BOYCOTT TOY STORY 5!!!! and Shrek 5! and that new minions one!
Okay, I've never bene a Toy Story fan to begin with. I never saw the movie as a kid and it never appealed to me, and I hate it even more as an adult knowing that it's a knock off of Raggedy Ann & Andy musical adventure. Sorry if you grew up with Toy Story but I'm not going easy on this movie at all. I'm not hating on the sequels, though I don't find them interesting, I admit that some of the minor characters are. I like Barbie and Ken in the one, and I like Gabby the doll. I kind of like Jessie a little bit too though but not that much. However, the stories are boring and I feel like, too dramatic. Plus, they don't exactly tackle the same topics as Raggedy Ann & Andy, which made that movie a masterpiece. So you get the idea, I'm not at all a Toy Story fan and I could be biased. However, whether you're a fan or not, the sequel looks to be very poorly made and they are going too far with the dirty jokes. I'm actually surprised that Disney would be doing this trend since they're usually the first to stay family friendly ("Pixar" is just their animation studio, it's still DISNEY). I noticed that Shrek 5 and Minions & Monsters are jumping on that bandwagon, I actually first noticed it with the Minions one. Apparently the Minions one referenced to hentai? (and not in a good, subtle way like how Chicken Run referenced to it). As for Shrek 5, I know DreamWorks has always had dirty jokes in movies as well but they were subtle before. There wasn't constant jokes about slapping butts. Like, Chicken Run had the "hentai" joke as Rocky looking at the hens' butts when they bent over, and their hens and he was being a pervert, so it makes "hentai" joke funny in that way. Kids aren't going to get that! If they include dirty jokes in kids movies, they got to be subtle about it!
I could rant more about Toy Story 5 in my next paragraph, but I want to address more about how to be subtle with dirty jokes in media for kids/family. I hate to use a Nickelodeon show as an example, since Nickelodeon is ran by a bunch of p*dophiles and has been even back in the 90s, but there's a particular scene in CatDog (of all things) that was actually a perfect way of including a dirty joke in a kids show. There was a scene where CatDog were on the roof and the cat had a telescope, and was looking at stars, and of course the dog was doing something to annoy him (if you seen CatDog you would know what I mean) and cat says "I'm trying to admire some heavenly bodies" in which he was talking about stars through a telescope, but the dog thought he meant something a little more spicy, and he's like "Woah you could see the beach with that thing? Let me look!". It was just the dog character taking it the wrong way, thinking his rother was looking at a nude beach through a telescope. Another example of a good, subtle dirty joke was from Marvin the Tap-Dancing Horse, which if you didn't have Qubo, you probably never heard of it. They accidentally ordered brooms instead of corndogs and to make the brooms sell faster, Eddie had to ride the brooms like a horse for the kids so they'd buy the brooms, and Marvin made a joke "Can you imagine teaching those kids how to ride a corndog?" and that was even pretty wild for a "preschool" show (I never thought of it as a preschool show but I guess it's considered one). It's a good, funny joke and both were kind of hidden, the kids would normally miss those jokes. I didn't understand them until I was about 9 or 10, which is most of the kids watching them (not anymore, unless they have cool older siblings). My point is, there are a lot of ways to make dirty jokes hidden and subtle, they don't have to be visuals and that it's creepy to have ones that are noticeable that kids are going to see. I'm not against having subtle dirty jokes, there are other examples I can give too besides those two but I really want to get my message across about what's appropriate and what isn't. I'm very creeped out at shows like Teen Titans Go and iCarly that have visual gags and fetish stuff, keep kids away from those! I think the recent movies like Shrek 5, where the gingerbread guy had his butt slapped, that's the kind of thing that makes it disgusting and fetishy. Other adults seem to agree with me, it's not funny to us, it just makes us feel bad for the kids because we are no longer thinking like kids, we are thinking what it would be like if we had kids (and if we have them, what is appropriate for them).
So with all that aside, there are other reasons why I think Toy Story 5 was poorly made. The dirty jokes with that "Smartypants" guy are one thing, but there's more. I think the message about "kids don't need electronics" can be taken a bit too far. I believe kids need BALANCE of toys and electronics. I also don't believe that letting kids watch movies on an ipad/phone is wrong. Also, isn't the lilypad a parody of a baby toy that's supposed to be educational? Also, is it just me or does Bonnie still look like a toddler? They didn't bother to try and age her up but they gave her a tablet and apparently she's old enough for social media? Also, the whole bullying thing comes off as tone deaf and makes kids who use electronics all seem like evil kids, which kids are not evil for using electronics. I was a huge girly girl growing up but also I had a thing for tech and computer games. I also was an artist and hated not having enough colors of crayons/markers, so I turned to digital art. I feel more myself in the digital world than with the traditional hobbies like my watercolor painting, but I used to have fun doing that as well. I was never a sporty kid either, but I like doing fun activities outside like making slime, playing with dolls/plushies outside and roleplaying, that's all so much fun no matter how old you are. I think kids only get a REAL childhood when they can experience both. I know a lot of millennial parents are restrictive of kids using electronics, but they grew up in the 1990s, not the 1890s! 90s kids had tv, and they had computers too! It's just that we have it in our hands a lot now, but we still had the same electronics. Like, we have literally had tv since the 1940s and now we have tv that we can hold in the palms of our hands and watch whatever we want, you don't need to live like the early 1900s in 2026! Kids should also have more safe spaces online, and as weird as people on tumblr sometimes are, it's safer than instagram. For us girly girls, there's also pinterest (it was nice when we had WeHeartIt though). We also used to have flash game websites but unfortunately those are gone. The point is, we don't have enough safer online spaces for kids to get them used to being an adult online and we should, instead of restricting them from it all together and when they need real social media as adults, they won't be stupid about it. Also, sending a message that all modern technology is bad is such a hypocritical thing for Disney. Without that modern technology, they wouldn't be able to animate that black girl's hair so correctly, you know, the thing they have been bragging about so much "We finally figured out how to animate tight curly textured hair for people of color", for Toy Story 5, as if Encanto didn't already have a movie with the most diverse hair textures. I'm very in favor of diversity but Disney bragging about it, while shaming modern technology is just insane.
Anyway, I hope you can understand me on this and my reasons for not being fond of Toy Story 5, or the other movies that are going too far with the adult jokes. I mostly wanted to talk about Toy Story 5, as a Disney hater who also likes to allow the smaller companies to shine (but in this case I don't want to support Illumination either. DreamWorks is still iffy for me, I'm hoping Shrek 5 isn't as bad as the trailer looked but the gingerbread thing was too far). You're all free to say YOUR opinions, even if you might disagree, but don't say your opinions without reading mine first!
