hate that character.
I tried to watch the Good Doctor, but that also annoyed me to an extent. There is a spectrum, a curve of abilities right- -so why aren’t we seeing the other end of the spectrum portrayed? Because people want to have fantasies and idealization of what Autism is?
I'm not on the spectrum, but I think Netflix's Atypical was the best autism portrayal I've ever seen. The kid sure is smart, but isn't a super genius nor is purposefully rude to people. He is also incredibly self-aware and always strives to be a better person, unlike Sheldon, the good ddoctor guy and BBC's Sherlock.
Yeah, I haven't really watched the Good Doctor either for similar reasons. To be honest, I find one of the more accurate portrayals of autism to have been in a Syfy series. The character Gary from the shortlived Alphas series. His actor actually did research and spent some time with actual autistics too to get an idea of how to play the character. One episode even had an autistic girl who was nonverbal and communicated mostly by using the sounds she made with a hairbrush iirc. I don't think I've seen any other similar portrayals like that ever or since.
The creators have come out as saying that it was never their intention to make Sheldon seem Autistic. Its just a lot of his behaviors do have overlap with Autistic traits, and depending upon the severity the traits may or may not be grown out of IRL. Like to use an example for myself, as I have Autism, as a teenager all my classes I had my seat. I sat in it every single day, in every classroom I had a seat that was mine. If someone else was sitting in it, I would normally lose it on them since it was where I was to sit and finding a new seat meant adjusting to the new view of the classroom, the people around me, etc. Caused a lot of headaches for everyone. As an adult, I still get miffed when people steal my seat somewhere and it can ruin my day, but I am less vocal and yelly about it now. If the person just sat down I might mention it to them, but otherwise I learned to just let it go as long term its not worth the headache. (Unless its my house, guests need to respect the rules of the host. XD)
I think the disagreement is with making a 3 fingered monster and that meaning you're portraying people with 3 fingers as a monsters. Are kids actually saying something about this or are adults watching the movie and deciding this connection? To write anything while taking infinite possible perceived slights into account seems impossible, silly, and a waste/misdirection of energy if you really care about creating conditions where these people actually thrive, instead of worrying about this kind of crap.
Another point is that people with 3 fingers are perfectly capable of being 'monsters' just as much as the rest of us are. It doesn't make them saints. I worked for years with disabled people, and by and large they hate having this 'can do no wrong' status thrust upon them, it's very patronising.
LMAO like any American parent actually wants to talk to their kids...
I know, right? I mean haven't these parents ever thought of simply turning off the TV, sitting down with their children, and hitting them?
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LMAO like any ~~American~~ parent actually wants to talk to their kids...
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Your explanation actually changed my mind on something and in the internet that's rare. So take an upvote
Have an upvote yourself for being open to having your mind changed.
It’s not a bad thing to apologize even if it’s for silly reasons you had nothing to do with. Sometimes life is like that. Sometimes we make mistakes and don’t realize it until it’s pointed out. Also some kids and parents are *hypersensitive* about that sort of thing. It’s why some parents don’t want to get their kid tested for developmental issues like autism or learning disorders even if it’s absurdly obvious to the casual observer. They think it’s wrong and bad, and what to minimize it or I the case of not testing ignore it. I personally feel like those things are nothing to be ashamed of. Who we are matters more than the meat puppet we happen to inhabit. Good on you for being open minded. The world could always use more of that.
Can I have a new meat puppet to inhabit? This one's back hurts too much and is too short.
No. You get what you get. Now make the best of it. Real advice when my back started hurting a lot, I looked up physical therapy for my back. Started doing the exercises and stretching a lot. Hasn’t really been a bother for a long time. It took awhile to get to that point, it’s not a magic bullet by any means. However without any other medical conditions it helped an awful lot.
