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In an interview for Vanity Fair, Margot Robbie announced that Disney canceled the feminist reboot of Pirates of the Caribbean she was to star in.
Rather than a remake, Disney was preparing a feminist reboot of the successful film franchise starring Johnny Depp. After Amber Heard’s allegations against Johnny Depp, a reboot of the saga with Margot Robbie in the lead role seemed to be inevitable.
However, with the announcement of Margot Robbie’s cancellation of the project, rumors of a possible return of Johnny Depp to his iconic role as the pirate Jack Sparrow, once his legal problems are settled, are gaining momentum.
Such rumors are just speculation, more based on the desires of the actor’s fans than on actual fact, but the cancellation of the project could mean a turning point in Disney’s feminist and woke drift in recent times.
However, this doesn’t seem to be the case either, as Disney has done nothing but systematically cull all of its male heroes, and nothing indicates that this is going to change anytime soon.
Is Disney changing course by canceling Pirates of the Caribbean?
Hollywood in general, and Disney in particular, have spent years deconstructing their male protagonists in a feminine and “intersectional” fashion, when not directly replacing them with “empowered” female versions.
Star Wars has been a clear example of this, with the inclusion of female characters such as Rey and Holdo in the saga, as well as the cartoonish depiction of male characters such as Poe Dameron and Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Marvel has been even more evident. Hulk is now replaced by She-Hulk, Black Panther is now a woman, Thor is Natalie Portman, Iron Man becomes the teenage Iron Heart, the Loki series reveals its new female version of the multiverse, just as Hawkeye is now a young teenage girl, and so on.
MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) has become an M-She-U with all of the above characters led by Captain Marvel, and even a few more like Ms. Marvel.
Marvel’s feminism and intersectionality are self-evident and are not an accident, but part of an ideological framework that almost all production companies systematically adopt, such as Netflix sacrificing He-Man and Sherlock Holmes by replacing them with women, Amazon doing the same with The Rings of Power, or Warner trying to make us prefer Margot Robbie herself as Harley Quinn rather than the Joker.
Now it seemed that it was the turn for Pirates of the Caribbean, throwing Johnny Depp’s Captain Sparrow overboard to replace him with a female pirate captain. However, the cancellation does not seem to be due to an ideological rethinking by Disney, perhaps motivated by the failure of every forced inclusion movement, both their own and others’ -remember the fiasco of the feminist Ghostbusters, which Sony disowned with Ghostbusters: Afterlife.
The announcement of the feminist Pirates of the Caribbean cancellation could be related to a possible return of Johnny Depp to the franchise, which would generate massive buzz, or it could be a meaningless business decision or a simple rescheduling.
What seems clear is that demand is starting to show clear signs of weariness in relation to identity politics in the entertainment world, and production companies should take note of the success of films like Top Gun: Maverick, with no trace of such messages.
Ignacio Manuel García Medina, Business Management teacher. Artist and lecturer specialized in Popular Culture for various platforms. Presenter of the program "Pop Libertario" for the Juan de Mariana Institute. Lives in the Canary Islands, Spain // Ignacio M. García Medina es profesor de Gestión de Empresas. Es miembro del Instituto Juan de Mariana y conferenciante especializado en Cultura Popular e ideas de la Libertad.
Social Networks: @ignaciomgm