Does racism affect the box office?

Ariel is white...how is she an exception?

I know what you mean but I'm not sure if racism is the right word for it...

People generally want to see themselves in those heroic lead roles. The USA which produces most films in the global market has a majority white population and will have a lot of leads who are white to appeal to those masses. If you look at Moana's takings globally it is doing well (comparative to population size and GDP) in countries like Peru, the Philippines, France and a few more. Both Peru and the Philippines have mixed race, coastal populations that rely on fishing and sea trade. France has a big migrant population and have always been fascinated by Polynesian and island cultures. So I do think there is a case of white people wanting to see white heroes, brown people wanting to see brown people, etc.

It's a shame though because Moana is a lovely movie, with solid, admirable characters, beautiful music and breath-taking CGI.

Also you can't isolate the fact that it is competing against Sing and as my friend said, "maybe kids are telling their parents they'd rather watch animals sing in a reality show"" than watch a sailing Polynesian princess (now my words). That would be sad for a completely different reason. Hopefully the word of mouth is so good that people will encourage families to watch Moana.

ON the plus side, with global ticket sales on the rise I think we will definitely see leads and characters with a variety of races. We are already starting to see it with Chinese actors in big American blockbusters pandering to Chinese audiences so hopefully we will see it with other races too!

Yes. Bias against people of color in general is a very real thing and affects companies that make anything with a humanoid representation. White sells better overall - even to people of color. Most of the non-white girls I see sporting Disney gear display the face of a white princess - generally Elsa, but a nice amount of Ariel, Rapunzel, Belle, too. But Disney is not stupid. They are going to make just enough ethnic princesses so that they can't be called out on it, but they aren't banking on them to make tons of money like the do with movies that feature a white princess.

I guess if you're a racist you may avoid this movie, so given that there are sadly racists out there they won't be spending their money on it.

I'd like to think (possibly naively) that the world isn't quite as rotten a place for that to make a noticeable impact on the box office numbers though.

To be honest I am one of the few people that did not see Frozen in theaters. There no doubt is a factor of things. Some people decided to wait to see something when it hits dvd. I live in rural America and practically everyone in the theater I went to was white. Of course I wonder if some may had avoided it because they assumed it would have a certain political message? Some people may relate to a hero that is more like them so they see themselves as the hero. Also we can even ask if there are that many nonwhite people that are not Polynesian seeing this film? Race is more complicated then white or nonwhite. Also racism or even the desire to be with like minded people is more detailed then white or nonwhite.

No, not at all, not in any capacity. /topic

"If life is getting you down and needs uplifting, then please come dance with me!"

This honestly did cross my mind. Especially considering the political situation right now.

I don't think it will affect any future decisions. Timing is the problem with this movie. It came out at the heat of election issues where race and gender was put in the center of people's minds.

But like any social issues, things go in waves. Low today might be high next year.

Interesting points have been raised in this thread.

I am on the "no" side personally. A big chunk of audience for this kind of movie is kids, who pester their parents to go and see it. I suppose some might decide that this is not the kind of stuff their kids need to see, but as much of the marketing and press pr did not really make any sort of SJW sales pitch, beyond some cursory "wow this is sooo diverse" pap, I don't see any political agenda that could set parents against this film in view.

Unless they are more widely against Disney and their mostly liberal company policies, but it didn't affect Zootopia or their merch sales any... unlike, say, ESPN has recently been hit.

In the US this had a big opening. Must be the word of mouth didn't really take off. Beyond family audiences, I guess LMM fans are seeing it, and they are behind the music sales as well. In my opinion, while the songs are by no means poor, they are not the sort of crowd pleasing wide appeal songs that previous renaissance movies and Frozen had. On the other hand, Zootopia needed no songs to make a billion bucks.

And the foreign box office is very mixed bag. I would say blaming the US political climate is a non-starter. In France, the movie performed well, and they are in the midst of a hard right political pivot themselves. And arguing that a large migrant population helps doesn't explain why the movie bombed in UK, a traditionally good market for Disney.

If, as I think will happen, Zootopia wins the Oscar for best Animation and La La Land wind best song, some of the more SJW side of Moana fandom (just check tumblr Moana tag) will go ballistic and make wild claims that there was some racist consipiracy to "keep the brown girl down" etc. Hopefully media will not indulge them as they sometimes do, the movie doesn't need that kind of "defenders" tainting its legacy...

In any case, unfortunately Moana did not become an event like Frozen or Zootopia. And while it did well, it will not have the legacy like Little Mermaid or Tangled, of starting a new Disney era (even while not performing as well as other movies in box office). But I would seriously not classify the movie a failure. One thing Disney needs to take a more serious look into is why the performance overseas was so lackluster. Seriously, there's a few hundred million dollars missing from the final gross there as things stand now...