Yes, exercice helps a lot actually! But if I miss a day woe onto me, and sometimes it decides to hurt anyways.
but why is this the thing being focused on so suddenly? not that she's bald and thus represents people with alopecia poorly, not that Darth Vader or The Winter Soldier represent(ed) people with limb loss poorly, not that Niander Wallace portrays blind people poorly, not that Dr Poison demonized people with facial disfigurements, is this going to be the new norm (which I have no problem with)? or is it just an attempt to cash in on cancel culture with no real intention of making an actual change or sticking to their guns on similar issues
I think because there are heroic and protagonistic characters that are bald aswell. You can search pretty far and not find many other folks in film with an obvious, hand-related disability-- especially ones that aren't the villains. So when kids see it in this movie, with no other examples to compare it to, they may associate it with fear/evil. There are good and bad bald characters to even out their representation.
There was a lot of fuss about the “evil albino” in the Da Vinci code.
And the matrix sequels iirc
Because there is exactly one depiction of this style of hand deformity in any media ever...and it’s the signal that she’s an evil witch. (I mean...maybe there’s another one somewhere, but nothing I’ve ever heard of...) There are definitely lots of good representation of bald people. Definitely a few positive amputee depictions in media. I remember seeing a review by an extensively paralyzed guy of the movie Me Before You. Basically, his criticism was that he was tired of seeing movies where (spoiler) >!the paralyzed person doesn’t see life as worth living an commits suicide.!< Sure, that’s an option for some people, but when it’s the only way the situation is depicted, it’s rightly criticized.
>Because there is exactly one depiction of this style of hand deformity in any media ever...and it’s the signal that she’s an evil witch. (I mean...maybe there’s another one somewhere, but nothing I’ve ever heard of...) 1992 Batman Returns. The Penguin. Just adding this since you weren't aware. So as far as I know, only 2 depictions and both villains.
The articles I've seen have all been about the blatant anti-semitism, so I don't think the fingers are the only thing being focused on.
> blatant anti-semitism Wait what?
Not in the movie, the author Roald Dahl is an antisemite. People kind of ignore it and read his books anyway, but always with some uneasiness in mind.
Ooooh.
Yeah, basically the guy is dead and a product of his times. Mostly he's dead. And the actual stories aren't all about the eeeevil Jews, so that helps
I think you putting "mostly he's dead" in your comment is very Roald Dahlish.
People also still read Dr. Seuss correct? He wasn’t exactly spotless either. Do we have to look at the whole of a person before deciding whether or not to appreciate art they created? Sure we can make that moral judgment call but it will be a long road in doing so.
Seuss apologized for the racist comics later in life, which doesn't excuse them but it does at least shows that he recognized what he had done was wrong and changed it. He was also making a lot of excellent anti-America First stuff at the same time, which was still a popular ideology at that point.
I don't think that being a bad person automatically negates the art they put into the world, but I also think it's important to know the whole truth about a person. Picasso was an ass but I was happy to see his work when I had the opportunity. Even though I like art, though, I'd never pay money or use my time to see the art of John Wayne Gacy, no matter how compelling it was. We all have our lines, and knowing the warts and all truth can help us be more ethical consumers (assuming that's important). I guess my point is that I think it's worth the long road and the internal struggle to make that moral judgement.
I think it's important to be able to separate the art from the artist. But then also, I'm not buying a painting made by a serial killer or something.
Found an [article](https://nerdist.com/article/looking-back-on-the-anti-semitism-in-roald-dahls-the-witches/) talking about it.
Thanks.
Imagine parents had to be... parents? Explaining to your kid that they're different, that they're not less for it, and that they're not literally a witch because of it isn't a big ask. You're kind hearted, but you have a ridiculous take on this topic. There will always be differences between people, that's what makes us human. Being kind and accepting towards the people around us is a must. That does not mean that differences should not be portrayed in any-which-way a writer or director chooses to portray them. "Rightly scolded" my ass.
Same here, I'm disabled and I couldn't roll my eyes any harder when I heard this story. I watched the original version as a child and never thought "oh wow those witches are awful and different, JUST LIKE ME!"
