i have defended Pixar's bean mouth artstyle but you know what i still have a problem with? the quirky main character syndrome. and yes, this applies to Disney as well.
i feel like we had more variety in the personalities of main characters in the past. let's look at Disney princesses, for example. Cinderella was soft-spoken and kind, with a hint of sass to her. Belle was intellectual and curious. Tiana was practical and sardonic.
but then we get to Rapunzel and suddenly it's all goofy quirky #relatable princesses from there. and no, i'm not saying that Rapunzel is a bad character. Rapunzel, Anna and Mirabel were well written characters because they had other stuff going on. but i still find the overly adorkable quirky personalities annoying.
same goes for Pixar. Pixar had a wider range of characters too. Woody was bossy, grumpy and easily jealous. Lightning McQueen was self-absorbed and arrogant. Wall-E was shy, nervous and curious.
but with Luca, Turning Red, Elio, etc they've also hopped on the quirky bandwagon. yes, these are all children/teenagers but not all kids act like that.
and i'm not saying Disney or Pixar has never had quirky protagonists. Ariel, Merida, Linguini, Jane, etc could all be classified as quirky, clumsy protagonists.
i just feel like it's more frequent now and there's no room for any other type of characterization. if you need a character who is more serious or edgy or soft-natured, you only get it with the supporting characters.
i do like Raya, in this sense, that she didn't follow this trend. i haven't watched the movie and i've heard a lot of critique on it, but at least Raya had a different personality. i've seen clips of the movie and i really enjoyed her jaded loner persona, even if some of the dialogues were cringe.
and i haven't watched Hoppers yet but from the looks of it, the protagonist in that movie seems to follow the quirky formula too.
and the teaser for Disney's newest movie Hexed also seems to be following the exact same archetype. like can we just have interesting characters, instead of relatable ones? and you can still make a character relatable without making them over-the-top goofy and clumsy.
