Yeah, they win no points for that.
I've only ever heard the older generation use it when describing their friend circle. Every woman younger than 50 says "girlfriend" in the gay sense since "Hey there, girlfriend!" seems to have died out in the 2000s.
Haven't heard anyone call a female friend that since my childhood.
Only person that uses it unironically that I know is the county health authority director I work under. "Hey me and my girlfriends are going out for bottomless mimosas for brunch, want to come along?"
I hold a special kind of hatred for Big Hero Six because the writing team credited for the last third of that movie, Man of Action, are the same dudes who took over writing duties for Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and subsequently ran it straight into the ground. And only got the jobs because they were Jeph Loeb’s personal friends.
I'm not surprised the pearl clutchers had a problem with it (and having catholic characters in a catholic setting probably didn't help either), but overall it didn't stick because of the massive tone shifts between scene to scene. One scene you have Judge Claude Frollo singing his desires to rape the gypsy lady and kill her if he can't (also blaming her for his desire for rape). And the next you have the gargoyles bouncing around and singing a silly song. Off the top of my head I can't think of a Disney movie with worse tone shifts.
It was definitely one of the more natural relationships in a Disney film, it helped that they had scenes of them just chatting and getting along as they travelled. I never watched the sequel because the trailer gave me enough cancer.
The whole film felt very confused, like it was written by two people who never met. I thought it was a wild fever dream I had for most of my life until I saw it in a shop a few years back.
The major issue with the film is that it's trying to Disney-ify an incredibly dark and depressing story. I've always wondered, why Hunchback? The book's not for kids by any stretch of the imagination. Even if you changed the ending to where everyone survives, you're still dealing with a rapey old man in a position of authority in the Catholic church, not to mention the pervasive religious themes present within the story. To the movie's credit, it does try to retain those themes but since it's a Disney movie it has to be at least a little accessible for the younger kids so we get singing gargoyles, and it just doesn't mesh well.
Neither is Hercules for that matter, but that one's consistent in it's tone. It's also one of the most visually unique Disney movies in the library, unless you hate the movies that look too unique.
The irony here is that they were so focused on recreating everything that worked for Beauty and the Beast (and completely failing in the process) that The Lion King was completely ignored; it only existed as filler to bridge the gap between Aladdin and Pocahontas. This creative freedom led to a smash hit out of nowhere (for the execs completely focused on Pocahontas anyways) that is so long lasting that it led to a stage version that only stopped because of Corona. Whereas Pocahontas was only really talked about when it first came out and was already mostly forgotten about by the time it came out on VHS. And judging by the lack of special editions and anything else, the studio wants us to forget about it too.
You also only ever hear anyone talk about Pocahontas when someone hitches about how James Cameron allegedly ripped off its plot for Avatar.
More evidence that executives don't know shit about quality.
Disney has to push merch somehow, and the gargoyles were...the only merch from that film.
Just like how weebs only talk about Kimba/Jungle Emperor Leo when they bitch about The Lion King supposedly ripped that off.
Well, that's not entirely true. I distinctly remember having a coloring book following the movie (loosely) before seeing the movie. But yeah, it didn't have nearly the merchandise they tried to push with Pocahontas, which itself was nothing compared to what The Lion King had. There was still a ton of Lion King toys, books, crafts, food, ect. on the shelf when these two movies were in theaters. There still was some around even when Hercules came out. They didn't really phase it out until the end of the decade. I don't think they've had such a successful merch run since then, except maybe for the Disney Princess line. And that's because they won't let that line die out.