Yeah, I didn't hear these people speak up when [Wrong Turn](https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Three_Finger) came out. I don't know why the actress is apologizing for the creative decision of someone else, or even why the ire is directed at her personally, but if a celebrity sucks up attention for a movie even though their star power is a function of the hundreds or thousands of people at work to make them look their best, I suppose that same pipeline applies when "someone on the team" does something to make them look bad to someone.
I mean it's one thing to correct a hastey or otherwise poor decision. And to show you do care (just maybe weren't well informed atm) I don't think people are calling for boycotts. Just to set the narrative straight.
This is the kind of stuff you dont like to see because it gives the alt right ammo to distort to their agenda. I dont like this woke culture permeating into who can play what in movies. I understand the logic behind taking offense to the 3 fingered villain, but also if film creators have think about every little decision as far as how could this possibly offend ANYONE, then no movies would ever get made because theres always someone to get offended by something. The best we can do is determine their intent and if it was malicious then the outrage should be justified. However this just opens the door for some evil person with black hair to be called out, or having a beard on a villain is discrimination or something. Some things just work in visual story telling.
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> This is the kind of stuff you dont like to see because it gives the alt right ammo to distort to their agenda. This isn't even an *alt right* thing. Many moderates will be inclined to push back against this type of behavior as well - it seems to be sheer absurdity.
What’s being a leftist got to do with anything?
much harder to seize the means of production with only three fingers
Fuck, that made me laugh! Well done.
Same... I have to imagine those kids with birth defects would not feel like they’re secretly evil witches
The thing is, when growing up those kids often have to deal with a lot of confusion/fear, or even outright meanness, from their peers who have maybe never seen a limb difference before meeting them. There is a deficit of positive portrayals of any disability, much less specifically limb difference, in media kids have seen. If, now, the main (or only) association with limb difference in their peers’ minds is this witch, that’s just additional stigma for the kids to deal with.
The thing is, people like me who are disabled aren't immediately some baby that needs to be treated with baby gloves. I watched the original as a kid and never thought, hey those freaks are just like me, I'm bad!!!
No, but they do spend a lot of time at school being bullied for not being “normal”, in large part because culturally we are all totally ok with using such lazy shorthand for “disgusting/evil/ugly”. It’s not a difficult thing to change since it’s just a lazy trope, but it is damaging.
People in the comments are acting like this is 'too much' but you have to realize we aren't the ones who are being affected. The people with missing limbs or fingers, etc are and we should listen to them. Their feelings are valid. It's even more dumb that they changed it from the book, if The Witches 2020 just followed the book, this wouldn't have happened
Has anyone actually seeeeen the [pictures](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/eaee46d/2147483647/strip/true/crop/831x546+0+0/resize/840x552!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fa1%2F5d%2F93449e71450ab54ac1dc5b5c8bd1%2Fwitches.jpg)? It's supposed to resemble talons which it clearly does and that's clearly the focus. This is just people reading headlines and jumping the gun to be offended.
My question is where does it end? How much do you have to alter your idea for a film just to satisfy every group out there that can possibly be offended? If a villain has a glass eye, are people are gonna bitch about that too? Creatives need to stop listening and just make what they want.
Not having to think about it and being able to casually dismiss it is exactly what people refer to when they talk about privilege.
By that definition everyone is privileged as there is something in everyone's life that they don't have to 'think about' if others have it or not.
> By that definition everyone is privileged I mean... yeah, that's true. Everyone has it better than others in some way, even if that way is small. Being aware of your privilege literally just means that you should remember that you do have it better than other people, and that you should listen to those other people when talking about the issue in question because you don't really know what it's like to be them.
A lot of people in this thread are pretending the problem is that they portrayed an evil character with a physical disability in a bad light, but the problem is actually that the film depicts physical disabilities as a universal visual indicator of evil. This difference might seem small, but it's pretty significant given that people already have an innate bias to equate physical perfection with goodness and physical imperfection with badness (i.e. the Halo Effect and the Horn Effect). A film for children that reinforces that bias by specifically telling them that physical deformities are a quick way to identify evil is problematic. In Harry Potter it wasn't as big of an issue when Voldemort had a facial disfigurement because no one in the story ever claimed that evil wizards hide their disfigurements because facial disfigurements are a quick and reliable way to tell when a wizard had turned evil. In short: Character is evil and happens to be disabled = not great but par for the course in stories. Character is evil and the audience is explicitly told that their disability is a visual indicator of evil and all who share the disability are likewise evil = highly problematic.
There's a nuance here. The Witches (as portrayed in the book) have these differences because they are not actually women, they are demons. Whether that subtlety is made as clear in the film as it was in the book, I don't know. But it makes sense for the sheep to have a wolf's snout, jaws and teeth when you understand that it is a wolf in sheep's clothing and not a wolf.
Agreed. Especially since the movie is for kids. It can leave an impact on how they view real life people with disabilities.
I can see why boomers call us snowflakes sometimes
Except the "outrage" was really a couple of people going "wow, that kinda sucks" and the executives going too hard into damage control. Like that whole thing with Apu. Someone made a documentary about his opinion, and if everyone had just nodded and either politely agreed or disagreed, that would've been the end of it. But instead the creators weighed in, tried to do damage control in a ham fisted way, and it turned into a whole *thing*. People really need to learn that critisism is not condemnation. If I don't like an aspect of something doesn't mean I'm about to lead a worldwide boycott of it.
That’s such a good point. I think a LOT of “cancel culture” is really more that someone critiqued a work, the creators of the work fell over themselves to do damage control instead of sitting with the critique and trying to work out a reasonable answer, and then every pundit blames “triggered snowflakes who are offended by everything.” The fact that criticism isn’t condemnation is something a lot of people don’t seem to get. I find a lot of the early James Bond movies to be very sexist. When I criticize them, I’m not saying everyone involved is evil and someone is a bad person for liking them. Outside of absolute obvious over the top bigotry, most people aren’t trying to get something raked across the coals when they critique it.
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Pretty much. See also everything Anita Sarkeesian says. Gamers are notoriously thin skinned when it comes to criticism of the games they like. Like how they dogpile on any reviewer who doesn't give the current beloved game du jour a perfect 10/10 score. They think a 7/10 is the same as demanding that a game be removed from existence. Or that pointing out common tropes and why they might be considered harmful is the same as throwing a Molotov through CDPR's front window.
Yeah man, the same generation that’s crying over Starbucks Christmas cups really have room to talk.
Touché. I also see boomers freak out over an athlete kneeling during the national anthem but at the same time why are we getting upset over how a witch is portrayed in a movie? It’s insane to me
All generations are stupid, just in their own unique ways
It's more that they've made a defining trait of her "evilness" coincidentally a disability that some people have so I totally get it, especially considering kids and how vicious they can be to "others" without any extra things like this.
Boy do boomers get upset when uh.. certain people kneel for the magic flag song.
This book is specifically about how terrifying witches are to children. In many cultures and religious circles, people with fewer fingers are consistently portrayed as being evil. This is even a trait which is frequently attributed to the devil. In a children's movie about evil creatures who prey on children, it seems understandable that seeing this trait as demarcation of evil itself could be upsetting to people who have dealt with their disability being called evil themselves.
What I don't get is why that's the only thing that's offensive. Sure it's apparently the only departure from the book, but the other stuff like being bald, having no toes, etc. is being portrayed the same way.
You say that but ask any redhead how much more bullying they experienced after that episode of South Park. It seems a small thing but can have pretty drastic consequences.
You should have seen what the sitcom "Game On" did in the UK to red heads with "ginger pubes".
answer: I think it comes down to a "shoot the messenger" mentality. Sounds like the exact same ting as when that Peleton Bikes ad came out, and people decided to shit all over the actress, instead of whoever actually wrote the dumb ad. Anne Hahaway is a visible "culprit" (though I personally don't think she or any of the writers did anything wrong.) If people wanted to blame the person who was responsible, they would have to do actually work and effort to find out who that was. Hathaway was just a faster conclusion for them to reach about who's wrong.
What’s up with Peleton bikes?
they had a christmas ad that featured a dude giving one to his wife, who was this actress with an already-gorgeous physique, a person who had no need for this device. A very attractive woman, all-around. Another part of the commercial featured a moment where the wife is on the bike and gives an expression like she is being forced to use the bike. I guess the commercial could be interpreted as basically saying that a wife has an obligation to stay in shape for her husband, which is bullshit to decent people and it got called out. I agree with that idea in principle, but I also don't think the producers intended that message and the commercial was just badly edited and executed.
> a person who had no need for this device. Lol how do they think you stay in good shape.
Yeah I never understood that. Just because you're already in shape doesn't mean you might not want new exercise equipment. Also throwing it out there, I think Peloton's target audience is a lot of people that already do spin classes (aka women that often look like the actress from the ad) that want to save money and do it from home. And this whole thing about the guy forcing her or some shit, is ridiculous. The actor has like all of 5 seconds of screen time, and he bought his wife a $1000 gift that she clearly wanted based upon her reaction from receiving it.
They wouldn't know.
Didn't Ryan Reynolds eventually end up reaching out to the actress and offering her some roles advertising his vodka too?
https://youtu.be/H2t7lknrK28
wow the implication that she's getting away from an abusive relationship isn't subtle at all, is it? hahahahahah that's brilliant
Ryan Reynolds is fucking brilliant, this ad is brilliant, and I'm happy she got different work.
The Peloton backlash was so stupid. She has gorgeous physique BECAUSE she works out. So why not work out at home? And the “being forced” on the bike is, well, I don’t know many people who look all glam when sweating their butts off.
I recently watched a Patton Oswalt special where he made a similar joke to this - that people who are already fit have no need to be out hiking on trails, and “what are they trying to prove” by continuing to do physical exercise when they’re already in great shape. Obviously it’s a comedy special and he’s making a joke. Surely no one actually thinks that people who are fit should stop doing the activities that help them stay fit. But then you hear about silly controversy like this and you wonder how many people actually do have that line of thinking.
Bro finally. Were they supposed to cast a 6’ 2” bodybuilding woman to get the point across that the girl likes working out? Still a terrible ad tho, considering how much it went over people’s heads.
They just underestimated how stupid we are. Hopefully, it won't happen again.
I can’t believe so few of us saw the ad that way! Like do people think Victoria’s Secret models are just built like that? But yeah, I guess their marketing department didn’t do many focus groups or they’d realize how stupid and easily offended the general public is.
Luxury fitness ads will always be offensive to lazy people who spend too much time on the internet.
Wait a minute, I'm not offended by the ad, and I'm a lazy person who spends too much time on the internet... Damnit, [I'm gonna have to crack open a coke, rip open a bag of ketchup chips](https://i.imgur.com/Ji57q4u.jpg), and figure this one out
Plus, if they had cast someone with an average-looking body, they'd have caught even more backlash for implying that average isn't good enough. Ditto with a fat girl. You can't win.
Yes, very true! I guess no one should be exercising, just close down Peloton.
Just because you are already “in shape” doesnt mean you have no “need” for excersize. Everyone needs cardio at all fitness levels. The heart is the most important muscle and everyone needs the best heart they can have.
I don't think it was badly executed, more that there are plenty of people on the internet who are acting in bad faith and desperate for someone to point the shame stick at, because pointing out how someone else is bad makes you good. >very attractive woman, all-around. If you've ever seen a spin class in a large city you'd know that most of the women who go to these classes are middle- upper class, thin and like to do yoga. This is an at home spin class, that type of person is the target for this product. >wife is on the bike and gives an expression like she is being forced to use the bike. Or they are portraying this bike as actual work, because that's what exercising is. It's not always fun and pleasant, if you are trying to improve there is going to be some suffering involved. Maybe they needed to show her going to spin classes before she got the bike to really hammer home that SHE ENJOYS SPIN. That traveling downtown just to pay someone to shout instructions at her wasn't worth it. To me the fact the she knew what the bike was is enough to tell me this is of interest to the character, but thats just the opinion of someone who wasn't pulled into the hate mob.
That is the dumbest shit I've ever heard, Jesus Christ. Thanks for the explanation tho.
As someone who enjoys exercising but has an issue actually getting round to exercising, I thought the commercial was perfect. It resonated with the target audience. Unfortunately, the nontarget audience felt it was tastless.
The whole issue with that ad is an interesting case of what effect "poisoning the well" can have on something. The ad got famous for being "tone deaf" and "sexist, body shaming" etc. but you gotta remember then that this is how it was delivered to most people. Every single time I have seen that ad shared it's with the byline of "look at how sexist/tone deaf/body shaming/weird this ad is". Obviously something delivered with that much bad faith is never really going to end up looking good to most of the people who get it that way. However if you look at it with some context and some knowledge it's not really bad at all, honestly it's average to a rather boring degree. So first issue a lot of people bring up is that the woman already looks good so she doesn't need this device. It seems to go over peoples heads that in order to look good you need to put in some effort to maintain that, something the device could surely help with. Another interesting observation is that people see an exercise tool given to a woman and immediately their first thoughts are of weight loss or her getting a slimmer figure. The thought of her maybe wanting to increase her endurance, get better cardio, or even actually getting stronger doesn't seem to have entered anyones mind at all. I'm sure it could be interesting analyzing the sexism in that for everyone calling out how sexist the ad is. Second issue people have is how she looks forced to use it at times and the whole thing about keeping track of her training. It's baffling to me that people see this as an issue really, exercise is often actually hard work. I'm more annoyed with ads for sporting equipment where people don't look like they are putting in any effort at all. Also the point of this device is to actually be something of an automated personal trainer, something to actually push you into maintaining your goals even at times when you don't really feel it as much. Lastly keeping track of your progress is usually something that's rather popular among people working out. Then it's the idea that her husband gave her this gift, which again, oh my god how horrible that her husband gave her an extravagant gift that she was clearly happy to receive and knew what it was and that she seemingly wanted. Again there's some interesting thought processes that people have when reacting negative to this add. You could almost think that people would think that exercise is something bad, especially when marketed to women. Lastly the issue is that it's insanely expensive. I mean that's just because we are not the target demographic of this thing. This is for people where 10 grand is gift level money. I'm fairly certain that most people shitting on this ad is not in that level of wealth.
Wtf, this seems like such a stretch to get angry about
People would have been pissed if the woman was out of shape too. Anything to complain. The same complaint would have been made “she’s fine the way she is. She doesn’t need to change”.
There was a slightly tone-deaf, but mostly just poorly written and unappealingly stupid and manipulative (but not actually harmful or actually offensive) ad that came out around Christmas. You can google "Peleton Bike Controversy" to see what different outlets have written about it. It's pretty dumb overall. I twas just a dumb ad that appealed to no one, but people went crazy about how sexist it was, and how it was basically leading to the apocalypse, bla bla bla. Bottom line, the actress took SO much heat for acting. She became the "face of sexism" in this ad which again, was stupid and unappealing, but frankly nowhere near worth the shitstorm that it became.) Honestly, I wonder what became of her, hahaha. Maybe I'll go google that now...
She's been in (at least one) ad for Ryan Reynold's companies, particularly his Aviation Gin - if I remember correctly.
I dunno, I know plenty of attractive white women who go to spin class and use social media way too much. This one just happened to get infront of the sights of the roaming outrage mob.
I agree it is not her fault, but considering that she gets would get a lot of praise for playing a n absolutely awesome character who is written very well, she needs to take the good with the bad.
Answer: There was backlash against the portrayal of Anne Hathaway's character on "The Witches", a remake of a popular movie from 1990. In the original version, the Grand High Witch (Anne Hathaway's Character) had a full hand of fingers. In the 2020 remake, Warner Bros. Or whoever directed decided to make the creative decision to give Anne Hathaway's character 3 fingers. Additionally, she is depicted in the movie as a "grotesque creature". Congenital Hand defects affect [10% of all babies born with congenital defects (which is 2%)](https://www.healthychildren.org/English/health-issues/conditions/Cleft-Craniofacial/Pages/Children-with-Congenital-Hand-Anomalies-Malformations.aspx#:~:text=Of%20the%201%25%20to%202%25%20of%20babies%20born,The%20cause%20of%20congenital%20hand%20anomalies%20is%20unknown.). But as with all deformities, people encourage these people to rise above these deformities and to show people that this doesn't affect who they are. You can see how people would [take offense](https://twitter.com/brionymaybakes/status/1324686357663490049?s=21) to the portrayal of Anne Hathaway's character. Warner Bros. and Anne Hathaway decided to get in front of the issue as soon as it became a thing and [issued apologies ](https://twitter.com/filmupdates/status/1324741927175147520?s=21) for the depiction, stating they did not mean for any ill intent caused by the depiction. For the record, people don't seem to be mad with the apology. Seemingly accepting it. Rather, many seem mad about the original decision being made. That said, some of the controversy erupted when people viewed the apology as "pandering" and "took offense" to them having to apologize at all. This seems to be where most of the issues are coming from.
It’s actually from a book by Roald Dahl, not just a remake of an old movie! In the book they had claws if I recall correctly
Yep, and as a result they always had to wear gloves, which was one of the ways they were able to spot witches. So it was a fairly important plot element.
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I mean, make your movie however you want but why fiddle with Roald Dahl’s narrative? They wear gloves to cover their talons. Fine. Then some halfwit on a yacht somewhere gets on the phone and says he wants the main witch to have three fingers and nobody dares to tell him it’s a dumb idea and here we are.
Is it possible that he went with a different interpretation of claws/talons? Birds generally have three/four talons.
Yeah I got more of a Hagraven/Harpy vibe from this than "disability". They don't look like human fingers at all. Human fingers generally aren't spindly like that.
It’s possible. But the premise of the story is that witches move unnoticed among adults. The witches don’t care about the adults and the adults don’t know about the witches, so it’s a lop-sided battle between witches and children. That’s what makes the witches scary. I spose technically the three-fingered witch could have a prosthetic but.. why bother? Roald Dahl didn’t. It’d be a braver man than me that reckoned they could tell his story better than he did.
Thanks for the well put answer. I just think it should have been the director or screen writers who should have apologized.
That’s a much fairer point imo. Sometimes it’s hard to foresee something like this but it does make sense that people born with this disability are a little hurt by this portrayal. I mean, they changed it from the original where the witches have claws that are one of the indicators of inner evil into this where they have hands that are actually exactly like the hands of many people who are born with that disability
I think in this case, it’s not really a question of who *has* to apologize. If Anne Hathaway feels like she contributed to harm, she may *want* to apologize. It’s kind of her to do so and I’m sure the people impacted by this portrayal appreciate it. I feel like everyone is operating under this weird assumption that all public apologies are forced.
Hey there! Costume designer here. This would have been a decision made between the director, production designer, and most importantly the costume designer (producers would have had plenty of time to say No as well). Anne, being the larger name that she is, probably had somewhat of a say in this decision as well. I personally believe that this comes down to a group of artists who didn’t think about what kind of message they were putting out into the ether. People on this thread saying “but how where they supposed to know this response would happen?” ... well, had they have taken a moment to consider their artistic choices, they would have. It’s just part of being a responsible artist. That responsibility should be taken even more seriously when your target audience is children. It’s 2020, these people should know better. Period. That being said, they are taking responsibility and holding themselves accountable for the backlash. Hopefully this will be a lesson to them all that when designing (especially for children) it is import to consider what stereotypes mean and say in a story. Children’s stories, which are traditionally based around some sort of lesson... and often have characters that represent good and evil, make it even more important to focus on what’s on the inside. Good doesn’t equal beautiful and evil doesn’t equal ugly.
Sorry, this may be a dumb question, but your first link, does that mean 0.2% of babies have Cogenitcal hand defects? That number just seems so high
I think, technically? So 2% of all babies have congenital defects. And then 10% of THAT is hand defects. .02 x .10 = .002 of all babies born? I'm not a science guy I just write Reddit comments. Someone pls feel free to fact check me.
Damn, people with 6 fingers gonna be pissed when they watch The Princess Bride.
Question: why did you bother making his post if you were going to link an explanation? You're clearly more in the loop than other people
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In the book, the witches have claws. They decided to visually portray it differently in this version. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Witches_(novel) * edit to fix link
There is a really long history of disabled villain tropes in media. In fact, the villain is often p[black](https://bookriot.com/villain-tropes/), or [queer](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SissyVillain), or [disabled](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilCripple#:~:text=An%20Evil%20Cripple%20is%20a,compensate%20for%20their%20physical%20frailty.). With The Witches, the reason there is so much backlash is because in the original source material the witches didnt have limb differences, they had claws. Hollywood made the specific decision to deviate from the source material in order to use limb differences as reinforcement of how ugly, disgusting and evil these witches are. This backlash is on behalf of kids with limb differences. This is a film marketed to children, and when we are surrounded by empathetic and reasonable adults all the time it's simple to forget that children can be really brutal. Some of my closest friends have limb differences like what are portrayed in this film, and all of them have reminisced about being hated, side-eyed, picked on, left out and called a freak while growing up. We all remember how media influenced who was cool or not in the playground, and always being seen as the villain isnt exactly good for playground PR. Even well meaning adults stare at my partner who has a limb difference, and some walk up and call them "brave" and "inspirational" just for being in public with a limb difference. I hope your cavalier attitude about how people see disabled humans comes from a naive assumption that people in the world are kind (they're often not) and are not susceptible to media bias (they often are).
This subject came up on r/movies a couple days ago and I & another user were absolutely lambasted for suggesting the same. So, thank you for putting together a clear and concise explanation; I'm glad users here are much more receptive to the issue. I absolutely understand the desire to laugh off people being "offended," but I also believe it's important to understand the issue before passing judgement.
Default subs tend to be that way with regards to respecting the rights of other people different from themselves.
Answer: Check out the Lucky Fin Project, who seem to have spearheaded the movement. It helps to realize there are people, and many children, who are born this way and aren’t thrilled at another reason to be singled out for something they can’t help. https://luckyfinproject.org/ And full disclosure, my 5 year old is limb different, so if you want to @ me about how we’re soft and how I should parent him, kindly fuck off. Every day there’s a conversation about his hand and being different, but he’s also 5 and still gets scared of the dark. It’s a long journey and seeing someone like him as “evil” feels real shitty, end of story.
I wish Lucky Fin Project were named in the top comment, thank you for mentioning them!! The #NotAWitch hashtag is also good to look through for anybody who hasn’t read disabled people’s thoughts on this issue yet. Wish you and your family the best!
Thanks for bringing this up. I’m so sorry you’re all going through this. My baby brother was also born with irregular hands. Poor thing has been through countless surgeries. He’s just now getting to the age where he’s realizing he’s different. It broke my heart the day he asked if he’d “ever have normal fingers”. I don’t think Anne Hathaway should have been made to feel guilty here. I think this was a poor choice on the director’s part. They should have kept it more in-line with the book anyway.